Gulliver's Fugitives Part 22

"Niki!" cried Odysseus.

The hulking barge hauler was trying to pry open a door with a tire iron. The door was a metal-grate type with an electronic lock. Lomov was bending the steel of the door but the lock itself was not giving way.

Lomov turned to look at Odysseus, then, realizing there was no more time, redoubled his efforts.

Suddenly a huge a.s.sault hovercraft appeared from behind the building, coming toward Lomov. Lomov pulled and smashed at the door in desperation.

"Wait till I call for you," Odysseus told Troi, "then run across the bridge to us."

She was about to plead with him not to try and defy the hovercraft himself. But she stopped herself, because she knew he'd try anyway. She would do best by strengthening his Odysseus character, the clever persona by which he achieved all his successes. She remembered that Homer's Odysseus, resourceful as he was, sometimes needed help from beings of another order.

She pointed at the sky. The Enterprise was up there somewhere.

"My people are with you," she told Odysseus.

He looked at her and knew, on some level, what she meant.

He left her there and ran toward Lomov and the hovercraft at the far end of the bridge. The craft door opened and a cameraman leaned out.

In front of Odysseus, a head and shoulders came up into view above the edge of the bridge-a CS officer climbing up from the lower level.

The officer pointed a gun at Lomov.

"Niki! Behind you!" shouted Odysseus.

Lomov turned and saw the tableau in an instant, but there was nowhere to duck. Instead he threw his body against the door, b.l.o.o.d.ying himself on the unyielding metal.

The CS officer fired.

Lomov fell. Odysseus ran toward him, and so did the officer.

But before they reached him, Lomov staggered back upright. Again he made his own body into a projectile and smashed once more against the door. This time its lock burst and it banged open. But Lomov lay unconscious on the pavement.

The CS officer stopped before he reached Lomov, and turned to face Odysseus. Holding his weapon in one hand, he pulled off his helmet with the other and cast it away.

Odysseus froze when he saw the man's face.

"Ferris," he said in astonishment.

"Powell." Ferris seemed equally surprised. "Long time no see. I've been waiting ten years for this. Now I'm going to need some payback for all the men I've lost to your Dissenters' Allpox. Yeah, I think it's time for some payback."

Ferris holstered his gun, then lunged at Odysseus. The two men fought, pounding each other, wrestling, and trying to push each other over the edge. They were closely matched but Ferris seemed to have the slight advantage in size and strength.

The hovercraft circled overhead, blowing both men's hair wildly. Its cameraman tilted and panned his camera to keep both men composed in his frame, the one garbed in sleek white uniform, the other in a street-b.u.m's rags. There were no other CS men on the bridge, and no one-eyes, nothing else in sight to detract from the image that would be seen on millions of Rampartian television screens. Just Ferris in manly combat with the chief of the criminals.

Ferris used a karate kick on Odysseus, who lost his balance and had to hook his arm over a metal post to keep from falling off the bridge.

"Powell," said Ferris, "maybe you should have stayed with the CS after all. Your physical condition seems to have slid a bit."

"My name isn't Powell."

Odysseus leapt up, swinging fiercely at Ferris, finally connecting with a stunning blow.

Ferris stumbled back, dazed, and dropped to his knees.

Both men were now nearly right in front of Troi. She could sense something dangerous happening to Ferris. The controlled mien of the CS military officer was giving way to unfettered fury, a blood l.u.s.t, a need for consummation.

In that instant Troi knew Ferris would disobey orders, whatever those orders were. She distinctly felt something snap inside him.

He thumbed a b.u.t.ton on his weapon. She sensed his grim animal satisfaction and knew he was going to kill Odysseus instead of stun him.

"No!" shouted Troi.

He fired.

The radiation pattern hit Odysseus square in the chest. The bearded man yelled something unintelligible at the sky as red stains bloomed all over his muddy tunic. Then he fell heavily on his back.

Ferris stood over him. Troi felt Ferris get himself back under control. Ferris became once again the operational military man.

Odysseus was still alive, for the moment. Troi could sense that as well.

Fifty one-eyes suddenly rose from under the bridge, where they had hovered in hiding, and now surrounded the scene. The camera-hovercraft flew away.

A squad of helmeted CS men came up behind Troi. One put handcuffs on her.

Ferris bent over Odysseus, slapped his face. Odysseus mumbled.

Ferris was going to follow proper procedure to the letter. He unclipped a small case from his belt and removed a squeeze bottle. He squirted some of the CS-developed pharmaceutical up both of Odysseus' nostrils.

He slapped Odysseus' face repeatedly as he waited for the combination of drugs to elicit a state of absolute, involuntary truthfulness.

"Stay with me, Powell. I need information from you, the names of other insurgents."

Odysseus mumbled softly. Troi couldn't catch what he said.

