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  But that had not occurred. Instead, upon receiving command of the Exeter, she had been assigned another section of space entirely. Sector 47-B, a territory that wasn’t quite as “wild and woolly” as Sector 221-G. Oh, it had its challenges, of course. No area of space was fully known, no matter how thoroughly it had been charted and explored. Those who allowed themselves to become complacent in their knowledge of an area were generally the same people who allowed themselves to become dead. And that was a group to which Shelby had no intention of allowing herself to belong.

  Still, she had raised a mild protest—more of an inquiry, really—with Admiral Jellico, stating that she felt there was still more to do in Thallonian space.

  “You may very well be correct, Captain,” Jellico had said. “However, these things are done in rotation. The Exeter has been assigned to Sector 47-B, and was slated for that territory before you came aboard as captain. We’re not going to reconfigure our assignment list just to accommodate a single officer, even if she is the CO.” It was exactly the kind of hard-nosed attitude she had expected from Jellico. So she’d been surprised when he added, “We are very likely going to be christening a new vessel as Excalibur. That one will probably go back into Thallonian space.”

  “Very well,” she had said.

  And as surprised as she’d been before, she’d been nearly dumb-founded when Jellico had actually said to her—in a tone that sounded more like a concerned uncle than his usual clipped, vaguely impatient air—“Besides … it probably wouldn’t do you much good to throw yourself right back into the section of space where you lost Calhoun. Might make you too tentative, or too aggressive. Either way, it’d be best if you allowed some time for your associations with Thallonian space to cool. All right?” He seemed genuinely interested as to whether it was “all right” with her. She nodded, and he seemed satisfied with that. Shelby told herself that everyone, even an inveterate pain in the butt such as Jellico, was capable of surprising you every now and then.

  Thus far, aside from the shooting incident by a jumpy native on Zeron III, which had injured Basner’s leg, things had gone fairly smoothly during her first command. She was certainly hoping that Makkus would fall into that same category.

  Makkus was a world on the outer edge of Sector 47-B. The natives had undergone tremendous scientific progress in the last hundred years or so, not too dissimilar from the dazzling burst of advancement that had seized the latter half of the twentieth century on earth. The Federation had established first contact with Makkus some years back, and by all reports the Makkusians had taken firsthand proof of life on other worlds somewhat in stride. That shouldn’t have been a surprise; such worlds were generally investigated very thoroughly to make sure that they were, in fact, prepared to handle such revelations without it being damaging to the world’s society as a whole.

  It was now felt, however, that the people of Makkus had advanced to a sufficient degree that they were ready to be given the opportunity to join the Federation. It was an exciting prospect for Shelby, being sent to handle the invitation personally. Who knew, really, the future that any world might realize in their development? If Shelby’s invitation got Makkus to join the UFP, who knew where the world might end up in terms of its involvement with, and relation to, other worlds? And their success would be, in some small measure, Shelby’s success.

  But she didn’t want to start thinking that way; it came across to her as self-centered and self-aggrandizing. The planet’s welfare was to be considered first and foremost, and any contributions she made to it would be a distant second.

  However, she also felt a brief bit of amusement over Garbeck reminding her of the first officer’s obligation to afford protection to the captain whenever possible. Shelby had a reasonably high opinion of herself, but the thought of her providing protection to Mackenzie Calhoun … well, somehow it just seemed laughable. Putting aside the harsh truth that, since he was dead, she hadn’t done much of a job protecting him, there was also the matter that Calhoun had never lost—as he put it—the need to lead.

  When they were young, he had spoken to her with derision about the Starfleet mandate that captains should minimize their time with away teams, and certainly never expose themselves to danger. Mackenzie Calhoun, back when he was the young M’k’n’zy, had carved himself a bloody path to no less a post than Warlord of his native Xenex. Once he had acquired that title, he had not then positioned himself to the rear of the ranks in any given situation. Instead, he had been in the thick of things, carving with his great sword, slicing away at his enemies, blood spattering his muscled frame and howling war cries ripped from his lips. “Protect the captain from danger?” young Calhoun had sniffed. “What sort of troops respect a leader who is willing to shove them into hazardous situations, but not himself? A leader leads. People follow a leader; they don’t precede him to shield him.”

  “And if the leader is killed?”

  “Then he is killed. No one person should ever be indispensable. If a leader can drive any one lesson into the heads of his people, it’s that one. No movement should fall apart just because one man goes down. There must always be another to step in to fill the void, and another, and still another, each as capable as the one before. That, Eppy, is how you win wars.”

  Eppy.

  God, how she had hated that nickname.

  God, how she missed it.

  “Captain—?”

  She realized with ever-so-brief embarrassment that she had been thinking about other matters and paying no attention to the immediate matters at hand. She turned to Garbeck and said, “Yes, Number One.”

  “In regards to the away team: Might I suggest Lieutenant Augustine? She served a residency in xeno-studies as part of the NOT assigned to this world ten years ago, so she’s well familiar with them.”

