The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [75]
Their backs up against the grid-marked wall, Barclay and Lwaxana had nowhere to hide. Another program, Barclay thought frantically. We need another program, pronto! He opened his mouth, hoping that the voice controls were truly functioning once more, only to feel the spray from a Tadigean’s eyes splatter against his face.
Oh, no! he despaired. I was too slow…!
The neurotoxin took effect instantly. His entire body went numb, freezing him in place. He tried to speak, but his tongue and vocal cords were paralyzed. He could barely breathe, let alone summon a new holographic environment. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched helplessly as Povz’s minions surrounded Lwaxana. They hadn’t poisoned her, at least not yet. Perhaps they judged the middle-aged matron not much of a threat on her own?
“Keep your warty hands off me,” she said imperiously, declining to cower before her foes. “As an ambassador in full standing for the people of Betazed, I demand that you abide by the conventions of the Treaty of Pullayup.”
Barclay was impressed by Lwaxana’s indomitable attitude but doubted that Tadigean terrorists were likely to respect any legalistic niceties. But she can still talk, he realized. She can instruct the holodeck herself, if she just knows what to say.
A last-ditch ploy presented itself. It meant overcoming his telephobia, but right now he had more tangible dangers to grapple with. Straining against the immobilizing effect of the neurotoxin, he turned his eyeballs enough that he could stare fixedly at the gold-and-black cap atop Lwaxana’s head. He poured everything he had into his eyes, urgently trying to communicate with the ambassador.
Read my mind, he entreated her. You have to read my mind!
It took her a moment, but she got the message. She threw the insulated cap across the room. Her face contorted in pain as the telepathic assault besieged her once more. Still, she fought back against the agony and looked deeply into Barclay’s eyes. Her searching brain found a single command shouting inside his skull:
“Activate program: ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ “
In a heartbeat, the vacant chamber was replaced by kilometers of arid desert beneath a blistering sun. Shifting sand dunes rolled on for as far as the eye could see. Heat waves shimmered above bleached bones and weathered sandstone formations. A hot wind blew grit in Barclay’s eyes. The desert was an ocean in which no oar was dipped…
“Gaakk!” Povz croaked. The sudden change, from murky swamp to blazing wasteland, came as quite a shock, especially if you were, say, a nocturnal amphibian. Blinded by the glare, the flabbergasted aliens threw their webbed hands over their eyes. They reeled about in distress, bumping into one another at random. The merciless heat sapped their strength. Dried slime slaked off their quivering flesh. All but Povz collapsed into the hot sands, gasping like fish out of water. A mouthwatering smell reminded Barclay of a delicacy he’d once sampled on New Caribe. He had a sudden craving for frog legs.
Povz wobbled onto rubbery limbs. The sapphire glow from his pendant flickered and faded. “Uh-oh…”
That was all Lwaxana needed. She charged forward, trampling over the bodies of the debilitated henchfrogs, and swung the Sacred Chalice of Rixx against the Eye of Dread. The fragile crystal shattered into dozens of broken shards and splinters. Povz’s eyes bulged from their orbits as a burst of psionic feedback fried his brain. He tumbled backward down a sloping sand dune. His limbs twitched, as though part of some primitive galvanic experiment.
“Be thankful that you can’t read my thoughts right now, you revolting toad.” Lwaxana lowered the uncracked chalice. She posed with arms akimbo atop a mountain of sand. “That will teach you for trifling with a daughter of the Fifth House.”
“Barclay! Ambassador!” An archway appeared in the desert and Ensign Ro came rushing into the holodeck.