Resistance - J.M. Dillard [87]
She drew in a long, deep breath and ran, crossing from behind her fellow officers to head past Locutus and his companions. She made a beeline for the control on the bulkhead, and when she reached it, she slapped it hard, gasping.
The field dissolved. “Worf!” she shouted. “Worf, she’s open! The queen’s open! Leary!”
But neither Leary nor the Klingon could spare the time to look at her, to listen; they were firing rapidly, then stopping to recalibrate every few seconds. They were in danger of being overtaken.
Beverly dashed toward the motionless queen.
She was barely two meters away when, from the periphery of her vision, she saw Locutus stop, turn, gaze at her. He abandoned the fight at once and moved toward Beverly.
For a minute she thought he was pursuing her—and then he stopped at the bulkhead control and stared at her again. She stopped at once; she dropped her arms to her sides, intentionally covering the hypospray on her belt.
He blinked, once…then pressed the control.
Beverly sighed in silent relief as the force field snapped back into place—leaving her inside it, with the queen. She held still for a painfully long moment, until Locutus, satisfied she was no real threat, turned his attention back to Worf and Leary.
She sidled cautiously up to the sleeping queen, then quickly reached for her hypo and settled it against the queen’s slender white neck.
The queen’s hand snaked across her body and caught Beverly’s so rapidly that the doctor let go a startled sound. She tried to pull away; the queen’s fingers, steel talons, held her fast.
The queen turned her face toward Beverly’s. Her eyes were dark, quicksilver, malevolent. She increased the pressure on Beverly’s wrist until the doctor cried out at the pain; the hypo fell from her grasp and clattered to the deck.
“Pathetic little creature.” The queen’s voice was distinctly un-Borg-like, distinctly unmechanical. It was animated, thoroughly laced with emotion: amusement, haughtiness, gloating, scorn. “Did you really think I would let you take him away from me again?”
Beverly looked on her with profound hate. “Did you think I would let you?”
The queen’s delicately wrought lips twisted. Her grip grew fiercer, until Beverly felt her own feet rise slightly off the deck. There came a soft, grisly sound, as the bones of her wrist snapped.
Agony, bright blue and electric, more dazzling than the phaser beams, flashed in front of her eyes. The queen casually released her grip; Beverly fell at once to her knees.
Worf watched as the captain—Locutus, he reminded himself sternly—erected the force field around the queen, leaving Doctor Crusher closed inside. He trusted the doctor to do her job; his greatest worry at the moment was how to render Locutus harmless without killing him. Fast acting, she had called the hypospray. He only hoped that it would act quickly enough.
Of the six drones that had swarmed inside the entryway, two were already downed. Leary had moved to crouch beside Worf. She fought valiantly, but she had grown noticeably pale and haggard; she would not be able to stay on her feet much longer. She kept firing at the drones near the entryway. The Klingon faced the opposite direction, addressing himself to Locutus and the two drones who had attended the queen.
Worf took down the latter two quickly, but Locutus gave him pause; he kept his rifle’s sights trained on the recently assimilated Picard but waited to fire. The drone kept steadily, fearlessly advancing, lifting its arm and causing the saw blade at its tip to whir ominously. Clearly it shared the captain’s knowledge that his second-in-command would do everything possible to avoid killing him.
Behind Locutus, within the safe confines of the force field, Doctor Crusher hurried to the side of the queen.
“Got him,” Leary murmured beside