Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait yet again. Have a naked Lorca as compensation.
Chapter 7: Trojan Horse Race
Well ahead of the buggies, the gunship reached New Anchorage to an opening salvo of the city's crowd-control phasers. Tyler took the gunship into a series of evasive manoeuvres that minimised the overall number of impacts and although the gunship shuddered when they suffered a hit, its shields barely depleted despite the consistent battering. Breaking through the scattering field was barely a noticeable, additional tremble and Tyler swept the gunship close over the rooftops, where they made a bad target for the phasers, though still trailing a path of dusty clouds behind them, from the phasers hitting buildings in their wake.
Although they were taking the most direct route to the colonial offices building, Lorca settled his fingers on the gun controls and leaned into the targeting ring as it lowered around his head, allowing him a full view around the gunship. The set-up wasn't entirely familiar to him, but the basic principle never changed with these things and it was far better than the mining laser he had been forced to use before.
The gunship's weapons spun smoothly on their two axes around the ship, compensating instantly for any sudden movement the pilot made. He targeted the pylons of the scattering field, the firing phasers, anything he got within range. Sensors picked up and alerted him to a patrol of armed security forces outside a tall spire building he identified as one of the ground-to-orbit phaser banks. He didn't want to risk hitting the phaser itself, he still had a use for that, but taking out the ground forces would be a plus.
The targeting system picked up the movement of his eyes and locked on them and by then, he trusted the system's precision. Two sharp shots seared into the two people before they even had a chance to dive for cover, their bodies vaporised into a smear of nothing but black soot against the base of the building.
"Colonial offices have polarised the docking tower and roof," Tyler announced. Even as he spoke, the building came into view, sitting peacefully and oversized on the grassy slope inside a park. It looked very much like Lorca's memory of it, though it had a second, central spire and the dome of its central structure was larger and a little broader.
"We can't dock?"
Tyler snarled at his own controls. "We can land, but we can't attach docking clamps or open the doors. Wasn't Kodos supposed to keep the way clear?"
In his mind, Lorca spun through several scenarios of why Kodos would've been unable to keep his end. Maybe he had betrayed them to the governor, fearing Lorca wasn't going to deliver on his promise. Perhaps the coward had got cold feet and gone into hiding or he had been stupid enough to get himself caught. He could be already dead for all Lorca know… Something almost like disappointment welled up in his throat at the thought, quickly pushed away before he was lured into examining it further.
"Get us close, I'll blast the doors open," Lorca said. "We can jump over."
"Shame to lose the gunship," Tyler said.
Lorca agreed, but said, "Does it have an autopilot?"
"Yes," Tyler said, with another short glance at the man next to him, studying his face, though the targeting ring hid his eyes entirely and his expression was cooly composed.
"This Commander Markannen, where will she have set up her command base?"
"Military compound, obviously," Tyler said. "Nothing else makes sense."
"Let the gunship crash into it," Lorca said.
"The command centre is reinforced," Tyler said.
He flew the gunship close to the docking tower to allow Lorca to target it.
"Doesn't matter," Lorca said. "It'll hurt someone who deserves it."
He paused for a moment to focus on his shot. He needed to be more careful than even when taking out the guards because he didn't want to damage the tower interior and potentially block their own way down. He considered just blasting through the roof, but while that certainly would have been an entrance worthy of a terran, he wasn't willing to discard the smarter tactic for it.
Nevertheless, the gunship's shot punched the docking door inward, took out the doorway and ripped a gaping hole into the side of the tower. Lorca zoomed in with the targeting system, waited a moment until the dust had cleared.
"Should do," he concluded.
"Embrasures along the roof," Tyler announced. "Got a bit of resistance going."
Carbine fire cut upward towards the gunship along hidden embrasures on the edge of the roof. As Tyler backed the gunship away from the tower, Lorca swiped a glanced over them, letting the targeting system pick out the opponents, then fixed on the one the system hadn't picked up. Without needing any prompting, Tyler took up his part and flew the gunship low over them, allowing Lorca to target the narrow ridge with one, concerted beam. There was some shielding above the embrasures, but they were close enough to penetrate it, causing several explosions to eat downward into the building.
Unfortunately, they were close enough for the carbines to do the same. One of the shots hit a bull's eye, right into the muzzle of one the gunship's weapons. Alert sirens blared up and the gunship rocked sideways before Tyler stabilised it.
Lorca compartmentalised the damaged gun, cutting it off from its energy source before it could overload the other guns or even the gunship's engines. The shot had damaged the axis, though, and it screeched as Lorca tried to rotate it again, a warning flaring up along the display in front of his eyes.
He dismissed the warning and said, "Two more rounds, should thin them out enough that we can get out."
The more they killed now, the fewer of them they would have to deal with once they would be on the ground, after all. Lorca didn't say it aloud, Tyler hardly needed the explanation.
By the time they were done, the roof of the colonial offices was scattered with debris, smoke and flames licking upward from broken embrasures, but no more fire was offered at the gunship.
A short respite, no doubt. Lorca disengaged the targeting system and blinked, once, to adjust to his normal vision. He watched as Tyler programmed the autopilot and set it to kick in after a slight delay to make sure they could get off the ship, then angled the gunship next to the tower. Little sparks jumped between the gunship's shields and the tower's polarisation and Tyler steered into the mounting pressure to get them as close as possible, leaving a good two-metre gap for them.
