Star Trek The Next Generation: Planet X

by Michael Jan Friedman

  Sovar wondered, too. After all, the Xhaldian’s bare arms, visible through large rips in his sleeves, were ridged over with huge, purple blood vessels. His legs seemed so heavy he could hardly run and there was barely any brush left on his head.

  Then the lieutenant saw another directed-energy flash and remembered what he was doing there. His job was to stop the Draa’kon and he was determined to do that.

  “None of those kids seem to be using their powers,” Shadowcat commented. “They’re too scared or they don’t know how.”

  Sovar nodded in agreement. He could easily imagine their being frightened. If he had been transformed, persecuted, and hunted as they were, he would have been scared half out of his wits.

  Unfortunately, the Draa’kon outnumbered the lieutenant and his partner, so it wouldn’t do much good to go toe-to-toe with the brutes. Clearly, they had to take a different tack.

  One thing was in their favor, Sovar noticed. The alley seemed to work its way around a row of buildings and return on the other side of the roof he was standing on. With a little luck, he might be able to plant himself there and pick off the Draa’kon as they went by.

  Of course, the transformed had to elude the invaders for another minute or so for the trap to work. And even then, there was no guarantee Sovar wouldn’t be spotted after his first shot and destroyed. But in his line of work, there was never a guarantee.

  The lieutenant turned to Shadowcat to tell her his plan—and realized he was standing on the rooftop all alone. He glanced this way and that, wondering what could have happened to her. Then he heard shouts and realized the chase was coming his way sooner than he’d thought.

  Sovar couldn’t afford to worry about the mutant anymore. He had to duck or take a chance on being detected prematurely.

  Getting down on his belly, he inched over to the edge of the roof and scanned the labyrinthine alley in the direction of the transformed. No sign of them yet—or their pursuers either. But they were coming, all right.

  Finally, he got the glimpse of them he needed. As far as Sovar could tell, the Draa’kon hadn’t taken down any of the transformed yet.

  It was as if they were herding the young people rather than hunting them. Driving them toward a particular place, where the Draa’kon were perhaps better equipped to capture them.

  The one with the purple veins seemed to have the hardest time keeping up the pace. He stumbled and lurched as Sovar looked on. If the youth had ever been built for speed, he wasn’t any longer. The lieutenant’s heart went out to him.

  “A little further,” he whispered. “A little further.”

  Suddenly, he felt something grab him by the wrist. Instinctively, he wrenched it free—and was startled to see he’d been in the grasp of a hand reaching right out of the rooftop.

  A moment later, a head floated up to join it—Shadowcat’s head.

  Sovar took a breath, let it out. “What are you doing?” he rasped.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot who I’m dealing with.” She jerked a thumb in the direction of the alley. “Had to scout around a little. Get the lay of the land and so on.”

  Slowly, so he could see what she was doing, she took hold of the lieutenant’s wrist again. “Just trust me,” she told him. “Okay?”

  He swallowed. “Okay.”

  A moment later, he began sinking through the roof, drawn by Shadowcat’s gentle pull—though to him, it seemed as if the roof was rising all around him. It was a frightening, claustrophobic feeling. Something like falling through still water, except he had no trouble breathing.

  When the roof rose to the level of his eyes, he began seeing the inside of the materials that made up the building—not a cross-section, exactly, but the way it looked within. Unfortunately, it was too dark for him to make out much in the way of details.

  Then the darkness lifted and he could see again. He and Shadowcat were in a room—a dining alcove. But only for a moment. That slid past as well, as did another layer of floor.

  Finally, Sovar found himself in another dining alcove—but this one was on the ground floor, just outside the alley. His companion let go of his hand and pointed to a broken window.

  “You’re on your own now,” she told him.

  “What about you?” the lieutenant asked.

  “I’m not big on ray guns,” she quipped, “but I’ll find a way to make myself useful.” And with that, she sank through the floor as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world.

