Fire On High (3 page)

"Good. And if the good doctor finds flaws in the formula, I imagine it would not be overly demanding for him to correct those flaws, now, would it."

"Bordering on Prime Directive violation, isn't that, Captain?" inquired Si Cwan.

"Bordering but not over the line, Ambassador,"

replied Calhoun. "However, in this instance, Starfleet agreed to give us some latitude. So, Lieutenant, in exchange for these agreements, the Momidiums will present us with this human female,"

"That's right, sir."

"A female whom you claim could pass for your mother's twin."

"No twin, sir," said Lefler and she tapped the screen with a knuckle. "That is my mother."

"The mother whom you said died in a shuttle accident about ten years ago."

Lefler squared her shoulders, pulling herself up straight, for Calhoun had made no effort to hide the disbelief in his voice. "That's correct, sir. Morgan Lefler. At least, that's the name I always knew her by.

'Primus' wasn't even her maiden name, so I don't know where that name came from."

"And was the shuttle accident anywhere in this vicinity?"

"No, sir. Actually, it was in New Jersey. She was on vacation, visiting family there. She was flying a private shuttle and it went out of control and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean."

"You'll excuse me if I don't seem properly sympathetic to your, uhm . . . loss," he said, leaning back in his chair, "but do you have any theories or guesses as
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to how your late mother managed to get all the way from a watery grave to the Gamma Hydrinae system?"

"I believe," she said promptly, for naturally she had given the matter no small amount of thought, "that she never died in the accident."

"Well, that would certainly follow."

"Her body was never recovered after the crash.

They found the shattered remains of her personal transport shuttle, but it was cracked open and there was no sign of her. Since there were no traces of transporter energy or any other intelligent agency that might have rescued or abducted her, we had always assumed that some . . . some oceanic form of life had simply made off with her body and, uhm . . ."

"Eaten it?" Si Cwan supplied after she was silent for a moment.

She fired him an icy look. "Yes, thank you," she said, although she didn't sound especially appreciative. "That was the phrase I was searching for."

"You're welcome," replied Si Cwan graciously, sarcasm being totally lost on him.

"It is my belief," continued Lefler, "that she allowed us—my father and me—to believe that she had been killed."

"She could have been kidnapped."

"She had been."

"But I thought you said . . ."

"She had been, to my knowledge, abducted at least eight times in my lifetime. She was not a stay-at-home kind of mother. Each time she escaped within hours and returned within days. After the accident, my father and I held out hope for a long time. Hope that
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she would just walk in the front door. In the end, we had no choice but to assume she was dead."

"Were your parents getting along? Happy marriage and all?"

"To the best of my knowledge, yes, sir. Certainly nothing my father said to me indicated otherwise. He, uhm . . ." She looked down. "He . . . passed away several years later, shortly after I entered Starfleet. He was never quite the same after she was killed, and it was like he just . . . just drifted away from life, and was only waiting until my life was on track and settled before he ..."

Si Cwan reached over and put a hand upon one of hers. The contrast could not have been greater, for his hands were large and red, while hers were small, pale, and rather delicate. Under other circumstances, the physical contact between her and Si Cwan would have sent a secret little thrill of pleasure through her, but as it was she was simply grateful for the gesture. She squeezed his hand tightly in acknowledgment and he nodded slightly as if to say that he understood.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Lieutenant," Calhoun told her. "But that still leaves us with the question of why she would vanish without a trace ten years ago only to show up in Thallonian space."

"I don't know!"
Lefler cried, her voice raised, and she quickly realized that her tone was inappropriate for such a response, particularly considering that she was addressing her commanding officer. She looked at him nervously, but he simply put up a calming hand, indicating that she shouldn't get too concerned over the breach of etiquette. "I don't know," she repeated, far more calmly this time. "I suppose that's why I'm
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rather eager to find out. When can we leave, sir? Our mission on Zondar is concluded, but we're still in orbit here. We could easily depart immediately for—"

"In case you haven't noticed, Lieutenant, our science officer is still not aboard."

"Yes, of course I noticed, sir," Lefler said. "She's on the Zondarian surface exploring some sort of archae-ological dig. Can't that be concluded another time, sir? Or perhaps we could come back for her?"

"Lieutenant, as much as I appreciate your anxiety here, this is simply not an emergency."

"Captain!"

He shook his head, a grim smile of amusement playing across his lips. "If it's really your mother, Lieutenant, and you've believed her dead for the last ten years—and she's been stewing on Momidium for the last five—then a few more days isn't going to cause the total collapse of the galaxy as we know it."

"Then let me go on ahead."

"Negative, Lieutenant. The last time I sent any members of this crew 'on ahead' in a shuttle, it was with the best of intentions with the most cataclysmic results."

"Captain, this is hardly the same situation," Si Cwan said. "I know what you're referring to: When the science vessel
Kayven Ryin
informed us that my sister was aboard, it turned out to be a trap set for me by an old enemy. But the situations are hardly analogous, Captain. It's not as if the lieutenant has enemies in this sector."

"I'm not saying she does, Ambassador," replied Calhoun. "The point is, the moment I send any of my
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people away from the
Excalibur,
I'm sending them into potential danger. I won't hesitate to do so if I feel it's necessary. In this instance, I don't feel it is."

"But Captain . . ." began Lefler.

He looked at her levelly. "Lieutenant, are you under the impression that my decision is open for debate?"

She opened her mouth a moment, then closed it and looked down. "No, sir," she said quietly.

