Blind Man's Bluff

U.S.S. Excalibur

i.

Burgoyne strode into the captain’s ready room, feeling as out of place there as s/he ever did, and then s/he spoke, doing everything s/he could to keep hir voice steady. “Morgan,” s/he called out. “Morgan, we need to talk.”

She simply appeared behind hir. “Time for talking is past, Burgy. I’m sorry about that.”

“You’re sorry.” S/he couldn’t believe what s/he was hearing. “You’re sorry? You slaughtered innocent people.”

“They attacked Robin and tried to take my grandson from her. None of them is innocent. That’s close enough,” she said quickly as Burgoyne started toward her.

Burgoyne froze where s/he was, although s/he felt some small measure of grim pride that there was something even the mighty Morgan Primus feared. “I cut you up before. That must have been extremely disturbing.”

“You didn’t cut me.” She sounded as if her pride had been hurt. “You startled me, and you were seeing a physical manifestation of that. I honestly didn’t think that you would be so foolish as to waste your time with such an attack.”

“If it got your attention, it wasn’t a waste of time. Morgan, you’ve got to call this off.”

“That’s the advantage of being me. I don’t ‘got to’ do anything I don’t wish to.”

“And have you considered how Robin is going to react to all this?”

“She’s going to know that I’m doing what’s necessary, and that I’m doing it on her behalf.”

“I think it’s safe to say,” said Burgoyne, “that she would be appalled, and that if you think you’re doing it on her behalf, then for crying out loud, stop.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I would be the first to admit that. Except we just had a recent example of what happens when a mother is out of control on behalf of a child that never asked her to do any of it in the first place.”

“Yes, a shame about Selar,” and Morgan began to smile. It was as if she was back on solid ground, and it was clear to Burgoyne that she was about to try and make more insinuations about hir feelings. Insinuations that were designed to distract Burgoyne and throw hir off hir game.

Burgoyne wasn’t about to allow it.

“If you’re so confident,” s/he said before Morgan could continue, “why not ask Robin yourself about what she thinks of your activities? She’s at Bravo Station, I’m reasonably sure. You can project yourself into their holosystem easily enough. Talk to her.”

“She’s fragile at the moment and doesn’t need to be involved,” said Morgan.

There’s more than one way to cut into her, Burgoyne thought as s/he pressed on. “No, seriously. Go to her and say, ‘Honey, I’m worried that the crew of the Excalibur is trying to shut me down permanently because I scare the hell out of them. So I decided to dump Captain Calhoun on Xenex…’”

“Be quiet,” she said sharply.”

‘… and then kill a few thousand or hundred thousand on the surface of New Thallon so that I could wind up turning a whole bunch of vessels against them and make them hunted.’”

“Do you want me to take away warp speed entirely?” she warned hir. “You want me to shut down everything? Impulse? Weapons?”

“I want you to give us full control of the ship and then take your leave of us once and for all. That’s what I want.”

“At least I’m giving you more of a chance than you’re willing to give me,” she said.

“Call your daughter.”

“No.”

“Why?” s/he said. “Because you know what she’s going to say? If you know it, then why don’t you just do what you know she’d say?”

“Because I’ve lived far longer than she has, and far longer than anyone alive has or ever will live, and she’s not going to know what’s best for her the way I will.”

Burgoyne threw up hir hands in exasperation. “When are you going to admit that this isn’t about her? That it’s about you? That all the power you wield as a soulless machine being has warped you into something unrecognizable? That the woman that you were, and only think you are now, would be appalled by everything you’re doing. She would be mortified to think that you’re sharing her name and pretending to be her.”

Morgan glared at hir. If she could have fired phaser blasts out her eyes, Burgoyne would have been incinerated. Which prompted Burgoyne to think that maybe she was actually capable of doing such a thing, and it was entirely possible that the next person to enter the ready room would discover a small pile of ash on the floor that would be the entire remains of the ship’s first officer.

