Requiem: Excalibur Book One

So the ship has been destroyed, Shelby is angling for promotion and the rest of our characters are scattered throughout the quadrant, doing their own things. Cwan and his sister investigate the death of an old teacher, Kebron and mcHenry take on a mission for Admiral Nechayev and Soleta tracks down her biological father. In true New Frontier tradition, Soleta's father provides her an emotional roller coaster, Kebron and and McHenry's mission causes us to realise that mark is even weirder than we previously assumed, and Cwan finds himself yet another warpath on which to embark.

Of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, there's no sign. why the starship "blew up", there's no description. precisely what about Mark McHenry is so fascinating to perhaps the most powerful of beings in the universe, we don't know. And as if that weren't enough, Soleta's adoptive father comes out with the line "They were here, on Vulcan. Caused quite a bit of commotion. Some very spirited debate over...", referring to Selar and Burgoyne.
But over what, precisely? Is Calhoun really dead and how did he die? What's happening with everyone else we've come to care about? Xyon Senior is still roaming the universe, after all, so things are bound to heat up once more.

The destruction of the Excalibre certainly blasted the series to bits - it's gone from following a crew all in one place to a group of people divided. but there's still something between this ragtag displaced group of people. "To maintain the previous crew would be to maintain the ghost of Mackenzie Calhoun at all times," Selar declares. And she's right: so has Mac truly kicked the bucket, heroically holding on to save his crew? Or is he still flying around somewhere, poised to return to the federation and reunite his orphaned shipmates for yet more bitingly amusing adventures? Only time (and the rest of the books in the series) will tell.