  Shelby nodded. She was, in fact, familiar with Toreen Augustine. The NonObservable Team, or NOTs, as they were usually referred to, were a standard part of the procedure for determining a planet’s development, and whether they were ready to be approached for Federation membership. Either they watched the natives from a hidden outpost, or else actually disguised themselves as residents of the world and mingled to get a reading on how advanced they were. However, Shelby had no desire to undercut Garbeck’s industry by saying she had already opted to make use of Augustine, so she simply nodded and said, “Good thinking, Number One. Inform her of—”

  There was a sharp whistle over the comm unit. “Kosa to bridge,” came the voice of CMO Daniel Kosa.

  “Bridge; go ahead, Doctor,” Shelby said. There was something in his voice that informed her this was not exactly a simple, “Hi, how you doing?” contact.

  “We’ve had an incident down in holodeck two. I think you’d better get down here,” said Kosa in his normal, gravelly tone.

  “On my way.” She didn’t even bother to ask what had happened. If Kosa was faced with an emergency and he wanted her down there, then she was going down, and that was pretty much that. Still, as the turbolift whisked her to the deck where holodeck two was situated, she couldn’t help but wonder what could possibly have happened there that would require medical attention. After all, the holodeck was equipped with safety protocols. No matter how hazardous the situation a participant might conjure up, there was no risk of injury—outside of, possibly, something along the lines of a sprained ankle. But Kosa had not sounded particularly happy. Then again, that was Kosa’s typical tone of voice. He had little patience for illness, which was part of what made him such an excellent doctor. He seemed to take such things as sickness or injuries personally, as if they had occurred specifically to annoy him and challenge him. “No respect,” he would be heard to mutter every so often during an examination, and it was never clear to anyone precisely what Kosa meant by that. Did he mean that germs were showing him disrespect by treading on his territory? Or did he mean that the patient was displaying no respect for their own body because they were allowing these things to happen? Unfortunatel
y, no one on the ship—including Shelby—quite had the nerve to ask Kosa to define his notorious “No respect” comment. By a sort of unspoken agreement, it was probably better that way.

  When Shelby got to the holodeck, she walked briskly through the door … and stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  The landscape around her was a centuries-old cityscape that had recently been the scene of some kind of bizarre combat scenario. Oddly costumed holographic warriors—most apparently human, but some questionable—were held fast by the holodeck in the midst of their conflict.

  The warriors seemed to be lacking the kind of weaponry that could account for the destruction surrounding them, but it seemed clear they were responsible in some way for it. One was frozen in the midst of attempting to lift what seemed to be a very heavy ground vehicle many times his size. His plan seemed to be to hurl the vehicle at his enemies, where it would join the crushed pile of other such vehicles that he had apparently already thrown.

  Standing in the midst of it all, looking around with a distasteful eye, was Doctor Kosa. A pure-blooded Sioux, Kosa was jowly and gray-haired, and seemed to like it that way. Twin-sister med techs Patty and Sali Wynants were on either side of the body on the floor, surveying the scene with clear befuddlement.

  “I wanted you to see this for yourself,” rumbled Kosa, “so that when my report came through, you wouldn’t call down to me and say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ ”

  Security chief Naomi Basner was flat on the floor, with her head crushed.

  Shelby was aghast. For one wild moment she was starting to wonder if maybe, somehow … it was her. That the oddities on the Excalibur had stemmed not from Calhoun, but from her presence. Because she had seen some bizarre things during her stint on Excalibur, but never anything quite like this. She tried to find the words, her mouth forming an “O,” but nothing emerging at first. Kosa waited patiently. “How—?” she finally managed to say.

  “According to the twins here,” said Kosa, indicating the Wynants, “Chief Basner had a fondness for this particular holodeck scenario, which she created from scratch. Apparently, it was based on an old Earth entertainment form called …” He frowned, trying to remember.

  “Comic books,” chorused Sali and Patty. They tended to do that: speak in sync. Shelby had heard it privately mused that they were not actually twins, but that one was, in fact, a clone of the other.

  “Thank you,” Kosa said, without actually sounding particularly grateful for the help. “It seems she considered the type of combat engaged in in that medium to be the ultimate challenge for a security chief, in terms of reacting to sudden and unexpected circumstances.”

  “She always said she never—” began Sali.

  “—knew where to look first,” finished Patty.

  I’m back in Wonderland, Shelby thought incredulously. She gestured toward Basner. “So what happened to her?”

  “As far as we can tell,” Doctor Kosa replied, “she was hit by a hammer thrown by—” Kosa pointed at one of the frozen warriors, one with long blond hair and the costume of a still more ancient era, “—that guy.”

  “But this shouldn’t have happened!” For a moment she feared that this was the first hint of yet another computer virus eating away at yet another ship. But then the realization dawned on her. “She removed the safety protocols.”

  Sali and Patty nodded in unison.

  “The only people damned fool enough to do something like that are security people,” said Kosa, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “Apparently, they feel they can’t train properly if there isn’t real danger involved.”

  “I won’t have it,” Shelby said, fury mounting in her. It was insane to be angry with someone who was dead, but she was. “I won’t have my people putting their lives at risk for some damned training stunt in a holodeck simulation!” She hit her combadge. “Shelby to engineering!”

