Night of the Living Trekkies (23 page)

It was a miracle, he thought. They’d made it this far without casualties or determined resistance. Things were looking up. Or looking up as much as they ever did in a place where the dead ruled.

He cracked open the door to the garage. Leia and Rayna joined him.

“What do you see?” they asked.

Oh, God
, Jim thought.

He closed the door. Then he sat down on the floor.

“What’s out there?” Leia asked.

“Borg,” Jim said. “A whole bunch of gray-skinned, costume-wearing Borg.”

“How many?” Rayna asked.

“I’d say it’s the entire collective.”

He glanced at his watch. Dawn was less than an hour away.

“And we’ve only got five minutes to fight our way through all of them.”

Leia, Rayna, and the others took turns peeking out the door. They saw a sea of zombies dressed as Borg, all listlessly wandering among the cars, trucks, and buses. In the distance sat the USS
Stockard
.

“Am I crazy,” Willy asked, “or is one of them carrying a trom-bone?”

“They’re musicians,” Martock replied. “They’re on the schedule.”

“What schedule?”

“The GulfCon schedule. They’re an all-brass musical group called Seventy-Six Trom-Borgs.”

“There’s seventy-six of them?” Jim said.

“It’s actually more than a hundred,” Martock said. “Someone on their tour bus must have been infected. They never made it out of here.”

“We can’t let them delay us,” Sandoval said.

“Here’s how we’ll play it,” Jim replied. “You guys go for the RV. Martock and Gary and Leia, you stick close to Rayna. She’s got the keys and she knows how to drive that thing. Sandoval and Willy, keep up. Get there, get aboard, and get out. Understand?”

“What about you?” Leia asked.

“I’m going to draw them off.”

“Like hell you are,” Rayna said.

“This level has a charging station for hotel golf carts. My friend Dexter used them for making the rounds at night. To check parking permits on all the vehicles.” Jim explained that his plan was to commandeer a golf cart and drive to the far end of the parking garage—while hopefully diverting the Borg in the process. “Once you have a clear path, go to the RV. Then I’ll drive over and join you.”

“Bullshit,” Leia said.

“It’s our only chance.”

“Then I’m going with you,” Leia replied.

“I need you to stay with my sister. Later, if you still want to go joyriding in a golf cart, I’ll see what we can do.”

“It’s decided,” Sandoval said. “But we have to hurry.”

Jim kissed Leia on the cheek.

“If you get killed, I’ll never speak to you again,” she said.

“Understood,” Jim said. “Wait until they move off, then go.”

He opened the door and stepped outside. The closest zombie spotted him instantly and moaned, alerting the rest. Jim added to their excitement by jumping up and down and waving his arms.

“Come on, you cybernetic assholes!” he shouted. “I’ve got something for you to assimilate right here!”

The words echoed off the garage’s cement walls. The zombie Borg quickly obliged, shuffling after him as fast as their necrotic limbs allowed.

Jim trotted away to his left, toward the rows of trucks and cars. He planned to play a game of lifesize
Pac-Man
with the undead.

A Borg stepped out from behind a Chevy Tahoe. Jim split its head open with the kar’takin. He ran past another as he sprinted deeper into the car rows. He paused just long enough to gouge out its third eye.

“Wait!” he heard a shrill voice yell.

Jim turned to see Willy pursuing him.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why aren’t you with the others?”

“I figured you could use some help. I call shotgun on the golf cart.”

“There is no golf cart,” Jim said. “I made it all up.”

Willy was puzzled. “Then how are you going to get back to the RV?”

“I’m not going back to the RV,” Jim explained, and he held up the Glock. “I’m going to lure them into a corner and then I’m going to use this on myself.”

“A suicide mission?” Willy said, his face falling. “It figures.”

They were interrupted by loud, continuous moaning. The Borg were coming. They surged among the cars like a tide.

“Let’s not make this easy for them,” Jim said. “You go that way and I’ll go this way.”

“Nice knowing you,” Willy said.

“You, too, kid. Maybe Martock will write a Klingon battle song about us.”

The Borg were within twenty feet when they split up and vanished down different rows.

Jim bobbed and weaved in and out of the parking lanes, making the chase as tough as possible for his clumsy pursuers. He was so successful, and led them so far astray, that he began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he
could
double back to the
Stockard
.

