by Peter David
He walked down the corridor, his arms moving in a relaxed and easy rhythm, and then he saw Sela coming toward him from the other direction, accompanied by several Romulan guards. “Where did you get off to, Will?” she asked, walking up to him and putting her hands on her hips.
“Just feeling a little…worn out,” he said.
“Now, Riker,” she said, touching his chin affectionately. “Are you implying that I’m the one who wore you out?”
“I wasn’t going to say that.” He grinned.
“Oh, good.” And then she turned to the guards and said, “Take him.”
Before Riker could move so much as an inch, the guards were on him from all sides. “What are you doing?!” he shouted as they dragged him down the hallway. Sela followed, looking amused at his confusion.
Moments later they had brought him to the cell where Worf, Deanna, and Alexander were being held. Without a second’s hesitation, they shoved him in with the others. He thudded to the floor.
“You can pick him up,” Sela said. “I know he’s dressed like mine…but he’s yours.”
“What?” said a confused Deanna.
As if explaining to an idiot, Sela said patiently, “That’s Will Riker. But he’s not my Will Riker. He’s yours. The one who almost got his head handed to him by your beloved Klingon over there.”
“What?” Deanna said again, not comprehending any more than she did before.
Sela let out an impatient sigh as Riker got to his feet. “The man who was here before, representing himself as Will Riker…the man whom we rescued from a Cardassian prison colony…was actually Tom Riker. This man…who apparently decided to go along with the charade when he and you first arrived here…is Will Riker.”
“You knew all along,” said an astounded Deanna.
“Not all along. Not when I first…acquired him. But I’m not stupid. I did further checking, discovered that one Lieutenant Tom Riker had been sentenced to Lazon Two. Did still more checking and discovered his origins. Intelligence-gathering happens to be one of my specialties, Deanna.”
“But then why did you let the masquerade continue?”
“Because I felt that he would be useful to me. In the short term, I found him…amusing. Although on our first ‘date,’ Kressn was kind enough to ‘push’ him in my direction. Oddly, he didn’t need any extra urging after that. In the long term I intended to use him all along for my plan with Qo’noS. When you entered the picture, I simply adapted it to accommodate your presence. I didn’t truly expect Worf to agree to cooperate. Believe me, I know the Klingon mind-set all too well. One Riker or the other, in the end, it makes no difference to me.”
Something Sela had said earlier suddenly dawned on Deanna. She looked at Worf and said, “You and Will had a fight?”
“It was a disagreement,” Worf said stonily.
Riker snorted and then turned back to Sela. “So at the moment…you’ve allowed your lover to take my place, to very likely go to his death…in order to have him poison Gowron. And you don’t care about it.”
To his surprise, Sela laughed.
“Poison Gowron? Is that all your imagination can handle? This has never been about simply poisoning Gowron.”
Riker looked at her in confusion, as did the others. “Then what—?”
“Tom Riker thinks that he’s carrying a bottle of poisoned ale. He’s not. He’s carrying a carefully prepared airborne virus, genetically engineered and crafted, developed by a little-known race called the Redeemers, who reside primarily in Thallonian space, and obtained for me by an old friend and mentor named Saket. The moment that he opens the bottle, in Gowron’s presence, the virus will erupt from the bottle. The genie”—she smiled as if at some private joke—“will emerge and fulfill all my wishes. It will kill Gowron and everyone else in the council chamber. It will then spread throughout the immediate area and, by my estimates, obliterate every Klingon on the face of their homeworld within thirty-six hours.”
Worf gasped audibly. Even the stoic Klingon seemed horrified by the scope of what Sela was discussing so calmly.
“Now, of course, the Klingon Empire is far-reaching. Not all of the Klingons will die. But I assure you, they will know who to blame. I will personally make sure of that. So you see, Tom gets to sacrifice himself on your behalf…you three I will set free, into a galaxy where what remains of the Klingon Empire will be eager to annihilate anyone or anything having to do with Starfleet, including counselors and Klingons in uniform…and I get my fondest desire. Everybody wins.”
