by Peter David
G’nard stared past D’ndai to Catrine, with a look too intense for D’ndai’s comfort. “You’re everything An’dr and D’ndai claimed,” he said, softly. “G’lyndr needs a lady like you.”
Catrine growled, low in her throat. “G’lyndr needs its ba—” She stopped herself, abruptly. “Just go.”
“I’ll return,” G’nard said, sounding too sincere. He shook his head. “What a fighter! I can make you the mother of warriors!”
“Spare me the honor,” she hissed, and turned to D’ndai. “I want this finished, Calhoun. No more. Not you, not your brother, not the next fool who wants to play politics over my desires. You’re chief: Find a way to end it. Or I swear I will leave Xenex forever, if I have to sleep with every crewman on a Danteri junk freighter to pay my way.”
D’ndai had never considered himself the genius in the family—at least he hadn’t since M’k’n’zy had started spouting visions and plotting sneak attacks on Danteri encampments.
Desperation and inspiration are nonidentical. There is a statistical correlation, however.
“Land marriage,” he said, softly.
“What?” Catrine looked more peeved than enlightened.
“Land marriage,” he repeated. He raised his voice, looking around the faces in the faint light of moon, stars, and oil lantern. “It’s an old tradition, from back in the days before the Danteri conquered us. When a widow wanted to protect her estate, or her honor, or her children by her first husband, she’d marry her own land. From then on she’d be the Lady of Long Acres, or whatever her lands were called.”
G’nard made a disgusted noise. “Oh, I can just see it: This woman wasted on a grubby little house in a grubby little town, tied here forever. It might please you, but it won’t please anyone else.”
D’ndai felt a glow like the one he’d always thought M’k’n’zy must feel at the height of a successful battle. “No. Catrine, you’re going to marry Xenex. You’ll be free to go anywhere in the world, and the marriage is binding. A bride raid isn’t enough to override a valid marriage.”
G’nard just snorted. “But no child rights. No sane woman wants to give up her child rights forever.”
Catrine looked first at G’nard—a cool, calculating look with no sentiment in it at all. Then she looked at D’ndai, and her expression softened. There was something there: not love, or passion—that was too much to hope for—but affection and respect.
She laid her hand on D’ndai’s arm. “But G’lyndr, Calhoun has already paid my child-debt.”
There was no question that G’nard assumed that D’ndai had given Catrine her hoped-for child. There was also no question that Catrine had intended to give that impression.
D’ndai covered her hand with his, squeezing it in thanks. “All it takes is a public oath,” he said. He looked out at the faces around him. “We have plenty of witnesses. Shall we proceed, then?”
“Oh, yes,” Catrine said, with a low, gloating purr. “Absolutely.”
D’ndai had to improvise. He’d heard of land marriages, but he’d never bothered to study them in any detail. He was pleased, though: He managed to leave one small loophole in his phrasing that would allow Catrine to annul the bond if she chose.
Catrine took her oath in a firm, loud voice.
Then it was done. D’ndai stepped away from her, presenting her to the throng. “Behold: a Lady of Xenex! May she live long and happy in her land’s embrace!”
There was a good deal of cheering and back-slapping. Neighbors skittered into their houses and brought out an impromptu wedding feast.
As G’nard and his men slipped sullenly away, a figure stepped from the shadows at the end of the street and nodded pleasantly.
Warain. Of course the man had to show himself—he needed G’lyndr and the clan’s Thallonian allies to see his victory, too.
D’ndai found Catrine happily wolfing down sweet cakes and sour tea on a neighbor’s stoop. He stole her glass and gulped down half the tea. Then he nerved himself, taking her hand. “You can still change your mind.”
She slipped her hand back. “No. I’m sorry, D’ndai. This is a good answer.”
“You’re not old. You could live years—a long time to stay celibate.”
She chuckled. “You mean Xenex is going to be a jealous husband?”