  “Engineering. Dunn here,” came the voice of the chief engineer.

  “Commander,” she said forcefully, the use of the rank underscoring the fact that she was not in a good mood. “We’ve had a fatality in holodeck two.”

  “Impossible,” returned Dunn’s voice, “unless someone made the mistake of—”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what they did,” Shelby cut him off.

  Dunn whistled. “As mistakes go, that’s a lulu, all right.”

  “I want you to—”

  “Go through the computers and eliminate all options to remove safety protocols, so that no one can ever have the ability to override the safety features again.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Done and Dunn,” said Dunn, which was his favorite turn of phrase. A bit self-congratulatory as far as Shelby was concerned, but she’d made no comment on it. Dunn might be slightly colorful in the way he handled his duties, but he was as hyperefficient as everyone else was. And besides, he added a splash of color to the steely black and white of the rest of the command staff. And a little color never hurt.

  She glanced around. A lot of color, on the other hand, could be absolutely, overpoweringly deadly. She prepared to head back up to the bridge and inform Karen Kahn that she was the new head of security, now that the old head had no head. And she couldn’t help but consider the fact that, if a hammer had slammed into the skull of Zak Kebron, it would have gone quite badly for the hammer and likely had little to no impact on Kebron himself.

  “End program,” Shelby said, having seen quite enough. The program vanished.

  “No respect,” muttered Dr. Kosa as he prepared to take Basner’s remains to sickbay. Shelby still had no clear idea what that meant, but she had the strangest feeling that—whatever it did mean—she’d very likely be in full agreement.

  MAESTRESS CAWFIEL

  THE MAJISTER HAD A FEELING that the day wasn’t going to be going well when he emerged from his simple bunk in the back room to discover the frosty visage of Maestress Cawfiel waiting for him. Even worse, the rest of her was attached to the visage.

  “Good morning, Maestress,” said the Majister with a slight bow as he walked over to his desk. He cast a glance in Calhoun’s direction. Calhoun was awake; unsurprising, since the Majister didn’t have the faintest idea when the man slept. When the Majister went to bed, no matter how late it was, Calhoun watched him go. When the Majister arose to start the day, no matter how early, there again was Calhoun. This had been going on for the last week, and although the Majister found it extremely disconcerting, he was certainly not going to let Calhoun know that it bothered him. He could not help but think, though, that the next five months promised to be very, very long.

  He had even started toying with the idea of riding out and tracking down the Circuit Judiciary. Plead with him to make a special swing back to Narrin, so that he could attend to Calhoun. Furthermore, he could always approach Praestor Milo and ask him to make a ruling about Calhoun. But he didn’t want to give the impression to anyone that something as simple as a jailed prisoner could give him pause. So he had kept his peace, and hoped that matters would get better … or perhaps Calhoun would simply keel over and die, or something equally convenient.

  “Good morning, Majister,” replied the Maestress, returning the bow. There was nothing in her eyes, though, that gave the slightest indication she was at all happy to be there, or pleased to see the Majister. Her gaze traveled over to Calhoun, and she took him in with one silent, contemptuous stare. “So, this is it,” she said after a lengthy quiet.

  “This is what, Maestress?” inquired Fairax.

  “This … individual,” and she pointed one claw-like finger at Calhoun, “is the creature that assaulted Rheela.”

  “That would seem to be the case,” agreed the Majister.

  She approached the cell thoughtfully. The Majister’s immediate impulse was to tell her to keep her distance, but then he reasoned to himself that the worst-case scenario would involve her lifeless body sinking to the floor, thanks t
o a neck snapped by the muscular-looking Calhoun. So he kept his peace.

  The Maestress drew just within range of Calhoun, but the Majister was slightly saddened to see that Calhoun made no move against her. Only slightly saddened, because the truth was that—no matter what his personal feelings about her—he would have felt compelled to come to her aid. Which he would have drawn no satisfaction from, but one had to do the job one had agreed to undertake.

  “He’s very odd-looking,” Cawfiel announced after a time.

  Calhoun tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment, as if he was appreciating a compliment given him. He did not make the obvious observation that the Maestress was not exactly a raving beauty.

  “Even somewhat ugly,” she added after further consideration. She turned back to the Majister, her face darkening. “But, then again, what would one expect from someone who would consort with Rheela?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Maestress,” said Fairax neutrally. He sat behind his desk. “Is there something that I can help you with?”

  “Yes.” She moved over to a chair but, curiously, did not sit in it. Instead, she stood next to it and rested a hand lightly on the back. “You can tell me why you would give priority to a woman like that … and display so little respect for a woman such as myself.”

  “So little respect, Maestress?” He looked at her blankly. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”

  She didn’t respond at first, but merely glared at him. Finally, apparently deciding that she had made him “suffer” long enough, she said, “Last week … when I was lecturing in the streets, and I spoke of the darkness within that woman … a voice called from the crowd, asking how I could know that there was a stain on her soul. I did not recognize the voice at first. But, having had time to dwell on it—thinking upon the voice that spoke up, the tone and attitude—I have little doubt now that it was you.”