by Peter David
He did so and they spoke no more that night.
The next morning she was gone again. This time Calhoun did not simply stay within their quarters. Instead he asked around, trying to determine where she’d been taken, but he was unable to do so. The shaman was gone as well. Presumably he’d gone with her. To make matters worse, the weather had chosen that day to get bad, and within an hour of his awakening, Calhoun was faced with a torrent of rainfall. The people of Xenex were grateful, naturally, for the precipitation, as the rainfall had been light this year. Calhoun was livid. He was more than prepared to try and track Shelby to wherever she was, but the downpour effectively erased everything from spoors to footprints. After a half-hour of coming up empty, a frustrated Calhoun returned to their domicile to wait.
He considered jumping in the runabout, flying out from the local area in ever-widening circles, and tracking her that way. But he thought about the way she had looked at him, the anger, the vituperation in her voice. This had taken on far more aspects than just being a personal challenge to her. She had managed to tie up everything, all her perceptions about the worth of their marriage, into this insane set of trials. He didn’t know how much of it was coming from her, and how much might be stemming from things the shaman had said to her. But the bottom line was that Shelby had staked even more importance to this business than Calhoun had, and he suspected that if his marriage was going to survive, he was going to have to let her have her head in this.
Presuming she had a head by the time it was over.
This time she didn’t return until the sun set. When she walked in, Calhoun barely recognized her. She was soaked to the skin. Her clothes were torn, and both the clothing and her exposed skin were covered with dirt. She was walking with a pronounced limp, and was holding her left shoulder gingerly. He gaped. “ ’Sokay,” she managed to say, her voice sounding like something from beyond the grave. “Managed to pop the arm back into the socket.”
He moaned softly. He got up and went to her, and again she backed off. “Elizabeth, I’m…I’m so sorry about yesterday…”
She shook her head and forced a smile. “No…it’s all right. Just…nowhere on my body that doesn’t hurt. So just…don’t touch me…okay?”
He helped her out of the tattered clothes as best he could without putting any pressure anywhere on her body. “I’m going back to the runabout,” he told her. “The medikit can do a lot for you…get rid of the cuts, the bruises, the…”
She laughed. It seemed such an odd noise for her to make. She reached up and touched the scar on his face. “What…you’re the only one…allowed to carry scars as…badges of honor?”
“Eppy…”
“We can do it…later. Now…let me sleep. Tomorrow morning…it ends. He told me. Last test is tomorrow. Said…you could be there.”
At this point, the only way I’d let you go without me is over my dead body, he thought.
It was a one-mile drop.
Shelby stood there on the edge of the cliff, staring down. Calhoun was next to her, and he looked equally appalled. Nearby, B’ndri calmly repeated the statement he’d just made that had been met with such disbelief by the two Starfleet officers. “You must dive off the cliff,” he said.
She looked at him, then at the drop. It didn’t look any shorter. There were stiff winds blowing about her, mussing what was left of her hair. “Dive off.”
“Yes.”
“Of this cliff.”
“Yes.”
“And she is to survive…how?” demanded Calhoun.
“If she is worthy,” said the shaman, “then the gods will increase the great gusts of wind, and she will be lifted gently back to the top of this cliff.”
“I see,” said Shelby.
The shaman approached her and said, “If you truly believe…if you think you are worthy of our ways, of this man, of—”
She hit him.
She didn’t know she was going to do it until she did it. Later she would swear that the fist had moved on its own. That her arm had simply swung up, straightened out, and delivered a right jab into the shaman’s face purely of its own volition, and she was simply an innocent bystander.
Whether it was her idea or not, it caught the shaman squarely in the face. He staggered and almost toppled over, but a quick-moving Calhoun came in behind him and caught him.
Shelby opened her mouth, and for her it was like watching herself from outside her own body. She had no clue what she was going to say until she said it.
