And now Kyle could make out the words coming over the loudspeakers. “Remain in your homes,” the voice instructed. “Do not attempt to hinder our advance in any way. Stay inside and out of our way. We are looking for a few troublemakers. If you deliver them to us, then the rest of you will not be harmed. These are the individuals we want.”
Kyle felt his veins go cold at the announcement, but he and Michelle remained on the side of the road, arms around one another.
“Kiana ser Totkis,” the voice went on. “Gisser Struitt. Melifin Pate Brionn.”
“Those are all the fake names,” Michelle said, breathing a sigh of relief. She smiled nervously. “They don’t really know who they’re looking for.”
The soldiers were closer now, the first rank of them almost even with Michelle and Kyle. They let their gazes wander across the buildings, carefully looking at everyone on the sidewalks. They looked young and nervous. From what Kyle had seen, this was the same kind of force that Cyre would have sent into battle against its enemy neighbors.
Suddenly Michelle tensed in Kyle’s arms. “Except ... oh, no.”
“Cass wis Tinerare,” the loudspeaker voice continued. “Kyle Riker. Senager Millish.”
“I guess I should have had a nom de guerretoo,” Kyle observed.
“For now, we want those individuals only,” the voice said, almost too loud to make out now as the vehicles came closer. “And if they are not delivered to us within the hour we will start knocking down The End, building to building, until the whole area is flattened.”
A rush of conflicting emotions coursed through Kyle. The End was, literally, the end of the line for most of its residents, the place they lived only because there was no place else that would have them. For him, it had been a hiding place, somewhere he could find the anonymity he sought. But it had become more than that—in so many ways, it had become the first real home he’d had in a long time.
But the soldiers had his name, his real name. And if he kept quiet, those who had taken him in would be displaced, or killed.
The worst that could happen, he figured, was that he’d be arrested. When he was able to prove that he had spent the day watching the parade at a tavern, he would likely be released. Possibly, because his name had come into it, Starfleet would hear and he’d be released into their custody. But he’d spent long enough evading them anyway—it was, he had been starting to think, time he straightened that mess out once and for all.
Michelle stood fast beside him, holding tightly to his arm. The troops continued their slow, inexorable march down the street, their vehicles shredding the pavement as they went. The loudspeaker voice started up again. Kyle glanced at Michelle and freed his arm from her grasp. At the questioning look in her eyes, he turned away and stepped into the street.
Immediately, a dozen rifles were pointed at him, and the march halted.
“I’m Kyle Riker,” he said.
The soldiers held their weapons on him but didn’t speak. One of the troop carriers opened up, though, and an officer emerged, followed by the head of a Cyrian male Kyle had never seen. The Cyrian looked at Kyle, then at the officer, and waggled his hand. No, that meant.
The officer scowled at Kyle. “Stop this foolishness,” he said. “Proceed!”
“But I amKyle Riker,” Kyle insisted.
“No,” Michelle said, pushing past him before he could stop her. “No, he’s lying. Iam Kyle Riker.”
The officer looked back toward the head sticking up from the troop carrier’s bowels like a turtle’s. The Cyrian wobbled his hand back and forth in affirmation.
“Cividon, you bastard,” Kyle heard Michelle mutter under her breath. He knew that Cividon must have been part of Michelle’s unit, the one who had been arrested after the parade. Cividon had turned on his movement’s leaders easily, Kyle realized. He knew only the false names, but Michelle’s false name had been real enough to cause this trouble.
She couldn’t have known that any of this would happen, or that a single other soul on the planet knew Kyle’s name wasn’t Joe Brady. If he had just kept quiet, there would have been no trouble.
If he’d kept quiet, though, The End would have been razed, its residents slaughtered.
He couldn’t have kept quiet then. Michelle wouldn’t have either. There really had been no other choice.
The weapons trained on Kyle shifted, aiming at Michelle. Kyle felt himself trembling. Michelle had been there, and visible, at the parade. Cividon had fingered her. She was in serious trouble, and he couldn’t figure out how to get her out of it. Even if he started something, there were too many soldiers, too many weapons, to fight.
“Michelle ...” he started.
“Don’t, Joe,” she said urgently. “Old Earth expression. I’ve made my bed.”
“But ...”
The officer pushed Cividon back into the troop carrier and climbed in himself. When only his own head remained outside, he barked an instruction to the troops. “Kill her!”
The soldiers didn’t hesitate. A dozen energy beams blasted at Michelle, all at once. One moment she had been standing there, and the next she had dissolved into a fine spray which coated Kyle. Watching open-mouthed, he tasted her on his tongue and knew that she was on his skin and clothes and hair, in his eyes and nose. What was left of Michelle he and the street and the wall behind them had absorbed.
Blinded by fury and the Michelle-mist, Kyle threw himself toward the soldiers. He didn’t have a chance against them, with their armor and weapons, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. He battered them with fists and feet, tears streaming down his face as he took their blows in return. Finally, one brought the stock of a weapon down against his head and he staggered back a few steps, the world spinning crazily away from him, and he fell down in the street, unconscious.
Chapter 25
This is no fun at all!Will thought.
It had started out looking as if it might be. The flying exercises were, as Will had expected, mundane, even boring. He knew his stuff by now, and so did the rest of the cadets selected for this journey. It was almost a punishment rather than a reward, particularly since he knew he was missing the chance to listen to Spock.
But Paul Rice, maybe looking to add some spice to the trip, had challenged Will to a friendly race. He’d done it in front of their friends, and he’d pressed it even when Will had tried to laugh it off.
“I thought you were a flyer, Riker,” he’d said. “I thought maybe you had some nerve. But I guess your by-the-book attitude has killed that, huh? Stolen your courage along with your skills?”
“I can outfly you anytime,” Will said, though he knew it wasn’t true. Paul was still one of the best natural pilots he’d ever encountered. “I don’t need to break the rules to know that.”
“Funny,” Paul said, gesturing toward the other cadets who had gathered in a circle, watching them. “They don’t know that. I don’t know that. Seems like maybe you’re the only one who thinks so.”
“If you think that matters to me in the least, Paul, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“My only mistake was thinking you had any guts at all,” Paul shot back. “Remind me not to accept a posting on any starship that’s got you on it. I want brave officers on my team, not cowards.”
Will knew that Paul didn’t mean it. Despite appearances, they were still good friends. Paul was just trying to wheedle him, to push him into playing along with his stunt. The problem was, even though Will knew that, it was working anyway. And when some of the other cadets started piling onto Paul’s side, he knew it was hopeless.
“Yeah, Riker,” Donaldson jeered. “What are you afraid of?”
“Okay, okay,” Will relented. “If it means that much to you, I’ll do it.”
This drew a round of approval from the gathered cadets, and Will felt his stomach sink even as he agreed to it. What Paul wanted was a race, one against one— mano a mano,as he put it. But they had completed their flights for the day, and they didn’t have personal ships to race in. Which meant they would have to—Paul had used the term “borrow”—two shuttles from the Academy Flight Range orbiting Saturn. There would be some security, of course, but that was mostly geared toward keeping outsiders from coming in, not wayward cadets from leaving. Liberating the two shuttles could be done. Flying them would raise an alarm, though, and returning unnoticed would be impossible.