by Greg Cox
Naxor.
“I am surprised you had the nerve to leave your ship once more,” the hostile Ryol said, “after your cowardly performance at the dance a few nights ago.” His sneering lips intersected with the scar running down his cheek. How the hell did he find me? Paris wondered. The man is more persistent than a bloodhound.
Nor had he come alone. Paris counted three more Ryol males standing behind Naxor. All were dressed for the beach, but none seemed to have swimming on the mind. This looks bad, Paris thought. Naturally, he had left his phaser back in his quarters and his commbadge in a dressing room at the other end of the beach. Ditto for Harry and Susan, he assumed. They were outnumbered and unarmed. The only bright side to their situation, as far as he could see, was that none of the Ryol appeared to be carrying weapons either.
“Back home we call that the better part of valor,” Paris said, rising slowly to his feet. Kim and Tukwila also lifted themselves off the sand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw their neffaler scamper away across the obsidian beach, his picnic basket and catering duties evidently abandoned. Smart guy, he thought. “But I don’t suppose you care about that, do you?”
“No,” Naxor said coldly. He stepped closer to Paris, raising his fists. The pupils of his malachite eyes shrunk to pinpricks of black.
“Everybody calm down,” Kim said. “There’s no need to fight.”
“That’s right,” Tukwila agreed. “It’s too beautiful a day to spoil with a lot of broken noses and split lips.”
The Ryol males ignored the humans’ attempts at peacemaking, except by snickering behind Naxor as he glared at Tom Paris with undisguised hatred in his eyes. Thanks for trying, he silently acknowledged his friends, but I don’t think that’s going to work today.
Paris felt a peculiar sense of relief as he mentally bowed to the inevitable. This smug Ryol had been giving him a hard time since almost the moment he first beamed down to the planet; Paris was tired of trying to stay out of his way. Let’s get this over with, he thought. Eager to let the Ryol make the first move, he gave Naxor his most infuriating smirk.
It worked. Snarling like an enraged wolf, Naxor grabbed for Paris’s throat with both hands. Paris efficiently blocked Naxor’s lunge, thrusting his arms between Naxor’s and spreading them apart while simultaneously kicking out at the Ryol’s undefended kneecap. His bare foot slammed into Naxor’s knee, staggering his opponent, who howled in pain as he clutched his leg. Naxor’s companions surged forward, only to be met by Kim and Tukwila who took up defensive positions to the left and right of Paris.
Despite their recent disagreement, the trio from Voyager fought with discipline and teamwork. Paris saw Tukwila take out one Ryol with a deft chop to the neck. He fell face-first into the basket of sotul, producing a singularly squishy splash. Kim grappled with another attacker, eventually twisting his arm behind his back. Veins and tendons stood out on the Ryol’s neck as he clenched his teeth in rage and growled with surprising ferocity. It took all Kim’s effort to keep his foe immobilized.
That left one more Ryol for Paris to deal with, not counting Naxor, who, bent over at the waist, continued to writhe in agony, holding on to his injured knee. The remaining Ryol charged between Paris and Naxor, his golden mane streaming in the wind generated by his headlong dash. Paris aimed a solid punch at the Ryol’s jaw, but the man proved more agile than expected; he ducked beneath the blow and barreled into Paris. Black sand went flying into the air as Paris was knocked off his feet, landing flat on his back upon the beach. The Ryol pounced on top of him, his sharpened nails digging into Paris’s shoulders, his white teeth snapping at the human’s face and throat.
Is he really trying to bite me? Paris didn’t want to find out. He grabbed the Ryol by his forehead and chin and, extending his arms with all his strength, shoved the hate-crazed face away from his, at least for the moment. The Ryol had the superior position, though, not to mention gravity, on his side. His head and shoulders pressed against the force of Paris’s arms, his gnashing teeth lowering second by second until they were only centimeters away from the Starfleet officer’s exposed throat. The savage growl of his attacker roared in Paris’s ears; he was suddenly reminded of the vicious dog that had attacked him on the Caretaker’s array. “Hey,” he said to the Ryol assaulting him, “let’s not get carried away here!”
The Ryol merely snarled in reply. His teeth crashed together next to the human’s neck. Paris felt the Ryol’s hot breath upon his skin.