Then, with a slight smile, she said, “I think you have other things to worry about at the moment besides me.”

At which point the red alert klaxon began to sound. Morgan vanished as if she had never been there, and Burgoyne muttered, “Here we go again,” as s/he sprinted out onto the bridge.

ii.

There were three vessels this time. The fact that the Excalibur had been moving at a brisk warp one had given her little ability to put distance between her and pursuers.

Individually, each of the ships was smaller than the Excalibur and not much of a threat. Collectively, however, they posed more of a difficulty, particularly considering the star-ship was endeavoring to inflict minimal damage on them.

The ships darted around the Excalibur like jackals around a lion, sniping and biting and then leaping back as the star-ship judiciously returned fire. Their phasers glanced off the shields of their harassers while the attackers, in turn, continued to pound away.

“Aft shields down thirty percent,” Kebron said. He was fighting to keep his tone neutral, and his granite exterior was as difficult to read as ever, but the frustration he was feeling was becoming more and more obvious. “We’re starting to feel it, Burgy.”

“The damned things are moving too quickly,” said Tobias, “for us to get solid target locks.”

“Phaser bombardment would do the job,” Kebron said. “Photon torpedoes, too.”

Burgoyne knew exactly what he was talking about. The crisscrossing, constantly moving smaller ships were able to elude target locks as long as the Excalibur was going easy on them. On the other hand, if the starship were to cut loose, take a more offensive posture, they could take the other vessels out of commission. But they would do so at the risk of destroying them.

“Burgy.” Kebron looked fixedly at him. “You have to let me take the gloves off.”

“No.”

“I know how you feel—”

“I have no interest in discussing feelings right now, Kebron,” Burgoyne snapped. “Do you job, right—”

“New contact!” Tobias shouted. “Moving quickly at four-two-seven mark—”

Explosions rocked the Excalibur. Burgoyne, who had been standing, was almost knocked off hir feet and caught hirself at the last moment. S/he gripped the guardrail separating the upper and lower sections of the bridge and s/he looked to the viewscreen.

It was another battle cruiser, not Thallonian in design but undoubtedly one of the members of the Protectorate, and it was packing twice the firepower of the other ships.

Burgoyne saw the imminent danger, weighed it against the safety of hir crew, and didn’t hesitate.

“Take them,” said Burgoyne.

Kebron immediately turned his attention exclusively to the battle cruiser, opening fire on the closest targets and blasting away regardless of the damage that the ship might inflict. The battle cruiser, on an attack course, was slammed off track, angling to the right and trying to escape the Excalibur’s big guns. Tobias brought around the starship in pursuit while Kebron continued to fire, pounding away at the battle cruiser’s rapidly crumbling shields.

But even the Excalibur couldn’t battle on so many fronts. Focusing her attention on the immediate threat made protecting herself against the assaults by the smaller ships that much more problematic. Kebron fired off warning volleys from the aft phasers, trying to beat them back. One of the shots even got lucky, crushing the nacelles of one of the smaller vessels, causing it to spiral away helplessly. The other two, however, were fast enough to avoid the phasers while continuing to inflict damage of their own.

Finally the wounds that the Excalibur was sustaining became too great to ignore.

“We just lost aft shields!” called Kebron. He was still exchanging fire with the battle cruiser.

The two remaining smaller vessels, sensing the weakness, came in fast and hard.

Xy was pitching in, routing the tactical readings through the science station. “Commander,” he called out over the red alert, “two ships to stern, closing fast. They have us targeted where the shields collapsed. A few hits there and we’re done.”

iii.

One of the smaller ships exploded.

The Excalibur’s bridge crew had no idea how or why it happened. All they knew was that one moment there were two ships diving toward them from behind, and the next there was one. The remaining ship pivoted, darting away from the fireball that quickly burned itself out in the vacuum of space. Huge chunks of debris were hurtling everywhere and the smaller ship moved to avoid it.

