Possession - J.M. Dillard [87]
Picard looked down at his unconscious—possibly dead—first officer and moaned softly at the surge of sadistic contentment evoked by the sight.
No. No, they won’t use me this time. I won’t let them use me, I won’t let them use me …
It captured his mind like a mantra as he struggled to gain control of his breathing, his trembling, his delirium. Twenty-five percent of the crew, Data had said—twenty-five percent, and more falling under the sway of madness with each passing moment …
Including himself.
But he would not let them use him… .
“Data,” he whispered to himself, and drew in a deep breath, steadying himself. The entities were in him, surging through his brain, trying to establish control. But if he could just hold together long enough to reach Data …
He wiped the perspiration from his brow and forced a faint smile, then stepped calmly through the door and out onto the bridge. At the moment, it was manned by secondary crew members, as all the senior crew were occupied with other tasks.
One of them—an olive-skinned female, Lieutenant Martinez—glanced up from the helm and graced him with a smile of infinitely malevolent complicity.
He permitted the entities within him to return it with an approving nod, but did not quite meet her tainted gaze—nor those of the other officers who occupied his bridge.
Possessed, all of them—all of them sharing Martinez’s expression of delighted evil. His ship was in the entities’ hands.
“Carry on,” he said hoarsely, and managed to repress a feverish shiver until he stepped through the lift doors.
Run, little one! Lwaxana screamed silently, her dark hair disheveled, her bruised forehead trickling blood. They’re still here… .
Troi staggered backward from the image, away from the closet, stumbling over her own bed. At the last moment, she caught herself, gasping, overwhelmed by a wave of terror as horrible as that she’d experienced in the entities’ presence.
She ran to her nightstand and scooped up her comm badge, thinking to warn the captain and Will, but instinct held her back. She closed her eyes, concentrating on Picard …
And, brushing against the soft bedclothes, she sank slowly to the floor under the weight of the horror:
The agony of a mind invaded yet again, the brutal image of Picard struggling helplessly against the Borg, of watching silently, impotently as his own face, his own voice were used to kill his own people …
For a terrible blazing instant Will was there, too, caught like Picard in the unyielding grip of mindless rage, mindless frustration, mindless craving.
Violence. Pain. All she could sense of Will was utterly blotted out; unconscious or dead, she could not say. Had Picard killed him?
Overwhelmed by fear and helplessness, Deanna huddled on the deck beside the bed. There was nothing she could do to fight the madness, nothing she could do to stop its inexorable progression—not if both Will and the captain were in its sway.
The terror was so primal it transcended all thought; she merely sat, clutching knees to chest, head bowed, eyes squeezed shut. How long she remained thus—minutes or hours—she could not have said.
But after a time she came to herself enough to watch her breathing—the soft in-and-out of air moving through her lungs. Simply this, not trying to control the gasping, not trying to control the terror, merely watching with patient attention.
And soon her respiration slowed, her mind cleared; she rose slowly, numbly, with the keenly present, tingling sensation of one just plucked from drowning in icy waters, intensely aware of being alive, here, in this moment, in this situation—as terrible as it was.
She opened her eyes. Lwaxana’s image was gone now, but in its place, Troi’s own mind gently coached her:
Keep your breathing steady, Deanna. Now get up—get up, and put on your uniform.
She did so with the slow