Night of the Living Trekkies (21 page)

“I wish we could wait until dawn,” Leia said. “It might drive those things back into the cracks and crevices.”

Jim looked at Sandoval. He shook his head.

“This area will likely be ashes by then,” he said.

“Then we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt,” Jim said.

He looked at his watch.

“It’s four thirty,” he said. “Let’s be ready to move by five. Any questions?”

“Well . . . yeah,” Willy said. “How do we get to the basement?”

“What should we take?” Rayna asked.

“Who gets Tasers and who gets swords?” Gary asked.

Jim surveyed their worried faces. He’d been in this kind of situation before. He knew when people needed advice and leadership and a morale boost. But they were looking at the wrong guy.

“Hey, I’m just the bellhop,” he said. “I know the hotel, and I can lead the way to the garage. But I’m not making any promises. Stop looking at me like I’m some kind of Dahar master.”

Then he walked out of the suite and through the connecting door to Martock’s room.

“What was that?” Gary said to Rayna. “I thought your brother was G.I. Joe.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Rayna said.

She followed Jim into Martock’s suite. She found him staring out the windows, silhouetted by the weak illumination filtering in from the atrium.

“What are you doing?” she said.

Jim was staring down at the atrium’s floor. He could just make out the chair he’d fallen asleep in a lifetime ago. His newspaper sat neatly beside it. He mused that maybe this was all just a bad dream. Maybe this was one of those awful horror movies where the hero is shaken awake in the final frames, only to learn that the preceding ninety minutes have just been a long, terrible nightmare.

“Nothing,” he finally answered. “Just checking the emergency lights. They’re not very bright, but we should have enough to see by.”

“Well, if you were trying to demotivate everyone back there, you did a pretty good job. You made sitting around and waiting to die sound appealing.”

“Maybe it is.”

“What are you talking about?” Rayna said.

“We won’t reach the basement without casualties,” he said. “Some of us, maybe all of us, will die.”

“Why are you being such a pessimist?” Rayna asked. “We go downstairs, we get in the RV, and we leave. Mission accomplished.”

“You left something out. The part where we have to outrun and outfight however many of those flesh-eating assholes get in our way. If there’s too many of them, then that RV might as well be parked on Ceti Alpha V.”

“So what should we do?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe we should get the booze out of the minibars and have a party. Get bombed before we get bombed. At least it would be painless.”

“That’s insane,” Rayna said.

“Then you’ll really hate my other idea. We get everybody
else
drunk, then you, me and Leia make a run for the garage. Our chances are better without the others.”

“That’s not true,” Rayna said. “Remember how Gary figured out how to contact you when you were trapped? Or how Willy drew off the zombies by sending down the elevator? Without them you probably wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m grateful,” Jim said. “But they’re not strong enough for what’s ahead. They’ll slow us down. Maybe get us killed.”

“There’s all kinds of strength, Jim,” Rayna said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”

“You remember that?”

“Of course. I also remember something I learned in the army—embrace the suck. It means, don’t whine about the hand you’ve been dealt. Just deal with it. Right now.”

“There’s a part of you that’s loving this,” Rayna said, her voice rising. “You’re finally back in your element.”

Jim shot his sister a lethal look.

“There’s no part of me that’s loving this,” he said. “Because it looks to me as if the only choice I’ve got is between seeing my sister fried in a nuclear blast or torn apart by zombies.”

“There’s got to be another way,” Rayna said. “There always is.”

“There might be if this were a
Star Trek
episode, but it’s not. This is a zombie movie. The rules are different.”

“Enlighten me,” Rayna said.

“
Star Trek
is all about applying the Federation’s high-minded ideals to difficult situations,” Jim said. “No matter how bad things get, you’re supposed to play by the don’t-shoot-first, don’t-mess-with-pre-warp cultures, don’t-alter-the-timeline rules. But in the zombie universe, it’s all about jettisoning everything—morality, sentimentality, weaklings—that might keep you from seeing the next sunrise. Because no matter how impeccably you behave, you’ll never bring the other side around to your way of thinking. They don’t think. They just kill.”

“You can’t push aside everything that makes you human just because there’s a crisis,” Rayna said. “If the only way to beat the zombies is to emulate them, we don’t deserve to win.”

