"I'll ask the captain," she promised. "After that, it's in his hands."
"Fair enough," Archangel said.
The doctor started to move away-but he grabbed her hand. And while he didn't quite have the strength to hold her there, he was a lot closer to it than he had a right to be.
"Thank you," he told her.
She looked into the mutant's face and saw the determination there-the need to be a part of what was happening on Xhaldia. She would try to communicate that to the captain as well.
Still, there were no guarantees. "Don't thank me yet," the doctor said.
With a thrust of his arms, Sovar muscled himself up onto the roof. Then he reached back for Shadowcat, only to find her already floating up to him.
Together on the roof, they looked around at the surrounding area, all of it blanketed in a premature twilight by the dense cloud cover overhead.
A green flash from off to the north caught Sovar's eye. He turned that way and saw another one.
At the far end of a narrow, twisting alley, the lieutenant spotted what he was looking for-a handful of young Xhaldians. Perhaps four or five of them, running for their lives from a half-dozen well-armed Draa'kon.
At this distance, the Xhaldians looked as normal as he was, though the invaders' interest in them plainly suggested otherwise. Then Sovar got a glimpse of one particular youth, and his suspicion was confirmed.
He pointed for Shadowcat's benefit. "Look," he said, wincing in sympathy. "The poor boy."
The mutant looked, her hazel eyes narrowing at the sight. "I wonder if it hurts."
Sovar wondered, too. After all, the Xhaldian's bare arms, visible through large rips in his sleeves, were ridged over with huge, purple blood vessels. His legs seemed so heavy he could hardly run and there was barely any brush left on his head.
Then the lieutenant saw another directed-energy flash and remembered what he was doing there. His job was to stop the Draa'kon and he was determined to do that.
"None of those kids seem to be using their powers," Shadowcat commented. "They're too scared or they don't know how."
Sovar nodded in agreement. He could easily imagine their being frightened. If he had been transformed, persecuted, and hunted as they were, he would have been scared half out of his wits.
Unfortunately, the Draa'kon outnumbered the lieutenant and his partner, so it wouldn't do much good to go toe-to-toe with the brutes. Clearly, they had to take a different tack.
One thing was in their favor, Sovar noticed. The alley seemed to work its way around a row of buildings and return on the other side of the roof he was standing on. With a little luck, he might be able to plant himself there and pick off the Draa'kon as they went by.
Of course, the transformed had to elude the invaders for another minute or so for the trap to work. And even then, there was no guarantee Sovar wouldn't be spotted after his first shot and destroyed. But in his line of work, there was never a guarantee.
The lieutenant turned to Shadowcat to tell her his plan-and realized he was standing on the rooftop all alone. He glanced this way and that, wondering what could have happened to her. Then he heard shouts and realized the chase was coming his way sooner than he'd thought.
Sovar couldn't afford to worry about the mutant anymore. He had to duck or take a chance on being detected prematurely.
Getting down on his belly, he inched over to the edge of the roof and scanned the labyrinthine alley in the direction of the transformed. No sign of them yet-or their pursuers either. But they were coming, all right.
Finally, he got the glimpse of them he needed. As far as Sovar could tell, the Draa'kon hadn't taken down any of the transformed yet.
It was as if they were herding the young people rather than hunting them. Driving them toward a particular place, where the Draa'kon were perhaps better equipped to capture them.
The one with the purple veins seemed to have the hardest time keeping up the pace. He stumbled and lurched as Sovar looked on. If the youth had ever been built for speed, he wasn't any longer. The lieutenant's heart went out to him.
"A little further," he whispered. "A little further."
Suddenly, he felt something grab him by the wrist. Instinctively, he wrenched it free-and was startled to see he'd been in the grasp of a hand reaching right out of the rooftop.
A moment later, a head floated up to join it-Shadowcat's head.
Sovar took a breath, let it out. "What are you doing?" he rasped.
"Sorry," she said. "I forgot who I'm dealing with."She jerked a thumb in the direction of the alley. "Had to scout around a little. Get the lay of the land and so on."