“To hell with you!” she bellowed. “To hell with your tests! To hell with your rituals! To hell with your whole damned planet! This isn’t a test of endurance or worthiness! This is unbridled sadism! Do you think I liked causing an avalanche and then having to dodge it? Do you think running through a maze of fire was my idea of a good time? What part of ‘My God, get these damned insects off of me’ made you think that I was enjoying my honeymoon?” She paused to take a breath. “And now—now, you want me to jump off a cliff? You jump off the goddamn cliff, because I’ve freakin’had it! I must have been out of my mind! I don’t have to jump through hoops to prove my love for Mac! And you know what else? I don’t care how much the whole stupid official Xenex marriage ceremony means to him anymore!”
“Eppy, I tried to tell you that it—”
“Shut up! I did this for you! Be grateful!”
“I’m grateful,” he said immediately.
“You hit me!” said B’ndri, touching his nose tenderly.
“Damned right! You’re lucky I don’t tear your bowels out with my teeth!”
“M’k’n’zy,” B’ndri said, turning to face Calhoun. “This woman’s actions are the ultimate insult. You must sever all ties with her immediately.”
“Sever all ties? Honored one,” said Calhoun, his voice flooding with relief, “if she’d been insane enough to try and throw herself off this cliff, I would have tackled her before she could do it. I’m glad she’s called an end to it. It never should have started in the first place. And we’re leaving.”
“If you do so,” B’ndri said with great severity, “if you walk away now…you can never return to your people again.”
There was dead silence then. The only sound was the whistling of the wind across the cliff.
“What do you mean?” Calhoun asked.
“You will be dead to us. Shunned. You will be a nonperson. You will have shown us, for good and all, that you have thrown in your lot with…these,” said B’ndri, casting a contemptuous glance at Shelby. “These, who do not even believe in themselves enough to trust the gods to support them. Never again will any of our people—”
“I get it. Dead. Nonperson. Fine. Let’s go.” Calhoun held out a hand to Shelby. Immediately she took it, and they started to walk away.
They’d gone five paces when B’ndri said, in a grudging voice, “You passed.”
Calhoun and Shelby slowly turned and stared at him. “What?” they said in unison.
B’ndri looked pained as he said, “You, M’k’n’zy, have proven your love for your mate is so great that you would sacrifice everything for her, no matter what it may mean to you. No man can do more for his intended than that.”
“And what have I proven?” demanded Shelby.
“That you’re not stupid enough to walk off a cliff. Come. We will return to the city, where I will perform the marriage ceremony.”
“Forget it,” said Calhoun. “None of this was worth it. If you think I’m going to accept…”
And Shelby spun, grabbed Calhoun by the front of his shirt, and snarled. “You want to get hit in the face, too?”
He was possessed of a sudden urge to laugh. Wisely, he suppressed it.
“After everything I’ve been through,” continued Shelby, “you don’t get to pull that. You don’t get to walk away. We have this ceremony now or I throw you off the cliff.”
B’ndri looked at the two of them and then said to Shelby, “I’m starting to like you better than I do him.”<
br />
The marriage ceremony—or, as the Xenexians called it, the ceremony of bonding—was held with great celebration and festivities. The medical supplies on the runabout weren’t required; long, lavish, scented baths restored Shelby to full health, easing the sores, the cuts and bruises, and, most important, the itchy bug bites. They didn’t regrow her eyebrows or burned-away hair, but that didn’t detract from her beauty as she was brought before Calhoun in as elaborate and beautiful a gown as the women of Xenex could muster. Many of them didn’t hesitate to tell Shelby that they would never have been able to withstand the types of trials she had been put through, and that they admired her greatly. And the men told Calhoun that he had picked quite a woman to mate, and wanted to know if she was like a wild animal during sex. He assured them that she was.
And after the ceremony, a very lavish honeymoon suite was prepared for them. It was not their wedding night, granted, but for Calhoun it was even more special, because it was in his native land, with the full support and appreciation of his people. He felt a greater connection to them than he had in a very long time, and he owed it all to Elizabeth Paula Shelby.
Which he would have been more than happy to tell her, if she hadn’t fallen fast asleep the moment she was horizontal.
“So much for the Xenexian wedding night,” said Calhoun with a sigh, and he curled up next to her, held her close, and allowed her soft snoring to lull him to sleep.