“Um…”
“No, my dear. I’m not planning on taking lovers. Even if I were…D’ndai, let me go. From now on I’m a Lady of Xenex, and happy that way.” She stole back her glass and finished the last of the tea in one gulp, as though she too needed the emotional cover the action provided.
It was over, then.
He slapped his men on the shoulders. He smiled at Catrine’s neighbors. He accepted compliments on his fighting style.
As he passed out of the street, Warain joined him.
“A good answer. I am impressed.”
“Genius runs in the family,” D’ndai said dryly. But something inside him warmed to the compliment. He did feel smarter, more as though he was in the same league as his little brother. He slipped on a M’k’n’zyesque rogue’s grin, trying it on for size. “My brother had to learn it all somewhere.”
Warain laughed. “Of course, my friend. I should have realized.”
D’ndai felt obliged to return the compliment. “That jamming field you used to block the Thallonian transporter—it worked perfectly. Poor old G’nard was pounding his chest and shouting for a rescue, and nothing happened. I thought he’d have a heart attack he was so frustrated.”
“Ah, but that Lady of Xenex notion: simply brilliant!” Warain moved silently through the rising fog, a sleek feline padding beside a stockier canine. “I think I’m going to enjoy working with you, Calhoun.”
D’ndai felt a flicker of guilt, knowing he planned to abandon the DEA agent as soon as possible. Yet there was no point abandoning the alliance too soon. D’ndai could see many ways it could prove to Clan Calhoun’s benefit.
“Likewise,” he said, feeling amiable and empty and drained of passion. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of those mek tabs with you? They were very fine.”
The etched case passed between the two men. They commented on the fine blend of the mek. They plotted plots, and planned plans. And so they sauntered into the dawn of a new Xenex day.
U.S.S. EXCALIBUR
Making a Difference
Mary Scott-Wiecek
The Excalibur has a long and varied history. After serving as part of Captain Picard’s blockade between the Klingon and Romulan Empires during the Klingon Civil War of 2368, the ship was given to Captain Morgan Korsmo and Commander Elizabeth Shelby as commanding and first officers, respectively. The ship continued to serve with distinction up until the second Borg incursion into the Federation. “Making a Difference” takes place during that incursion, simultaneous with the movie Star Trek: First Contact.
Mary Scott-Wiecek
Mary Scott-Wiecek is a stay-at-home Mom/aspiring writer who lives in Ohio with her husband, three children, and various pets. Her other Star Trek short stories have appeared in three of the Strange New Worlds anthologies (Volumes III and VI, grand-prize winner in Volume V). Other interests include art and Tai Chi. She would like to thank Penny “The Mouthpiece” Proctor, Kev “The Rev” Killiany, and the rest of the SNW “gang” for their support and camaraderie. Youse guys are da best!
Insufferable arrogance. That’s what it had been, he decided, as he watched the Borg cube on its inexorable course for Earth. Insufferable arrogance—to believe that he, Captain Morgan Korsmo, could have made an iota of difference at Wolf 359. Just as it was insufferable arrogance to believe that he could make one now, as part of Admiral Hayes’s hastily assembled defense force.
No—had he been at Wolf 359, his ship would have ended up just like all the others, a smoking, drifting shell, full of dead officers and crew. He didn’t want to believe that was what was going to happen this time. In the six years since that first, devastating standoff, the Federation ha
d learned a great deal about the Borg, and had come a long way toward developing effective defensive strategies against them. He himself had survived two Borg encounters in that time, although he knew that had been more a matter of luck than anything else. The battles had been brutal and deadly; he’d lost a lot of good people, and the Chekov, his previous ship, had been damaged beyond repair. He had survived, though, along with most of his crew. The Borg weren’t invincible.
But this cube seemed different, somehow. It was barreling along with a passionless, purposeful determination that filled him with foreboding. Here in Sector 001, the Borg ship’s destination, the blue orb that was his home—and the Federation’s center of operations—looked vulnerable and even fragile. He felt despair, and a near-violent surge of protectiveness. They would stop that cube. They had to.
