Resistance - J.M. Dillard [89]
Chao gave a swift nod. Nave fired again at the deck, squinting at the brilliance as Chao, compact and muscular, dashed past Lio’s tall, lanky form. She swung out as she did, brushing against the railing—and Lio, as he lifted his arms in response to the blast.
But she made it to the other side, a bit shaken from the proximity of the burst, then turned to Nave.
“Over here, Lio!” she called to the drone. “Over here!” And as she lifted her rifle, she directed a nod and a pointed glance at Nave.
Nave lowered her own weapon and readied herself to run.
“Now,” Chao said.
Nave sprinted, careful to veer to the side. The burst from the rifle was blinding. She kept her head down, her gaze averted as she brushed against the railing, and did not think about the precipitous drop just past it.
When the blow came, she was entirely surprised. It caught her across the brow, snapping her head sharply back. She reeled, then dropped to her knees, dizzied, nauseated by the pain. For one disoriented instant, she thought she had somehow collided with a low-hanging conduit.
And then hands grasped the uniform fabric atop her collarbone and yanked her onto her unreliable feet.
“Stop!” Chao shouted. “Lieutenant, get away from him! Run! I have to shoot!”
“No,” Nave said, vainly trying to make her eyes focus. She could see nothing but Lio’s Borg face, unsmiling and pale—or, rather, one and a half faces. She reached for her rifle, thinking not to fire it—shooting a body so close to hers would prove fatal for them both—but to wield it like a club. Her fingers had barely touched it when it was tugged from her. She felt the strap over her shoulder break and give way, heard the weapon strike the deck with a loud ring in the distance. “No, just go! We don’t have time. Find the queen…”
Phaser fire rushed past her. Chao was taking aim at the approaching Borg, giving Nave the time to break free of Lio.
She tottered on her feet in a pathetic effort to move away. Running was impossible; her body had become uncoordinated, uncooperative. Something dark loomed toward her—Lio’s arm, she realized, as it slammed against the side of her head. There came a breathtaking stab of pain in her neck. Her ribs collided with the railing, which she instinctively clutched as her head and shoulders lurched over the side.
She opened her eyes. Her gaze was fixed on the infinite downward spiral of deck after deck after deck, dissolving into vertiginous darkness: the abyss. The decks swam and shifted, doubling in number, then shifted back, accompanied by a fierce throbbing in her skull; Nave thought she would be sick. Behind her, Chao was still firing, her screams shrill against the dull, steady thrum of Borg footsteps.
“Go!” Nave screamed, but her voice came out faint, weak. “Find the queen…That’s an order!”
As she cried out, a roar filled her ears; her own voice, and Chao’s, faded to silence. She turned and looked up.
Lio was reaching for her shoulders; he pushed sideways against her, trying to use the weight of her body to loosen her grip, to send her tumbling over the side. Nave held on as she stared up into his eyes.
They were green and clear, lifeless and mindless, Lio’s eyes absent Lio’s soul. They were the most horrifying thing she had ever seen, and she realized, quite clearly, that she was an instant from death—and that those terrible eyes were the last things she would ever see.
She looked back down at the dizzying darkness.
Let go, she told herself. Why force him to kill you? Just let go and die…It was a better way, to fall into oblivion and decay, rather than survive in eternal purgatory as a drone.
Just hold on, someone said suddenly, calmly, clearly, as if lips had been pressed to her ear. It might have been Chao; it might have been her father.
There was no hope, none at all. The drones were waking up, which meant that the queen had wakened, and there was no more hope of stopping her. The Borg would win, and Lio