Then he rounded a corner and came face-to-face with more than a dozen zombies.

He took off the first one’s head. Then the second. But there were too many. For every one he destroyed, two or three more appeared.

Jim fell back among the cars. A zombie blocked his retreat. He sliced it open. Another one took its place. He was trapped between a service van and a big contractor-style pickup. He climbed into the truck’s bed and then jumped on top of the cab. For the moment he was safe. Safe but surrounded.

He tried to catch a glimpse of the RV, but a bus blocked his view.

Soon the Borg were four ranks deep around the pickup. Their sheer mass shifted it back and forth. Jim struggled to keep his footing.

The arms of the closest zombies flailed across the roof, trying to catch his feet. Jim considered using the kar’takin but feared that swinging it would cause him to lose his already uncertain footing.

It’s over
, he thought.

He remembered the Glock in his belt. It was almost time to use it.

He wondered if Willy had fared any better.

Jim took out the pistol. He was about to cock it when he heard the squeal of tires. Then he saw, to his immense relief, that Willy had indeed fared better. Much, much better.

A black Hummer H2 was veering toward him with the high beams on, and Willy was behind the wheel, blasting the horn. The zombies recoiled from the pickup truck, agitated by the blinding lights. Jim leaped from the truck onto the hood of the Hummer, then scrambled up onto its roof. There was no time to get inside. He simply grabbed onto the overhead bars.

“Where the hell did you find this thing?” Jim shouted.

“Valet parking,” Willy shouted back. “I thought about the Maserati but this seemed—”

“Just go!” Jim yelled. “Go, go,
go!
”

Willy pulled away in a screech of tires. The Hummer broke through a line of Borg, grinding over the brass instruments and fallen bodies while leaving a trail of crimson tire tracks in its wake.

Incredibly, Jim’s diversion worked perfectly. Almost every Borg pursued him. Only a handful remained in sight when Leia, Rayna, Martock, Gary, and Sandoval emerged from the stairwell.

“We’re going to make it,” Gary said.

“Stay quiet and be ready to move,” Leia said. “This isn’t over yet.”

The handful of remaining Borg spotted them and shambled their way. Martock took the first one’s head with a single bat’leth stroke. Leia flattened the next with a lirpa jab.

A Borg clutching a French horn blocked their path.

“My turn,” Gary said.

He dispatched the zombie with a slashing blow to the chest that neatly bisected its third eye.

The RV was fifty feet away. It seemed untouched and undamaged.

Rayna pulled the keys out of her pocket, then dropped them.

“Shit!” she said.

She doubled back and picked them up. When she did, she noticed that more Borg were following them. And even more were coming from the direction that Jim had taken.

“They’re doubling back,” she said to Leia. “Do you think that means—”

“Get to the goddamn RV,” Leia said. “We’ll drive around the parking lot to pick up Jim.”

They ran the final few yards to the side of the
Stockard
. Sandoval, Gary, and Martock took defensive positions near the door. Rayna unlocked it and stuck her head inside.

The vehicle was dark and seemingly empty.

“Looks good,” she said. “I think . . .”

Before Rayna could finish her sentence—before she could do anything—Matt leapt down from the RV’s roof and landed in front of Leia. He appeared to be carrying a giant, red octopus.

The octopus grabbed Leia by the throat; the tentacles wrapping around her neck like bands of steel. Matt hoisted her off the ground, then tossed her away. She landed in a heap, cracking her head against the concrete floor.

“Sorry, Princess,” he said, “but GulfCon is a Trek-only event.”

From behind his back, Matt revealed his custom-made bat’leth.

“I found this beautiful weapon on the floor of a restroom,” he said. “Better late than never, huh, Martock?”

Rayna raised her Taser and fired.

Matt deflected the darts with his blade. Gary used the moment to charge with his yan, but he wasn’t fast enough; Matt parried the blow—then, with superhuman speed, he used his own weapon to slash his opponent from neck to hip.

“No!” screamed Rayna, as Gary collapsed, a look of profound surprise on his face.

“Game over, Horta,” Matt said. “I’m afraid your name will not be posted on the leaderboard.”

