Possession - J.M. Dillard [53]
When at last they arrived at her guest quarters, she strode inside confidently, leading him … and halted abruptly.
Before her sat her temporary office … in perfect order. The chair had been carefully replaced at the desk where the android eyes still waited; the cassettes were neatly restacked on the table. It was as if the attack had never happened.
Worf stood silently beside her, mountainous, staring, waiting—judging.
“I’m not crazy,” she murmured, as she hugged herself, struggling to hold her feelings in. “I was attacked in this room. An ensign came in … I never saw him before. I was working on these android eyes. We spoke. I thanked him, told him to leave some supplies on the desk … but instead of leaving, he walked up and grabbed my shoulder. Then he tried to pull my visor off. I got away from him—but he came after me! We fought—”
“Fought?” Worf asked. It was the first word he’d said to her since they got on the turbolift, and that single syllable carried such disbelief that Kyla’s confusion turned to anger.
She knew only one way to convince the Klingon that she was capable of defending herself.
Without warning, she spun around, shouted, and swung her hand toward his face. He blocked it expertly and counterstruck. She blocked that one and kicked, landing only a glancing blow. Like a snake, he grabbed the ankle that had struck him and tossed her onto the floor. She rolled smoothly, came up, and went at him again. Strike, block, counterstrike, block—then finally, Worf shouted, “Enough!”
That stopped it. They were both in defensive crouches, both gasping for air.
He studied her, his expression perceptibly less cynical, and growled, “Very well. You fought. And then?”
His concession dissolved the last traces of adrenaline in her system. She sagged, utterly exhausted, against the nearest bulkhead and drew an unsteady hand across her sweating brow; the act made her realize more hair hung out of her braid than in it. “We fought. I have two black belts, one in kung fu, the other in aikido. The guy was smaller than me, lighter. I should’ve taken him, but he just kept coming. I was hitting, kicking him hard. I didn’t pull any punches! Dammit, I broke his nose!” She thrust out her right fist to show him the darkening blood on the knuckles. “He just kept getting up. Kept trying to touch me, put his hands on me, take my visor off. He should still be lying here, groaning—but he chased me down the corridor. A couple of times, he almost caught me … and I’ve set a Terran collegiate track record that still holds.
“I’m not going crazy, Worf. It really happened.”
For a moment, Worf was silent, his expression dark and unreadable, and then, utterly surprising her, he reached out to place a hand—large, powerful, feverishly warm—upon her shoulder, the same shoulder the ensign had touched.
“I believe you,” he said. “No one who fights as you do could lie about something like that. I cannot explain how this could happen, but I promise you, I will find out who did this.”
She sighed, immensely grateful, and was suddenly too weary to stand. He helped her to the couch and sat beside her, still stern and upright, while she let herself sink back against the cushions.
“And I apologize, Kyla,” he continued, his hand still on her shoulder, “for doubting your word about your ability to fight. You are a worthy adversary. Perhaps I allowed”—and here a barely perceptible smile played at the corners of his lips—”cultural prejudices to color my evaluation of your expertise.”
“Well, in that case,” she said, “I owed you one. Worf. Thanks. For showing up. For believing me.”
“You are welcome. And, Kyla, I will want you to view images of the personnel who are currently serving on the Enterprise.”