“Tom!” Susan Tukwila shouted. “Over here!” Yanking his gaze away from the enraged visage of his Ryol assailant, Paris risked a glance in his comrade’s direction. She had dispatched her own opponent with commendable speed; as he watched, the fallen Ryol made a half-hearted attempt to rise from the shattered remains of the picnic basket, only to be driven back into the juicy purple mess by an emphatic kick from Tukwila’s well-aimed leg. Paris spared a heartbeat to admire her technique and muscle tone. “Ready anytime you are,” she called out to Paris.
“Got it,” he acknowledged. Returning his attention to his own foe, he rocked backward, flipping the seemingly bloodthirsty Ryol over his shoulders. Caught off balance, the Ryol landed in a heap at Tukwila’s feet, only a few meters away from the other dazed Ryol. She brought both fists down on his golden scalp. Paris heard them crash against the Ryol’s skull. He dropped unconscious onto the sand before the sound of the blow ceased echoing in Paris’s ears. Let’s hear it for Starfleet training, he thought, and Maquis enthusiasm.
He peered over at Kim. Harry had both of “his” Ryol’s arms locked behind his back now, but the captive Ryol was still kicking and thrashing himself into a frenzy. Kim looked like an old-time rodeo cowboy struggling to stay astride a bucking bronco. “C’mon, Harry!” he shouted. “Are you still dancing with that clown? What’s your problem?”
“He’s stronger than he looks,” Kim said between grants. He tried to trip the Ryol, but the maroon-skinned alien refused to fall. His bare feet kicked up small storms of flying black sand, until Susan Tukwila strolled over and delivered a forceful karate chop to the man’s abdomen. He instantly went limp in Kim’s arms. Paris heard Kim breathe a sigh of relief.
“Tell me about it,” Paris said. He climbed to his feet, leaving behind a shallow depression in the sand. His shoulders still stung where the maddened Ryol had dug his sharp brown nails into them. Inspecting his wounds, Paris saw that the man’s claws had indeed broken the skin in several places. Small amounts of blood leaked from ten deep indentations in his flesh. Ouch, Paris thought, wondering if a trip to the sickbay was in order.
First, though, there was Naxor himself to deal with. Laazia’s insanely jealous Ryol suitor was hunched over not far away, massaging his battered kneecap with both hands. He looked like he’d had the fight kicked out of him for now. Paris hoped that Naxor wouldn’t give them any more trouble now that his buddies had been taken out of the picture. “You had enough?” he called to the persistently difficult Ryol.
Naxor lifted his head, his pale green eyes blazing with fury. “How dare you speak to me in that tone!” he barked. His voice was hoarse and husky and full of menace. “Animals. Neffaler. I will show you how little your feeble resistance means to me.”
He limped toward the human trio, breathing heavily. His eyes grew wider, his pupils expanding until the green of their irises almost completely disappeared, leaving only two vacant black holes that seemed to suck in all light and hope from whatever they beheld. Spooky, Paris thought, working hard to maintain a cocksure attitude. It felt like whistling in a graveyard.
“I hate to break this to you, Naxor, old pal,” Paris said. It was difficult not to flinch in the face of those empty black eyes. They looked darker than ordinary optics allowed, almost as if they had delved beyond mere blackness into some unnatural fuliginous hue beyond the outer reaches of the visible spectrum. They were more than dark; they were anti-light. “But the rest of your gang is down and out. You’re on your own.”
“So are
you,” Naxor whispered.
A gasp pushed its way past Tukwila’s lips. Kim began to choke and cough. What the devil? Paris wondered. He spun around on his heels just in time to see both Kim and Tukwila clutching their throats as their eyes filled up with surprise and alarm. They staggered upon the beach, barely able to keep standing. Their faces looked pale and bloodless. “Tom,” Tukwila croaked, her voice no more than a raspy squeak. “Help.”
She dropped to her knees, then collapsed into the black sand. Kim managed to stay on his feet for a few more seconds before losing consciousness and falling only a meter or two away from Tukwila’s prostrate form. Paris ran over and hastily checked the fallen bodies; he felt their pulses, listened to their shallow breathing. They were still alive, thank goodness, but out cold. How? he wondered. What had Naxor done to them?
