Drawing himself up, Boretskee said sharply, "And now we're next, is that it? Is that how this goes? Unless the starship does what you tell it to do?"

"That is correct, yes," replied Celter. Laheera nodded in silent agreement as Celter continued, "Now listen carefully to me. You have one chance, and one chance only, to survive. Captain Calhoun has made it clear that he is perfectly willing to let you die. It is up to you to change his mind. If you do not, we shall kill you all. Is that clear?"

Boretskee took a step forward, his body trembling with rage. He was something of a scrapper, and his dearest wish was to tell Laheera and Celter and every member of the Nelkarite race to simply drop dead and do their worst. But then he saw the frightened look on his wife's face, and saw likewise the fear in the expressions of the other refugees, reduced to nothing more than pieces in a sick power struggle between the Nelkarites and the Excalibur.And he could not help but feel that his was the responsibility. Calhoun had voiced apprehension about the Nelkarites, but Boretskee and Cary had insisted that taking the Nelkarites up on their offer was the right way to go. And now look where everyone stood. No, if anyone was going to do something about this mess, by right it had to be Boretskee.

"All right," he said slowly. "Let me talk to him." And, noticing the sobbing young girl, he nodded his head in her direction and said, "And her, too. Calhoun would have to be one cold-hearted son of a bitch to ignore the pleadings of a child. Between the two of us we should be able to get him to do what you want," and silently he added, . . . you bastards.

You bastard,thought Commander Elizabeth Shelby, but she didn't say it.

In the captain's ready room, just off the bridge, it was entirely possible that she didn't have to say it. She stood there, facing Calhoun, who was looking thoughtfully out his observation window.

"You're not really going to do this thing," she said.

"Is that an order or a question?" he asked, his purple eyes flickering in—damn him—amusement.

"You cannot simply abandon the refugees to the mercies of the Nelkarites. Furthermore, you cannot then exact some sort of vengeance by firing upon Nelkar."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely puzzled. "Which part?"

"The whole thing!"

"Indeed." He frowned a moment, and then started ticking off examples on his fingers. "If I had forced the refugees to remain on the ship against their will, that would have constituted kidnapping. Kidnapping is against regs. So, in accordance with regulation, I allowed them to settle on Nelkar. As such, they are now part of Nelkar society. If the Nelkarites decide that they want to obliterate the refugees, that falls under their prerogative, as per the Prime Directive. Correct?"

Her mouth opened for a moment, and then closed. Grimly, she nodded.

"That leaves the question of firing upon the Nelkarites. The Nelkarites are endeavoring to perform extortion. Attempting to perform extortion upon a Federation vessel is a violation of Federation law. As captain of the Excalibur,I am the authorized representative of Federation law for this sector. I consider the populace of Nelkar guilty of extortion. Would you argue that they're not?"

"No," she said quietly.

"No reasonable person would. So they're guilty as charged, tried and convicted in absentia. I also have broad latitude when it comes to deciding upon a sentence. So I sentence them to photon torpedo barrage."

"There is no such sentence in Federation law," Shelby informed him.

"True, but that's the 'broad latitude' part."

She slammed the table with her open palms, much as he had done the other day. It caused the objects on the surface to rattle. "There's got to be another way," she said tightly. "There's got to be. This isn't a word game. This isn't a puzzle. This isn't a joke—"

"I know it's not," replied Calhoun, and for just a moment he let the frustration he was feeling show in his voice. He ran his fingers through his dark hair in frustration. "You don't understand, Elizabeth. I've faced this sort of situation before."

She tilted her head slightly and looked at him in puzzlement. "During your Starfleet career?"

He shook his head. "No. On Xenex, when I was a teenager." He leaned against his viewing port, and for the first time Shelby noticed that he looked extremely tired. "The Danteri captured the population of a small village, marched the people out, and announced that they were going to kill them all unless we, the leaders of the rebellion, surrendered ourselves."

"And did you?" she asked.

He grunted. "Of course not. We weren't stupid. They would have killed us immediately. I wish you could have seen those people, those captives. Down to the smallest child, every one of them was filled with Xenexian pride. Their heads held high, their faces unflinching."

"And you just. . . just stood by and let them all be slaughtered?"

"No," he said quietly. "We attacked. We attacked the Danteri while they were in the village. As we expected, they tried to use the citizens as shields. And there were the Xenexian hostages, shouting loudly, 'Shoot through us! Don't let them hide behind us! Don't inflict that shame on us!'"

"But you didn't really shoot through them . . ." But then she saw the look in his eyes, and her voice caught. "My God, you did. You killed them all."

"No, not all. Most of them survived, a happen stance attributable to good aim on our part and the Danteri clearly being unprepared for their strategy not to work. To do otherwise would have been to bring dishonor among the Xenexians. They were willing to die for the cause."

"Well, that's really great, Mac," said Shelby, beginning to pace. "That's just swell. But here's the problem: The people stuck on Nelkar aren't out to be martyrs. They're victims who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"As were the villagers," replied Mackenzie Calhoun. "They didn't live their lives eagerly awaiting a violent death. But they were chosen by oppressors to be made pawns. If you let people with that mindset bend you to their will. . . if you give in, even once . . . it encourages further such actions."

"And it disempowers you, because you know you can be manipulated."

He nodded. "Yes. I'm pleased you understand."

Shelby stroked her chin for a moment, and then said, "If you don't mind my asking . . . who gave the order? To shoot through those hostages, I mean?"

She knew the answer even before he said it: "I did."

"And how did that make you feel? Knowing that they might be killed when you opened fire?"

"I had no feelings about it one way or the other," he said quietly. "I couldn't afford to."

"And you have no feeling about these hostages now? These people trapped below us on Nelkar?"

"None."

"I don't believe that," she said flatly. "The Mackenzie Calhoun I know wouldn't be uncaring. Wouldn't be writing them off."

He had looked away from her, but now he turned to face her and said, in a very quiet voice, "Then I guess you didn't know me all too well."

"That may have been why we broke up," she mused. Then, after a moment's further thought, she said, "Captain, there has to be some other way. Some middle ground. Some way to proceed between the extremes of simply writing off the hostages as lost, and giving in to the Nelkarites completely. Perhaps if you study precedents . . ."