Chapter 5
"Mac, this is too weird even for us. I just can't see some cosmic entity, or even simple coincidence possibly placing us in a situation where we, of all crews in the fleet, would be the ones to have to deal with something like this. Not just once mind you, but twice." As soon as Tom had gotten them into orbit, Shelby had retreated into her ready room; she had nothing to do at the moment other than waiting for the engineers to repair everything that had blown. And there had been plenty. If Tom hadn't been the one at the helm it would have been worse. As it was they were looking at two or three days before they could manage more than short jumps at speed. The first thing she did after getting the damage assessment was call Mac. After the message she got and her own gut instinct she knew that these dreams had to be more literal than meets the eye.
"Eppy, you should know better than to say things like that. Every time one of us says that it gets weirder. Now start from the top and tell me why you are not only angry, but scared."
"I am not scared." She would have been if she thought long enough about it. It was not her job to be scared, regardless of the situation. She had faced the Borg, Romulans, Cardassians, and even beings who had been treated as Gods in human history. Hell, she had even been in the Xenexian afterlife before. The thought of the Great Bird of Thallon coming after her and Mac specifically scared her silly. Not necessarily because her life would be in jeopardy, that circumstance happened frequently enough that she never gave that fear much thought after she acknowledged it. "I just can not figure out who I irritated enough to merit my life being like this."
A sympathetic look passed Mac's eyes. Then it faded, to be replaced by the same look he held on the bridge during a firefight. In the most serious voice he had he addressed his wife. "You fell in love with me." This was enough to bring her back to the present. "Now tell me what you found out and then we will see just how weird it is, ok?"
"Ok. But I think you will agree with me." She began briefing him.
During the whole account she remained the very professional Starfleet officer that she purported herself, she noted this with a detachment that had taken her years to truly master. As she spoke, she watched him change. In a matter of minutes he had gone from being the concerned, but frustrated Mac who was her husband to being Captain Mackenzie Calhoun. However by the time she had finished explaining the phoenix image the Captain had been replace by M'k'n'zy of Calhoun and warlord of Xenex. "Captain Shelby the Excalibur can be there in six hours. There is more than one person on this ship that has a score to settle with the Great Bird, starting with me and working its way down." He spoke more softly after the initial venom came out as he closed the channel. "Eppy, I love you. Be careful." Then finally he was the Captain again. "Calhoun out."
"Calhoun to Lefler." It only took a moment for her to respond. Calhoun was speaking before she was finished.
"Lieutenant, set a course for the damned planet where Shelby and I were picked up during the gateways fiasco. I can't remember the name of it right now. And call a senior staff meeting. I have just found out something that I think everyone should know. Make sure Sy Cwan is there as well." Mac was not a happy man at the moment. For once his wife's tendency to find paranoia comforting was actually probably the correct assumption to make. There truly had to be some form of something manipulating them at that moment. It wasn't that Mac did not believe in random events in his universe and that some of them bordered on being supernaturally inspired; he honestly subscribed to the notion that ironies such as these were simple happenstance. This time however he simply could not come to accept that this was one of those events. The whole thing smacked of being scripted by someone. Fate had definitely conspired that he deal with the creature that caused his entire life to change just one more time. He did not get much of a chance to stew over the situation when the computer addressed him. If he had been on any other ship in the fleet, he would have had a very blessed moment of silence in his ready room. But no, he had to be the Captain of the only ship in service with a ghost for a computer. Morgan Lefler had been part of his life for quite a while now. Even though her physical body had been killed in a fight with the Beings, her personality had since resided in the computer of the Excalibur.
"Captain, don't you think that you are being overly rash?"
Why me? Not only do I have a zoo for a crew, I have the only ship in known existence that has become possessed. Not only is it sentient, she is Morgan Lefler, immortal and mother of my ops officer. I am beginning to think that I did something in a former life to merit this form of punishment.
"Morgan, have you been listening the whole time?"
"I'm the ship's computer, in my own little sphere I am omniscient."
"You may well be, but you are also at least somewhat human. You are more than capable of not paying attention to things when you want to, you can simply let your processors handle it automatically." Mac was trying very hard not to show his frustration too much. Generally she did keep her nose out of day-to-day affairs, but when she did pry it usually resulted in Mac feeling like he had just spoken to his mother. Generally he tolerated it, and in truth he would not trade the inconvenience of having to put up with her. She could pilot the ship in a firefight, which since her personality was wholly human he could trust her to do well. She could navigate, man tactical, hell she was even a better doctor than the EMH and had a much better personality that Selar had most of the time. But there were times that he wished he really could purge her from the system.
"Morgan, I think I can get you to understand why I feel the way I do about this situation if you would access any files that you have on the great bird of Thallon. I want you to pay special attention to my personal logs, as well as anything found from Sy Cwan on the subject." Mac waited patiently for her to complete the task. Had she still been in a physical body he would have to wait several days for her to go through all the information but at least now all he had to wait was a few seconds.
"I think I see your point. I will withdraw my comment. Did Admiral Jellico really say those things to you?"
"That and more. I was in his office for quite a while that day. And now that you have also absorbed the sensor logs, as well as heard my conversation with Captain Shelby, I think you can understand why I feel the way I do on the matter."
"Not just that sir. I think that you also don't want to hear the aftermath."
"Ah, but here is where I can extract some revenge on having you in my computer core. You are going to have to hear all of the aftermath, as you put it, as well. Unless he decides to order us back to Earth to do his dressing down in his office."
"I can tune it out, as you just put it."
If it were any other member of his crew Calhoun would have called them to task for overstepping what they should say. But in this case there really wasn't a point to the exercise. A normal crew member could face being transferred, put on report, or even worse for being insubordinate, but what on Earth could he do when it was the ship that was calling him out? "Not if I order you not to. You may be a computer now Lefler," he purposely addressed her as if she really were just a regular crewman, "but you still are under my command, even if they have not come up with the appropriate rank for a ship."
"You know, maybe you should have tried harder to get me out of here."
"The thought of exorcism had crossed my mind once or twice."
*********
Author's note.
I know that it seems weird to see a ship that is sentient. I just finished reading the latest of the Excalibur books and at the end Morgan had inhabited the ship. Please look back to the first few chapters. I am planning a rewrite to incorporate her more into the storyline.