Chapter Eighteen

EVEN WHEN MRS. KHANTY took the stick away, the electricity snapped and sizzled through Worf another two or three eternities.

He coughed and fought, but only when he shuddered down the last surge and his gasping steadied did Mrs. Khanty speak again.

“Now pay attention” she said, glancing around at the ten Rogues. “The parts of his body will never be found. You think you have imagination? Think you’re scary? Wait until you see what I do with this man.”

Now she turned to Worf again.

“The election is tomorrow, you know. Your plan backfired. People on this pissant planet are believing that it was a Starfleet plot to kill my husband. Before this, I stood a chance of losing the election. If that happened, my empire would collapse. But, thanks to you and your dead friend over there, I’m going to sweep it. My polls are higher than ever. Everything you wanted to stop is going to happen. All because you betrayed me.”

“I never betrayed you,” Worf choked. “You never deserved my loyalty. You never had it. You showed no loyalty to anyone. Not the people, not the children, not even your husband.”

She twisted the handle of the buffalo prod, and the instrument began a faint hum. She had powered it up.

She reached out and poked him again with the prod. Dzzzzt —

Electricity bolted through Worf even more jarringly than before, and sent him crashing against the grid. Mrs. Khanty watched and waited for the snapping and sizzling to die down, until Worf was groaning and gasping.

As he gasped, she said, “My husband was a patsy. He couldn’t make a decision. He was a wind sock. Whatever the day demanded. His goals were a mile wide and an inch deep. I was the only one who had a vision.”

“You … had … ambition,” Worf coughed, “not vision.”

She clicked the buffalo prod up another grade until the rod hummed angrily, then zapped him again, this time in the hollow of his shoulder.

Dzzzzzzaaat—

The surge was blinding. He stiffened in agony, and his entire side went numb. When she drew the prod back, Worf sagged and began twitching uncontrollably. In his periphery he saw Riker and Crusher gazing at him with tortured eyes, and he hoped they would keep quiet. He knew what he was absorbing, and knew their human frames would be blown to rags with very little of this.

Looking at the Rogues again, she said, “There’s got to be buffalo pee in the water on this colony. I dress like Bo-Peep and tell them there’s no evidence, and they think it’s the same as saying I didn’t do anything. And thanks to Worf, no matter how much I control, no matter who I kill for the next ten years, I’ll be able to blame it on Starfleet. Not everybody’s as hard to kill as my husband. It took two tries to finally get rid of him.”

Beverly Crusher peered around Mortash’s considerable shoulder. “You mean you’re the one who attempted to kill your husband the first time?”

“With my own lily-white hands,” Khanty said. “Only he didn’t have the common courtesy to die. I finally had to finish him, and Worf and Grant were very polite to take the blame. And these colonial yokels will swallow it. I don’t know what to do to thank you, Worf. So I’ll kill you.”

“Betrayer,” Worf rasped. “Conscience does not confuse you. You are a public hack. Any lie that advances you is fair play. Simple justice never impedes you. How long can you keep control that way? You can not even control me. Remember, you do not have my Oath of Sto’Vokor.

“These people …” Worf continued, “trusted you … you could have helped build a… fine community… here.”

“Here? You think I’m spending the rest of my life with manure on my shoes? This dump is a stepping-stone.”

Mrs. Khanty clicked the buffalo prod up another setting. Then another, until it hummed and actually sparked. Another click or two and it would easily become a shuttlecraft prod.

“I’ve ordered thousands of deaths, but I’ve only done two with my own hands. My husband, and now you.”

She turned to Worf and moved closer, as if sizing him up. Even the Rogues were tight with nervousness and empathy. Ugulan had stepped away—well away.

Interesting way to die. Prodded to death. What would that look like on his service record?

She surveyed him as if trying to decide which part of his body would be more fun to poke with that heartless device, and he knew she was giving him time to think about what was coming. Him, and the Rogues.

She raised the prod, and stepped back to give herself room to use it—

“Wait!” Riker called. Mrs. Khanty looked at him. “Wait for what?”

The first officer made a motion at the wall-mounted observation screen just outside the cell. “You might want to turn that on.”

“That will do you no good!” Ugulan shouted. “That one is a security display monitor, not a recording monitor, fool.”

“Why don’t you see if there’s anything to display?” Riker suggested.

Crusher gave Khanty a thick woman-to-woman look and added, “I think there is.”

Khanty’s expression lost its smugness. She gestured to Goric. “Turn it on.”

Ugulan swung to her. “That monitor cannot possibly record anything you’ve said. It has no way of doing that!”

“Turn it on!” Khanty roared.

Goric plowed out of the cell. Every body in the place was tense now, sensing complication. Goric pounded the monitor control until it came on.

A fritzing picture jumped to life, fielding some interference, and struggled to clarify itself. The sound crackled, then settled into a voice.

“There’s got to be buffalo pee in the water on this colony. I dress like Bo-Peep and tell them there’s no evidence, and they think it’s the same as saying I didn ‘t do anything. And thanks to Worf, no matter how much I control, no matter who I kill for the next ten years, I’ll be able to blame it on Starfleet. Not everybody’s as hard to kill as my husband. It took two tries to finally get rid of him.”

“You mean you’re the one who attempted to kill your husband the first time?”

“With my own lily-white hands. Only he didn’t have the common courtesy to die. I finally had to finish him, and Worf and Grant were very polite to take the blame. And these colonial yokels will swallow it. I don’t know what to do to thank you, Worf. So I’ll kill you.”

