make it?”
“You mean are we going to be able to get clear of Thallonian space and get all the way back to Xenex, moving at warp one, with Starfleet coming after us, no means of telling them what’s happening, trying to defend ourselves using only nonlethal means, and a berserk computer entity in charge of the ship?”
“Yes.”
Burgoyne studied him with a deadpan. “I love this plan. I don’t see how it can possibly fail.”
The Spectre
i.
Soleta studied the messages that were coming over subspace. She checked them and rechecked them. She looked over everything that she was picking up from the open channels, and then used her ship’s espionage capabilities to tap into the secure channels that no one outside of Starfleet was supposed to be able to access.
She couldn’t believe any of it. None of it made any sense.
It was a deep, knotty problem that would have left just about anyone else scratching their heads and wondering what in the world could possibly be happening on the Excalibur and what was going through Calhoun’s mind.
Soleta required five entire seconds to figure it out. In retrospect, she would wonder why in the world it took her that long.
Moments later both Seven and the Doctor had responded to her summons to the bridge. They had been inspecting the interior of the stealth ship, amazed and fascinated by what they were seeing since neither of them had ever been in any Romulan vessel before, much less a one-of-a-kind stealth vessel. “Your ship is very impressive,” Seven began, but then she saw the look on Soleta’s face. Even though she was part Romulan and had shaken off much of the Vulcan training that would have kept her irrevocably stoic, it was still evident that something had gone wrong. “What happened?” said Seven.
“A ton of chatter claiming that the Excalibur launched an unprovoked attack on New Thallon and then fled the scene.”
“Is that likely?” asked the Doctor.
“I wouldn’t just say it’s unlikely. I would say it’s flat out impossible,” Soleta said firmly. “There is no way Captain Calhoun attacks for no reason.”
“Then perhaps,” said Seven, “it was not Captain Calhoun who did it.”
“I reached the same conclusion.”
The Doctor, on the other hand, was a bit slower to comprehend. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting, Doctor,” Soleta said pointedly, “that the computer entity you’ve been defending—the one against whom you’re reluctant to take any action—has taken over the ship and murdered who knows how many people. The one to whom you’re clearly willing to give the benefit of the doubt—”
“And are you not quick to do the same for Captain Calhoun?” the Doctor replied. “You reject out of hand the notion that he might have had some manner of… I don’t know, a mental breakdown.”
“Yes. I do reject that notion. Because I know him. How well do you know Morgan?”
“Not at all,” he was forced to admit.
“No. Not at all. You’re just anxious to make as many allowances for her as possible because you think she’s just like you. But she’s not, Doctor,” said Soleta, hammering home the point. “She’s no more like you than a mass murderer is like me. And the sooner you come to the conclusion that computer entities are just as capable of being total bastards as living beings, the better off we’re all going to be.”
“Soleta,” Seven said sharply, catching her attention. “That’s enough. You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?”
Rather than Seven answering her, the Doctor did so. “Yes, you have. Repeatedly. You think it obvious that Morgan is responsible for this because she is a heartless machine, and only a heartless machine would be capable of such an action. No human, in the history of life, has ever committed an unprovoked attack.”
“Mackenzie Calhoun isn’t human,” said Soleta. “Neither am I. Whether Xenexians have ever engaged in unwarranted attacks, I couldn’t say. I know that Vulcans, long ago in their history, did. And that Romulans did so far more recently than that. In this case, though… at this time, in this instance… logic dictates that the entity calling itself Morgan Primus is responsible rather than Captain Calhoun. And we need to stop her. And I need to know, right now, if we can count on you or if we can’t. We have a real situation with real consequences if we don’t get the job done. Right now, Doctor: Where do you stand? With your loyalties to virtual beings? Or to us?”
“You.”
“Because this is no longer something theoretical. This is…” She stopped and looked