With the carbine safely over his shoulder, but the phaser drawn, Tyler climbed out of the cockpit first.
They were so high up, the wind tugged on them the moment they left the gunship. The gap in the tower had cleared enough to vaguely make out the floor beyond and to calculate a jump. No security had congealed there yet and Tyler didn't hesitate. He took the two steps of space he had on the gunship and leapt across, landing smoothly and rolling back to his feet into the shadowed insides of the tower.
Lorca took a moment longer, standing up on top of the gunship to survey the city around him. Unlike the shielded confines of the gunship, out in the open, New Anchorage was neither deserted nor quiet. Sirens howled off in the distance, he guessed in response to the first buggies breaching the outer perimeters. The crackle and snap of the scattering field above them, distorting the bright blue sky. Phaser fire cut through the air in between the city streets, from the automated systems or security patrols. Thin lines of smoke rose up here and there, marking their progress of before or where some minor riot had been prevented from spilling out.
Despite himself, Lorca found his gaze tracking across the city, looking for familiar features, unsure whether finding them would make it better or worse.
"What are you waiting for?" Tyler called from the opening
Lorca turned his head to look at him, took a step back, gathered what speed he could and jumped across.
He caught a mouthful of dust as he landed, choked on a cough, then snarled it away. Tyler was already climbing down the bent ladder that followed the elevator shaft in a downward spiral. Lorca stayed to watch the gunship drop away from the tower and follow its programmed path across the city, dodging on some evasive pattern as it went, its guns targetting on their own anything it picked up. Death had come back to Tarsus IV. The vile symmetry of it should make him gag, Lorca thought.
He didn't watch the gunship's impact.
Despite feeling uncomfortably self-conscious after their earlier exchange, Tyler was still sizing Lorca up. Even if he had been found out, it was the prudent thing to do, next to a man whose convictions and goals came from an entirely different universe. Lorca stood tall on top of the gunship, effortlessly holding his balance even as the gunship shook in the wind. He took a little too long for Tyler's taste, who knew the security forces in the building were already on the way to their location.
The bright sunlight didn't seem to bother Lorca as he swept his gaze across the city, spread out below and all around them, he looked like he was searching for something.
Holstering the phaser, Tyler made his way through the ruined entrance room and to the lift. The door had impacted it when it had blown inward, dented the surface and bent the doors away from their frames. The lift itself was almost certainly still functional, and Tyler tried to decide whether it was worth risking it.
He returned to the gap and called for Lorca, impatience and incomprehension warring to colour his tone. He got out of the way to allow Lorca some space and to give himself a better view of him, still looking for treacherous weaknesses, if only so he could help defend him in an ally.
Lorca caught a mouthful of the still settling dust as he rolled back to his feet — a little less elegantly as himself, Tyler judged — and choked on a cough as he came back up. He growled a curse and wiped his mouth, found Tyler's gaze and nodded some silent confirmation.
"The lift can take us down to the right level in twenty seconds," Tyler said. "We should risk it."
Making an offer, rather than simply giving a command, grated somewhere at the back of Tyler's throat even as he said it. What grated more was that it had barely required any conscious thought. He'd bow and scrape for anyone with the power to make him, but this was different. No one made him do anything. Lorca had no agoniser, no chain of command to support him. Neither, of course, had Tyler, entirely untethered from the life he'd known. It occurred to him, rather belatedly, that he was a traitor now. And his only chance to buy himself back in would be the head of an imposter. One he wasn't even sure he could take.
It wasn't a gamble he was willing to take just yet. And besides, there was a chance Lorca would succeed and if he did, it'd be a triumph like few others. Tyler wasn't going to deny himself the chance to be part of it.
Lorca stepped to the lift and tried the door controls, though they chimed the expected denial. Lorca sighed and pulled the knife from his boot, wedged it into the gap of the door.
"Help me," Lorca said before Tyler even had a chance to react.
They got the doors to open with sheer force. Once inside the cabin, Tyler overrode the door command, so it didn't try and fail to close the doors.
The lift slid smoothly into motion and in the short respite, Tyler swung the carbine from his shoulder, watching Lorca do the same.
Tyler said, "Can you actually fight?"
"Little late to ask," Lorca said.
He stepped to the side of the open door, finding a narrow nook of cover.
Unhappy with the flippant reply, Tyler pulled a face and said, "I expect you to be at least competent, but other than that, is there something I should know?"
He took up position on the other side of the door. He felt the first, slight rush as the lift decelerated, knew they were seconds away.
"There's nothing you should know," Lorca said, the pointed echo in his words making his underlying meaning quite clear. He was going to keep his weaknesses private.
The lift reached the council floor, putting an instant stop to the conversation when the first shot blasted through the open door and hit the back of the cabin. Tyler locked eyes with Lorca, not quite sure himself what he was waiting for until Lorca gave the slightest nod, got the carbine ready and stepped out into the open, already firing.
It was, Tyler decided, better than a verbal answer to his original question. Lorca could keep his secrets about his shortcomings and deeply-buried weaknesses, because, yes, he could actually fight. In the first, frenzied moments after leaving the shelter of the lift, Tyler had no time to observe him, however.