Slowly, so he could see what she was doing, she took hold of the lieutenant's wrist again. "Just trust me," she told him. "Okay?"
He swallowed. "Okay."
A moment later, he began sinking through the roof, drawn by Shadowcat's gentle pull-though to him, it seemed as if the roof was rising all around him. It was a frightening, claustrophobic feeling. Something like falling through still water, except he had no trouble breathing.
When the roof rose to the level of his eyes, he began seeing the inside of the materials that made up the building-not a cross-section, exactly, but the way it looked within. Unfortunately, it was too dark for him to make out much in the way of details.
Then the darkness lifted and he could see again. He and Shadowcat were in a room-a dining alcove. But only for a moment. That slid past as well, as did another layer of floor.
Finally, Sovar found himself in another dining alcove-but this one was on the ground floor, just outside the alley. His companion let go of his hand and pointed to a broken window.
"You're on your own now," she told him.
"What about you?" the lieutenant asked.
"I'm not big on ray guns," she quipped, "but I'll find a way to make myself useful." And with that, she sank through the floor as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world.
"Good luck," he breathed, and took up a position by the window.
In a moment or two, the transformed went by, gathered in a tightly knit group-as if staying so close together would make them more secure somehow. Of course, it did just the opposite, making one big target out of them.
But Sovar wasn't really concentrating on the pursued. He was concentrating on their pursuers.
A heartbeat later, the Draa'kon went by his window as well. There were six of them-the number the lieutenant had counted earlier. All were armed. And all were making good speed, despite their lumbering gait.
Sovar took aim at the Draa'kon in the lead. But before he could press the trigger on his phaser, he saw the invader stumble and fall on his face. And when he went down, it forced his comrades to lurch to one side or the other in an effort not to trample him.
Had he never met Shadowcat, the lieutenant wouldn't have thought to glance at the ground in the Draa'kons' wake. But he had met her, so he looked for her telltale hand sticking up from the street.
And found it.
In the meantime, the Draa'kon were in disarray, and the mutant's interference had enabled the transformed to open a bigger lead. But none of it would mean anything unless Sovar took advantage of the situation.
Aiming along the body of his phaser, he triggered its crimson beam and watched one of the Draa'kon hit the ground. Since none of the enemy had seen the source of the beam, the lieutenant took another shot. A second invader staggered and collapsed.
By then, they had figured out where the phaser assault was coming from. Seeing the Draa'kon take aim at his broken window, Sovar ducked.
A moment later, both the window and the casing around it blew back into the room, propelled by a storm of emerald fury. Afraid the wall would be the victim of the next barrage, the security officer rolled sideways over tiny pieces of glass and debris to get out of the way.
But there wasn't any next barrage. Instead, Sovar heard a series of guttural shouts and saw a flash of pale light through the windowless opening. Crawling back to see what was happening in the street, he peered out just in time to watch a Draa'kon get hammered with a bolt of white energy.
For a second or so, the lieutenant didn't know where the bolt had come from. Then he saw the transformed with the ridged, purple veins lumber back into view on his right, the youth's fingers extended in the Draa'kons' direction.
Both of his hands were glowing like small suns.
But, strangely, that wasn't the quality about the transformed that surprised Sovar the most. The thing that stole his breath and left him numb in the knees was his realization that he knew the poor fellow. Knew him well, in fact. For he saw now that the wretch he had pitied earlier was his own younger brother.
Spurred by a new sense of urgency, the lieutenant fired at another Draa'kon and sent him sprawling. He didn't take cover again, either. He simply fired again, folding another of the invaders.
The last Draa'kon took careful aim and probably would have killed him with an energy blast, except he found something was grabbing his ankle. Looking down, the invader saw a pair of slender hands tugging at him.
Quite possibly, Shadowcat would have dragged the brute below the level of the street and left him there, but that wasn't Sovar's style. Before the mutant could carry out whatever scheme she had in mind, he stunned the Draa'kon with a burst from his phaser.