“Who says we can win? Did you see what’s happening outside? What if the rest of the world is just like this?”

“What if it isn’t?The point is,
we don’t know
. The rest of the planet could be just fine. The only way to find out is to see for ourselves. And that won’t happen until you get off your morbid, self-pitying ass and take charge.”

“Then it isn’t going to happen.”

“Well, I’m leaving. Your only choice is whether or not you want to help me.”

Jim studied his sister’s face.

“You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” he said.

“Try me.”

Jim looked at Rayna a moment longer. Long enough to decide he believed her.

“All right then,” he said. “We’ll go together. I guess none of my gloom and doom made an impression.”

“Nope,” Rayna said. “I’m a Trekkie. We don’t do despair.”

Jim took his sister in his arms and hugged her.

“Be careful,” she said. “Don’t smear my makeup.”

“You’re kidding, right? At this point who gives a crap?” “I do,” Rayna said. “It took a long time to apply. And until Monday morning, when GulfCon is officially over, I’m an Andorian.”

“GulfCon looks pretty damn ‘over’ to me.”

“No it isn’t,” Rayna replied, eyeing her brother steadily. “Not for me.”

Jim stood in the dark for a moment, watching as his sister retreated to the corner suite. He suddenly understood that her blue makeup was more than a thin layer of pigment. It was a force field holding the horrors around her at bay. A warp bubble of denial that kept her functioning while so many others—himself included—stumbled.

If she could do it, perhaps the others could, too. Maybe an appeal to their Trekkie-ness was just what they needed to meld them into something approaching a fighting force. Or at least a cohesive unit with a chance of escaping the Botany Bay Hotel and Slaughterhouse alive.

He needed a way to focus their minds.

Jim walked over to the racks of new costumes and started opening garment bags. He took out his phaser, pulled its trigger, and examined the clothing by its warm red light. After opening the sixth one and seeing nothing of use, he started to feel foolish. Then, in the seventh, he found what he wanted.

Exactly what he wanted.

He took off his hotel uniform, tossed it on the floor, and started changing. He was almost done when Leia entered the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Getting into character. What are
you
doing?”

“Looking for you. This might be the last time I have you alone for a while.”

Leia walked up to Jim. He’d managed to put on everything except his shirt.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” she said. “How do you feel about cross-genre relationships?”

It took Jim a moment to realize what she was asking. Then he smiled. “I’m going to be honest with you,” he said. “I hear it’s pretty difficult to make them work. You’ll want to name the dog Wicket, but I’m going to call him Worf. How would you expect to find middle ground?”

“Maybe like this,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him. Jim pulled her close. This time he was ready to savor it, and again, for a brief instant, it didn’t feel like they were in a zombie movie anymore. They weren’t in a video game and they weren’t in a
Star Trek
episode. They were someplace far better, far more real—but it lasted only a moment, and then Leia broke the embrace.

“Maybe it could work,” he agreed. “But we won’t know for sure unless we get out of here. And to do that, we’ve got to get the people in the next room motivated.”

“How?”

“By giving them what they need: a captain.”

“Finally!” Leia exclaimed.

“That’s why I decided to ditch my hotel uniform.”

“That wasn’t a uniform,” Leia said. “
That
was a costume. It was you pretending to be something you weren’t.”

Jim pulled on his shirt. It was a gold captain’s tunic from the original series.

“Better?” he said.

Leia ran her hands over his torso.

“It’s a perfect fit,” she said.

Jim glanced over at the door to the corner suite.

“Time to save the galaxy,” he said. “You won’t have to do it all by yourself,” Leia said. “You save us, and maybe we’ll save you right back.”

By the time Jim and Leia reemerged from Martock’s room, it was nearly five o’clock. There was no time to waste.

The new uniform had the desired effect.

“Holy shit, captain on the bridge,” Willy said.

“Listen up, everybody,” Jim said. “We need to move in thirty minutes so I’ll be quick. Ordinarily I’d plan an operation like this along military lines, but since you’re all civilians I’ll use a system you’re more familiar with: Starfleet.”

