"Excellent." The kindly old Orion gentleman beams at me. He beams nicely. He is small, and thin, and inoffensive, you can't possibly help but like him. That is, after all, rather the point.
"Now," he continues. "What about the more recent history of the House? Shall we start with something simple? Can you tell me the name of the twenty-seventh Matron?"
I shut my right eye and make a concentrating sort of a face. "Twenty-seventh... that'd be... Lynoshea, yeah?"
"Very good." Another beam. I've seen fewer beams in a space battle. "Were there any... complicating factors... in her accession to the title?"
Well, of course there were, ownership of even a minor Orion House doesn't change hands without plenty of blood as lubricant. In this particular case, Lynoshea had to beat off a challenge by her business rival, cousin, and same-sex partner, and yes, now you come to mention it, they were all the same person. Busy lady. Something tells me it isn't going to be politic to go into details, though. Orion history, more than most, tends to be written by the victors. "I think there was a challenge to the claim," I say, "but... I don't remember the details. Sorry."
He purses his lips, looking disappointed but still kindly. "Well, I suppose the story does become a little involved at times." He rises, rather stiffly, to his feet. They ought to let him bring a chair into the cell, they really ought. I let him sit on the mattress, but it's not good for a man of his age, sitting cross-legged like that.
"Read some more," he advises. He stoops, and puts the datapad down on the mattress. It's the datapad I've been studying for what seems like weeks now.
*/*actual elapsed time---*/*
Shut up. Time passes very slowly when you're reading the official history of the House of Vuon, believe me. The old guy beams at me again and heads for the door. It hisses open as he approaches, and clangs shut after him with depressing finality.
I pick up the datapad. I slump down on the mattress and make a show of reading it. It's textbook stuff, really, brainwashing 101. You want to make your victim immerse themselves in your culture, your ethos, your way of thinking, so you set things up so they have to memorize some vast slabs of text telling them about it. Indoctrination. In my case, the damn datapad is the only thing I've got by way of entertainment anyway, and the beaming old man is so nice, you just can't help wanting to please him when he does his pop-quiz routine.
It's not going to be quite so successful with me, of course, because hey, Borg implants. One run through the datapad was enough to get it captured and recorded on the implant over my left eye, and now I can just play it back as I need to. I don't have to think about it. And that leaves me free for thinking about other things. Jailbreaks, for instance.
Up to now, a jailbreak has seemed pretty pointless, on account of I was pretty sure I was being held on a spaceship, and breaking out of it and into hard vacuum didn't seem like the smartest move. However, when I woke up this morning, the gravity field was .02% stronger, and there was a little dent in one wall of the cell that wasn't there when I went to sleep. Conclusion: while I was asleep, I was transported out of one cell and into an identical one, somewhere else. It might be another spaceship, true, with fractionally more powerful gravity plating. But my guess is, I am on the House of Vuon's homeworld, wherever that is, and getting outside this cell is now looking a much brighter idea.
The problem is actually doing it, of course. I don't think hiding behind the door and ambushing the guard when he comes in to investigate will do me much good. Not in this age of surveillance cameras, and I am damn sure I'm being monitored continuously. Feigning appendicitis, or waiting to hit the incoming guard with a chamber pot, just won't cut it in today's world, unfortunately.
So. I have one resource, effectively, and it's the datapad. All I need, really, is to draw some attention with it. I look at it, weigh it in my hand, and then hurl it, hard, against the far wall of the cell.
It bounces off, clatters, and skims back across the floor towards me. I go over and pick it up; it's still working. They make these things tough. I throw it again.
I throw it half a dozen more times before they get bored watching me, or something, and the cell door hisses open. "Well, hey, there, Tiny," I say.
"Do not mistreat the Matron's property," the big guy says. He's looking very big just now, and his fingers are already on the controls for the shock collar.
"And why the hell not?" I ask. "I'm bored rigid with this Orion family history already. And as for your Matron -" I've spent some time picking an apt quotation "- may she marry a ghost, and bear him a kitten, and may the High Lord of Glory permit her to get the mange."
And that is the big guy's cue to hit the shock button. Which is my cue to leap into action, starting by throwing the datapad at his head.
"Thing about liberated Borg," I say, as he fends it off, and I duck beneath his guard and start hitting him, "is this -"
Huge hands come down on my shoulders. I shake them off. With my small hands and my enhanced strength, getting hit by me hurts, it's more like a rap with a hammer than a blow from a fist. But there is a lot of fat and muscle on him to soak up the impacts. "We've still got loads of Borg neural circuitry -"
He tries for a hold. I kick him hard beside his left kneecap, and try not to get squashed as he stumbles. "And when you give Borg nerves repeated shocks -"
He flails around, trying to keep his balance.