And then it was struck as well.

Once again the blasts came out of nowhere, this time a series of glancing blows. Not wanting to suffer the same fate as its companion, the smaller vessel peeled off and leaped to warp.

The battle cruiser, seeing its advantage in numbers disappearing, suddenly lost its taste for the fight. Its defensive capabilities were already supremely compromised because of the battering that it had received from the Excalibur. Unable to offer much more in the way of pitched battle, and no longer able to count on the other ships to batter away at the Excalibur while her back was turned, the battle cruiser turned away from them and started to flee. The Excalibur immediately went in pursuit, but it was more for show than anything else, particularly because the ship was still severely limited in her warp speed. But the display of determination on her part was more than sufficient to get the job done; the battle cruiser took off as well.

iv.

“Someone want to tell me what just went on here?” said Burgoyne.

Kebron and Xy were both consulting their instrumentation. “Something just came out of nowhere, Commander,” said Kebron. “Came in behind us and protected us. Blew up one ship, chased the other off.”

“Scanning the area,” Xy said. “Not picking up anything except debris from the one that blew up and the ship we managed to cripple. Do we take them aboard, Commander?”

“We have enough problems without having to worry about prisoners on board the Excal,” Burgoyne said firmly. “We leave them. With any luck, someone will pick them up. Without any luck, it’s still their problem, not ours.”

“Aye, sir.” There was a faint tone to Xy’s voice that insinuated he wasn’t entirely approving of Burgoyne’s attitude.

At that moment, Burgoyne could not have cared less. S/he was too busy reviewing what had just transpired. Blasts of weaponry, no apparent source, nothing detected now, all in defense of the Excalibur…

It made no sense.

Then Burgoyne realized that it, in fact, made perfect sense.

“Of course,” said Burgoyne. “The Spectre.”

“The Spec—” Kebron looked confused initially, for the remark seemed to have come out of nowhere. But then he comprehended what Burgoyne had already figured out, and he grunted softly in annoyance with himself. “Right. Naturally.”

Xy looked at his father with clear admiration. “An invisible ship that’s defending us. I don’t know any other ship that can open fire and remain cloaked. Who else would it be?”

“There could be more than one out there, but it doesn’t seem terribly likely to me. How about you?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Commander, we’re being hailed. It’s Soleta, all right,” said Kebron.

“Can you respond?”

“No, we’re still running on forced silence. But I can put her on-screen, even though she won’t see us.”

“Fine. That’s something, in any event.”

Soleta’s face appeared on the viewscreen of the Excalibur. She was in mid-word, which indicated that she was just talking in hopes that they were listening to her. “—blown them to hell when you had the chance, Burgoyne. When you’re under assault isn’t the time to be pulling your punches.”

Kebron looked with silent accusation at Burgoyne, clearing sharing the philosophy that Soleta was espousing. “How the hell did she know I was in command?” said Burgoyne.

“She probably assumed it since, if Calhoun were here, he would not have been pulling punches.”

“We can discuss the fine points of command decisions later,” Burgoyne said in annoyance.

“Anyway, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here,” she said. “I just thought I’d swing by. Say hello. Oh,” and she spoke in an almost convivial manner. It was hard to believe the woman was even part Vulcan. “And I brought along a friend.”

She stepped slightly back and another image appeared on the screen.

Morgan Primus gasped.

The mocking ghost image of her had remained in place at ops during the entirety of the battle with the Thallonian vessels, but now she snapped fully into place, three-dimensional and looking as real and substantial as anyone else on the bridge. Since she didn’t truly breathe, the gasp was more a residue of human reactions than any actual intake of breath. Nevertheless, the reaction spoke volumes.

Robin Lefler’s image was visible on-screen. She was cradling Cwansi in her arms.

“Hi. If anyone over there is hearing this: I think I need to talk to my mother,” she said.





Brethren Transport Vessel

Mackenzie Calhoun had a great deal to say, and no one to whom he could say it.

