Episode 81
Chapter Six
With a
disruptor in hand, Commander Sela casually crossed the flowery veranda, seemingly
unworried by the trio of phasers pointed at her. Perhaps she placed a great deal of faith in her bodyguards… or
perhaps she simply found the threat posed by Captain Alan Christopher a
laughable one. Either way, Sela was not
deterred in the slightest.
“I was hoping I
would get a chance to meet you,” said Sela quietly as she approached
Christopher. She even had the gall to
flash him a faint smile. “After all, I do
hold you personally responsible for the destruction of our empire…”
Christopher met
Sela’s gaze with indifference, as if he’d heard the spiel time and again. “The Elorg destroyed Romulus,” he said
evenly. “Not me.”
Sela’s smile
endured as she continued her approach—but the second she was within striking
range of the Captain, her face turned stone cold, and her disruptor found its
way to Christopher’s throat. “Refresh
my memory, Captain… who discovered the rift inside the Alteran Expanse? I was under the impression that person was you…
but perhaps my memory is mistaken.”
Christopher
gulped nervously as Sela nudged the weapon deeper into his throat. “I’d say your memory is working just fine,”
he nervously rasped. He fumbled for his
phaser, but the moment he moved, Sela plucked the weapon from his hand and
threw it to the ground.
“Of course it
is.” A seductive smile fell upon her
face as she brought her lips closer Christopher’s ear. “Allow me to… personally thank you for your
discovery.”
Very slowly,
Sela tightened her grip on the disruptor, gradually squeezing the trigger until
finally, she could feel the warm energy begin to surge through its
mechanisms. At any moment, she could
pull the trigger and blow Christopher’s head to smithereens—but after the
terror he bestowed upon Romulus, he was hardly worthy of such a swift demise.
There were a
dozen better ways to kill him—and since he was Ka’Tulan, they would all end
with a fairly spectacular light show when his body reverted to its
non-corporeal state. Sela had always
been eager to witness such a display; she only hoped it lived up to her
expectations…
But suddenly,
Sela glimpsed a flash of verdant light streak across the veranda. It soared almost directly over her shoulder,
followed an instant later by a second blast and the sonorous shrieks of her
guard. Screaming in agony, the guard
immediately collapsed, dead before his body hit the ground.
They were under
attack… and the realization was a costly one, for it provided Christopher with
the split-second he needed to retaliate against Sela. In the blink of an eye, he grabbed the disrupter pointed at his
throat and violently pushed it away.
Unwilling to allow Christopher such an easy escape, Sela immediately
pulled the trigger.
Green light
surged from the emitter, plowing straight into the air with deadly intent. But while the intent was certainly present,
the target was not, and the beam hurtled into the azure skies above.
Sela moved to
fire again, but Christopher wasn’t content to simply push the weapon away from
his throat. He continued to shove
Sela’s arm back until her grip on the disruptor faltered; it momentarily
slipped away from her grasp, but she managed to cling onto the precious weapon
with her fingertips. She fumbled with
it for a long moment before realizing it was probably a lost cause. Thus, she flung the disruptor to the ground
and cursed as it skittered across the veranda—and Christopher immediately
planted his fist in her face.
Dazed, Sela
stumbled back a meter or so, clutching her throbbing jaw as if it were about to
fall off. She peered up at Christopher
with a severe gaze—but that did little to stop him. Unwilling to go down so easily, Sela pounced upon Christopher
with all her might, driving her skull into his chest.
He wheezed as
the air vacated his lungs, and fell to the dusty veranda with a satisfying
THUMP! Momentum kept Sela hurtling
through the warm air, and she crashed to the ground beside Christopher a scant
moment later. Knowing this was her
opportunity to put an end to the Captain, she quickly climbed to her knees—and
subsequently found her face little more than a centimeter from the business end
of a phaser.
“Don’t move,”
said the Trill female holding the weapon.
“Unless, of course, you want to die…”
The sentiment
hardly moved Sela. In fact, she was
almost inclined to laugh at the young Trill for her stupidity. Sela knew for a fact that the Trill would
simply stun her—and that was only if she had to courage to fire the phaser to
begin with. Even so, Sela humored the
Trill, remaining still as possible to at least give the appearance of
compliance.
“Get up,”
ordered the Trill, motioning the action with her phaser.
Again, Sela
complied—but the moment she stood erect, she tapped a small button on her belt
and vanished amidst the verdant hues of a transporter beam…