Part 23 (2/2)
”Now!” With that, she walked stiffly away.
Except Riker wasn't about to let her get away that easily. He ran after her, grabbed her by the arm. ”No, Deanna. I'm not going to let it end like this.”
”It's already ended. I was foolish to listen to you at all. Go away.”
”It's not that simple. Just say you'll meet me...”
”Go away! I never want to see you again!”
And then something seemed to ripple in the air to Deanna's right. She turned to look, but saw nothing ... but she sensed it... sensed that something was there...
And then a Romulan appeared out of thin air. He was speaking into a comm link on his wrist. ”She's not cooperating. Attack.”
Deanna stepped back, confused and stunned. ”What...”
Riker had a look of total despair on his face. His voice barely above a whisper, he said, ”I'm sorry. ...”
Just above them, in the cloudless skies, a Romulan warbird materialized.
”Oh my G.o.d,” gasped out Deanna, and she tried to bolt for her mother's house. Intellectually, she knew it was pointless, that there was nowhere to run. But she did it anyway, as much to warn her mother and Alexander of the danger that had suddenly materialized at their very doorstep. Riker made no move to stop her. He didn't have to, for suddenly a squadron of Romulan soldiers materialized directly in front of Deanna, blocking her escape route. And squarely in the forefront of the squadron was Sela.
”h.e.l.lo, Counselor,” she said with a clear smirk. ”I almost didn't recognize you, what with your not being disguised as a Romulan.” Then amus.e.m.e.nt vanished from her face as she said brusquely to the others with her, ”Take the house.”
The Romulan warbird recloaked as the soldiers charged the home of Lwaxana Troi. As they did, Sela sidled up to Riker and ran a finger along the curve of his jaw. ”So, Will... did you have a nice reunion?”
Deanna heard that and looked in confusion at Riker. And this time it was he who cast the thought into her head. And the thought was If you say anything... we're both dead.
She kept her mouth shut.
Kressn, the Romulan telepath, spearheaded the invasion force into the Troi home as the Romulans burst through the door and found Mr. Homn waiting for him.
He took no defensive posture, did not seem particularly disturbed over the fact that a squadron of Romulans was charging into the house. a.s.suming him to be no threat, they started to move right past him, at which point Mr. Homn picked up the nearest one as if he weighed nothing and threw him with full force against the nearest wall. The Romulan hit it so hard that he cracked the plaster and slid to the floor, leaving an imprint of himself behind.
”Get him!” shouted Kressn.
The Romulans aimed their disrupters at Mr. Homn. Disrupters had no variation settings in the way that phasers did. The only way to do less than lethal damage was to fire at extremities such as arms and legs, and even then the target could still die of shock. A blast to the head or vital areas was invariably fatal.
They aimed for the head and upper body, which generally contained most of the major organs. Considering Mr. Homn's size, one would have thought that they could not possibly miss.
One would have been in error. Mr. Homn darted like lightning between the opening salvo and lunged toward a nearby tapestry hanging on the wall. He ripped it down, turned, and hurled it toward the Romulans. The weight of the thing was formidable and when it landed upon them it flattened the lot of them.
”Mr, Homn, what in the world is going on?!” It was the strident voice of Lwaxana Troi, and she was heading into the main foyer, Alexander in tow.
It was a momentary distraction, but it was unfortunately enough. More Romulans poured through the door, and one of them got off a shot that caught Mr. Homn squarely in the chest. Lwaxana let out a shriek of horror as the blast cored through Homn, knocking him flat onto his back. Not a word emerged from his lips as he went down, hitting the floor hard and lying there, looking up at the ceiling, stunned but stoic. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him.
”Homn!” howled Lwaxana, and when she turned to look at the invaders, there was something very terrible in her eyes. Alexander, eager for the battle, started to charge forward, but Lwaxana held him back with one hand. ”You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!” she shouted. ”How dare you! How dare you!”
”Take her!” called Kressn.
The Romulans started to advance on her, and Lwaxana shouted at them.
In their heads.
