Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [18]
They didn’t slow when they reached the corner, but instead made a sharp right turn and kept going. When they passed another intersection, Kyle caught a glimpse of the two security officers coming toward them. He tensed, felt himself sweating beneath the extra layers of fabric. But he kept Sisko’s bulk between himself and them and continued on. The security team didn’t seem to think twice about them. But then, they knew Kyle Riker was a civilian, so two officers in uniform would not raise a flag.
One turbolift and two minutes later, and the two men were outside the building in the cool night air. A gentle breeze felt good on Kyle’s flushed face. “There you go,” Ben said. “I’d better get back to my family.”
“You do that,” Kyle agreed. “Keep them close, always.” He fingered the uniform’s collar. “I’ll, uhh… send this back to you.”
“Take your time.”
Ben put out his hand and Kyle took it in both of his. “Thank you, Ben. You made the right call.”
“Curzon’s a pretty good judge of character, Mr. Riker,” Ben replied. “I already knew that.”
He turned on his heel and went back inside. Kyle was alone, with who knew how many enemies around him.
Very much alone, he thought.
They came for him on the air tram. This time of night, the car was empty except for him, and there were only a couple of other passengers on the transport at all. He wasn’t sure where he would go; he just wanted to put some distance between himself and Starfleet Command. He closed his eyes, willing his body to relax after the tension back at the infirmary. But after riding for about twenty minutes, he heard it-the familiar hiss of breathing apparatus that allowed them to function in an M-Class atmosphere. He snapped to attention and saw three of them boarding his car, their suits disguising superheated crystalline bodies, multi-colored masks hiding their hideous faces. They pointed long, crooked sticks at him and he knew they were about to fire.
Panicked, he dove from his seat, hitting the floor and rolling beneath a seat farther down the aisle and hunched there, breathing heavily, waiting for the worst. The red rays he expected didn’t come, though. After a few moments, he dared to open his eyes. Two elderly civilians, both human, both somewhat astonished, stared at him with concern etching their features. “Are you okay, son?” one of them asked. Both of them kept their distance, Kyle noted, as if afraid to come too close.
“I don’t… the Tholians…” Kyle was dumfounded.
“Haven’t seen any Tholians around here,” the other one said with a chuckle. “I think we’d notice if there were any.”
“I expect so,” Kyle agreed. Humiliated, he crawled out from under the seat. Not that it would have provided him with any protection, he thought, studying it so he didn’t have to look at the people who assumed he’d gone completely insane. Not against those weapons they carried. He remembered those weapons, and the fierce damage they could do, entirely too well.
Realizing that he was still badly dressed in Ben Sisko’s uniform, he jumped off the transport at the next station rather than let the old couple get a longer look at him. He wasn’t sure where he was, but that was for the best. They’re starting again, he knew. The flashbacks.
He needed medical attention, or psychiatric help. But they were looking for him at the infirmary. Starfleet Command wasn’t a safe place for him now. No place was safe, really-at least, no place that Starfleet controlled, or where they had operatives. As he exited the station on a stair-lift to the street, he felt a stab of fear. What might be waiting on the street? A Starfleet assassin? A force of Tholian warriors? Something else, equally deadly, that he didn’t even know to watch for?
When he reached the street, which was dark and empty, he realized he was still carrying his padd, and it suddenly occurred to him that each padd had global positioning technology built in. A user could immediately locate his own coordinates via satellite. But conversely,