He heard the Ryol laughing, and spun around to confront him. “Damn you,” Paris said. “This was just between you and me.” A new intensity gripped him. What had started out as just another brawl had suddenly turned deadly serious. He had to survive—and tell Captain Janeway about Naxor’s mysterious assault on Kim and Tukwila.
“Precisely,” the Ryol answered him. “Are you ready to face me alone, without your bodyguards and babysitters?”
I’ll show you how ready I am, Paris thought. Dropping quickly onto one knee, he grabbed a handful of dark pellets and threw them in Naxor’s face. The move caught Naxor by surprise. He stumbled backward, rubbing the tiny particles from his eyes, spitting the sand from his mouth. Paris took advantage of his foe’s confusion by running forward and delivering a solid punch to Naxor’s chin. The blow staggered Naxor, but didn’t drop him. That punch would have put a Klingon on his back, Paris thought, disappointed. He remembered the surprising strength of Laazia’s embrace. Just how tough are these Ryol anyway?
He wasn’t too worried, though. From what he had seen so far, the Ryol might be strong but they were also sloppy fighters. Time to use some of that Starfleet Academy training, he thought, following his punch with a roundhouse kick to Naxor’s jaw. Then he grabbed the arrogant Ryol by his blond mane and spun him around, letting go of Naxor only after he had built up enough momentum to send Naxor stumbling forward across the beach. Following in his opponent’s wake, Paris rammed him in the small of the back. The impact served to knock Naxor into the surf. He threw out his hands to break his fall as the golden foam broke against his arms and legs.
Paris’s bare feet splashed through the water after Naxor. The sun beat down upon his shoulders. He could taste the ginger in the air. As long as I can keep him on the defensive, he thought, maybe he won’t be able to do to me what he did to Harry and Susan. Naxor was sprawled on all fours in front of him. He locked his arm around the Ryol’s neck and dragged him backward toward the shore. “Come on,” Paris grunted. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you did to my friends.”
A shockingly feral growl emerged from Naxor. The sound sent a chill down Paris’s spine; he had heard enraged tigers and sehlats that sounded more sentient. Naxor twisted in Paris’s grasp. Paris tried to hold on to him, but he’d underestimated the Ryol’s strength once more. Naxor wrenched his body around until Paris found himself looking into the twin black holes beneath Naxor’s angry brows. No, Paris thought urgently. Don’t look in his eyes!
Too late. Paris felt his own strength slipping away, sucked into the cavernous depths of Naxor’s empty black eyes. His arms felt like heavy duranium weights. His legs felt as limp and rubbery as Neelix’s infamous hair pasta. He struggled to hang on to Naxor, but there was no energy left in his fingers; they trailed away uselessly as Naxor pulled himself free. Paris tried to lift his head, to keep his enemy in view, but his eyelids kept drooping. It was no use; even when he succeeded in keeping his eyes open, the world grew dim and vague around the edges.
He had never felt so tired, not even after those grueling days of rehabilitative labor at the Federation penal settlement the captain had rescued him from. Even breathing was a strain. And he was cold. Every last bit of warmth seem to be fleeing his body; all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball in hopes of hanging on to whatever heat was left. The waves lapping at his shins felt like ice water. His toes were numb. Is this what it’s like to freeze to death? he wondered.
A heavy blow struck him in the back. Naxor, he realized, but he was too weak to fight back. No fair, he thought, as a series of brutal jabs and punches hammered him relentlessly. He tried to strike out at his attacker, but his limbs did not respond to his increasingly hazy mental commands. He didn’t even have enough energy to try to dodge the next blow. Naxor’s fists smacked against his spine and Paris fell face-first into the surf.
The cold water shocked him back to partial alertness. He swallowed a mouthful of gingery sea water and started to lift his head out of the shallow water. Then a remorseless hand pushed his head downward—into the golden brine and the slippery sand below the waves.
“Neffaler!” Naxor snarled in his ears.