Admiral Hayes’s task force was assembled and preparing to attack. Twenty-three starships, all together, geared up for battle. Oddly enough, the Enterprise-E was not among them. This didn’t seem like the sort of mission Picard would want to miss, with his illustrious and seemingly charmed career. It still vexed Korsmo—just a little—that no matter what he accomplished, Jean-Luc Picard always seemed to be two steps ahead of him, from their days at the Academy to the present. Still, it would be good to see him now. The newly refurbished Enterprise was Starfleet’s most advanced ship. Perhaps it just hadn’t arrived yet.
The battle strategy for the fleet was almost comical in its simplicity. Their job was to make the cube stop and turn around. To somehow, in some way, draw the damned thing away from Earth. If they could get it on the defensive, perhaps they could find a way to destroy it.
As simple as the strategy was, its execution was another matter entirely. In front of him, he could hear his operations officer, Ensign Kothari, speaking to First Officer Shelby in urgent, clipped tones, as they monitored the designated frequency for tactical coordination. The battle plan was a triumph in strategic planning, with specified, shifting targets for all of the ships of the task force, and random shield and weapon resonance modulations across the board. It very likely wouldn’t be enough, but they had to try. What other option was there? He studied the information Shelby was sending to his station with grim approval.
It was time.
“All hands to battle stations!” he called out, over the shipwide com. They were already at red alert, and now everyone finished with their last-minute preparations and focused on the challenge ahead.
Admiral Hayes’s voice sounded over the ship-to-ship channel. “All ships, prepare to engage the Borg. Team Alpha—fire!”
The first wave of starships surged forward, phasers and photon torpedoes blazing. The cube was illuminated by dozens of explosions. Its shields absorbed the energy at first, but as the barrage continued, a few breaches appeared. The task force immediately took advantage of them. Remarkably, after the first run, the cube sustained at least some damage to its weapons arrays, Team Alpha’s primary targets. Hayes called for Team Beta, and the second line moved in. The Borg cube was responding now, in full force. Torpedoes burst forth from the monstrous ship. One of them immediately found a mark, and a Norway-class starship vaporized in a cloud of sparks and glowing debris. Korsmo wasn’t even sure which ship it was, and he didn’t have time to think about it now.
“We’re up next,” he said. “Helm, move us into position—bearing three-fifty mark twenty.”
“Aye, Captain.” Lieutenant T’Shanik, his Vulcan conn officer, a remarkably efficient young woman just a few years out of the Academy, was already maneuvering into position.
“Team Gamma—fire!”
“Engage!” Korsmo called out, and they were off. T’Shanik piloted the ship in a graceful arc around to the port side of the cube. “Target phasers, and fire!” he said. “Fire torpedoes!”
T’Shanik was already pulling the ship up and away as the last torpedo found its mark. They rocked, briefly, as a Borg phaser beam grazed their shields. Korsmo looked toward Shelby expectantly as she monitored the data coming in.
“At least one of them got through,” she said, grinning. “We’ve taken out our secondary target—a power relay.”
Scattered cheering erupted on the bridge, but everyone knew the battle was just beginning. As T’Shanik moved the Excalibur into position for its second run, Korsmo allowed himself the luxury of watching the viewscreen.
Resistance apparently wasn’t as futile as it used to be. The surface of the cube was riddled with torpedo craters and phaser scars. Inside the cube, he could see the green glow of a half-dozen plasma fires. He knew Borg drones were already being dispatched to deploy forcefields and repair the damage, but it was a satisfying sight for the moment. The cube had stopped, too, and wasn’t that half the goal already?
His flash of optimism faded quickly, as slowly, unbelievably, the Borg ship lumbered into motion, resuming its course for Earth. The mood on the bridge darkened, and the disappointment and dread of his crew was palpable. It almost seemed that the entire task force was nothing more than an inconvenience to the cube. Nothing was going to distract it from its goal this time.
