And the more who came this way, backtracking or retreating from the fireworks at the far end, the greater the pileup. The musicians, carrying their bizarre instruments, tripped over downed politicians. Soldiers and police officers fell over both, trying not to shoot themselves or anyone else as they did so. By this point, Michelle’s teammates had released the wires, which spun silently back into their reels, their work done. No one would know why so many had fallen, now, but they’d look like a bunch of buffoons to the spectators. Buffoons and cowards, for running in the first place.
The council had been publicly embarrassed, and the world would now know that there was an organized opposition. Things would turn ugly now, and blood would spill, but that would be the council’s doing, not theirs. They had begun with a comedy, and the government’s response to it would launch the tragedy.
From such a small seed, a revolution would grow.
Chapter 24
Kyle had never seen Michelle quite so jubilant. It looked good on her; but then, there wasn’t much that didn’t. Maybe the gloom that descended on her like lowering storm clouds sometimes, when she came face-to-face with those parts of her past that were too painful to recall, the things she had come to Hazimot to run away from. But those moods were rare. She had not, Kyle decided, let tragedy destroy her. She used it, even now, to spur her on to action, as she had done today. He’d watched the whole thing in a neighborhood tavern just outside The End, where the interruption of the parade had at first drawn horrified gasps but then acceptance and finally raucous laughter as the city’s minor, unloved officials fell all over each other trying to run away.
He had gone home after that, arriving just a few minutes before Michelle burst in wearing a smile that involved her entire body, from the spring of her step to the way she shook her head, whipping her hair out to the sides. “It was fabulous!” she gushed. “Did you see, Joe?” Even in private, she still called him Joe, to make sure she didn’t slip up with others around.
“I saw,” he assured her. He held out his arms and she rushed into them, laughing. “You were great. All of you.”
“We were, weren’t we?” A momentary glimmer of dread passed over her face. “Some got arrested, though.”
“They were supposed to,” Kyle reminded her. That had been discussed, in great depth, at some of the meetings. Arrests were certain at this early stage. It was when the government stopped arresting and started killing that things would get really difficult.
“No, I mean of the ones who weren’t supposed to. At least, one was, from my group. Maybe others I don’t know about.”
“We knew that could happen.”
“Yes, we did, didn’t we?” The smile was back. She was so charged up, holding her was like hanging on to a live wire. “I am sorry they were caught, but even so…even so, it was a huge success, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
“I believe it was,” he told her. “You did what you set out to do. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
“One thing could make it better,” she said, holding his gaze with her clear eyes.
He didn’t know what she meant, and said so.
“This,” she whispered, and kissed his chin, then his cheek, then his lips. At the same time, she began to move her hands all over his body. “I feel so…so ready. So hungry,” she said.
Now that he thought about it, so did he.
Much later, they went back into the streets. There was a notable difference now that Kyle could feel with all of his senses. It might pass again, he knew, but for the moment people seemed excited, optimistic. They greeted one another as they passed, exchanging grins that seemed fraught with the promise of better things to come. They passed clusters of people standing together, talking about the morning’s events, discussing what they might mean in the short and long term. Michelle and Kyle strolled, hand in hand, not engaging anyone in dialogue but simply soaking up the atmosphere. The mood was celebratory and it fed into Michelle’s already elevated state.
After they had walked for a while Michelle leaned into his arm. “This might be real,” she said. “It really, truly might.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“Yeah, but…it’s always seemed like kind of a pipe dream, you know? Like something we wanted to happen but not necessarily something that would. Or something that I could help bring about. But now, it seems like it’s all those things.”
“You definitely helped bring it about,” he assured her, happily inhaling her scent.
“I know. It feels funny.” She laughed, then released him and did a pirouette in the street. “I’m a star.”
“A star of the revolution,” Kyle agreed. “George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and you.”
“Wrong revolution,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. “But right idea.” The smile vanished from her face again. “What if it’s a bad idea?”
“What, revolution?” Kyle asked. He had struggled with the concept many times himself. Maybe armed conflict wasn’t the way to change social conditions here.
“What if history is effectively over?” she wondered. “I mean, maybe the time for revolution was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The universe is a different place now. What impact might an upheaval on Hazimot have on inter-galactic trading partners, on the Federation?”
“Well, Hazimot’s never going to be accepted into the Federation without some serious changes,” Kyle pointed out. “As for the timing—I think each planet has to move forward on its own timetable, regardless of what’s going on elsewhere. Obviously conditions in Cyre are egregious, and the rest of the planet’s not much better, if at all. If it’s time for revolution here, then it’s time. You can’t worry about how people who’ve never set foot on the planet are going to feel about it.”
“Good answer.” Michelle beamed at him. “That’s why I love you, Joe,” she said. “You’re always thinking.”
“It’s what I do best.”
“Second best,” she corrected, leaning in for a kiss.