Outside the lift, a hallway stretched on, branching off into different areas of the building. Decorative pillars and statues set in niches along the way, portraying heroes of the settlement of Tarsus, but they were shot to dust as stray energy rays burst them apart. The niches themselves, the fragile pillars, offered little cover and Lorca made no attempt to use them as such for more than a few seconds. He kept pushing forward, Tyler keeping pace on his side of the hallway until their enemies' numbers began to thin.
Tyler stole a longer glance at his companion, caught a glimpse of the stony focus of his expression and the cool calculation as he placed every single shot. And there was the other promise on display, the one Lorca had made to Tyler, not so long ago. The reality of it mesmerising in its own, terrifying way: Lorca killed. He didn't wound or injure, he didn't bother to just take an opponent out of the fight. His aim was for their heads, their faces, the exposed gap above the protective collar on their necks. Against such overwhelming numbers, Tyler hadn't cared, as long as someone was down, he wasted no time, but Lorca was meticulous in his aim and so did not need to clean up after himself and finish off the ones he'd left half-done.
In a moment of jealousy mixed with awe, Tyler thought of the trail of his own sloppy kills left in the corridor, some of them still moaning and moving about.
"Keep moving!" Lorca barked at Tyler, sensing his distraction despite his own preoccupation. Tyler left the dying to do their business. Slitting throats was a job for when the fight was won, it was an indulgence in the middle of it he had no time for.
Inevitably, their forward push stalled. They reached a crossroads of hallways and the guards rushed them from three directions at once, Tyler counted at least twenty in that first moment with more behind them. The hallways funnelled them somewhat, giving Tyler and Lorca a chance to shoot or cut them down one by one, but they were still not making any advances.
At some point, Tyler ran out of charge for the carbine and out of time to replace it, so he resorted to using it as a bludgeoning weapon for a while, then shouldered it and used his phaser and dagger instead. There was something viscerally more satisfying to getting close to an enemy before killing him, something intimate and although Tyler had barely any time to focus on it, the intimacy of it was always there.
"Tyler!" Lorca shouted and Tyler found a momentary break in the onslaught to look at the other man, watching as he stabbed his knife into the side of a guard's neck and used the handle to throw him out of the way, a gesture that seemed almost casual.
Lorca dipped to the side, avoided a stab at his own neck and took the blade scraping along the armoured length of his arm, harmlessly. Two small, silver balls flashed in Lorca's fingers, just in time for Tyler to know what was going to happen and to experience a wave of gratitude for the warning.
Lorca tossed the two grenades down two separate hallways and Tyler threw himself around just as the cruel white light cut away the outlines of reality itself. Despite the warning and the way he had shielded his eyes, Tyler braced for the moment of immobility and blindness, while the splotches of white turned to painful neon colours, obscuring his vision. He kept himself on the defensive, as he had learned, fighting on instinct and the certainty that anyone he touched was an enemy because Lorca was well away from him.
Temporarily blinded, his hearing picked up minute details and told him the scuffle had already picked up again, roughly in the direction where Lorca had been. He heard the hissing of his phaser, the groan and shriek of people being stabbed without seeing it coming. Someone, some terran he guessed, was shouting orders at the back of the corridor.
Someone came at Tyler snarling and he stabbed his elbow back into them, snapped his head back as they bent forward, then twisted to fire a shot at their side, close enough the energy beam cut right through the layer of armour and burned the flesh beneath. He heard a woman's wheezing scream and gave her a kick so she dropped away from him.
His vision began to clear, and he blinked irritably at the blotches still obscuring his view. What he saw of the hallway was drastically changed. Lorca had used the chance to do as much damage to their attackers as he possibly could, leaving scores of them strewn in a circle around him and along the hallways where his phasers had found them.
What remained of the guards had retreated further back, taking cover and reverting to shooting at them again. Lorca flattened his back against the wall as he released the lock on his phaser's empty charge and let it drop by his feet. Some stray punch had split his lip at some point and the thin line of blood down his chin made him look entirely feral.
"Looks like they're running out of cannon fodder," he remarked.
Tyler had hoped this would happen but hadn't dared think about it too loudly. Commander Markannen was working with limited material, the private guards hired by various council members and other security forces in the city, people who might have had military training, but weren't good enough to cut it, so they left for easier work. Their numbers were limited and Markannen would by now be dealing with the attack on the scattering field emitters and the phaser banks as well, she didn't have enough people to send reinforcements.
"This way," Tyler said, nodding at the hallway that would take them to the council chamber. "Kodos better be there."
As it turned out, Kodos was waiting for them in the antechamber of Ribiero Hall, where the council was still in session. They hadn't encountered any more resistance the rest of the way, making Tyler's nerves skittish, expecting a nasty surprise around every corner, though it never came.
Two guards were stationed outside the antechamber, but they proved less challenge than the locking mechanism of the door itself. In the end, it was opened from the inside by Kodos himself and closed again behind them, leaving them alone in a circular room. At the centre was a pool of crystal-clear water, reflecting the statue of governor Ribiero on its mirror.
"I'm sorry about the docking tower," Kodos said. "It wasn't possible without attracting the wrong kinds of questions…" He trailed off when neither Tyler, not especially Lorca seemed to be even listening.
Lorca scowled up at Ribiero's statue, then dropped his gaze to read the inscription at the base of it. He lingered far too long at it, pondering something Tyler wasn't privy to.
