The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [55]
It was a good blow, but not good enough. The guard stumbled but didn’t fall. He reached for his phaser, off balance but still conscious, and whirled to face Chakotay.
The roundhouse kick that knocked the guard to the floor surprised Chakotay. He knew Janeway kept in good physical shape and that, like any Starfleet officer, she was trained in hand-to-hand combat. But she didn’t often employ those methods to bring down her adversaries.
He didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. He dropped onto the guard and landed a clean punch to the young man’s jaw. At once, the guard went limp. Chakotay checked for his pulse. Strong and steady. Perfect. His fondness for boxing had come in handy yet again.
Chakotay turned to look admiringly at his former captain. “That was good,” he said. “Very good.”
She grinned at him. “I’m just glad it worked. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken out anyone but a fake Klingon on the holodeck. Let’s get his phaser and comm badge and stash him somewhere.”
As Chakotay shouldered the limp security guard in the position traditionally called the fireman’s carry, the full meaning of her quip registered and he stared at her.
“You train against Klingons?”
Vassily Andropov had never been so exhausted or in so much pain in his life.
The holograms that served as “masters” did nothing to ease the pain of the lash wounds. He was not offered so much as a token salve or bandage. He felt them trying to heal on their own, crusting over only to break [164] open again as he exerted himself building this stupid, senseless, fictitious “monument.” Sweat crept into the wounds and stung. Instead of the sharp pain of injury, there was now a throbbing, aching sensation that was starting to spread. Gangrene, probably.
Nothing a dermal generator wouldn’t fix, he had told Allyson. And Robinson had replied that she hadn’t seen any lying around in the sand. He hadn’t seen her since the confrontation between Akolo Tare and the hologram, and hoped both of them were all right. Allyson had not left his side.
The food was meager—some kind of bread that was gritty and stale, and warm, equally gritty and stale water. The holograms worked them all day. Allyson was clearly trying to be brave, and equally clearly was scared to death. At one point, on their all-too-brief breaks, Andropov caught her wiping away tears.
“Hey,” he said, gently, “it’s going to be all right.”
She looked up at him with those enormous green eyes. They shimmered with tears.
“I don’t think so,” she said in a soft, thick voice. “I don’t think so at all.”
Andropov was not the most socially graceful of men, but he tried again. “Listen, Baines wants us alive to prove his point. He won’t hurt anyone.”
Her eyes flickered to the crusted blood on his face, but she said nothing.
“Okay, maybe ‘hurt’ isn’t the right word,” he amended. “But I don’t think we need fear for our lives.”
“Maybe not our lives,” she said. “But other things.” There was. an uncomfortable pause. He knew what she meant. She drew a shuddering breath. Her face was [165] lighter where the tears had washed away sand and sweat. “I was an artist.”
“You still are,” he said, anxious to reassure her.
She laughed, a short, harsh bark that had little humor in it, and held up her hands. Despite himself, he winced. The nails were broken. The palms were scraped and bleeding. She tried to bend her fingers; they were swollen like thick sausages. Allyson looked up at him, her broken heart in her face, and he felt himself melt.
The kid was young enough to be his daughter, and despite her attractiveness, he felt more paternal than amorous toward her. What was Baines thinking? Abducting a youngster like this, an artist, someone fragile and imaginative and creative. She’d break if they kept this up.
Impulsively he handed her his waterskin. “Drink this,” he said.
“No,” she protested. “You’ll need it. They’re working you hard, and you’re injured.”
“I’m in Starfleet,