The Star Trek: New Frontier Timeline
compiled by Keith R.A. DeCandido
The following chronicles the major events of the Star Trek: New Frontier cast. Citations in italics are movie, novel, or graphic novel titles (see list at the end). Citations in quotation marks are either short stories or episode titles, which have one of the following designations:
TOS = episode of Star Trek
TNG = episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
VOY = episode of Star Trek: Voyager
NL = short story in Star Trek: New Frontier: No Limits
WLB = short story in Star Trek: Gateways Book 7: What Lay Beyond
TDW = short story in Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War (forthcoming in 2004)
2267
The U.S.S. Enterprise encounters a being named Apollo, once worshipped as a god on Earth. Before committing suicide, he impregnates Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas. (“Who Mourns for Adonais?” [TOS], Being Human)
2294
Lieutenant M’Ress has an accident with a temporal gateway that sends her forward in time eighty-two years. (Cold Wars)
2305
Lieutenant Arex is involved in a shuttle accident near the Argolis Cluster, which propels him forward in time seventy-one years. (Cold Wars, “The Road to Edos” [NL])
2340
George and Sheila McHenry—the latter being the great-great-granddaughter of Palamas—give birth to a son, whom they name Marcus. (Being Human)
2345
Morgan Primus, a virtually immortal woman who is now married to Charles Lefler, has her first child in centuries of life, named Robin, and determines that she has not inherited her mother’s ability to heal all wounds. (“Alice, on the Edge of Night” [NL])
2348
Fourteen-year-old M’k’n’zy of Calhoun kills his first person, and is given command of a strike vessel that marks the beginning of the Xenexian rebellion against Danteri rule. (Once Burned)
Eight-year-old Marcus “Mark” McHenry rejects his supposedly imaginary friend “Missy,” truly Artemis, a relative of Apollo. (Being Human)
2350
Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Stargazer travels to Thallonian space, where he and his crew thwart a coup attempt by General Gerrid Thul. (The First Virtue)
Eight-year-old Si Cwan encounters the Black Mass. (Dark Allies)
2353
M’k’n’zy, aided knowingly by his brother D’ndai and unknowingly by support from the Thallonian Empire, succeeds in liberating Xenex. M’k’n’zy meets Picard, who convinces him to join Starfleet. (House of Cards)
Morgan, Charles, and Robin Lefler are assigned to the Tantalus colony. Robin starts recording log entries on a battered old tricorder. (“Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
2354
With D’ndai offworld, M’k’n’zy fulfills a request by Catrine, a widow of the Calhoun clan, to conceive a child (named Xyon) so her line can continue. D’ndai later makes Catrine a bride of Xenex, blocking an attempt by a rival clan to weaken the Calhouns’ power through marrying Catrine. (Martyr, “A Lady of Xenex” [NL])
The Leflers live on Rimbor for a year. Robin befriends an Andorian named Whis. Morgan starts disappearing for long periods of time. (Fire on High, “Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
Changing his name to Mackenzie Calhoun, M’k’n’zy enrolls in Starfleet Academy, as does Elizabeth Paula Shelby. The two of them start a relationship that leads to their being engaged. (Stone and Anvil)
2355
Morgan continues to disappear, as she is having trouble dealing with the fact that she will outlive her family. Charles Lefler tells Robin that she’s been kidnapped. (Fire on High, “Lefler’s Logs” [NL], “Alice, on the Edge of Night” [NL])
2356
Si Cwan realizes that his best friend Zoran Si Verdin is a spy for his father. (“Turning Point” [NL])
2357
McHenry, Zak Kebron, Soleta, Tania Tobias, Nikolai Rozhenko, and Worf, son of Mogh, enroll in Starfleet Academy. Rozhenko leaves in midyear, but the remainder of the group stay on friendly terms for all four years. (“Heart of Glory” [TNG], Worf’s First Adventure, Line of Fire, Survival, “Revelations” [NL])
The Leflers are assigned to Utopia Planitia and Starbase 179. Morgan and Charles have been fighting. Then they’re assigned to Starbase 212. (“Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
2358
