The doors opened. “My intentions are to step off this turbolift and go about my job.”

“If you’re so unhappy here, Lieutenant, you can always apply for a transfer.”

That caused her to turn and face him. “You’re not going to force me to run,” she said. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t run.”

“As you wish. Of course, you could consider walking very, very briskly.” And the doors closed, obscuring his smiling face.

EXCALIBUR

I.

MARK MCHENRY WAS SCREAMING as loudly as he could, but he was the only one who was hearing himself.

He could hear himself produce sentences. He heard his voice calling out the names of every single person on the ship that he could think of. He gave the Federation Oath of Allegiance. He began reciting everything he remembered from the Starfleet Handbook for Cadet Protocol. He sung every song he knew, which happened mostly to be show tunes. He began rattling off the names of planets and star systems, and that took him a good long while. He did it all for two reasons: in hopes that someone would hear him, and to keep him from going completely out of his mind.

The former was not occurring, and he was beginning to have serious doubts as to the latter.

The oddest thing about his predicament was that he was able to see. He didn’t know how that was possible, considering that he sensed his eyes were closed. Nor was he able to move a muscle of his body. Yet he felt as if he were outside of his body and inside all at the same time. But he wasn’t so far outside that he was able to move from where he was.

He could “see” the sickbay all around him. He had been staring at it helplessly for a couple of days, seeing all the injured crewmen brought in and treated by an increasingly exhausted medical staff. People kept glancing over at him, staring at him as if he was some sort of truly piteous thing. Then he sensed himself being lifted up, relocated to another part of sickbay ... probably so his continued presence wouldn’t keep upsetting people. He could see all around sickbay, but he could not see himself. And McHenry was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, that was a fortunate thing. These were Starfleet veterans, after all, accomplished and experienced crewmen. So if even they were daunted by his looks, then he must have looked pretty damned unpleasant.

Only one individual, aside from Dr. Selar, regarded him for any length of time, and that was—of all people—Moke.

Moke had approached him early on in McHenry’s imprisonment, staring at him thoughtfully. It was as if Moke was trying to see past the shell that was containing McHenry, and into the man who was trapped within. McHenry had never noticed before how deep, even endless the boy’s eyes appeared. He seemed to have what once would have been called an “old soul.” McHenry called Moke’s name as loudly as he could, and just for a moment he thought there was a flicker of recognition from the boy. But the recognition, if it was there, was quickly replaced with a look of caution. McHenry had no idea why the boy was reacting that way. It was almost as if he was afraid that someone might notice.

Then Moke walked away, and McHenry screamed after him. Then he began to sob piteously in frustration, and he’d never been more glad and relieved that no one could see him or hear him.

He lost track of the amount of time that he’d been there, trapped, restrained. Once upon a time, back in the dark ages of humanity’s medical knowledge, a person could have something called a “stroke.” A blood vessel in their brain would burst and they would become virtual prisoners in their own bodies. Cybershunts, of course, had long ago cured such physiological mishaps, relegating them to the same bin where other ailments such as smallpox, cancer, and AIDS had been deposited.

It gave McHenry a feeling for what it must have been like to live back then and suffer such hideous mishaps. He wondered how in the world anyone had ever lived their lives, knowing that at any moment they could be transformed into this ... this state of nonbeing.

McHenry lost track of time. He had no clue how long he had existed in this twilight state, or whether he would continue to do so. He did, however, begin to notice a few things as he turned his attention inward.

He wasn’t breathing.

His heart had stopped beating.

I’m dead... oh my God, I’m dead... well, this just stinks.

But it made no sense. If he was dead, why was he still lying around in sickbay? Since when had sickbay become a morgue? Were they ... were they going to shoot his body off into space? Was he going to just float around forever in the depths of the void, an eternal prisoner in his own corpse? The airlessness of space would likely preserve his body under eternity. Of all the ways he had envisioned his demise and final fate, somehow he had never seen this.

For some reason, he’d always imagined that he would die while having sex. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought that. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. Have one’s heart give out at just the right moment. Go out with a bang. It was the sort of stuff of which Starfleet legends were made. He was wistful for the days when he thought his passing would involve something as trite as that.

Day turned into night and into day and into infinity, and he was suffering from both a lack of, and too much, sensory input. As always, he was able to divine his literal place in the universe. The Excaliburwas definitely moving. It was doing so slowly, cautiously. He began to get the feeling that the great starship was being towed, although he wasn’t certain how he knew. He made some mental calculations, visualized their course and where it would take them, and concluded that they were heading toward Starbase 27. They must have been fairly badly hurt if they required aid at a starbase. Furthermore, he knew Captain Calhoun. Calhoun was a proud bastard; if he admitted that he needed help, they must have taken quite a pounding.

What had Artemis and her pals done to them?

“We gave you a beating, you pack of ingrates.”

Mark McHenry let out a yelp and jolted in shock and jumped up ... all in his head, of course. In reality, his body remained exactly where it was, unmoving, unresponsive. His thoughts were scrambled after days (weeks? months?) of lack of focus, and it took him a few moments (minutes? hours?) to string together words into a coherent sentence. “Who is that? Is that you, Artemis?”

“Of course it is. Who else would it be?”

“You bitch. If I could just get my hands on you, I would—”

“You would what?”

He had no sight, and yet she moved into his sight line. She was smiling at him, looking as strikingly beautiful as she ever had. Her more-than-human beauty still chilled him, although it was a far colder chill than he’d known in his youth. When she had first come to him, he had found it all exciting and amazing. He’d been too young to understand, and then when he’d become a teen and she had introduced him to other “aspects” of male/female relationships, he’d been filled with a sense of wonder and amazement.

Now she just scared the crap out of him ... although there was a large measure of anger in him as well. Because of her and the other Beings, he was in this predicament. ...

“Because of us, you are all that you are,”her voice came, penetrating deep into his mind. Her lips didn’t move. Her eyes were luminous, her thick hair cascading around her shoulders. “The great Apollo lay with your ancestor, and his godhead is carried within you. You do not truly think you would have achieved your current greatness and position if the aura of Apollo did not surge within you, do you?”