Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [80]
In a split second he saw the dents he’d made on one of them in their previous meeting. This time a victor will be decided, he told himself.
He felt their antigravs kick in with all their power, dragging him forward, and he heard the whine of the armed one-eye’s gun charging to blast him with radiation.
But before it could fire, Worf dug in his heels and stopped himself, then whirled with all his strength like a discus thrower—whirled once, twice, accelerating the one-eyes at the rim of his turn with all his strength and speed. Then he smashed them against the bulkhead.
One of the two devices slipped out of his hands. It was the locksmith one-eye. Out of the corner of his eye he saw it move away, slowly and tentatively, as if it were stunned. He held onto the other, whose gun had quit whining and whose antigravs were fading. He smashed it again and again into the bulkhead, hearing and feeling it come apart in his hands, the jagged edges of sheet metal and IC’s cutting into his flesh. Still he felt parts of it moving, and he continued to hurl the mangled mass against the wall, until he realized it had disintegrated and he was holding only a piece of metal chassis.
He dropped it and looked down. One little solenoid relay near his boot continued to click stubbornly. He crushed it underfoot.
He looked down the corridor, and saw the other one-eye, the locksmith, floating slowly, bumping intermittently into one wall. He sprinted after it, locked his hands together and struck it right on top, crushing its antennae. It hit the deck and rebounded upward. He grabbed it and tore it apart piece by piece, savoring the moment.
When he was done, he composed himself, cleared the thick satisfaction from his throat, and touched his communicator.
“Worf to La Forge.”
“La Forge here.”
“I have destroyed the locksmith and its guard.”
“Worf!” Geordi gave a primal triumphant yell. “Whoooooeeeeeeee!”
“Interesting, sir. Is that an attempt at a Klingon death-howl? It wants for a bit more frenzy.”
“That wasn’t a death-howl, that was a job-well-done-howl.”
“I believe I can destroy others if you can give me their positions, sir.”
“The others are closer to Wesley, and he’s about to try his device on them. I’m going to send you up there anyway, Worf, but let’s hope Wesley can get rid of them without any more risks on your part.”
As Shikibu walked along the corridor toward her cabin, she recognized she was in too agitated a state for what lay ahead. She needed the tranquil state known in Zen archery as mushin.
Don’t resist, she told herself, just let the thoughts and feelings play themselves out.
She allowed herself to think of the one-eyes themselves. That thought subsided. Other thoughts stubbornly jumped in to fill the void: Wesley touching her hair in the Ryoanji rock garden and her heart rate’s corresponding jump … her Archery Master’s “parting-with-life-verse” he composed and spoke as he died … the marble pattern on the inside cover of a book she once saw …
The thoughts became more random and sparse, until, by the time she’d reached her cabin and gotten what she needed from it, she was in the state of mushin. Ready.
The two security men flanking Wesley didn’t have their phasers drawn. If Wesley’s Cyclops-buster didn’t work, the security men had no weapons they could safely use on the one-eyes; they could only retreat and attempt to hustle Wesley and his machine into a safe haven.
The machine was a lopsided mass of small generators and wave-guides, an awkward package Wesley held with both hands as he walked. The thing’s power source was already on, and it hummed and purred, ready, like an obedient little animal, to release its energy at the prompting of Wesley’s touch on its activation button.
“Two of the intruders coming your way from star-board,” said Wentz over Wesley’s communicator. “Shikibu will arrive at your position to provide more support, but not until after the one-eyes get to you. I don’t know what’s been keeping her.”
Wesley saw they were