He had been monitoring subspace chatter as he piloted the vessel away from Xenex, and he had been appalled at what he was hearing. All the trouble that the Excalibur was in, the assault on New Thallon, and now his ship was in fugitive status…

It was obvious what was happening. Morgan was attempting some manner of endgame. It was why she had shunted Calhoun from the ship. She had put him as far away from her as she could manage and was now setting the ship up to… what? Be destroyed? And what would happen to her?

Well, that much was obvious, wasn’t it? She would have some sort of out. While the Excalibur was left as a bunch of floating scraps in space, she would be residing somewhere comfortable such as the Federation core database. No one living would have the slightest idea that she had been at all involved.

But why? Why such a byzantine plan?

He would have loved to ask her. Unfortunately, the only thing he had going for him at this point was that Morgan didn’t know where he was or what he was up to.

Which meant that Calhoun’s hands were tied.

He had to assume the worst when it came to Morgan’s abilities. If he tried to send out a subspace message informing Starfleet of where he was and what had happened, it was entirely likely that Morgan would pick up on it and trace it back to its source. That being the case, she might seize control of the ship’s navigation, turn him right around, and send him back to Xenex.

Or she might choose to crash him.

Or just blow the ship up around him.

There was no shortage of things that Morgan could do in order to head off any plans that Calhoun might have to find his ship and rendezvous with it. For that matter, considering that Starfleet must have come to the conclusion that Calhoun had gone out of his mind, he could not safely assume that communicating with them would wind up having the slightest impact. In sum, there was very little for him to gain and a tremendous amount for him to lose.

There was one thing that Calhoun did have on his side, though. He knew his crew. Particularly his command crew.

They would figure it out.

He was assuming that Morgan was posing as him, rather than having taken over the ship and forcing it to head to New Thallon. That would be a lot of work, compelling the starship to go that distance with the knowledge that they had been taken over by the computer. Why do all that when it would be much simpler to make them think that the captain was still aboard? He knew full well of Morgan’s chameleon-like ability to pose as others, and it made sense that she would employ it in that manner to minimize the muss and fuss.

But why New Thallon? What reason would Morgan put forward for going there? Once upon a time, the Thallonians had been central to the Excalibur’s mission, but now, much less so. Why there, of all places?

Ultimately Calhoun decided that it didn’t matter. Whether it was luck of the draw, or part of some master plan, it was irrelevant to the immediate situation: His ship had launched an unprovoked attack on a world and was now on the run because of it. And he, who had been parsecs away, was considered to be responsible.

Morgan would be clamping down on the Excalibur’s communications systems; that was just an obvious course of action for her to take. So he had to assume he wouldn’t be able to contact them, nor would they be able to reach him. But assuming that they had, at the very least, control of navigation—which wasn’t a safe assumption, but it was one that Calhoun had to make—then there was only one place that they would be heading. They would be making a beeline for Xenex, the last place that they knew Calhoun to be.

But he wasn’t about to wait around on Xenex, because he didn’t need to sit there and attract more of the Brethren to launch assaults upon his people. That left Calhoun with one option.

He charted a course that would take him in a direct line from Xenex to New Thallon and set out. With any luck—something that they had not had in abundance, but he could always hope—he would intercept the Excalibur while they were en route to him.

There was, of course, the problem that he was piloting a ship that they would either not recognize, or assume to be hostile. Plus there was always the chance that Morgan, if she realized who he was upon encountering him, would wind up opening fire with the ship’s weapons. But there were only so many things that Calhoun could worry about at any given moment.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Calhoun, to his chagrin, almost jumped in surprise. He had not been expecting a voice to begin speaking abruptly from practically at his elbow. And of course, if an intruder had suddenly shown up on the ship, he would have relied on his sixth sense about danger to give him warning. So when a voice simply sounded out of nowhere, he couldn’t help but be visibly startled, which in turn annoyed the hell out of him.