Sharpened nails dug into the back of his scalp as Paris felt his face pressed deeper and deeper into the slurry. Wet sand clogged his nostrils and forced its way past his lips. He couldn’t breathe! His enervated arms and legs thrashed weakly as he numbly fought to extricate himself from Naxor’s grip. His cheeks swelled as he tried to hold on to his last gasp of air. Blinded by the sand, suffocating by the second, he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer. He expected his life to pass before his eyes, but, to his surprise, the first thing he remembered was that time he broke the warp barrier and transformed into an amphibian. Now would be a good time to get those gills back, he mused.
Bubbles of carbon dioxide slipped out between his clenched teeth. He guessed he was only a heartbeat away from inhaling a couple lungfuls of water and sand. The ship, he thought desperately. Someone has to warn her. . . .
Without warning, the pressure on the back of his skull went away. Strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled him over so that his face was out of the water. He could breathe again. Sea and slurry running from his nose and mouth, Paris gratefully sucked in oxygenated air, taking one deep breath after another. Ryolanov’s crimson sun warmed his face.
“Are you quite all right, Lieutenant?” came a familiar voice. Averting his eyes from the blinding glare of the sun, Paris saw Tuvok kneeling beside him. The Vulcan security officer was in uniform, but appeared unconcerned about the water soaking his boots and the cuffs of his trousers.
“I think so,” Paris answered. He shook his head, throwing off tiny droplets of brine, and rubbed the water and sand out of his eyes. That was a close call, he thought, then remembered his adversary. “Naxor?” he asked.
“Neutralized for the moment,” Tuvok stated. He called Paris’s attention to the supine figure lying nearby. The homicidal Ryol lay flat on his back amid the surging spray of the tide. His eyes were closed—good thing, Paris thought—and his mouth hung open. “Interesting,” Tuvok commented as he rose to his feet. “The Ryol have not been forthcoming with biological data about their species. I was unsure whether the Vulcan nerve pinch would have any effect on one of their kind.”
Now that the battle was over, Paris felt his strength beginning to return. He still felt like he’d just run the Deltan Marathon, but he no longer seemed to be leaking energy faster than a cracked dilithium crystal. He stood up slowly, then helped Tuvok drag Naxor’s insensate body onto dry land. The Vulcan kneeled again and applied what looked like a hypospray to the Ryol’s exposed neck. “I suggest we attempt to rouse our comrades, then beam directly to Voyager. There is much that needs to be discussed with the captain.”
“I’ll say,” Paris agreed. He glanced around the now-peaceful beach. Of the eight humanoids currently occupying this stretch of shore, only he and Tuvok remained upright, and only the Vulcan was not dressed for a day of idle sunbathing. In his neatly pressed (if slightly damp) Starfleet uniform, Tuvok looked very much out of place. For the first time, an odd question occurred to Paris:
What in blazes was Tuvok doing on the beach?
• • •
B’Elanna swore in Klingon as Kes applied an anesthetic to her arm. Since Torres usually disdained her Klingon heritage, Kes guessed that the pain had to be fairly intense. “Hang on,” Kes said, “this should relieve the discomfort in a few seconds.” She put the hypospray down on a counter. “You should feel your arm growing numb right away.”
“Yes,” Torres hissed through clenched teeth. “I can feel it starting to take effect.” Her foot tapped impatiently on the floor of the sickbay. She had refused to lie down on a biobed, insisting that her injuries were minimal. Kes wondered if all Klingons were this stubborn; B’Elanna was the only Klingon she had met, possibly the only Klingon in the Delta Quadrant, but both Tom and Harry insisted that B’Elanna’s legendary temper was typical of her species. Kes had asked The Doctor about Klingons once, only to receive a thirty-minute lecture on the intricacies of their auxiliary nervous system. Interesting enough, she conceded, but not exactly what she had hoped for. Ultimately she was more interested in the hearts and minds of each new race she encountered, not just the details of their respective anatomies.
The Doctor could not lecture now. All his attention was consumed by Ensign Jourdan who was flat on her back on the primary biobed, beneath a surgical support frame. Kes glanced at the sensor readings on the monitor suspended over the patient’s head; despite the severity of her injuries, the young ensign’s vital signs looked good. As Jourdan had received the most serious damage in the accident, The Doctor was concentrating on her, leaving Kes to care for Torres.