Rayna rushed to Gary’s side, but there was nothing to be done. She put her hand over his eyelids, closing them. “Warp speed,” she whispered.

Martock charged, his own bat’leth ready for action.

“You will taste my steel,
petaQ
!” he roared.

“Taste
this
,” Matt said.

His bat’leth cleaved the air with superhuman speed. Yet somehow Martock blocked the blow.

“Impressive!” Matt said. “I’ve wanted to give this thing a real test.”

He attacked again. Martock blocked and counterattacked. Matt deftly avoided the strike. He was faster and stronger, but Martock had greater reach and far more experience. It wasn’t a fair fight, but it was a fight.

As the two exchanged blows, Rayna scrambled to Leia’s side.

“Are you okay?” Rayna asked.

Leia flailed around, searching for her lirpa. “Martock needs help.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” Rayna said.

Sandoval joined them.

“More Borg are approaching,” he said. “We need to board the vehicle
now
.”

Rayna grabbed Leia’s left arm and hoisted her to her feet. With Sandoval’s help, she was able to direct Leia to the RV. They were at the door, still struggling to get Leia to cooperate, when the clang of clashing bat’leths ceased.

They looked just in time to see Matt decapitating the Klingon with a final triumphant swing of his blade. “Hey, don’t forget your friend!” he called after them. He lifted Martock’s head by its hair and whipped it in their direction; it missed them by inches before shattering the windshield of a VW Jetta.

“God
damn
it!” Leia shouted, her voice cracking.

“Get on board,” Rayna pleaded. “He’s coming.”

“No,” Leia said.

She snatched the can of Mace clipped to the belt on Rayna’s costume.

Matt charged across the parking lot. “Don’t leave yet, guys! The trivia bowl starts right after breakfast. With Gary out of the picture, it’s anybody’s game!”

He grabbed Rayna by the shoulder and spun her around. She knocked off his Ray-Bans and leapt aside. Leia stood up, grabbed Matt’s gold commodore’s uniform by the collar, thrust the Mace can in front of his eyes, and sprayed.

The scream he uttered was fair reward, she decided, for the left-handed punch that once more smashed her to the ground.

His screams kept coming. Matt turned in circles, rubbing his eyes.

“You little filthy
patagh
!” he wailed. “I’m going to—”

He never finished the sentence. Willy bore down on him in the H2, Jim still lying prone on top. The immense vehicle struck Matt at full speed, launching him into the air. His body smashed into the side of the
Stockard
.

Jim climbed off the top of the H2. He froze for the briefest fraction of a second when he saw Gary’s and Martock’s bodies on the ground—then he pointed at the approaching Borg.

“Take care of them,” he told Willy. “I’ll handle Octopussy.”

“Affirmative,” Willy said, shifting into reverse and backing up into another crowd of shambling undead. Meanwhile, Jim prepared to face Matt once and for all.

Carrying his kar’takin in his left hand and the Glock in his right, he walked toward the RV. Rayna and Sandoval crouched beside Leia. She was hurt but still fighting to rise.

Matt slowly struggled to his feet.

“Par-tay’s over, jerk-off,” Jim said.

He leveled the Glock at Matt and fired three rounds into his chest.

The impact slammed him once more against the RV. Jim waited for him to crumple to the ground.

Instead, he laughed.

“I’m starting to hate that gun,” he said.

Matt raised his right arm, revealing his new hand in all its glory. The tentacles lashed out and snatched the pistol from Jim’s grasp.

“I’ve risen a few power levels since we last met,” he explained. “Bullets don’t work anymore. I’ve developed a super-fast healing factor that puts Wolverine to shame.”

Jim watched as the tentacled horror at the end of Matt’s arm explored every inch of the Glock. Then it quickly and expertly disassembled it. The pieces clattered to the floor.

“You’re infected,” Jim said. “You’re one of them.”

Matt laughed.

“Believe me, what I’ve become is far, far more profound. Comparing me to the zombies is like comparing
Star Trek
to old black-and-white
Flash Gordon
.”

Jim brought his kar’takin into a defensive position and prepared for action.

“So what are you?”

Matt extended his right arm in the direction of his own bat’leth, which had been wrenched away by the H2 collision. A tentacle darted out, grabbed it and drew it to him.