“Hold on,” Gary interrupted. “How come you get to be captain? You said you didn’t even like Star Trek.”

“I never said I didn’t like it,” Jim reminded him. “I said I outgrew it. But if you’re going to challenge my geek credentials, let’s get it over with right now. Ask me anything you want.”

“Anything?” Gary asked. “You do realize I’ve won every Star Trek trivia bowl I’ve ever participated in, right?”

“Anything,” Jim repeated.

Gary mused for a moment. “The challenge will consist of three questions,” he decided. “One easy, one medium, one hard. Are you ready?”

“We need to hurry,” Jim reminded him.

“What musical instrument does Riker play?”

“The trombone.”

“What was the name of the ship commanded by Picard before he took over the
Enterprise
?”

“The
Stargazer
.”

“Final question: In what episode did Captain James T. Kirk first say the words,’Beam me up, Scotty’?”

Jim wanted to laugh. He’d seen many a trivia bowl contestant go down in flames when confronted with this challenge. “That’s a trick question,” he said. “Kirk never actually said those words. Everyone thinks he did, but he didn’t.”

Gary seemed startled, but quickly raised his fingers in a crisp salute. “You are correct, Captain.”

Jim looked around the room. “Does anyone else want to challenge my knowledge of this universe?”

His crew just stared back at him, awaiting orders.

“All right, then,” he said. “Let me brief you on your mission. From this moment forward, I want you to consider yourself part of an away team on a hostile planet. Which isn’t much of a stretch, considering the circumstances. Our job—our mission—is to get back to the ship and return to Federation space. Okay?”

Everyone nodded.

“I’m not blowing smoke about this. If things are as bad as they seem, it’s important that we get out of here and report what’s happened. Ensuring Dr. Sandoval’s survival would be a coup all by itself. And we’re the only ones who can do it.”

“Because we’re the only ship in the quadrant,” Willy said.

“Exactly,” Jim said. “I’ll assume command for the full duration of this voyage. Leia is my Number One. If anything happens to me, she’s in charge. Rayna is ship’s counselor.”

“And helmsman,” his sister added.

“Counselor-slash-helmsman,” Jim said. “Martock is chief of security. Dr. Sandoval is our science officer and chief medical officer.”

“Dammit, Jim, he’s an exobiologist, not an M.D.,” Gary said.

“He’ll do,” Jim said. “Gary, I need you to be the extra set of eyes on everything—that means you’re my yeoman.”

“Yo, man!” Gary exclaimed, and then quickly offered a sheepish apology. “I never get tired of that joke.”

“What about me?” Willy asked.

“You’re our mascot,” Jim said. “Our good-luck mascot.”

“Can our mascot go by his real name?” Leia said. “Willy Makit is bad mojo.”

“I don’t want to,” Willy said.

“No, she’s right,” Jim said. “We don’t need to jinx ourselves. You need to lose the alias.”

Willy’s face turned as red as his shirt.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “My real name’s Kenny.”

Leia eyed Willy uncertainly.

“What’s wrong with Kenny?” Leia asked. “Kenny what?”

“Dyes, ma’am. D-Y-E-S.”

The kid produced his wallet and, with trembling fingers, extracted his driver’s license. Leia leaned forward to inspect it. “Son of a gun,” she said. “Kenny Dyes.”

“Let’s toss him out in the hallway,” Gary said. “I’m not going anywhere with a walking, talking phaser target.”

“Belay that shit,” Jim said sharply. “We’re all going on this mission. No one gets left behind. Willy is going to make it. Now before we leave, I need someone to pack up the minibars. Grab the candy and the nuts. Anything high-calorie and low-volume. We don’t need to be weighed down.” He looked over at Martock, who hadn’t said a word since they arrived in Sandoval’s suite. “Can you help with that?”

“Sorry,” Martock replied, shaking his head. “But I’m not coming.”

He stood up, walked over to the windows, and stared out at the city.

“Too bad,” Gary said. “We could use that dude.”

“No, we can’t,” Jim said. “We need the Klingon that’s inside him.”

Jim walked over to where Martock stood, listlessly looking at the dead city.

“So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Wait for the bomb?”

“Sounds good to me,” Martock said, not bothering to look at him.