"Not everything is perfect where I'm from," Lorca said, seemingly oblivious to Tyler's scrutiny and Kodos' growing unease. "But at least we've grown out of the habit to building statues for mass murderers."
He looked at Kodos as he said this, then asked, "Are you ready?"
"I've been ready for thirteen months," Kodos said. "Since I became Councilwoman Slawski's aide."
A small smile broke through his tense expression. "I've been feeding her a trigger-activated toxin. Her life is mine to take."
He watched Lorca and said. "Or yours, as the case may be."
Tyler wasn't sure to the extent to which anyone had actually briefed Kodos about Lorca, but either way, he didn't seem to be behaving any differently than he might have towards the real Lorca right then. Perhaps, in this place, it was one and the same anyway.
"What's the trigger?" Lorca asked, still scowling.
"A chemical compound that Doctor Culber has developed," Kodos said. "It's harmless on its own, but once she ingests it, it activates the toxin, it'll shut down all muscle function within a minute."
"How do you get her to ingest?"
"She has a drinking problem. It's been one of my duties to sneak her something during stressful situations. She will ingest, all I've got to do is put the cup down in front of her."
He tilted the metallic mug he'd been holding for emphasis.
Lorca nodded and Kodos walked past him.
"I saw the casualty reports, there are few guards left in the building," Kodos said as he quickly tapped onto the control panel next to the door. "But I've locked the door, now it can't be opened from the outside."
Tyler considered his feelings on these odds, waited out the second it took for Kodos to turn and step out of the way, then he lifted his phaser and fired at the panel. It exploded in a shower of sparks.
"And now it can't be opened," Tyler said.
Kodos had flinched away a step and looked to Lorca for reassurance, though there was nothing forthcoming but a frozen, detached curiosity. If anything, Lorca approved of Tyler's actions.
The three men stepped to the door leading to the council chamber, where Kodos stopped.
"Give me a moment to get everything in place," he said. "And just a head's up, there are four guards inside. Two are right next to the door on either side. Then there are solid pillars and two other guards behind them. They can't be seen from the door."
"We'll handle them," Lorca said and flicked his gaze at the door. "Go ahead."
Lorca and Tyler drew back from the door before Kodos went through, making sure no stray look from inside could pick up their presence.
Tyler said, "How do you want to play this?"
"Just follow my lead," Lorca said, though it was almost a meaningless.
"That's enough time," he concluded then and stepped into the door's sensors and it parted before him.
He'd angled his entrance slightly to the left, leaving Tyler to cover the other side. In walking, Lorca bent low smoothly to pull the knife from his boot, twist it in his hand and slam it into the throat of the guard right next to the door before she had a chance to react.
Tyler, half a step behind him, didn't bother to pull the knife, instead push the muzzle of his phaser into the guard's temple and fire. He crumpled and Tyler caught the whiff of burned flesh. He was aware of Lorca's movement from the corner of his eyes, going for the guard behind the pillar without pausing, engaging him and Tyler heard the sound of a fist connecting to skin, followed by the gurgling of a slit throat. It didn't even occur to him to wonder who made the sound.
The second guard on Tyler's side managed to draw his phaser — which was a mistake because Tyler was already too close to him and the guard should have engaged the way his companion had done with Lorca. Tyler smacked his elbow into the guard's face, brought his phaser up and fired at the exposed underside of his chin when his head dropped back.
It had taken only a moment, barely enough for the assembled council to process what was happening. Some of them had got up from their seat at the horseshoe-shaped table. It arched up towards the back of the room, so the governor's seat was elevated above the council-members. Several aides stood lined up along the walls, some of them twitching forward or going for their weapons, but none of them had actually drawn of moved to attack.
Lorca left the guards he had killed on the floor and swung around, spread his arms out as he strode in between the two sides of the table, where a projection of New Anchorage hovered in shining lights. He crossed through it, barely narrowing his eyes at the glare.
The map confirmed that their attack force had reached the city and spread out. There were marks of fighting drawing a clear line through the city, from where the outer perimeter had been breached, to the nearest public transporters and to the three massive spires marking the phaser banks. From the display alone, it was impossible to tell how well it was going for them, though.
"I heard it's election day," Lorca said, faint amusement and an ugly sneer mixing mockingly in his tone, matching his demeanour. "I'm here to cast my vote."
They knew who he was, or at least they thought they did and Tyler doubted they would be allowed to learn the truth of it.
"How dare you!?" the governor said and pulled himself to his feet, staring down at Lorca who had come to stand right in front of him. Lorca glanced up at him, saying nothing, then turned around and strode back to the beginning of the table. Casually, he settled a hand on the table and swung his legs up, levering himself to his feet on top of the table. "I," Lorca said, placing one careful step after another on his walk back to the governor's seat, "dare a great many things."
Tyler kept a watchful eye on the council-members next to Lorca so he could interfere if one of them went for Lorca's legs. However, rather than use the opening, they backed away from him just slightly, terrified of his sudden close proximity.
Stopping next to the governor, Lorca now looked down on him, even though the governor was still standing. He'd tensed but managed not to flinch away.
Lorca watched him for a moment, then tilted his head like a curious predator before he looked towards Kodos. Tyler, as well as everyone else, followed the direction of his gaze. Unlike everyone else, Tyler took note of the cup in front of council-woman Slawski and the way her hand rested right next to it. Lorca was looking at Kodos when he said, "I vote for him."
