by Peter David
The figure suddenly seemed to stand up, looming large in front of her. Zolon Darg emerged from the mist and looked at her as if seeing her for the very first time.
“Hello, Vandelia,” he said.
Then he killed her.
XXII.
PICARD HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how he had become separated from Calhoun, but there was no time to worry about it at that point. What was of far greater concern were the men who were pursuing him.
He turned quickly, spotted an open lift, and charged toward it. He ducked, weaved, ran as fast as he could. A blast bolt singed his shoulder and he staggered, but he tumbled into the lift, losing his grip on his blaster as he did so. “Level 3A!” he called, which was how he had seen it demarcated on the schematic.
The doors slid closed…but just before they did, a Thallonian leaped the distance and fell into the lift car atop Picard. The car started up.
The Thallonian snarled into Picard’s face, tried to bring his blaster up. Picard gripped his wrist and they struggled furiously as Picard tried to aim it away from himself. The blaster discharged, blasting through the clear backing of the lift that overlooked the dizzying interior of the sphere.
Picard and the Thallonian struggled to their feet, pushing and shoving against one another. The blaster went off again, ricocheting and striking a glancing blow against the Thallonian’s heavily armored back. It wasn’t sufficient to hurt him. It was, however, enough to knock both the Thallonian and Picard back and out the gaping hole in the back of the turbolift.
For a moment, there was nothing between Picard and a drop except air, and he was floating in the zero-g environment. Then he snagged the shattered exterior of the lift. It sliced up his hand fiercely, but it held firm.
The Thallonian was less fortunate. He tumbled away from the lift, but he did so in extreme slow motion. He tried to make it back to the lift, looking for all the world as if he were swimming in the air. But he simply drifted backward, faster and faster, heading toward the core of the sphere where the massive cloaking device was.
Picard knew immediately what was going to happen. When he hit the gravimetric center of the sphere, he was going to make a fairly significant splat. And if Picard didn’t manage to haul himself back into safety, he was going to go the same way.
The slicing of his hand was excruciating—it was like massaging broken glass—but Picard had no choice. Setting his jaw determinedly, he dragged himself into the lift, fighting against the zero G which seemed so buoyant but was, in fact, so deadly. In a moment he was tumbled to the floor, and then looked up as the door opened on the level that he had requested.
He picked up the blaster that he had dropped on the floor of the turbolift and staggered out. His blood-covered palms made it difficult to grip the gun securely, but he had to do the best he could. He looked around desperately and saw signs pointing to the lab. How exceptionally convenient.
He followed them quickly, got to the lab, and just as he arrived, ran into another squadron of guards. They had their weapons out, he was ten feet short of the door to the lab, and they absolutely had him cold.
At that point, Mackenzie Calhoun ran by.
And another. And another still.
“Get him!” the lead attacker shouted, but they had no idea which “him” to get. “And him!” he added, and pointed at Picard.
Several of them indeed fired right at Picard, and he would have been dead if Calhoun had not thrown himself into the blaster’s path. The shot took him down from the back, and Calhoun collapsed into Picard’s arms.
“Mac!” Picard cried out.
At which point, Calhoun abruptly got to his feet and started running back the other way.
By then, everyone was so confused, that they totally missed it when Picard charged into the laboratory.
There were workers and people whom Picard presumed to be scientists within the lab. They were milling about in confusion, clearly concerned over the shots that they were hearing just outside. One of them, not realizing that Picard was the target of those shots, demanded, “What’s going on out there? Are you people insane! We can’t have blasts flying around here! We can’t—”
Picard aimed his blaster squarely at the scientist’s face. “You can’t…what?”
He froze. They all did. When he spoke again, it was with a stammer. “We…there are dangerous chemicals…things here that can’t…that mustn’t…”
“Things such as the Double Helix virus?” Picard said, his blaster never wavering. His hands were throbbing. It was everything he could do to hold his weapon steady.
There were apprehensive nods from everyone in the room.