He turned and saw exactly who he knew he was going to see: the Visionary. He was no longer even attempting to portray himself as other people, for which Calhoun was silently grateful.

“Well, well,” said Calhoun mockingly. “Look who decided to show his face, after making clear he had no taste for actual combat.”

“I would never lower myself to fight such as you,” said the Visionary.

“Such as me?”

“A lower life form.”

“A lower life form that could kill you with his bare hands quite easily.”

“Ah, you see?” said the Visionary. “That is all you can think of: solving matters with brutality and force, as if such approaches solve anything. That is what separates you from me.”

“I thought what separated us was the distance that you make sure to keep between us so that I don’t wring your neck.” Calhoun smiled disdainfully. He reached out and put his hand through the insubstantial hologram that hovered before him. “For all your pretensions, ‘Visionary,’ you’re just another coward who can’t bear to fight his own battles.”

“What do you know of battles when you cannot even see the scope of the war? The fact is, Calhoun,” and the Visionary circled him without moving his legs or otherwise displaying any indication of walking, “that you are flailing around without any true understanding of the outcome of your actions. And there will be repercussions. Repercussions that you will seriously regret.”

“At the moment, my only regret is wasting time talking to you.”

The Visionary sighed heavily, as if contemplating a great tragedy. “Tell me, Captain: Have you ever heard of a game called ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’?”

“Can’t say I have, no. But I suspect you’re going to tell me about it, whether I wish to hear it or not.”

“It’s a human children’s game, actually. There’s some dispute whether the original name of the game was ‘blind man’s buff,’ ‘buff’ meaning to give someone a small push, or whether the use of the word ‘bluff’ referred to its older meaning as a blindfold…”

“I really don’t care,” said Calhoun, crossing to the other side of the commander center. He had to step over the unmoving body of the Brethren. The armor was starting to cool, which was a relief. Once it did, he would haul it off the bridge and dump it in the cargo hold or somewhere so that he didn’t have to look at it.

The Visionary drifted after him and continued to speak. “In the game, the person who is the next participant—‘it,’ as they say—is blindfolded. And then he has to run around, preferably in some wide-open area so that he doesn’t injure himself, trying to lay his hands on one of the other children, thereby catching or ‘tagging’ them. It’s quite comical, watching whoever it is flail about, trying not to trip over his own feet while the other children call to him and confuse him and try to keep out of the way.”

“And I’m ‘it,’ is what you’re saying?”

“That is exactly right, yes. You are ‘it,’ staggering around, trying to tag one of the other children, with no clear vision of the terrain around you, or where you are in relation to the others. You’re making moves, desperate moves, but your vision is obscured and you cannot see the field of battle. And as long as that remains the case, we’re always going to be ahead of you, just out of the reach of your questing fingers.”

“Seems to me,” Calhoun said, “that I’m able to see just fine. I saw your precious Brethren dying at my hands, including that one over there,” and he pointed toward the corpse lying a short distance away. “So as much as I appreciate your concern, I think I have the situation under control.”

“Yes. I know you think you do. And that is the greatest tragedy of all.”

And with a slow shaking of his head, the Visionary faded out. He did not do so all at once, but instead part-by-part until the only thing remaining was his smile, hanging mockingly in the air. At least Calhoun thought it was a smile. Then again, it wasn’t always the easiest thing to discern what it was he was looking at when it came to the D’myurj. It might have been a part of his spine turned sideways; it was tough to tell sometimes.

Calhoun may have been unfamiliar with Blind Man’s Bluff, but he certainly recognized something else from Earth culture.

“So now you’re the Cheshire cat. Meaning you’re the cat and I’m the mouse,” he said sarcastically.

“A clever comparison, but I think we’ll remain with the concept of Blind Man’s Bluff. Enjoy the rest of the game, Captain.”

And with that the smile, if that’s what it indeed was, vanished along with the rest of the Visionary.