"- they adapt," I finish. And with that, I release all the charge I've been carefully building up in my capacitors, in a neural blast that will take down any huge Orion you care to mention, and his big brother too. This one goes down in a wobbly green heap, and I lean against the wall, taking a moment or two to catch my breath.
OK. Phase one of the plan is done. But I'm still in the cell, and what's more, the big guy is not going to be a happy bunny when he wakes up. I could, of course, try to hold him hostage and bargain with his life. It's just possible, if I tried that, the Matron might hurt herself laughing.
So I don't bother. I delve into those eidetic memory implants again, for the stuff about Escaping From Orion Slavers 101, the sort of thing they cover at Starfleet Academy, the details of which you always forget. Unless you're me. The control wristband is a standard design, a bit of fiddling with it, and my shock collar comes off. Phase two. OK, maybe that's optimistic, call it one and a half.
Big guy has a disruptor pistol, I wouldn't expect different. It has a biometric lock, and I wouldn't expect anything else there, either. However, despite all the advertising from the security firms, the cold fact is, soldiers on the battlefield often have to scavenge a fallen comrade's weapons, and so popping loose a biometric ID chip is not, in fact, that much of a big deal. My resources are going up. I have a weapon, now, as well as a datapad and a vast heap of Orion suet.
The disruptor won't have enough charge to slag the cell door, or burn through the wall. That's OK, little Ronnie has a plan. It does pack enough punch to carve a hole in the metal plating around the door... enough to expose part of the locking mechanism. By now, whoever else is watching me - I can't believe Tiny here was the only one - has finished laughing at Tiny's predicament and is starting to think seriously about doing stuff. Work fast, Ronnie.
I shove the shock collar into the locking mechanism, grab Tiny's wristband, and retire to the proverbial safe distance. A little bit more finagling, and the collar's electronics are told that it should be securely around my neck, but it isn't around my neck. The explosive charge goes off with, frankly, a worryingly loud bang. I don't have that thick a neck, surely?
I run over to the door, throw my weight against it. It resists for a moment, but it's just inertia; the lock is gone, the hydraulics holding it closed are ruptured. A bit of shoving, and there is enough of a gap for me to shimmy through.
Out of the cell. Phase three, or maybe four, complete. I dunno, I've lost count already. I wasn't sure of getting this far anyway. The corridor outside looks like, well, a corridor. If I was Sherlock Holmes, I would deduce a safe way out by a study of the scuff marks on the deck plates. Since I'm only me, I pick one direction and leg it.
I don't leg it very far before I run into an intersection and another Orion, this one normal sized and armed, with a purposeful Ronnie-finding gleam in his eye. I lash out with my hand before he can aim his weapon, catching him in the throat, putting him down on the ground, hard. He doesn't get up. I might have crushed his throat, or even broken his neck. Never mind. If he's the only corpse I have to step over on my way out of here, I'll have done well.
I think for a second. The direction he came from - that, presumably, might be the place my cell is being monitored from. And there are a lot more cell doors along this corridor. As a Federation officer, my duty is clearly to liberate those who are suffering in cruel Orion bondage - especially when the confusion might help me escape.
So I make my way a bit more cautiously along the corridor. I wish they'd sound alarms or something. You know where you are with a screaming klaxon or six. All I know right now is, I'm in trouble, and I don't know how deep.
The corridor ends in another blank metal door. This one, though, slides open as I approach, my captured disruptor in my hand. The room beyond is full of screens and consoles. Jackpot. I think. It also contains a tall, sneering Orion security type, who looks at me, picks up a Ferengi-style energy whip from the top of a console, and says in pitying tones, "You will find that our weapons have biometric trigger locks."
As last words go, they're not the best. I lower the disruptor and look around carefully. That guy obviously just wasn't paying attention.
He was the only one there. There are seats for three, and screens enough for a whole film festival. One of the seats is very wide, and looks like it's been reinforced. Tiny was here. I check my cell on the monitors; he's still out for the count. I fiddle around with some controls until I'm reasonably sure I've unlocked every cell door and slave collar in the joint.
There's a PA system, and I use it. "Hi, everybody! This is Vice Admiral Veronika Grau, call me Ronnie, everyone does. Just to let you know, I've gimmicked security around here, and if you can get out, well, this might be an ideal time to do that, OK? Good luck." Then I step back, and start shooting things with the disruptor, until the entire security centre looks interestingly broken.