“And that means it would be very, very bad if something were to be broken…wouldn’t it…because it might release something that you don’t want released…”
At which point, he swung his blaster around in a sweep of the room. He didn’t fire…he just aimed. But when he was pointing to one corner in particular, that caused an alarmed jump by nearly everyone in the room.
A-ha, he thought as he crossed quickly. Several of the scientists made a move toward him, but he held them back with a glance that spoke volumes.
There were vials, samples lining the wall where he was standing. “Which one?” he demanded. “Which one is the Double Helix? And which one is the cure?”
“There is no cure!” one of the scientists said, and the others bobbed their heads in agreement.
It was too spontaneous a reply to be a falsehood. Picard’s heart sank when he heard it, but then he reasoned that if the Federation got their hands on a pure sample of the virus, perhaps their researchers could find it. “A sample. a sample of the virus. I need it, now.”
“But…”
“Now!”
They pointed to one of the tubes, and he snatched it up.
“No, that’s the wrong one! It’s not the standard virus…that one’s highly concentrated!” one of them said. “Ten times more virulent! You—!”
Suddenly the pursuing guards burst in through the door, their weapons ready to blast holes into anything and everything.
Considering the inflammatory nature of the moment, Picard was remarkably calm. He simply held the vial up and said, coolly, “You would not like me to drop this?”
In spite of themselves, the guards cast a glance at the scientists. There were rapid and very anxious shakings of heads from all of them, verifying the notion that shooting at Picard at that moment in time would be an extremely bad idea.
Slowly Picard moved toward the door, holding the vial in front of him. “That’s it. That’s fine. Everyone stay right where they are,” he said. “My hands are slippery enough with blood, you see. Wouldn’t want me to be even more clumsy, would you? Now, clear the way.” They didn’t move. His voice dropped even lower, so low that one would have been inclined to check and see if he still had a pulse. “Clear…the…way,” he said very slowly, very methodically, and very dangerously.
They cleared the way.
Calhoun had run to the upper levels and no one stopped him. He had done so through a rather crafty subterfuge that he was, in fact, rather proud of. He had circled around to where Vandelia had dispatched the group of guards, torn off a piece of cloth from one of them, soaked it in the widening pool of blood, and then held it up to the right side of his face. He then proceeded to run as fast as he could, using stairwells and ladders rather than the lifts which he felt would be watched more carefully. He kept the cloth pressed against his face.
The first time he encountered a squadron of guards, he said nothing, but simply pointed and gesticulated while groaning. What the guards saw was a man who had clearly been badly injured by the escaped prisoners who were somewhere behind him. They promptly ran right past Calhoun and, grinning to himself, he kept on going. It happened three more times as he made his way up the sphere, and each time played out in exactly the same manner.
The fourth time, while on the third level, it didn’t work.
&n
bsp; It worked at first as they started off down the hall. But then around the corner came Lodec, and he and Calhoun froze, face to face. Lodec wasn’t fooled for a second, but for a moment— just a moment—doubt seemed to play across his face.
Calhoun brought his blaster up, operating completely on instinct, ready to shoot Lodec down. And he, likewise, hesitated for a moment.
And then Lodec shouted, “Calhoun! He’s here!”
The guards, as one, turned and charged back.
Calhoun shoved his tongue against the replicator inside his mouth, and suddenly multiple versions of himself sprang into existence and started running in all directions. The guards were frozen in confusion, and when they did start opening fire, it was too late. As for the real Calhoun, he paused only long enough to swing a roundhouse punch that flattened Lodec. He hoped he had broken his jaw, and would have liked to do more, but it was all he had time for.
Just ahead of him, on the uppermost floor, was the computer room. He braced himself, holding his blaster firmly, and then he thrust himself in, coming in low, getting ready to fire…There was no one there.
That wasn’t entirely true, actually. Vandelia was there, her body tilted back on the chair, blood trickling from her mouth. Calhoun could see from across the room that she was dead. God knew he had seen it enough.