When Tom Riker and Jean-Luc Picard were escorted into the council chamber, Tom’s heart fell as he saw that the entire council was there, along with Gowron and Kahless himself.
Terrific.
“Riker!” growled Gowron. “This is an unexpected…pleasure. What are you doing here?”
Riker stepped forward, the bottle of Romulan ale in his hand. “I’m here to add my sentiments to those expressed by Captain Picard…and to present a further token of esteem which I think you may find amusing.”
He hold it up for Gowron to see. Gowron uttered a curt laugh. “Romulan ale!” This engendered further laughter from the other Klingons in the council. “Where did you get it?”
“Off a captured Romulan ship. It was the commander’s private stock, I believe.”
This prompted another round of guffaws and cheers, and several Klingons thudded their fists on their armrests in approval.
Gowron stepped down to receive the bottle. He took it from Riker, looking the bottle over…
…and then Riker said loudly, “What did you say, Chancellor?”
Gowron looked up at him in mild confusion.
Before he could get a word out, Riker cut him off, with clear anger in his voice. “I am hurt, Chancellor! I bring you this gift…and you would imply such a thing?”
“What did you say, Gowron?” demanded Kahless.
Gowron turned to Kahless, clearly befuddled. “I said—”
Before he could get the word “nothing” out, Riker jumped in once again. “He said, ‘It’s probably poison!’ ”
Immediately there was an outcry from the Klingons, shouts of surprise. Riker caught Picard’s surprised look from the corner of his eye.
Gowron stood there, dumbfounded.
“What would you suggest, Gowron?” demanded Riker. “What would put your mind at ease? Are you going to insist I drink it first?”
And for just a moment…just a brief moment…he made full and direct eye contact with Gowron, and put as much desperation and as much of an unspoken cue into his look as he could. He could try and bluff the thing the rest of the way through…but he prayed that Gowron picked up on it.
Gowron’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes!” he suddenly said. “Yes, I insist. If you bring this gift so freely, then you should not have any problem having the first drink!”
“Gowron!” Kahless said reprovingly.
Gowron turned toward Kahless and shot back, “These are dangerous times, Kahless! One cannot be too careful! You should know that!” He looked back to Tom Riker and said, “You first, Riker.” He handed the bottle back to him. “Here. Open it. For all I know,” he added, “it might explode when you do so.”
And Tom Riker, convinced that he had managed to stave off an intergalactic incident…thought, Good-bye, life. Good-bye, second chance. Good-bye everything that I ever wanted to, or hoped that I would be able to, accomplish. Good-bye, Deanna. Good-bye, Will…and for God’s sake, don’t screw our life up this time…
…and he twisted the cork.
Twenty-four
Sela sat in the communications room, awaiting word from her sources on the Klingon homeworld.
She could not recall a time when she had been happier. She knew that, thanks to the distances involved, it would be some time before she heard about the occurrence of the actual event.
She envisioned the planet cluttered with Klingon corpses. Klingons, dead and dying, old and young, tangled togeth
er in heaps of rotting flesh. It was going to be her calling card, her ticket back into the good graces of her people. No longer would she be Sela the ronin. No longer would she be without any true ties to her people. No longer would she be a failure and, most important, no longer would she be a disgrace to the memory of her father.
Her mother, of course, could rot in hell. Weak woman, that’s what she had been. If she’d any strength in her, she would have stayed alive.
“Sela…”
Nearby, a Romulan woman named Beji, who was on far-sweep sensor duty, suddenly turned in her seat. Her color had gone several shades of white.
“We have a problem,” she said.
The bottle wouldn’t open.
He pulled on the cork again and again, and was unable to pry it off. He looked up at Gowron, who was clearly completely lost at this point as to what in the world Riker was trying to do with all of this.