When an ordinary person raises his or her voice at another, the result is simple irritation. When a telepath raises her voice-particularly as powerful and strident a telepath as Lwaxana Troi-it's another matter entirely, particularly when she is being driven by a combination of fear and complete moral outrage.
I M Z A O I If How dare you?!?
Lwaxana's voice blared in their minds like a ma.s.sive horn ushering in doomsday. It was thunder in their heads, driving out every other thing they could possibly be thinking, indeed perhaps everything they had ever known. They staggered, putting their hands to their ears instinctively, except that it did them absolutely no good. The a.s.sault wasn't coming from outside their heads, but from inside.
How dare you do this! I am Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House ...
They writhed in agony, falling to the floor, their weapons slipping out of their fingers.
Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, and Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed! This is my home ... these are my people ... and you are not welcome here! Leave! Now!!
The Romulans wanted to shout that she should be stopped, that someone should shut her up, but they couldn't even put a coherent thought together. Fortunately for them, they didn't have to.
Kressn took all his strength, all his telepathy, all his ability to influence others, and in his mind gathered them into a large ball and hurled it with all his strength squarely into Lwaxana's brain.
Lwaxana was not a trained psi-warrior by any stretch of the imagination. She had never been in a true mindwar in her life, aside from the one time when she'd had a battle royale with Q ... and even then, that wasn't exactly the same because her own abilities were supplemented with the power of the Q. In this case, she knew outrage, she had a tremendous sense of herself, and when she was angered, you simply did not want to get in her way. But she knew nothing of fighting a two-tiered mind battle. She was all offense, fueled by her moral fury, and so had no screens in place, no defensive capabilities.
Consequently, Kressn won.
She staggered under the shock of the retaliatory strike into her mind. Alexander cried out her name, but she didn't hear it. Instead she became as rigid as a board, her eyes wide and staring but not seeing, and she tumbled backward. Alexander, seeing her fall, caught her. ”Lwaxana!” he said again, and suddenly Romulan hands were s.n.a.t.c.hing him away from her. Lwaxana hit the floor and lay, immobile, next to Homn.
The Romulans who had been flattened slowly started to gather their wits about them. Kressn was on one knee, looking a bit haggard but otherwise all right.
”Mother!”
Deanna was horrified by the scene that greeted her when Sela prodded her forward through the door of the house. Her mother was immobile, Mr. Homn lay bleeding on the floor, and Alexander was being forcibly restrained by one of the soldiers. Suddenly Alexander sank his teeth into the hands of the man holding him and the Romulan lost his grip on him. Alexander slid loose and tried a desperate charge at Sela. He made it only a few feet, though, before another Romulan stepped forward and swung the b.u.t.t end of a disrupter down and around. It stunned Alexander until they managed to restrain him once more.
A troop of Romulans was apparently trying to pull itself together, and the Romulan whom she had seen appear out of thin air appeared rattled. But they were all of no consequence to her.
Sela, for her apart, appeared rather annoyed, ”What went on in here?” she asked impatiently. ”I've trained you all myself. It doesn't reflect well on me when you have this much trouble dealing with an old woman, one giant, and a Klingon boy.”
Deanna ran to her mother, knelt down, and looked deeply into Lwaxana's eyes. Whatever the Romulans had done to her, it was progressive, boring more and more deeply into Lwaxana's mind, like a fungus. Mother... she thought at her.
Something seemed to emerge from her mother's mind... a telepathic link, a bond that suffused Deanna, warmth and love reaching out as if to a.s.sure her that she was all right... nothing that could be articulated in words, but a connection such as Deanna had never known, forged by desperation and fear...
And Deanna was suddenly yanked away, the link broken with the force of cold water being dashed on her face. Sela was standing there, and she tucked the barrel of the disrupter under Deanna's chin. ”Now... you're not going to make problems for us the way your mother did, are you?”
”She can't,” Kressn said. ”She's half human. She's not remotely the telepath her mother is. And... speaking of Mother... what should we do with her? With both of them?”
”Well, the big one is dead...”
”No, he's not.”
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