A ripple of confusion passed over the assembled people before they figured out who Lorca was talking about. The council-woman's eyes went wide and she pushed herself back from the table so she could turn around and glare at Kodos. She opened her mouth, but then the outrage on her face was replaced by puzzlement and then shock. She sucked in a strained breath, her eyes going wide and her face blanched. A shudder went through her body, barely noticeable. Her body folded stiffly over her chair and was still. A thin rivulet of foamy saliva ran down the side of her still open mouth.
Kodos picked up the thread Lorca had thrown him, gripped Slawski's dead body by the shoulder and roughly pulled her from the chair, dropping her to the floor like so much trash.
"I claim her seat," Kodos said, looked at the poisoned cup, then at the governor, voice picking up strength as he spoke. "I demand you support my claim or suffer the consequences."
A council-man two seats down from Kodos slammed his fist on the table. "We will not be bullied by an upstart!" he shouted, then turned a baleful glare at Lorca. "And certainly not a despicable traitor!"
Before the moment had a chance to tip the wrong way, Tyler lifted his phaser and shot. The council-members wore no body armour, and the energy blast went through the man's chest, residual power shot sparks along the hole as he howled in pain before he died.
Lorca arched a brow.
The governor tracked a look around the room, along the rows of council-members, resting for a moment longer on Kodos, who still by the newly vacant seat. Then the governor looked at Lorca. He only had to raise his head slightly, due to the elevation of his table, but Lorca still seemed to tower right next to him.
"It is an acceptable practice," he said slowly. "The use of poison should even earn him a commendation, but…"
He made a small gesture with his hand, careful to make it seem innocuous. "How am I to ignore the circumstances?"
It was all Tyler could do to hide his sense of triumph. Barely a few minutes in, only two dead — the guards didn't count — and the governor was already negotiating with them. Tyler had expected the governor to be more steadfast, but once again, Tarsus IV was far away from the centres of power in the Empire, the people here, even the ones of prominence, hadn't had what it took to make it anywhere else.
"You said it yourself," Lorca said. "An acceptable practice and a commendation, just pretend I'm not here. Get to it."
Despite the light tone, it was clearly an order, voiced with a hint of disgust lacing his words that almost made the governor bark. He thought better of it, though, took a breath and put his hand on the console in front of him.
The map display disappeared and was replaced by the terran emblem.
"Computer," the governor said. "Open confirmation proceedings under the Proper Succession Order for Council-woman Slawski."
"Opened," the computer confirmed. "Appointee?"
"Adrian Kodos."
"Eligibility confirmed," the computer stated. "Succession confirmed. Welcome, councilman Kodos."
Lorca shifted his weight forward and, with a sneer, said, "Let's not forget the commendation."
It was entirely unnecessary, of course, nothing of this would stand for very long, but Lorca was going to push through every command he could get fulfilled, digging these people's graves deeper. Once the rest of the empire became aware of what was happening, the entire council would be executed for treason. Tyler didn't know if Lorca even realised it or was just using it as another move in a power-play.
"Of course," the governor said, only slightly displeased. "Computer, note a commendation for Mr Kodos' use of poison in his file."
"Commendation entered into file."
A scuffle off to the side dragged Tyler's attention away from the proceedings, ready to squash every little flicker of resistance before it could fan up. A young woman had stepped forward from the back of the room. She ignored Tyler completely, looked up at the governor, but then she settled her gaze on Lorca. She held her posture with military-trained stiffness, setting Tyler immediately on edge.
She said, "I wish to claim his seat, too." She put a hand to the back of the chair of the council-man Tyler had shot.
Tyler got the impression Lorca was momentarily too stunned to remember his role, a look of sheer puzzlement crossed his face, swiftly followed by what might have become a smirk if he hadn't straightened his expression back into arrogant indifference.
Lorca shrugged. "Why not? Better remember who put you there." He raised a meaningful eyebrow at her.
"My gratitude is yours," the young woman said. "And whatever else you might want."
Barely paying attention to her, Lorca muttered, "In a minute," as he turned back to the governor.
"Get her in, if there's a commendation for radical opportunism, let her have it," Lorca said before the governor had a chance to decide if he wanted to object or not.
The governor put his hand back to the console and the computer confirmed the girl's appointment to the council without issue. She hauled the dead body from the seat and dumped it to the floor, much like Kodos had done before. The council-members on either side of her studiously avoided even acknowledging her.
Tyler tried reading the governor's face and guess at his thoughts. With Lorca towering over them all, the governor looked up at him expectantly, licking his lips as he prepared to say something, voice a proposal of his own, but held back by the incalculable nature of the man he had to put it to.
Carelessly disregarding them all, Lorca pulled his phaser from its holster by his thigh, lifted it and studied it as if he needed to bridge a few boring minutes. He was trusting Tyler to keep watch, keep him alive in this pool of people who were most assuredly not sharks, but thought of themselves as such and could be stupid enough to emulate the behaviour.
"Ko… Mr Kodos," Lorca said. "Come here for a second."
Tyler wondered at the tuck on the corner of Lorca's mouth as he corrected the address of the newly-minted council-member, a minuscule tightening of the muscles.
Kodos got up smoothly as if they had rehearsed this and he knew exactly what was going to happen. Maybe he had an inkling, after all, they had come here needing a very specific thing from the governor and the council.