  “Good luck,” he breathed, and took up a position by the window.

  In a moment or two, the transformed went by, gathered in a tightly knit group—as if staying so close together would make them more secure somehow. Of course, it did just the opposite, making one big target out of them.

  But Sovar wasn’t really concentrating on the pursued. He was concentrating on their pursuers.

  A heartbeat later, the Draa’kon went by his window as well. There were six of them—the number the lieutenant had counted earlier. All were armed. And all were making good speed, despite their lumbering gait.

  Sovar took aim at the Draa’kon in the lead. But before he could press the trigger on his phaser, he saw the invader stumble and fall on his face. And when he went down, it forced his comrades to lurch to one side or the other in an effort not to trample him.

  Had he never met Shadowcat, the lieutenant wouldn’t have thought to glance at the ground in the Draa’kons’ wake. But he had met her, so he looked for her telltale hand sticking up from the street.

  And found it.

  In the meantime, the Draa’kon were in disarray, and the mutant’s interference had enabled the transformed to open a bigger lead. But none of it would mean anything unless Sovar took advantage of the situation.

  Aiming along the body of his phaser, he triggered its crimson beam and watched one of the Draa’kon hit the ground. Since none of the enemy had seen the source of the beam, the lieutenant took another shot. A second invader staggered and collapsed.

  By then, they had figured out where the phaser assault was coming from. Seeing the Draa’kon take aim at his broken window, Sovar ducked.

  A moment later, both the window and the casing around it blew back into the room, propelled by a storm of emerald fury. Afraid the wall would be the victim of the next barrage, the security officer rolled sideways over tiny pieces of glass and debris to get out of the way.

  But there wasn’t any next barrage. Instead, Sovar heard a series of guttural shouts and saw a flash of pale light through the windowless opening. Crawling back to see what was happening in the street, he peered out just in time to watch a Draa’kon get hammered with a bolt of white energy.

  For a second or so, the lieutenant didn’t know where the bolt had come from. Then he saw the transformed with the ridged, purple veins lumber back into view on his right, the youth’s fingers extended in the Draa’kons’ direction.

  Both of his hands were glowing like small suns.

  But, strangely, that wasn’t the quality about the transformed that surprised Sovar the most. The thing that stole his breath and left him numb in the knees was his realization that he knew the poor fellow. Knew him well, in fact. For he saw now that the wretch he had pitied earlier was his own younger brother.

  Spurred by a new sense of urgency, the lieutenant fired at another Draa’kon and sent him sprawling. He didn’t take cover again, either. He simply fired again, folding another of the invaders.

  The last Draa’kon took careful aim and probably would have killed him with an energy blast, except he found something was grabbing his ankle. Looking down, the invader saw a pair of slender hands tugging at him.

  Quite possibly, Shadowcat would have dragged the brute below the level of the street and left him there, but that wasn’t Sovar’s style. Before the mutant could carry out whatever scheme she had in mind, he stunned the Draa’kon with a burst from his phaser.

  As if that were her cue, Shadowcat floated up through the surface of the stre
et, brushing her hands against one another. The lieutenant recognized it as a human gesture of accomplishment.

  “We came, we saw, we conquered,” the mutant quipped.

  However, Sovar wasn’t in a jesting mood. Climbing through the opening where his window had been, he regarded the transformed who had been his brother—who was now kneeling in the street, attending to a comrade suffering from exhaustion. It made the lieutenant’s stomach tighten to see his kin in such a hideous state.

  “Erid … ?” he said tentatively.

  Surprised by the use of his name, the younger Sovar looked up and found its source. For a moment, he stared at his older sibling, as if finding it hard to believe he was standing there.

  Then his mouth twisted with hatred. “Get out of here!” he bellowed. “Leave us alone!”

  The lieutenant winced at the venom in his brother’s words. The Draa’kon’s blasts couldn’t have hurt much worse, he told himself.

  “You need help,” he told Erid. “All of you.”