And suddenly the bottle began to twist and writhe in his grasp. Utterly confused, Riker dropped the bottle to the ground and stared at it in astonishment.
The bottle righted itself…and grew. It stretched, transforming, morphing, until it was as tall as Tom Riker himself. Then it filled out, becoming humanoid, becoming…
“Hello, Lieutenant Riker,” said Odo.
Pandemonium had just set in at the moon of Lintar IV.
“It’s a Federation starship!” Beji informed her. “And it’s coming straight for us!”
“Are you sure?” she demanded.
“Positive!”
Sela’s mind was in a whirl. They were too far off the beaten path for this to be a coincidence. There was no way that the starship was coming simply to check out colonization possibilities on one of the uncolonizable planets in the system. That’s why they had chosen this particular area.
It was impossible. It couldn’t have been the prisoners who alerted them. When they had first arrived, Sela had questioned them as to how they had found the hideaway, so as to know whether or not their security was threatened and a relocation necessary. Will Riker—the real one—had given them an involved and frankly improbable tale of a psychic link with Deanna Troi, which Sela had been prepared to dismiss out of hand until Kressn confirmed that Riker was telling the absolute truth. It was one of those instances where truth was remarkably stranger than fiction.
But that being the case, then how…
It didn’t matter.
The Romulan warbird was in orbit around the moon and cloaked. But in order to transport anyone up, the warbird was going to have to decloak…and the moment that it did, the starship would be able to target it. In order to minimize the amount of time that the ship would be vulnerable, it was necessary to get everyone together in one place and bring them up at one time.
“The prisoners,” she said in a tight fury. “Somehow they must have gotten word out! Let’s go! Grab the prisoners, bring them to the transport center! All hands, rendezvous at the transport center! We’ve got to get out, now!”
Immediately half a dozen Romulans descended to the lower section to round up Worf, Deanna, Riker, and Alexander. At disruptor-point, and with Kressn overseeing the operation, they were brought out of the room in which they’d been imprisoned and were hurried down a corridor. Unfortunately, the extreme pressure of the situation, and the flat-out rushing by the Romulans, cost them dearly.
Because Alexander suddenly stuck out a foot and tripped one of the Romulans. He tumbled forward, banging into another, drawing the attention of a third…
…and that was all the opening that the Starfleet personnel needed.
Riker suddenly pivoted and lashed out with a fist, smashing the face of the nearest Romulan. It knocked him off balance and Riker grabbed his disruptor, turning and shooting down a second. Worf and Alexander, meantime, plowed into the nearest ones. Worf grabbed one by the arm, swung him around into a second while Alexander leaped onto the back of a third and tried to snap his neck. He lacked the muscle strength to do it, but he wrenched the Romulan’s neck severely and caused him to fall in agony.
Kressn, stepping back from the chaos, unleashed a broad-based command of “Terror” into their minds. For a moment it stopped them, sending fear into their movements, chilling them to the bone. But Kressn was accustomed to dealing with one mind at a time. Over four, he was stretching his abilities…and he gave Deanna Troi the opening she needed. Deanna was, for the most part, an empath, but linked into her mind as he was, it gave her the opportunity to cut back at him. And with a fury born of indignation, she sent an enraged thought straight into Kressn’s mind with such force that it practically blew off the back of his head as
YOU HURT MY MOTHER, YOU BASTARD!!
ripped through his mind. Worf, Alexander, and Riker also caught a bit of it. But the main recipient of her ire was Kressn, who staggered, numb for a moment, unable to move.
Worf and Riker swung at the same time, Worf to the head, Riker to the gut. The double impact nearly broke Kressn in half and he went down, unconscious before he hit the floor. For a moment Riker and Worf looked at each other…
…and then they looked away.
Worf grabbed up a fallen Romulan who was still conscious and snarled, “What is happening?”
“Federation starship! We’re…we’re evacuating!”