Hesitating for only a moment, possibly unsure if he was expected to climb up on the table, Kodos stopped next to Lorca, just below the governor and looked up.
With a slow, contemplative flick of his gaze over the governor, Lorca twisted the weapon in his hand and offered it to Kodos.
"Come on, get your own hands dirty."
Perhaps he expected to witness reluctance, if only for a fleeting moment, a tiny delay as Kodos worked out the meaning of his words — or failed to, because Tyler was beginning to suspect Lorca was neither talking to, nor actually looking at this Adrian Kodos right there at all, but someone else entirely, from his own universe.
Kodos snatched the weapon from Lorca's hand so fast it was almost a reflexive action, not requiring any conscious thought. Blindly relying on Lorca setting up the weapon correctly, Kodos took it, whipped it up and fired. The energy beam sliced through the governor's chest, the upward angle meant the beam exited his body at the neck and left a dark scorch mark on the painted ceiling above and behind them.
A shudder went through the assembled people, the council-members and their aides at the realisation of it, that this game wasn't over yet and Lorca was taking them all hostage against all the might of the terran empire, leaving them with all the survival chances of a moth whose wings were already beginning to sizzle.
Tyler took a warning step forward, gaze digging into everyone who seemed to be more forward than the rest.
If he felt the sudden spike in tension at all, Lorca showed nothing of it, arching a brow as he looked over the assembly, making a dismissive gesture with one hand.
"You know how this works," he said. "The king's dead, long live the king."
Kodos rounded the table and climbed the back of the dais to get to the governor's seat, pulling the corpse out of the way like he had done with Slawski mere minutes before. It was an unusually fast rise in ranks, but not unheard of in more ambitious circles. The only tricky aspect was, really, to kill the people above in the correct order and making sure your support didn't erode on the way.
Kodos' only support were two traitors — Tyler still didn't know if he liked thinking of himself as such, but Lorca seemed to unapologetically revel in it, and Tyler felt the appeal of cutting all connections and obligations, being beholden to no one.
A council-woman cleared her throat before she spoke. "I'm trying to figure out what it is you hope to achieve," she said, polite, but without deference.
"Today?" Lorca asked, seemed amused at the question. "I'm conquering New Anchorage."
"The imperial fleet will just take it back from you."
Lorca shrugged. "Who'd want to keep this place anyway?" He tilted his neck at her like curious bird-of-prey. "The thing about Tarsus IV is, it's really far away from anything even remotely interesting or valuable. It'll be days or even weeks before the empire can get here in force and save you from me. If that's what they'll be doing at all. Until then, this place is mine and I will do exactly as I please with it, are we clear on this or do you have any more objections?"
He looked at Tyler, pointedly, reminding them of what the consequence of having objections would be.
Lorca waited, gave the assembly the chance to come to the conclusion he needed them to, banking on that their ambition and self-serving desire to survive would trump any loyalty they had in an empire, which, as he had just stated, was far away and didn't really care if they lived or died.
"Now," Lorca said. "Governor Kodos needs to be confirmed by your vote, I believe."
He looked at the woman who had shouldered her way onto the table before, his meaning clear. She nodded and placed her hand on the console on the table. The emblem hovering in the middle of the room flickered back into life.
She said, "I nominate Adrian Kodos as governor as Proper Successor."
"Nomination accepted, affirmation needed," the computer said.
Something crashed just outside and Tyler knew immediately that it must be the doors to the antechamber being blown open, immediately followed by a loud crash just on the doors of the council-chamber.
Tyler cursed inwardly. Some of the council-members who were already beginning to place their hands on the sensors to confirm the appointment stopped in mid-movement and indecision. The woman who had challenged Lorca crossed her arms over her chest, staring stubbornly in the empty space in front of her.
"Oh come on," Lorca sneered. "You almost had it."
The metal of the door groaned and Tyler was close enough to hear the quiet hissing of the weapon beams directed at it. Lorca jumped from the table and Tyler took it as a good sign that the council-members nearest to him still flinched even though they hoped rescue was just outside.
The woman next to him lifted her hands in surrender and said, "I already confirmed Mr Kodos!" and the man right next to her slapped his hand down the moment Lorca took a step toward him.
"Captain," Tyler warned. They had no time to bully each and everyone into compliance. It would take too long and the door was already beginning to give way.
Lorca nodded, mouth drawn into a thin line. "You hold the door," he said and Tyler immediately stepped to the side, next to the pillar, using it as cover. Lorca frowned at Kodos and said, "And you take cover, don't want you killed by accident."
As he spoke, Lorca had followed the outline of the table behind the council-member's backs until he reached the first one who hadn't cast her vote, the woman with her arms crossed.
She glared at him defiantly, opened her mouth to speak but Lorca's hand was already at her neck, snapping her head forward and into the table with sudden force. A tiny wail escaped her, blood from her broken nose leaving a puddle on the table. Dazed, she lacked the coordination to fight back when Lorca forcefully pulled her arm free and put her hand on the sensor pad.
Despite their time constraints, Lorca made a good show of leisurely paying attention to every single one of the council-members who hadn't cast their vote yet. He singled them out, if only for a moment. One of the aides came to help his council-woman and faster than Tyler had ever seen him move, Lorca bent himself out of the lunge, pulled the knife from his boot and stabbed it upward into the soft underside of the aide's chin. He dragged it free and a gush of blood splashed onto his boots.
