as well as my beloved brother did. And when the wars I must now face are finished, I will return here and we will gather and I will tell you of what I encountered and the great battles that I fought, and we will celebrate our collective triumph over our enemies!”
He did not stay any longer to listen to the continued cheers, turning away as the doors shut behind him. Quickly he set a course toward deep space. He could not help but consider the notion that departing into the heavens was about as obvious a means of drawing a direct connection between himself and the gods as was possible.
D’ndai would have found it extremely amusing.
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