She broke the kiss when they both felt the ground shudder, and not in the good way. They froze in place and listened. A low rumbling sound infiltrated their consciousness now, growing nearer. “What is it?” Kyle asked.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it,” she replied. “It sounds like…like trouble. At the least.”
The mood of the neighborhood changed as the sound increased. Over the rumble they could hear a voice now, broadcast through some kind of loudspeaker, repeating the same brief message over and over. People came running past them, fear glinting in their eyes. Kyle grabbed one by the shoulders, stopping him from his mad dash. “What is it?” Kyle demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Troops,” the Cyrian said, his eyes wide with fright. “Lots of them.” He broke away from Kyle’s grasp and kept running.
“No…” Michelle’s lower lip began to tremble. “They can’t…it’s too soon.”
“They can,” Kyle countered. “It’s not what I would do because it’ll increase public resentment against them. But if they can put an end to the revolution immediately, before it gets off the ground, then they might not care what the populace thinks.”
“But we’re not ready,” Michelle said. “Nobody is.”
“That’s precisely the point of it,” Kyle told her. “To make sure nobody gets ready.”
The closer the troops came, the louder the sound of their machines of war. The ground was literally shaking now, buildings vibrating. A bit of stone fell off one nearby and exploded into dust on the ground.
“What are we going to do?” Michelle asked. “We need to find the others.”
“No,” Kyle said. “Not just now. Not with those soldiers nearby. The last thing you want to do is to congregate in one place. Then they can simply take out the leadership all at once.”
“You’re right,” Michelle said. “Let’s just go home and wait it out.”
With no better plan coming to him, Kyle agreed to that, and they started back toward
the building in which they both lived. As they reached their street, though, the first troops were coming into view, around a bend. They wore full battle armor, black and gray with gold trim, and carried rifles. Locals stood on the streets and watched them march. Behind them, the vehicles hove into sight, massive troop carriers and battle tanks. Unlike most Hazimotian vehicles these didn’t float a short distance off the ground but rolled forward on gigantic wheels that tore up the old streets of The End as they came.
And now Kyle could make out the words coming over the loudspeakers. “Remain in your homes,” the voice instructed. “Do not attempt to hinder our advance in any way. Stay inside and out of our way. We are looking for a few troublemakers. If you deliver them to us, then the rest of you will not be harmed. These are the individuals we want.”
Kyle felt his veins go cold at the announcement, but he and Michelle remained on the side of the road, arms around one another.
“Kiana ser Totkis,” the voice went on. “Gisser Struitt. Melifin Pate Brionn.”
“Those are all the fake names,” Michelle said, breathing a sigh of relief. She smiled nervously. “They don’t really know who they’re looking for.”
The soldiers were closer now, the first rank of them almost even with Michelle and Kyle. They let their gazes wander across the buildings, carefully looking at everyone on the sidewalks. They looked young and nervous. From what Kyle had seen, this was the same kind of force that Cyre would have sent into battle against its enemy neighbors.
Suddenly Michelle tensed in Kyle’s arms. “Except…oh, no.”
“Cass wis Tinerare,” the loudspeaker voice continued. “Kyle Riker. Senager Millish.”
“I guess I should have had a nom de guerre too,” Kyle observed.
“For now, we want those individuals only,” the voice said, almost too loud to make out now as the vehicles came closer. “And if they are not delivered to us within the hour we will start knocking down The End, building to building, until the whole area is flattened.”
A rush of conflicting emotions coursed through Kyle. The End was, literally, the end of the line for most of its residents, the place they lived only because there was no place else that would have them. For him, it had been a hiding place, somewhere he could find the anonymity he sought. But it had become more than that—in so many ways, it had become the first real home he’d had in a long time.
But the soldiers had his name, his real name. And if he kept quiet, those who had taken him in would be displaced, or killed.
The worst that could happen, he figured, was that he’d be arrested. When he was able to prove that he had spent the day watching the parade at a tavern, he would likely be released. Possibly, because his name had come into it, Starfleet would hear and he’d be released into their custody. But he’d spent long enough evading them anyway—it was, he had been starting to think, time he straightened that mess out once and for all.
Michelle stood fast beside him, holding tightly to his arm. The troops continued their slow, inexorable march down the street, their vehicles shredding the pavement as they went. The loudspeaker voice started up again. Kyle glanced at Michelle and freed his arm from her grasp. At the questioning look in her eyes, he turned away and stepped into the street.
Immediately, a dozen rifles were pointed at him, and the march halted.
“I’m Kyle Riker,” he said.
The soldiers held their weapons on him but didn’t speak. One of the troop carriers opened up, though, and an officer emerged, followed by the head of a Cyrian male Kyle had never seen. The Cyrian looked at Kyle, then at the officer, and waggled his hand. No, that meant.
The officer scowled at Kyle. “Stop this foolishness,” he said. “Proceed!”
“But I am Kyle Riker,” Kyle insisted.