The council's resistance crumbled after that, their learned and well-taught habit of bending to shows of strength and ruthlessness making them lose sight of just how precarious Lorca's position actually was.
When the door finally gave way, the council had all but confirmed Kodos' appointment, with just a very few votes missing. There was no rush with overwhelming numbers, Tyler alone couldn't have held the door against any concerted effort while Lorca dashed across the room to strong-arm the remainder of the council into finishing the affirmation process. Tyler had time to spot him suddenly surrounded by council-members and their aides, but had to fix on the door breaking, exploding and melding off their hinges to allow the scattering of remaining guards open fire into the council-chamber.
Tyler returned fire, trying to get an accurate count of them. No more than five, he estimated but making a decent effort to seem like more.
Behind and off to the side, he still heard the sounds of Lorca struggling and had a sudden, shocking flash of his future if dumb luck took him down in the confusion, but he wasn't anxious enough to steal a look and risk giving the guards an opening they could use to wedge through.
The council had nothing but numbers against Lorca's tightly-wound knife-edge desolation and the way he had honed it into a devastating weapon that carried him through the sudden rush of ineffective attacks. They stalled him for a few moments only and he shook them off like a lion, barely bothered by their peasant audacity.
"I'll do it!" the council-man shouted, edging away from Lorca and back to his seat. A small open circle formed around Lorca, watching him, but lacking the guts to attack him again after the three dead he'd left behind after their first attempt. It had become clear that mere numbers weren't going to take him down, they would also need at least a modicum of skill and coordination.
"See?" the frightened council-man said, his hand shaking. He wasn't looking away from Lorca and blindly groping for the pad. Lorca had stopped and watched him, holding himself still, but with his stance relaxed enough to allow him to spring into action again. The scuffle hadn't scratched the immaculate, armour jacket and trousers, but fresh blood dripped off its smooth surface in several places. None of the fresh blood was his.
He made a low grunt in his throat when the council-man failed to find the right spot a second time and became more panicked as a result. Instead of leaning past the chair, he tried to sidle around it but still couldn't look away from Lorca and the way his patience was unravelling quickly.
"Sweet mercy! I'm sorry! I…"
Lorca lunged forward and the council-man made a short, aborted sound, not quite a shriek as Lorca gripped his wrist and slammed it down in the correct place. The hand was lax in his grip and the shaking stopped the moment he touched it. The council-man suddenly snapped his captured hand back and hammered his elbow into the side of Lorca's chest, then twisted his body and brought the knife he'd been holding aligned to the other side of his body around. Lorca had buckled under the initial blow and the council-man drove the knife sharply at his face. It would have hit his cheek, most likely his eye had been the target. Too close to the council-man to deflect, Lorca snapped his free hand up and caught the tip of the blade in the palm of his gloved hand, then closed his fingers around it and wrenched it from the council-man's grip, tossed it away uncaring if he hit anyone with it.
The council-man didn't stop struggling at first, going for Lorca's phaser instead, pummelling him with his fist, though without the element of surprise, he wasn't a dangerous opponent. Lorca knocked the feet away from under him, then stepped back as the man slumped to the floor.
At the door, Tyler shouted a curse. One of the guards had made a mad dash at the door and now lay dead in the doorway, but another had been right behind the first and rushed Tyler. A small woman, but corded with muscle, she barrelled into Tyler and the moment he stopped firing the other guards rushed into the room and took cover along the sides where they found it.
Everyone ducked behind and below tables, though the decorative wood offered no actual protection.
Lorca stole a look at the emblem, in the commotion, he hadn't heard the computer voice and couldn't be sure if Kodos was governor already. He hastened around the table and up on the dais.
Kodos was sitting huddled under the governor's desk in a corner, safe — for a given measure — from a stray energy beam. He had a PADD in his hand, his fingers flying over it. He spotted Lorca dropping down close to him, using the governor's high-backed chair as cover and returning fire along the length of the room.
Without looking up, Kodos spoke quickly. "It went through, I've got full governor privileges. I've turned off automated defences and I'm disabling the scattering field but I can't remote control the transporters."
He tapped something, "But I got a message to Lieutenant Leighton and he said they've almost made it."
"Not good enough," Lorca said.
"I'm…" Kodos started, stopped and added, "ah."
Lorca spared him a glance. A near-miss burned past his head as he ducked and singed his hair. He hissed and patted the side of his head to make sure he wasn't on fire.
"Dr Ferasini," Kodos said, unable to keep a grin from threatening his face. "We can begin beaming people over."
"Put them in the antechamber," Lorca said.
Barely a second passed before the sound of transporter beams could be heard. The terrans came down with weapons ready, ten at first, shortly followed by ten more. They made short work of the few remaining guards then filed into the council-chamber.
Lorca stepped out from behind the chair and to the side, watching them, suffering graciously through the tasteless salutes in his direction. Beside him, Kodos regained his feet and without hesitation, took his seat.
"The council will come to order," he shouted and under the threatening, watchful eyes of Captain Lorca's followers, those members of the council who were still alive returned to their seats, albeit reluctantly.
Tyler gave the woman who had attacked him a parting kick in the stomach, though she was good and dead by then. He squared his shoulders and allowed himself a deep breath, making eye contact with Lorca across the length of the room. Assuring himself the captain was still uninjured and letting him know the same about himself.