The picture fritzed again, shifted, and settled again, this time on a close-up of Mrs. Khanty as she turned to Worf.

“I’ve ordered thousands of deaths, but I’ve only done two with my own hands. My husband, and now you.”

The Rogues stared and stared, utterly stunned and no doubt running over in their minds how this could possibly be happening.

“It is being broadcast colonywide,” Worf shuddered out. “All the airwaves have been pirated. The whole planet has been watching you.”

“How!” Khanty shrieked. “It’s a trick! This is a trick! How could this happen!”

Abruptly, a hand clamped on her wrist and held her in place. She automatically tried to wrench away, but she was held as tightly as Worf was to the grid. She looked up, and sucked in a hard breath. She was staring up into Data’s bright, living eyes and his pain-free face.

“You are being most discourteous, madam,” Data said blandly. “Perhaps a pause to regain composure would serve us all.”

The Rogues gawked in shock, unable even to swing their phasers around before Mrs. Khanty reacted.

She howled and twisted the buffalo prod upward toward Data’s face.

Though he was still hanging and without leverage, he managed to crank his face away from her just as the prod veered toward his eyes. The prod struck his vest lapel, zapped brightly, and set the vest instantly on fire in a hail of sparks. The fabric enjoyed burning, and flames quickly swept the front of Data’s clothing. Still, he did not let go of Odette Khanty’s wrist.

Terrorized, the woman transferred the rod to her other hand and swung it wildly, striking Tyro with a numbing jolt of electricity and setting him on fire, too. He slammed backward, numb and convulsing. He tumbled into two other Rogues, who also rolled into flames and scrambled away, trying to put out their clothing.

Riker blew into action, pulling from his belt a simple shielded stunner, unscannable, and driving it into Mortash’s sternum. The big Klingon stared at his body, looked at Riker, and clawed at the air. Riker instantly took possession of Mortash’s phaser and started dropping Rogues when he could get a clear shot.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t easy. The small cell burst into a flurry of movement. Under cover of that movement, Crusher pulled out a medical injection device—smaller than the usual sickbay version—and lanced another Rogue in the throat. He knocked her to the ground, then dropped like a sandbag, unconscious. As another Rogue sprung after Riker, Crusher got that one, too, with an injection directly in the face.

How many was that? Worf tried to clear his head. How many Rogues were left standing?

Data raised his other hand and tried to pat out the flames on his clothing. The heat was becoming intense enough for Worf to feel it several steps away, and Data wouldn’t be able to see through the fire, which might also damage the delicate camera mechanisms in his eyes.

The prosthetic sheath on his face was now melting, his human disguise curling like parchment, revealing the golden android skin beneath. His special contact lenses were fading, spreading wide and losing their integrity, revealing his catlike amber eyes. Those eyes sta ed down at Odette Khanty.

Mrs. Khanty struggled insanely, but now looked up at the creature holding her wrist in his iron clamp and saw the corpse becoming a wraith. She pulled back and screamed out her horror.

At the metal grid, Worf yanked and strained, but could not break the cords that bound his wrists. “Data!” he shouted.

Data slapped at his clothing, and decided to sacrifice his grip on Odette Khanty long enough to reach up and rip the noose off his neck. He dropped to the ground, distracted for a fraction of a second.

During that instant, Odette Khanty swung her buffalo prod in a great arc, snapping and setting fire to another Rogue, and Crusher’s lace sleeve, then bolting for the corridor. She slammed into the opposite wall, just under the monitor.

“Here? You think I’m spending the rest of my life with manure on my shoes? This dump is a stepping-stone.”

She swung the prod upward and smashed the view screen. Sparks erupted in a violent display that blanketed half the corridor, and in that fog of fireworks, she disappeared.

“Data!” Worf howled again, this time over the whine of Riker’s careful phaser shot.

“Coming,” Data said evenly. Plowing over the fallen Rogues, he snapped Worf’s braided bonds as if they were shoelaces.

As Worf struggled to regain control over his numb legs, Data whirled on the remaining Rogues and drove two of them into the back wall, one with each hand, hard enough that they both collapsed with head injuries. Data’s violence could be very precise.

Then he turned to the last Rogue standing—Ugulan. Ugulan’s notable obstinancy ran out as he gaped into the shredded face of a powerful wraith whose clothing still smoldered, embroiling Data in a monstrous shroud. Every move he made threw off a tendril of smoke, as if he were a wizard casting spells.

Ugulan didn’t even try. He spun around and headed for the cell entrance.

In his panic he forgot that Worf was standing there.

Worf reached out as Ugulan tried to pass him by. For an instant they simply stared at each other, until Worf’s fury peaked.

He skewered Ugulan with a long, cold glare, gritted his teeth, and roared, “It is a good day to die!”

His right fist drew back and flew forward in a short, hard punch to Ugulan’s rib cage. Never had Worf thrown such a punch in his entire life. Never had he felt such rage driving his actions. His fist struck Ugulan’s sternum, cracking the bone, then his other fist drove into the other Klingon’s chest. Before Worf’s eyes, Ugulan’s body collpased. Living or dead, Worf did not know. Either way, his soul was doomed.

Dizzy and wheezing, Worf spun twice to make sure all the Rogues were down or gone, then looked around to where Riker was snuffing out the flames on Crusher’s sleeve. “All of you stay here!” he shouted.

Data smoldered forward. “I will go with you—”

“No! This is for me alone!”

“You’d better run,” Riker said. “She’s getting away.”

“She will not get away,” Worf snarled back. “And I refuse to run.”