“No,” Michelle said, pushing past him before he could stop her. “No, he’s lying. I am Kyle Riker.”
The officer looked back toward the head sticking up from the troop carrier’s bowels like a turtle’s. The Cyrian wobbled his hand back and forth in affirmation.
“Cividon, you bastard,” Kyle heard Michelle mutter under her breath. He knew that Cividon must have been part of Michelle’s unit, the one who had been arrested after the parade. Cividon had turned on his movement’s leaders easily, Kyle realized. He knew only the false names, but Michelle’s false name had been real enough to cause this trouble.
She couldn’t have known that any of this would happen, or that a single other soul on the planet knew Kyle’s name wasn’t Joe Brady. If he had just kept quiet, there would have been no trouble.
If he’d kept quiet, though, The End would have been razed, its residents slaughtered.
He couldn’t have kept quiet then. Michelle wouldn’t have either. There really had been no other choice.
The weapons trained on Kyle shifted, aiming at Michelle. Kyle felt himself trembling. Michelle had been there, and visible, at the parade. Cividon had fingered her. She was in serious trouble, and he couldn’t figure out how to get her out of it. Even if he started something, there were too many soldiers, too many weapons, to fight.
“Michelle…” he started.
“Don’t, Joe,” she said urgently. “Old Earth expression. I’ve made my bed.”
“But…”
The officer pushed Cividon back into the troop carrier and climbed in himself. When only his own head remained outside, he barked an instruction to the troops. “Kill her!”
The soldiers didn’t hesitate. A dozen energy beams blasted at Michelle, all at once. One moment she had been standing there, and the next she had dissolved into a fine spray which coated Kyle. Watching open-mouthed, he tasted her on his tongue and knew that she was on his skin and clothes and hair, in his eyes and nose. What was left of Michelle he and the street and the wall behind them had absorbed.
Blinded by fury and the Michelle-mist, Kyle threw himself toward the soldiers. He didn’t have a chance against them, with their armor and weapons, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. He battered them with fists and feet, tears streaming down his face as he took their blows in return. Finally, one brought the stock of a weapon down against his head and he staggered back a few steps, the world spinning crazily away from him, and he fell down in the street, unconscious.
Chapter 25
This is no fun at all! Will thought.
It had started out looking as if it might be. The flying exercises were, as Will had expected, mundane, even boring. He knew his stuff by now, and so did the rest of the cadets selected for this journey. It was almost a punishment rather than a reward, particularly since he knew he was missing the chance to listen to Spock.
But Paul Rice, maybe looking to add some spice to the trip, had challenged Will to a friendly race. He’d done it in front of their friends, and he’d pressed it even when Will had tried to laugh it off.
“I thought you were a flyer, Riker,” he’d said. “I thought maybe you had some nerve. But I guess your by-the-book attitude has killed that, huh? Stolen your courage along with your skills?”
“I can outfly you anytime,” Will said, though he knew it wasn’t true. Paul was still one of the best natural pilots he’d ever encountered. “I don’t need to break the rules to know that.”
“Funny,” Paul said, gesturing toward the other cadets who had gathered in a circle, watching them. “They don’t know that. I don’t know that. Seems like maybe you’re the only one who thinks so.”
“If you think that matters to me in the least, Paul, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“My only mistake was thinking you had any guts at all,” Paul shot back. “Remind me not to accept a posting on any starship that’s got you on it. I want brave officers on my team, not cowards.”
Will knew that Paul didn’t mean it. Despite appearances, they were still good friends. Paul was just trying to wheedle him, to push him into playing along with his stunt. The problem was, even though Will knew that, it was working anyway. And when some of the other cadets start
ed piling onto Paul’s side, he knew it was hopeless.
“Yeah, Riker,” Donaldson jeered. “What are you afraid of?”
“Okay, okay,” Will relented. “If it means that much to you, I’ll do it.”
This drew a round of approval from the gathered cadets, and Will felt his stomach sink even as he agreed to it. What Paul wanted was a race, one against one—mano a mano, as he put it. But they had completed their flights for the day, and they didn’t have personal ships to race in. Which meant they would have to—Paul had used the term “borrow”—two shuttles from the Academy Flight Range orbiting Saturn. There would be some security, of course, but that was mostly geared toward keeping outsiders from coming in, not wayward cadets from leaving. Liberating the two shuttles could be done. Flying them would raise an alarm, though, and returning unnoticed would be impossible.
The trip would be relatively short, just around Phoebe, one of Saturn’s many moons, and back. Once Will had agreed to it they had suited up, made sure the two Type-6 shuttles were prepped, and with some other cadets distracting the shuttle-bay crew, they’d made their getaway. Will recognized the stupidity of his action—he had come here instead of letting Trinidad take his place because he didn’t want to break a comparatively minor rule, and now here he was smashing a huge one. But he’d still thought they would be able to get away with it, and if they flew well, they might even get away with just a minor talking to instead of a real punishment.
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