Possession - J.M. Dillard [50]
“Excellent,” Kyla murmured, speaking to the violet orbs again, totally absorbed in their cellular structure. “Just put them down over there.” She waved vaguely toward the coffee table. “That’ll be all. Thank you.”
She spent another few seconds thus absorbed, following the trail of the microscopic artificial nerves, not even noticing that the doors failed to open and close again.
A hand closed on her shoulder.
She whirled about and stared up into the ensign’s strangely familiar dark face.
“Excuse me, Dr. Dannelke,” he said, his voice no longer timid but strong, firm, and self-assured. “Could you look up at me for one moment?”
He caught her chin with one hand—firmly, almost roughly—and reached with the other to pull away her visor.
Instinctively, she raised both arms and flailed out, knocking away the fingers that dug into her chin, the hand that reached from the side. In the blink of an eye, she bolted from the chair past him, into the center of the room.
“Who’s your commanding officer?” she demanded, feeling the heat of adrenaline on her face, and crouched into a defensive stance. “Who?” The visor impeded her vision slightly, disorienting her as its focusing apparatus tried to keep pace with the rapid movement of her head, but she had no intention of taking the time to remove it—especially since he wanted it off for some reason.
“Forgive me, Dr. Dannelke,” he said smoothly, as though his behavior had been perfectly professional and normal while it was Kyla who was acting strangely. “I didn’t mean to alarm you; I merely need your undivided attention for a moment.”
“You can have it for a lot longer than that, friend!” she snapped, then ordered: “Computer!”
There was no time to ask the location of Lieutenant Worf or anything else, for that matter: the intruder sprang at her, his dark hands reaching for her face.
Her leg came up fast; her knee caught him cleanly in the sternum. He fell hard, the wind knocked out of him with a sharp gasp—but, impossibly, he was back on his feet without a pause.
The sight left her unsettled; he was much smaller than she was, and though strong, he should have at least taken a few seconds to catch his breath … leaving her to think that there was something wrong here, something even more wrong than the unbelievable fact that she was being attacked by a member of Picard’s carefully screened crew.
The thought galvanized her; she took the offensive, landing a solid punch on his perfect nose. Bone crunched, blood flew, but the young man never halted. Instead, he came at her again, smiling through the streaming blood.
Smiling.
He came at her again. She chopped him on the neck, punched him hard below his navel, chopped him again on the shoulder. He went down on his face, and came up immediately, grinning through the streaming blood.
She dodged out of his way, knocking over a small table that held stacks of data cassettes, trying to get far enough from him to use her feet.
It was just enough. She spun and kicked him hard in the ribs as he scrabbled toward her. Yet he absorbed the blow without falling—as any normal human should have—and when she delivered a second kick, he was ready for her.
She shrieked as he caught her heel, pulled her down, and pushed her onto her back. And then he was on top of her, reaching for the visor. He caught hold of it with one hand, while his other struggled to pin her down; she caught for the first time a glimpse of his eyes, magnified and slightly out of focus, through the visor—vast and brown and filled with a gloating hatred so burning cold it stole her breath.
She squeezed her own eyes shut, and with a desperate surge of strength, she delivered a merciless knee to his groin.
With a yelp, he loosened his grip; it was enough to permit her to roll free. He should have been curled up in a ball, shrieking, but instead, by the time she got to her feet and put some distance between them, he was up and grinning at her more broadly than ever.
She bolted. The doors opened millimeters