And certainly matters had been exacerbated when he’d shown up at Danter. Her ire over his abrupt appearance had been quite obvious. Once again she took it as an implicit statement that she wasn’t up to certain challenges on her own. That she needed Calhoun watching her back. As far as she was concerned, Calhoun had made the careful and considered judgment that he was more qualified to handle the Danteri than she was.

Again ... he wanted to believe he didn’t feel that way.

So now another matter had arisen. The Tholians, notoriously belligerent, certainly up to no good, had come upon the scene. Both the Tridentand the Excaliburwere potentially at risk and Shelby, as ranking officer on the scene, would be the one to make the key decisions as to how to proceed.

Unless Calhoun returned. In which case he would be senior officer, and Shelby would be required by Starfleet protocol to take her cues from him.

It would make eminent sense for him to return to the Excaliburand take charge. And the chances were that Shelby would certainly see it that way. Not even think twice about it.

Then again, there was always the possibility that she might take it as yet another tacit commentary on her capabilities.

Certainly that wasn’t his problem. If she had such issues, then they were hers, not his. Except there was the possibility that he had contributed to them.

And besides, this was his wife. Although she might well raise a protest to the very idea, in Calhoun’s mind that still entitled her to special considerations.

There was no way that Burgoyne would have suspected that all of that had gone through Calhoun’s mind in the brief instants of silence. And then Calhoun said, “Tell Captain Shelby that I trust her to handle the situation. Calhoun out.”

There. Just like that, Calhoun had made abundantly clear that he had every confidence in Shelby’s command skills. He was, after all, trusting the welfare of his vessel to her.

“What situation, Captain?”

Calhoun knew perfectly well that Si Cwan had been approaching him from behind. Even distracted as he was, very little happened anywhere in proximity to him that Calhoun was unaware of. He turned to see both Cwan and also Ambassador Spock a few yards away.

As quickly as he could, Calhoun outlined what he’d just learned. Si Cwan simply shrugged, having little to no experience with the Tholians. Ambassador Spock, on the other hand, commented, “I am not entirely surprised. There are very few predicaments that the Tholians cannot exacerbate if they put their minds to it.”

“You’re familiar with them?” asked Calhoun.

Spock inclined his head slightly, signaling the affirmative. “When one reaches my age, Captain, one is hard-pressed to find anything with which I do not have at least some degree of familiarity.”

“And what happened when you encountered them?”

“They endeavored to snare the Enterprisein what was, conceivably, the most inefficient device ever utilized to attempt capture of a ship: a large energy web that required both an inordinate amount of time to construct and also the target vessel to remain in one spot during that entire time.”

“And the Enterprisecooperated with those conditions?” asked Calhoun.

“It was necessary for us to remain on station in order to retrieve our captain from a dimensional rip.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“I would have thought ‘tedious’ to be the more accurate summation,” Spock replied.

“So there’s no problem then,” said Si Cwan. “All the ships need to do is keep moving, and there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Not necessarily. In the time since we encountered them, their weaponry has improved.”

“So has ours,” Calhoun assured him, all business. “Now would you mind telling me what you two are doing here?”

“Is it not obvious?” asked Spock.

Calhoun smiled raggedly. “In retrospect, I suppose it is. You were the ones who reported that Soleta was missing. I told you I was going to come here to the senate, to confront these bastards over Soleta’s disappearance, and also the business with Kebron. To say we’re getting mixed messages regarding the Beings is to understate it. I’m tired of being told how benevolent they are and then having my people ill-treated by them.”

“I have to say I agree, Captain,” Si Cwan said readily, “but if my weeks of experience here on Danter are any guidance, you’ll be extremely lucky even to get a word in edgewise with the Danteri senate. Gods know I tried on a number of occasions. They were certainly polite enough when they wanted me to come here initially, but they showed their true selves soon enough. Every single action I tried to take, every initiative I introduced to help bring the new Thallonian Empire to fruition, became hopelessly bogged down in committees, politics, and individual interests.”

“I regret to inform you, Ambassador,” said Spock, “that you will find that to be the case quite frequently in virtually any governing system other than a dictatorship.”

Si Cwan stared at him a moment. “If that was intended to disparage the worth of dictatorships, Ambassador, then I regret to inform you that you’ve failed utterly.”

Spock merely raised a skeptical eyebrow. Then he turned back to Calhoun. “Do you have a plan as to how to proceed, Captain?”

“I was considering going in there and hitting people until they give me what I want.”

“Ah. The Kirk Maneuver.”

Calhoun looked at Spock askance for a moment, not entirely sure whether that was intended as a compliment or a joke, and then pivoted on his heel and headed into the senate building. After a brief pause, Si Cwan and Spock followed him in.

Calhoun walked past the various statues and mosaics depicting great moments in Danteri history. He knew them all too well, having been to Danter on previous excursions. Excursions that had left him with a very bitter taste in his mouth.

Suddenly he stopped so abruptly that, had Si Cwan had slower reflexes, he would have collided with him. “Grozit,”murmured Calhoun.

“Captain, what’s wr—?” asked Si Cwan, and then he looked around and saw it as well.

All the depictions of the proud history of Danter were gone. In their place were mosaics of various of the Beings. They were drenched in glittering represented sunlight, and in each of the renderings, there were people on their knees, gesticulating and bowing to the Beings as they looked down benevolently at their worshippers. Calhoun spotted the rendering of Artemis instantly, and there was Anubis, and there were others as well that he didn’t immediately know.

Si Cwan realized it too. “What happened to the frescoes? The pictures of Danteri history.”

“History has changed.”

It was Soleta who had spoken.

She stood there, calmly and coolly, her hands casually in front of her and her fingers interlaced.

And she was smiling.

That was naturally the thing that struck Calhoun almost instantly. His Vulcan science officer was smiling. It wasn’t a broad grin or any such thing, but there was a definite smile of pleasure.

“Lieutenant ... are you all right?” Calhoun said, taking a step toward her. “And what do you mean ‘history has changed.’ Are you saying there’s some sort of temporal shift ... ?”

She laughed. Calhoun had never heard her laugh. It was an odd sound, like something that had rusted over and was only now being oiled into use. “No. No, Captain. This isn’t like when you slingshot us back through time. I simply meant that things are different around here now. We saw some of that before, didn’t we, Ambassador Spock?”

“We did,” Spock said in his gravelly voice. “That was, however, before you were kidnapped. Such an action would seem to indicate an environment that is less than hospitable.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped, Spock,” replied Soleta. “To be kidnapped, you have to be transported against your will.”