  “We need nothing from the likes of you!” his brother rasped.

  Then, as the security officer watched, his brother picked his friend up in his arms and started to walk away with her.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  CRUSHER FOUND PICARD on the bridge. He was sitting in the command center, gazing warily at the image of the Draa’kon vessel on the viewscreen.

  With Riker and Troi gone, the seats on either side of the captain were empty. As the doctor sat down in one of them, Picard glanced at her.

  “They’re all stable,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “Except Archangel, of course.”

  That drew the captain’s interest. “Oh?”

  “I’m not sure why,” Crusher told him, “but he’s recuperating a lot more quickly than I expected.” She paused. “Did you read my report on him?”

  “I did,” Picard replied, turning back to the screen.

  “Then you know Archangel has something unusual in his blood. Not a healing factor, like Wolverine’s, but some kind of techno-organic material.”

  The muscles in the captain’s jaw rippled. “And you think it may be the reason for his rapid recovery?”

  “I’m starting to,” the doctor told him. “Remember, the Borg can repair themselves fairly quickly. Maybe he can as well.”

  “An interesting theory,” he conceded, “but why hasn’t Archangel displayed this propensity before?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe it has something to do with the type of injury he sustained. Maybe it had to be goosed by the bioregeneration process. All I know is he should still be lying there, unconscious, and he’s almost back to normal.”

  Picard gave Crusher a sidelong glance. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me something I won’t like?”

  She smiled. “Archangel asked me to speak with you on his behalf. He thinks he can be useful here on the bridge, providing insights into the actions of his teammates.”

  The captain frowned. “Insights, indeed.”

  “Those are his friends down there,” the doctor noted. “He wants desperately to help.”

  Picard didn’t respond right away. “You’re certain he’s sound?” he inquired at last.

  “Sound enough,” she answered. “And getting sounder all the time.”

  Again, the captain took some time before he spoke. “Very well,” he said. “Tell him he’s welcome here.”

  Crusher nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  Picard sighed. “Thank you.”

  Leaving the captain to his grim watch, she got up and headed for the turbolift. Archangel would be pleased, she thought. And perhaps he would be useful, if it came to that.

  As the lift doors opened, the doctor entered the compartment and turned around. “Sickbay,” she said. A moment later, the lift began to take her to her destination.

  Halfway there, an idea struck her. A bizarre idea, she had to admit—but one that might prove exceedingly helpful to her. Maybe Archangel wasn’t the only mutant on the ship who could provide some insights …

  * * *

  With the towering form of Colossus at her side, Troi walked slowly down the dismal, empty street, unaccustomed to the phaser in her hand. Her Betazoid senses reached out methodically in every direction, seeking friend and foe alike. However, this part of Verdeen was as abandoned as it had looked during their descent.

  Anyway, that was how it seemed at first.

  Then something registered in the counselor’s mind—something brutal and bloodthirsty, gratified by the prospect of violence. Inwardly, she cringed, knowing that emotional terrain all too well.

  She had made contact with a Draa’kon soldier. No—two of them, she told herself. And they weren’t alone. There were gentler beings with them—beings wracked with fear, focused at the moment on self-preservation to the exclusion of all else.

  Xhaldians, Troi noted. And they were in danger.

  Grabbing the mutant’s metallic arm, she pulled him toward the intersection ahead of them. “Come on,” she said.

  “You’ve found some Draa’kon?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the counselor told him, “Draa’kon—and Xhaldians as well. And if we don’t hurry, the Xhaldians may not survive much longer.”

  Hearing that, Colossus picked up the pace, too. For someone who seemed to be made of metal he moved rather quickly, eating the ground ahead of them with long, loping strides. In fact, Troi was hard pressed to keep up.

  At the end of the street, she turned right and the mutant followed. When they came to the end of that street, they turned left and kept running.

  “How much further?” Colossus asked.