"Good. The fact is that Lieutenant Soleta's investigations are potentially very important for our on-going mission, and I'm not going to put a phaser to her head and tell her to hurry it up. Nor am I going to abandon her on Zondar so we can head off to retrieve your alleged mother."

"Yes, sir," sighed Lefler.

Calhoun tapped his commbadge. "Calhoun to Soleta."

After a moment, the science officer's voice came back. "Soleta here."

"Lieutenant, I'm not trying to rush you, but a matter has come up that may require our attention.

Can you give me a rough estimate of when you'll be completing your investigation of Ontear's cave and the surrounding vicinity?"

"Nineteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, Captain."

He blinked in surprise, "Nineteen hours, twenty-seven minutes?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm surprised you didn't pin it down to the exact number of remaining seconds."

"You
did
say a rough estimate, Captain," she replied.

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"So I did," admitted Calhoun. "All right, thank you, Lieutenant. Calhoun out." He turned to face Lefler and Si Cwan. "Ambassador, I would like you to contact the Momidium government. Let them know that their terms are acceptable if they are indeed as described. I respect the fact that there is a time pressure regarding the illness they are trying to com-bat, but we won't be able to set out for about a solar day. I assume they can hold on until then."

"I imagine they will have to," said Si Cwan.

"Lieutenant, follow up with Dr. Maxwell. Inform him that we will indeed be needing sickbay's assistance in this matter and that they should have some lab time set aside to accommodate us."

"Yes, sir."

He thumped his palms on the table. "Sounds like a plan," he said briskly and rose. "Unless there's anything else then . . . ?"

Si Cwan and Lefler looked at each other questioningly. "No, I think that is more or less all, Captain,"

Lefler said.

"Good." He rose, and then paused and added,

"Lieutenant . . . for what it's worth, I truly am sorry over the personal difficulties you've had with your parents."

"Thank you, Captain."

He nodded, turned and walked out.

Lefler sat back and sighed. "That didn't go as well as I'd hoped."

"He agreed to make Momidium our next port of call," replied Si Cwan. "Considering the number of worlds that are vying for our attention, that alone is something of an accomplishment."

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She sat forward, propping her chin up in her hands.

"It's insane, Si Cwan. I feel like Alice."

"Alice?" His brow furrowed. "What is an 'Alice'?"

She sighed. "When I was a little girl, one of my favorite books was
Alice in Wonderland.
My mother introduced me to it, in fact."

"I can't say I'm familiar with it."

"I wouldn't imagine it made the Thallonian best-seller list," she said, speaking with an amusement she didn't really feel. "It was actually somewhat subver-sive in its time. It was created to be a satire of Brit—

of a particular Earth government. But functioning in and of itself, it's the story of a young girl who falls down a hole burrowed by an animal called a rabbit and discovers herself in a strange and mystical realm in which no one and nothing makes any sense. It has maintained its popularity for centuries."

"I can easily understand why. Entering a realm that makes no sense? My dear Lieutenant, the technical term for that is 'birth.' Or are you under the mistaken impression that life as a whole makes sense?"

"I guess not, but damn it, Si Cwan, you'd think some things would be a given, wouldn't you?"

"A given?" He looked at her quizzically, and then he rose from his chair and slowly circled the room, never taking his eyes off her. They had that piercing quality that she found so attractive in him, but somehow at that moment, she wasn't really paying attention to them. "What things?"

"Losing my mom . . . it was . . ." She took a deep breath and then said, "Look . . . this isn't stuff we really have to discuss, okay? I mean, it's kind of personal. And you and I . . . we don't really know
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Peter David

each other all that well, when you get down to it. I mean, we've known each other for a little while, but not enough for me to feel comfortable discussing it with you."

"Are you certain?"

He was behind her then, and he placed a hand on her shoulder. She felt the strength in it then, even more so than when he had rested his hand atop hers earlier. Part of her wanted to embrace him, to just flee from the turmoil going through her mind by disappearing into his large and powerful arms. But she was feeling vulnerable at that moment, more so than she could recall in quite some time. Her gut reaction was to keep her distance from him, and after another moment's thought, that was exactly what she decided to do.

She stood quickly, gently brushing his hand away as she did so. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding more brusque than she would have liked.

"No need to apologize," he said mildly. "This is a very difficult time for you."

"I should be glad," she told him, although it was as if she were speaking more to herself than to him.

"Really, I should be glad. I mean . . . if it's her, if it's really her . . . I get a second chance. Whatever the reasons, I get a second chance with her, and that's really the important thing, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "Yes, it is, and everything's fine, and we don't have to discuss it anymore. I appreciate your help, but I'm going to be fine, okay?"

"Okay."

"And I shouldn't be looking for things to be wrong with what should be a joyous moment. Lefler's Law
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Number Thirty-two: If life hands you lemonade, don't try to make lemons out of it. Do you agree?"

"If I knew what lemonade was, probably."

"Good. Good." She seemed about to say something else, but instead she quickly exited the room, leaving a more-than-puzzled Si Cwan wondering if there was something else he should have said.

21

II
.

IN SICKBAY, ENSIGN RONNI BETH lay back on a medical table, her wavy hair surrounding her face like a corona of curls. As she did so, Dr. Karen Kurdziel checked the scanner readings and nodded approvingly. Kurdziel was a trim, blue-haired woman with an apparently endless amount of patience and a keen sense of the absurd. Both of those were serving her well at that particular moment.