Even so, he didn’t want to believe it was true. He approached her slowly, hoping against hope that somehow she would just get up, come back to life. That it was all some sort of a sick joke. Then he heard her voice, and she was whispering, “I wanted to dance…for just you…Mac…one more time…” And then her voice rattled in her throat.
And then she repeated it…and died again…and again…
He turned and saw Darg’s image on the screen. He was smiling. It was not a pleasant expression.
“Those were her last words, Calhoun. I recorded them for you. I knew you’d want to hear them. If you’re hearing this…which I assume you are…I can further assume that you’re in the main computer room. That’s where you would naturally come to try and head off Thul’s plan. That is naturally where we would be…if we didn’t mind being easy targets for you. We’re secured in another part of the station, I assure you, preparing for the great moment. I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It would be most appreciated, however, if you would kindly…die.”
At that moment, Calhoun had no idea where to go.
At that moment, Calhoun didn’t care.
The door to the computer room slid open, as he knew it would. Darg was standing there, as he knew he would be. He was empty-handed, and he waggled his fingers toward Calhoun. Pressing in around him, from all sides, were armed guards. They had their weapons trained on Calhoun. The slightest move and they could easily blast him to free-floating atoms.
“If you drop the weapon…you have an opportunity at me…man to man. If you don’t drop the weapon…my men drop you.” He paused and then said softly, “Come on, Calhoun. You know you want it.”
Calhoun allowed the blaster to drop from his fingers. At that moment, they could easily have killed him where he stood.
They didn’t. Instead, they simply watched and grinned. Clearly they were all of the opinion that Darg was in absolutely no danger at all. But at that moment, Calhoun didn’t give a damn what they thought. Instead he charged toward the far bigger man, building up speed with every moment, and he slammed into Darg with everything he had.
And bounced off.
His head spun around him as he hit the floor. He had no idea what had just happened. It had been like crashing into a bulkhead at full tilt. His eyes crossed and then uncrossed and he looked up at Darg who was coming right toward him, his fist cocked and ready to slam home. He barely managed to roll out of the way in time as Darg smashed the floor where he’d just been and made a hole in it the size of a watermelon.
Calhoun stumbled out the door. Darg’s men made no effort to stop him. They seemed to be having too good a time. Darg lumbered after him, coming toward him like a tidal wave, just as easy to reason with, just as unstoppable.
“A little different this time,” he rumbled. “Come back here, Calhoun. We have old scores to settle.”
He closed on Calhoun, swung an uppercut that could have taken off Calhoun’s head had it connected. Calhoun barely dodged it, moved out of the way of a second thrust, dodged a third. “Stay still!” snarled Darg, but Calhoun did not feel inclined to oblige.
Once more Darg swung, and once more Calhoun got around him, and this time Darg was slightly off balance. Calhoun moved quickly and drove a punch to Darg’s jaw. Darg let out an angry yelp and staggered, and Calhoun hit him in the head a second time, staggering him. But then he pressed his luck and this time Darg caught his hand, yanked him off his feet, and slammed him against the wall as if he were a beanbag.
Calhoun felt his face starting to swell from the impact of hitting the wall face-first. He saw Darg advancing on him. Trying to stall for time, he pushed his tongue against the false tooth to activate it. Nothing. Instead he felt the broken shards of the device crumble in his mouth. The impact had shattered it. He spit it out and made a mental note to write a memo to Nechayev about the durability of SI devices.
Darg extended his hands…and razor-sharp blades snapped out of the ends of his fingers. He swiped at Calhoun, slashing across his tunic, and Calhoun barely managed to avoid more serious injury. He stared at the blades uncomprehendingly.
“You still don’t understand, do you,” Darg said. “All right. I’ll make it clear for you.” He turned the blades toward himself and slashed open his shirt. It fluttered to the ground in several pieces, to reveal Darg’s glistening metal silver torso.
“Thul found me, damned near dead. He was impressed I’d survived that long on sheer hatred. He kept me alive and took me to Narobi. They built me this body. My head, my brain’s all that’s left. I’m not a man anymore. I’m a walking weapon, a machine that pretends it’s vaguely alive. A freak. And it’s your fault, Calhoun. Your fault!” Upon the last words, he succumbed to total rage and charged at Calhoun.