As if that were her cue, Shadowcat floated up through the surface of the street, brushing her hands against one another. The lieutenant recognized it as a human gesture of accomplishment.
"We came, we saw, we conquered," the mutant quipped.
However, Sovar wasn't in a jesting mood. Climbing through the opening where his window had been, he regarded the transformed who had been his brother-who was now kneeling in the street, attending to a comrade suffering from exhaustion. It made the lieutenant's stomach tighten to see his kin in such a hideous state.
"Erid ... ?" he said tentatively.
Surprised by the use of his name, the younger Sovar looked up and found its source. For a moment, he stared at his older sibling, as if finding it hard to believe he was standing there.
Then his mouth twisted with hatred. "Get out of here!" he bellowed. "Leave us alone!"
The lieutenant winced at the venom in his brother's words. The Draa'kon's blasts couldn't have hurt much worse, he told himself.
"You need help," he told Erid. "All of you."
"We need nothing from the likes of you!" his brother rasped.
Then, as the security officer watched, his brother picked his friend up in his arms and started to walk away with her.
Chapter Twenty-five.
CRUSHER FOUND PICARD on the bridge. He was sitting in the command center, gazing warily at the image of the Draa'kon vessel on the viewscreen.
With Riker and Troi gone, the seats on either side of the captain were empty. As the doctor sat down in one of them, Picard glanced at her.
"They're all stable," she said, answering his unspoken question. "Except Archangel, of course."
That drew the captain's interest. "Oh?"
"I'm not sure why," Crusher told him, "but he's recuperating a lot more quickly than I expected." She paused. "Did you read my report on him?"
"I did," Picard replied, turning back to the screen.
"Then you know Archangel has something unusual in his blood. Not a healing factor, like Wolverine's, but some kind of techno-organic material."
The muscles in the captain's jaw rippled. "And you think it may be the reason for his rapid recovery?"
"I'm starting to," the doctor told him. "Remember, the Borg can repair themselves fairly quickly. Maybe he can as well."
"An interesting theory," he conceded, "but why hasn't Archangel displayed this propensity before?"
She shook her head. "Maybe it has something to do with the type of injury he sustained. Maybe it had to be goosed by the bioregeneration process. All I know is he should still be lying there, unconscious, and he's almost back to normal."
Picard gave Crusher a sidelong glance. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to ask me something I won't like?"
She smiled. "Archangel asked me to speak with you on his behalf. He thinks he can be useful here on the bridge, providing insights into the actions of his teammates."
The captain frowned. "Insights, indeed."
"Those are his friends down there," the doctor noted. "He wants desperately to help."
Picard didn't respond right away. "You're certain he's sound?" he inquired at last.
"Sound enough," she answered. "And getting sounder all the time."
Again, the captain took some time before he spoke. "Very well," he said. "Tell him he's welcome here."
Crusher nodded. "Thank you, sir."
Picard sighed. "Thank you."
Leaving the captain to his grim watch, she got up and headed for the turbolift. Archangel would be pleased, she thought. And perhaps he would be useful, if it came to that.
As the lift doors opened, the doctor entered the compartment and turned around. "Sickbay," she said. A moment later, the lift began to take her to her destination.
Halfway there, an idea struck her. A bizarre idea, she had to admit-but one that might prove exceedingly helpful to her. Maybe Archangel wasn't the only mutant on the ship who could provide some insights ...
With the towering form of Colossus at her side, Troi walked slowly down the dismal, empty street, unaccustomed to the phaser in her hand. Her Betazoid senses reached out methodically in every direction, seeking friend and foe alike. However, this part of Verdeen was as abandoned as it had looked during their descent.
Anyway, that was how it seemed at first.
Then something registered in the counselor's mind-something brutal and bloodthirsty, gratified by the prospect of violence. Inwardly, she cringed, knowing that emotional terrain all too well.
She had made contact with a Draa'kon soldier. No-two of them, she told herself. And they weren't alone. There were gentler beings with them-beings wracked with fear, focused at the moment on self-preservation to the exclusion of all else.
Xhaldians, Troi noted. And they were in danger.