"Who are your co-conspirators above ground?" asked Ferris.

Odysseus mumbled again.

"Hurry!" said Ferris. "The names of your princ.i.p.al helpers in the city!"

"Eumaios," said Odysseus.

"Eumaios who?" asked Ferris.

"Eumaios ... pig farmer."

"Relay these into the computer as I give them to you," Ferris shouted to the CS men around Troi. "First one is Eumaios, a pig farmer."

Odysseus' voice seemed to gain in strength. "Euryclea-she is a nurse," he said, "and Autolycos, and Polipses ..."

"Euryclea, who is a nurse, and Autolycos-" said Ferris, stopping as the one-eyes suddenly drew up in a tight circle around him.

"What are you doing?" he asked the machines. "Let me finish my report. Autolycos, Polipses-"

The one-eyes drew closer. Attack formation. Ferris knew it well enough. They were going to shoot him.

"Get back!" he commanded.

He could hear the one-eyes start to prime their weapons. In a soldier's reflex he reached for his own gun. He had gotten it halfway out of its holster when the combined radiation from fifty one-eye guns vectored directly through his head and killed him instantly.

There was a moment of quiet, except for the wind blowing past the high, exposed bridge.

The CS men walked over to the two p.r.o.ne forms. They took Troi with them.

As Troi stared at Odysseus, perceiving he was now dead, she heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation between the CS officers.

"Looks like Ferris tried to report fiction ..."

"You hear any of it?"

"No. Filtered out of our headsets ..."

"But Ferris used the truth drug on that guy. The drug's foolproof!"

"Okay, so how could he have given Ferris any fiction to report?"

"... don't know ... maybe to him it was the truth."

The CS soldiers began to pull Troi away. She got a last look at Odysseus. His eyes were open, reflecting a sky full of thunderheaded c.u.mulus clouds-the clouds of Zeus Alastor, Zeus the Avenger.

Chapter Fifteen.

"CHOPS, WE'RE OUT OF TIME," Geordi said. "The one-eyes have shut down the impulse engines. Our orbit is starting to decay. All I've got left is enough warp engine power for partial s.h.i.+elds. The one-eyes are heading back in my direction. I think they're going to try and finish off the warp engines for good. We'll either fall like a brick, or get shot full of holes, or both."

Geordi was trying to coax more power out of the warp engines even as he talked.

"I'll have the first Cyclops-buster ready in twenty minutes," said Ensign Chops Taylor's voice, from Geordi's communicator.

"We've only got ten max."

"Can you spare Skoel for a while? ..." She paused and Geordi could hear her make a rapid sequence of welds. "... I create at my best with a little help from some IDIC."

"You've got him. La Forge out."

Geordi's communicator then spoke with a much lower voice.

"Worf to La Forge."

"La Forge here. You still in sickbay?"

"Correct, sir. However, I'm feeling fine, and I'm ready to leave. What is the situation with the one-eyes?"

"The same two who were down here before are coming back to finish me off."

"Sir, I believe it is possible that I could destroy those two hand-to-hand given another chance. Only one of the two is armed, and I believe it can't read my brain waves as easily as it does a human's, though I can't be sure. Permission to intercept them, sir?"

Normally Geordi would have said no to anything entailing a risk of life and limb. But this wasn't "normally," this was a Kobayas.h.i.+ Maru situation.

"Are you recovered enough to function, Worf?"

"If you please, sir, I'm very eager to get going."

Yes, thought Geordi, you would be no matter what condition you were in. But there was no choice now, and no time for formalities with Dr. Crusher.

"Okay Worf, you're on."

In sickbay, Worf rose from his bed with crisp alacrity. Wentz had filled him in on the progress of the one-eyes toward Warp Engineering, as well as the status of Wesley's Cyclops-buster.

s.h.i.+kibu, on the bed next to him, had heard all of it. She had been awake for several hours, and had tried unsuccessfully to convince Dr. Crusher to let her return to duty. She had considered just walking out, but rejected it. She never forced an issue-there was always a middle way, the easiest path of water down a hillside.

Now, with her superior officer awake, she saw that the way had created itself.

"Sir, may I help?"

"Yes. You can accompany Wesley when he tries his device."

"Aye, sir."

s.h.i.+kibu got up from her bed and retied her ponytail.

Dr. Crusher, who had been treating a radiation case in another suite, returned to the room.

Before she could object to the autonomous departure of two of her patients, Worf spoke.

"There is no time for any more of your babying, Doctor. The s.h.i.+p is in critical danger. Both s.h.i.+kibu and I are ready for duty, and our help is needed."

"Worf, I don't see how you expect to function. I happen to know you both have headaches that could melt an iron asteroid."

"Yes," said Worf. "It feels quite refres.h.i.+ng. Wouldn't you say so, Ensign?"

"Like a cup of strong coffee, sir. Let's go."