Calhoun and Shelby’s engagement comes to an end after Calhoun takes the Kobayashi Maru test. (Stone and Anvil)
2359
Robin Lefler celebrates her second anniversary at Starbase 212; then they are reassigned to Gemaris V. (“Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
2360
Lefler is growing more concerned about the rift between her parents. (“Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
Dr. Selar is part of a team sent by Starfleet Intelligence to investigate the mysterious outbreak of a disease previously thought to have been eradicated. (Catalyst of Sorrows)
2361
Kebron, Soleta, McHenry, Tobias, and Worf graduate Starfleet Academy. Kebron is assigned to the U.S.S. Ranger. Worf, Soleta, and Tobias are assigned to the U.S.S. Aldrin. (“Conundrum” [TNG], “Waiting for G’Doh” [NL], “Revelations” [NL])
Kebron is assigned to go undercover as a park statue. (“Waiting for G’Doh” [NL])
2362
The Aldrin captures a Romulan smuggler named Rajari, who inadvertently reveals to Soleta that he raped her mother and conceived her. Soleta requests a leave of absence from Starfleet. (House of Cards, The Two-Front War, Requiem, “Revelations” [NL])
2363
Soleta is captured on Thallon and freed by Ambassador Spock and Si Cwan. Their departure from Thallonian space is complicated by an encounter with Ferengi. (House of Cards, “Out of the Frying Pan” [NL])
Following a failed suicide attempt with a phaser rifle, Morgan starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Kevin Pointer. She then attempts to kill herself and Robin both, but finds that she cannot take the life of her only daughter, and instead later fakes her own death. (Fire on High, “Alice, on the Edge of Night” [NL], “Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
2364
The U.S.S. Enterprise-D is launched under the command of Picard, and encounters the entity known as Q. (“Encounter at Farpoint” [TNG])
Lefler, after consoling her father over the apparent death of Morgan, enrolls in Starfleet Academy. (“Lefler’s Logs” [NL])
Selar, now the assistant chief medical officer of the Enterprise, briefly encounters a female Q. (“ ‘Q’uandary” [NL])
The Enterprise discovers that sev
eral outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone have been attacked. (“The Neutral Zone” [TNG])
2365
Selar is part of an away team that responds to a distress signal from Graves’World. (“The Schizoid Man” [TNG])
Q sends the Enterprise to System J25 in the Delta Quadrant, prompting contact with the Borg. (“Q Who” [TNG])
2366
After determining that the Borg were the ones who attacked the Neutral Zone outposts, Shelby is transferred from chief engineer of the Yosemite to Starfleet Tactical, soon taking over Borg Tactical. (“All that Glisters…” [NL], “The Best of Both Worlds” [TNG])
Assistant chief engineer Katerina Mueller of the U.S.S. Grissom creates a sensor probe that can be clandestinely deployed along the Romulan Neutral Zone. Her handling of the subsequent encounter with a Romulan ship leads Captain Norman Kenyon to give her a promotion to night-shift commander. (“Performance Appraisal” [NL])
Shelby is assigned to the Enterprise to assist against a Borg cube. Thirty-nine vessels are lost in conflict with the cube at Wolf 359 before the Enterprise stops the ship at Earth. Shelby is then assigned to oversee the reconstruction of the fleet. (“The Best of Both Worlds” [TNG]
2367
Shelby is reassigned to the U.S.S. Chekov as first officer under Captain Morgan Korsmo. Along with the Enterprise, they are involved in a three-way battle among Starfleet, the Borg, and a “planet-killer.” The Chekov is irreparably damaged. (Vendetta)
2368
The U.S.S. Excalibur, under the temporary command of Commander William T. Riker, is part of a blockade of the Klingon-Romulan border assembled by Picard during a Klingon civil war. (“Redemption Part 2” [TNG])
Lefler, now an engineer on the Enterprise, aids in an attempt to rescue Picard from El-Adrel IV, then helps to rescue the crew from a Ktarian mind-control device. (“Darmok” [TNG], “The Game” [TNG])
Lieutenant Burgoyne 172, a Hermat engineer on the U.S.S. Livingston, is assigned to aid a J’naii doctor named Dorvan in stopping a techno-organic probe that has run amok on Damiano. (“Oil and Water” [NL])