“Are we now,” said Worf. He drew back a fist and with a quick gesture knocked the Romulan cold.
“Let’s make sure as few get away as possible!” shouted Riker, and they quickly gathered the disruptors from the fallen Romulans. They started running, Riker and Worf on point, Alexander in the middle, Deanna taking up the rear.
It was like a shooting gallery.
They kept stumbling over groups of Romulans who were hurrying toward the transport center. Although the Starfleet team was outnumbered, they consistently had the element of surprise since at no time were the Romulans anticipating someone within the confines of their own hideaway opening fire on them. Romulans went down, crashing into each other, blown backward by the disruptor blasts. Riker and Worf aimed as carefully as they could, and their marksmanship was fairly consistent, resulting in a minimum of fatalities. What he lacked in accuracy, Alexander more than made up for in enthusiasm, although at one point he came close to blowing off his father’s head.
Offensive weapons fire not being her strong suit, Deanna mostly felt their pain. Except once when a squad of Romulans, apparently alerted to their presence, actually managed to get the drop on them from behind, at which point Deanna ruthlessly mowed them down single-handedly. Worf and Riker gaped, and Deanna calmly blew imaginary smoke off the barrel of the disruptor.
Then, from just ahead, they heard the sound of transporter beams.
They charged forward, rounded a corner, and saw Sela and the remains of her people beaming out of existence. Worf got off a shot, but too late as it went straight through Sela without damaging her. Sela, for her part, saw that they were free and spat out something that was clearly a curse, albeit hard to make out over the whine of the beams. A moment later, they had vanished.
“Damn!” snapped Riker.
“Next time, Will,” Deanna said in a tone that was meant to be comforting. But all it did was accentuate Riker’s frustration.
And then, suddenly, they heard the sound of more transporter beams. Figures were beginning to materialize right where the Romulans had vanished only moments before.
“Looks like next time came sooner than we anticipated,” Riker said. “Weapons, everyone!” They formed a firing squad, preparing to obliterate what appeared to be the returning Romulans.
And then the Starfleet personnel lowered their weapons as the new arrivals fully materialized. It was an away team from a starship, their phasers out and ready for trouble. When they saw who they were facing, their actions became a mirror image as they likewise lowered their weapons. The woman in charge of the away team stepped forward. She had short blond hair and an amused expression.
“Well well well, I should have known. Riker. I sh
ould have known if anyone would be in the middle of this mess, it would be you. Deanna, Worf.” She nodded to each of them.
“Who’s this?” asked Alexander in confusion.
She grinned. “Commander Elizabeth Shelby, kiddo. First officer, Starship Excalibur, Captain Korsmo commanding. You’re now officially saved.”
Twenty-five
“K’hanq! Excellent! Thank you for coming in answer to my summons.”
K’hanq entered Gowron’s private study, bowing slightly as he did so. “When Gowron summons, how can I do anything but respond.”
Gowron gestured for him to sit. “Well, you startled me, I must admit. After the attempted assassination several days ago, you left the planet rather quickly.”
“Of course, Chancellor. As one of your reliable sources of security information, I felt it imperative that I immediately investigate how such a thing could have happened.”
“As it turns out,” Gowron said, “I did some investigating on my own. It is a rather fascinating story, as near as I can determine. Shall we compare notes?”
“If you wish, Chanc—”
“I shall go first. It’s most intriguing. Listen—
“Deanna Troi and Alexander, son of Worf, had been kidnapped by Romulans, led by a woman named Sela. Worf was determined to go in pursuit of them. That much I knew. What I did not know was that William Riker…the real one…was being held prisoner on a Cardassian penal world in a case of mistaken identity. Worf rescued him from the penal camp and together they set out for what they believed to be the hideout of the Romulans. They were concerned, however, lest they run into difficulties beyond their ability to handle. They desired to leave word with Picard as to their activities and the full scope of their situation, but for various reasons felt they could not contact Starfleet directly.”