Korsmo wondered what the cube would do when it reached Earth. Would it carve out chunks of the planet to study the technology, as the Borg had done in so many other systems in the past? The resulting loss of mass would alter the planet’s orbit and turn it into a lifeless chunk of ice. Those unlucky enough to survive the initial attack would slowly starve, or freeze to death.
But no, the Borg had other plans for Earth. If it were possible for a collective of soulless automatons to hold a grudge, the Borg surely held one against humanity. They meant to assimilate both the planet and its population. Korsmo tried to picture how it might look—flat gray and mechanical, with relays spidering over the surface like Borg facial implants. He thought about his sister and her family in Prague, and what would become of them. Her youngest was only three.
“All ships—pursuit course. Fire at will!” Admiral Hayes shouted over the com.
The Borg chose this moment to broadcast their standard greeting. “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
Like hell it was. Korsmo stood up, furious and with renewed determination. “Reconfigure phasers,” he barked. “Shelby, how are the shields?”
“Still at ninety-five percent,” she replied, “but we should shift the nutonals, just in case. We were lucky in our first run, but the Borg could still have adapted.”
“Do it,” he confirmed. “Lock phasers, ready torpedoes, and engage!”
This time, their weapons did some real damage to the cube’s hull. One torpedo created a soul-satisfying display of pyrotechnics and left behind a crater filled with debris.
But then their luck ran out. The Borg were firing their torpedoes randomly and constantly, and one of them struck the ship head-on. Excalibur was jolted violently by the impact, and people were thrown off their feet. Korsmo managed to grab hold of the arm of his chair and crawl back to his seat.
“Report!” he bellowed. The bridge crew was still struggling to get back to their stations.
“Our shields are down!” Shelby said. “Damn!”
“Evasive maneuvers,” he called out to T’Shanik, but before she could respond, he felt a familiar percussive thud and jolt that settled right into the pit of his stomach. He’d felt it before, and he knew what it meant.
“Tractor beam!” Lieutenant Martins cried, from tactical, confirming his worst fears. “They’ve caught us in a tractor beam.”
“All engines—full reverse,” he and Shelby said, simultaneously. They exchanged a glance, but he didn’t mind her duplicating obvious orders in a battle situation, and she knew that. They’d both been down this road before. When the Borg tractored a vessel, they intended to hold it in place for their cutting beam.
“Fire all phasers. Target the source of the tractor beam,�
�� he ordered. He stepped up next to Shelby, behind the helm. “I thought I told you to take that ‘Borg cutting beam—slice here’ sign off the hull after the last time,” he said to her, sotto voce.
She snorted. “I’m sure it’s nothing personal, sir,” she said. “We just happen to be closer to the cutting beam than their nearest phaser banks.”
“Great,” he said. “I’d hate to inconvenience them.”
“Our engines are unable to pull away, sir,” T’Shanik told him.
“Modulate the resonance settings…” he started to say, but it was too late. The unforgettable green cutting beam shot out of the cube, and pierced Excalibur a fraction of an instant later.
Because of the tractor, there was little jarring on impact. But although he couldn’t actually hear the sounds of screeching metal, he knew what was happening to his ship. It was an instinct that most starship captains developed over time. He’d have sworn he could feel the cut, right down to his bone.
Alarms began to sound at almost all of the bridge stations. “Hull breach!” Martins shouted from tactical. “Sections twenty-five through twenty-nine, decks nineteen and twenty. Engineering.”
“Keep firing phasers,” he shouted over the cacophony of klaxons and multiple damage reports. “Modulate the resonance settings. Get a damage-control team down there—emergency forcefields!”
On the main viewscreen, he saw another ship come streaking in, phasers flashing. The Endeavor had noticed their predicament. With both ships firing simultaneously, the tractor beam went down, but he knew it would only be temporary. The Borg were nothing if not persistent.
“Hard about,” he yelled in T’Shanik’s general direction. “Bearing two-twenty mark seveteen. Full impulse.” He slapped his combadge. “Engineering—report!”