Confused sounds start issuing from the corridor. There's another door out of this security room, and I take that one, for the sake of variety if nothing else. Another corridor confronts me, and... is that natural light, at the end of it? If it is, I'm going out in it, and I don't care what the weather's like.
I'm about half way down the passage when the alarms start going off. Klaxons, bells, the works. Actually, it all seems a bit over the top for a generic mass escape. I start to worry - well, worry some more. If I was designing an alarm system, I'd want it to provide some very basic information, like what's wrong. The different alarm noises suggest one of two things - lousy alarm design, or two different alarms going off simultaneously. In short, something is happening that I don't know about.
Natural light is coming from a flight of stone stairs, leading up. I take them at a run.
And, suddenly, I'm outdoors, and breathing fresh, clean, cool air. Mountain air. This - base, whatever it is - is built into the side of a mountain, and there are mountains all about me, towering into the sky, gleaming pinkish in the light of either a rising or a setting sun. A shuttle landing pad has been constructed here, sticking out of the mountainside on huge slanting stanchions. And, joy of joys, there are a couple of little Kivra shuttlecraft, standard Klingon designs, perched neatly on the pad. I can crack security on one of those, no problem. OK, breaking in will breach its atmospheric integrity, but that's OK, I'm not going into space, I'm just going to head out, get my bearings, reach help or go to ground.
I raise the disruptor, set it to a cutting beam, and aim it at the hatch on the nearer of the two shuttles. The metal smokes and starts to glow under the assault... and then the beam flickers and fades and dies, and the glowing spot on the metal dims and goes out.
"Out of charge," says a voice from behind me, "and out of luck."
I turn around. The Matron is standing there, a nasty-looking disruptor pistol in her hands, two even nastier-looking goons beside her, pointing heavy assault rifles at me. The Matron's face is twisted in a snarl. "I do not know how you arranged all this, Grau," she says, "but you will suffer, now. You will suffer worse than my inefficient security staff. You will -"
And another sound makes itself heard, the very distinctive snap of sonic antiproton fire. Scarlet bolts slam out of the stairwell and blow the two goons' heads off with pinpoint accuracy. It's a bravura display of shooting - normally, you'd need two people for a stunt like that. But there's only one person coming up the stair, now, a sonic AP pistol in each hand, silvery eyes moving independently... tall, thin, with dark green face, shaggy hair, an elaborate bony headcrest... just about the last person I'd have expected to see, but I think she's a welcome sight.
"Vice Admiral Grau," says R'j Bl'k'. "We have been looking for you for some time."
The Matron springs towards me, and her pistol is suddenly jammed against my skull. "Come no closer!" she hisses at R'j.
The tall */*species 10118*/* looks distinctly unimpressed. "Matron Khevnitra," she says. "My troops are taking possession of your facility now. Resistance is utterly futile. Do not waste my time."
"It is not futile while I hold what you want," the Matron replies. I weigh up my chances of breaking free before she can fire that disruptor, decide they're not so hot. "Drop your weapons!"
R'j looks at the pistols in her hands as if she's never seen them before. "As you wish." She opens her hands, and the two guns clatter harmlessly to the metal plating of the landing pad. The mountain air seems very cold and unfriendly, somehow, now.
"Good," says the Matron. She relaxes her grip a little. Enough? I'm not sure.
"But I swear to you," says R'j, "that you will not succeed in this endeavour. I pledge my honour as an Adept of the Seven Greater Dodecagons, and - most especially - as a Harbinger of the Grand Maelstrom."
"What is this nonsense?" The pressure is definitely off, now - her disruptor is moving warily between me and R'j. "Adept? Harbinger? What does this mean?"
"Allow me to demonstrate," says R'j, and the air before her seems to thicken and glow. The psychokinetic bolt catches the Matron full on. A disruptor bolt spears wildly into the sky, and then she is flung over the rim of the landing pad, and there is nothing to mark her passage but a long, descending wail.
R'j picks up her pistols and holsters them, then strolls casually to the edge of the pad and looks down. "A matter of simple prudence," she says. "I always check."
I find my voice. "So, did she bounce or splat?"
"A little of both, I think. S-s-s-s-s. I am relieved to see you. We have been searching for some time."
"Yeah, well," I say, "I'm just hoping that you're on the side of the angels these days."
"Let me convince you," says R'j. She reaches into a pocket of her leather jacket, takes something out, and flips it towards me. I catch it in my right hand, look down at the familiar blunt arrowhead shape. A Starfleet combadge.
R'j touches her own wrist communicator. "R'j Bl'k' to USS Falcon," she says. "I have located Vice Admiral Grau. Lock on to her combadge, and beam her up."
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