  “Not much,” the counselor told him, panting a little. “It feels like they’re around the next corner.”

  As they approached the building at the end of the block, she slowed down and gestured for her partner to do the same. After all, she thought, she might be able to incapacitate the Draa’kon without exposing Colossus and herself to any danger. That was what phasers were for.

  Finally, they reached the corner of the building. By then, Troi could hear voices. Apparently, the Draa’kon were interrogating the Xhaldians.

  Lowering herself to one knee, she leaned forward and took a peek. She could see the Draa’kon, all right. And a couple of Xhaldians, too. The aliens had backed the natives up against a wall and were pointing their energy weapons at them with obvious intent.

  “… by the vegetable market,” one of the Xhaldians was saying. “Just a couple of blocks from here. There are five or six of them.”

  “You will show us,” one of the Draa’kon insisted.

  “Be glad to,” the Xhaldian told him. “You’ll be doing us a favor, taking those monsters away with you.”

  “That’s right,” said one of the other Xhaldians. “They’re freaks. They don’t belong among decent people.”

  “And we’re not the only ones who think so,” the third Xhaldian added.

  It wasn’t just their fear talking, the counselor realized. They really felt that way about the transformed.

  Colossus’s brow knotted and he swore beneath his breath. “I have heard enough of such talk to last me a lifetime,” he whispered.

  Troi pulled her head back. “We’ve still got to help them,” she told the mutant. “That’s what we came here for.”

  He grunted, his expression still heavy with indignation. “It is always that way, is it not? They hate us, they revile us, and yet we help them anyway.”

  The Betazoid felt his pain. She felt his deep, abiding bitterness. But she also felt his resolve to see their mission carried out.

  “You will have difficulty getting close to the Draa’kon,” she said. “Perhaps I can stun them from here.”

  Colossus shook his head. “That will not be necessary,” he replied.

  Then he dug his metallic fingers into the wall in front of them. When he withdrew them, he had wrestled two chunks of it free.

  “I, too, can operate at a dista
nce,” the mutant told her.

  Troi looked at the chunks of building material in his hands and nodded appreciatively. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose you can.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Colossus asked her.

  The counselor shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

  Then they turned the corner and went after the Draa’kon together.

  * * *

  Crouched behind a pile of disruptor-blasted rubble, Data picked his head up for a moment, took aim, and squeezed off a shot. He saw his phaser beam miss a Draa’kon and strike a surviving wall beside him instead, showering the android’s intended target with tiny fragments.

  A moment later, the enemy returned his fire, destroying half of the debris protecting him. Before they could destroy the rest of it, Data gathered his legs underneath him and dove full-length for a bigger pile nearby.

  Again, he drew a barrage of green disruptor bolts, but none of them hit his artificial body. Rolling to a stop, he waited until the barrage was discontinued. Then he raised his head again and reconnoitered.

  Perhaps twenty of the Draa’kon had hunkered in the ruins of a couple of buildings they had all but leveled earlier. Beyond them, penned in by the aliens on one side and a sudden, steep hillside on the other, was a structure that sheltered an indeterminate number of Xhaldians—more than likely, some of the transformed.

  From what the android had seen since his arrival planetside, the Draa’kons’ perferred tactic was to herd the transformed—driving them from street to street or building to building—and then to capture the youths en masse. Their objective, as Storm had speculated on the Enterprise, seemed to be to take the transformed back with them to the Connharakt.

  Why? Data had had a few moments to contemplate the question while his shuttle was descending, and he believed he had come up with some answers. However, there was no time to refine his theories at the moment. He and his comrades, under the leadership of Commander Worf, were too busy attempting to spoil the Draa’kons’ kidnapping plans.

  On the android’s right, Banshee opened his mouth and blasted the remnants of a wall, exposing a pair of surprised Draa’kon soldiers. Without hesitation, Data skewered one with a discharge from his phaser. But several other beams failed to hit the second invader, and he lumbered to safety.