Calhoun twisted loose the heel of his boot. It came clear and he aimed and fired. The phaser blasted out, smashing Darg squarely in the chest. It knocked him back and he fell with a startled grunt.
Calhoun did the only thing that seemed reasonable under the circumstances. He turned and run.
One of Darg’s men tried to fire after him, but Darg slapped the weapon from his hand. “No! He’s mine! After all this time, he’s mine!” He charged after Calhoun, the floor trembling under his footfall.
In the back-up computer room to which they had been relocated, Kendrow was making the final adjustments under the watchful eyes of Silver and Gerrid Thul. “We’re running out of lime, Mr. Kendrow,” Thul said. He didn’t sound nearly as jovial as he usually did.
“I’m very aware of that, sir,” said Kendrow nervously. “But I’m getting some odd readings off the Omega 9. Having a bit of trouble locking down some of the neural nets…”
“I have far too much riding on this, Kendrow.” He pointed below him at the masses who were watching the ceremony about to start. “When one makes the sort of announcements that I have made, it is incumbent upon me…for the purpose of my sustained credibility…to see them through. I do not need last-minute glitches ruining my plans.”
“Neither do I!” Kendrow shot back, sounding rather nervous. “Do you think I don’t know what you’ll do to me if I—”
“Steady, Kendrow, steady,” said Thul gently. “Just do your job. Silver…are you prepared?”
Silver was seated in front of the interface panel. He had his palm flat, prepared for the process to begin. “I am ready,” he said in that flat and rather unappealing voice of his.
“Excellent.” Thul’s eyes glittered with anticipation.
Calhoun found an access port directly in front of him, and then he heard the thundering footfall of Darg coming in fast behind him. He ripped open the ac
cess port and dropped through.
He landed lightly on a narrow maintenance bridge and made the hideous mistake of looking down.
“Down,” in this instance, went on forever. Because he was at the uppermost point of the sphere, standing on a very small bridge which ran across the top of the gigantic column that fed energy into the cloaking device. It was anchored to the top of the sphere by support struts overhead.
Far, far below him, in the center of the great sphere, the cloaking device hummed powerfully.
Clutching onto the railings, Calhoun started running the length of the maintenance bridge. He had almost made it to the far end when he heard a tearing of metal, and then Zolon Darg dropped onto the bridge in front of him. Darg looked utterly confident. There was no reason for him not to be.
“Shoot me again,” Darg challenged him. “Go ahead.”
Calhoun aimed for Darg’s head and fired. But Darg easily blocked the shots by raising his huge metal arms in front of his face and deflecting the blasts. Quickly, Calhoun squeezed the sides of the heel-shaped phaser instead, increasing the intensity of the blast. This actually caused Darg to stagger under the barrage, but it also seemed to anger him more. Despite the sustained assault, Darg advanced step after steady step. His arms outstretched, he was within five feet of Calhoun, then four and then three, and the phaser blast was starting to falter. Calhoun realized that he was reaching the limit of the small phaser’s energy capacity.
Calhoun backed up, further and further, and cast a desperate glance behind and up. He saw Darg’s men clustered at the access port above and behind him. They didn’t seem about to let him climb out. Instead they grinned and pointed and clearly were waiting for the inevitable moment when Darg would get his mechanical hands on him.
He glanced up at the support struts…levelled his phaser, and fired.
Darg’s smug grin of triumph flickered and then vanished as he saw what Calhoun was doing. “Wait! Hold it, you idiot! Stop!”
But it was too late. The phaser blast tore through the support struts, weakened it sufficiently, and the entire thing tore loose. The maintenance bridge, with a groan of metal, angled wildly downward, affixed to the ceiling only by the struts behind Calhoun. Calhoun clambered toward the section that was still secured, holding on to the railing for dear life as the bridge slanted wildly beneath him, threatening to send them both tumbling off.