At Lorca's gesture, Tyler walked over and up the dais to stand next to him, but he only got another short look and no verbal acknowledgement.
Kodos opened the communication to Lieutenant Leighton the transporter hub. The young lieutenant looked worse for wear, especially in the unkind glare of the holographic projection. He had nearly died mere hours ago and it showed.
"Do we have the phaser banks?" Lorca asked.
"No, sir," Leighton said. "They must have realised they are our target. We haven't been able to break through the defences."
"Good thing we got reinforcements and they don't," Lorca said. "Beam us right into their control room, then send over some backup."
"Aye, sir," Leighton nodded. "Ready to beam."
Lorca nodded, "Energise."
The bridge of the Buran was lit only by fading flickering projections and electricity fires smouldering away inside consoles and destroyed displays. Tiny sparks sometimes shot bright and blue over their cackling light. The darkness and cold of space were invading and Landry wasn't sure she didn't hear the sound of venting atmosphere through a hairline crack right above her.
Slumped in the captain's chair, knowing she was re-breathing the same old air far too often, she could do nothing but watch the display in her chair's armrest and track their progress. Sometimes, she heard some of the other bridge crew behind her or saw them move from the corners of her eyes, clinging to their station, but they were all long past when they could do anything but wait and hope the Buran found her way, limping on doggedly on her failing impulse output.
She remembered Gabriel Lorca, the image as sharp and precise as the icicles beginning to form on every surface, the sting of cool on her feverish skin. She remembered him standing by the window on a luxury suite of a pacifican orbital station. It was following the sunrise, flooding the room with constant, soft rays which were a caress rather than a stab to the eyes. His back was turned, the caitian fur coat trailed long behind him on the polished floor. The coat was a gift from Georgiou, though whether it was even hers to give when he had been the one to kill the caitian warriors, had gone uncommented between him and Landry. Underneath the coat, he was naked and entirely good enough to eat, turning to watch her over the rim of the delicate glass in his hand.
"I'm trusting you," he said, words sweeter than any promise of love or devotion he might carelessly make to any or all of the people surrounding him, vying for his favour or his position or, like the emperor, his subservience.
Georgiou had trapped him, for now, in the gilded cage of her daughter's birthday celebration. At sixteen, Michael Burnham was an adult and would join the ranks of Starfleet, so Georgiou required everyone who was someone — or hoped to be or feared they might no longer be — to share the festivities. It didn't matter to Georgiou that Lorca had other matters to attend to, other plans to enact, greater goals to follow than anything the Emperor might dream to demand of him.
"The captain always goes down with the ship," he said, his voice rough and cold, dispersing the effect of the sensuous ripple of the coat against his skin as he walked a few steps towards her.
"But you," he said, tipping the glass of romulan ale in her direction and a drop the colour of his eyes stole itself over the rim to settle on his finger. "Are not the captain."
He transferred the glass to his other hand and stroked his finger up over the trail the drop had made.
"You," he said. "I expect you to come back."
He sucked the finger into his mouth. "You'll depart in an hour," he added, voice dropping low in distinct, purring invitation. "You can come here first."
The memory of him manifested on her tongue in the infinitely less arousing present, her body throbbing from the force of it, though she might just be misinterpreting the adrenaline. Or she might not be, she had never been very good at telling apart what her captain made her feel and what a hard fight did to her. It was the same irresistible sensation of danger, the thrill of it, and the same rush of ecstasy for a shattering ending.
Though perhaps the memory wasn't just the idle musings of a dying mind, not when it spelt out so clearly what was required of her. Her captain's fate, manifesting for her the directions she must take, casting what had seemed like the concession of defeat into a battle-cry for another fight. Now, suddenly, with his memory, the refusal to die was no cowardice at all.
She turned bleary eyes on the display, tried to focus and blinked until she released the display was broken and couldn't actually clear. It was enough to tell her they had almost made it. The asteroids had shielded them for now, the clever course hampering the Defiant and making a chase undesirable when the prey wasn't going to get away anyway. She wondered briefly at what Maddox thought they were doing if he was in contact with New Anchorage and knew what was waiting for him. Perhaps he didn't, or perhaps he thought he could handle it, or perhaps he simply did not care, distracted by the fantasy of his hands on Captain Lorca's throat. It was almost amusing to think how disappointed he would be to learn just how far beyond his reach Lorca truly was in this same moment.
She flicked a switch and opened a ship-wide broadcast.
"Attention," she said, surprised despite herself at the hard rasp and force she still had in her voice. "In a few minutes, we'll enter orbit around Tarsus IV. Prepare to abandon ship. Bridge out."
The silence seemed to stretch after that, but in truth, it couldn't have been more than a second.
"Abandon ship, sir?" someone asked, it took a moment to identify the voice as belonging to the ops officer to her right.
Landry laughed, it hurt her throat and it made her laugh more.
"What? You think the fight's over already?" she chuckled. "We've only just started."
End of Chapter 7: Trojan Horse Race
References: "Politics: A Trojan horse race." — Stanisław Jerzy Lec
I would like to formally thank Dorothy Dunnett for planting the visual of "hot nude guy in a fur coat" in my impressionable teenage mind years ago.
Last revised on 02/February/2019