The Island of Doctor Meyiou, Part V

Posted on Jul 16, 2017 @ 3:34am by Finn Shackleton

Mission: Section 31

FINN SHACKLETON
in
"THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MEYIOU"


CHAPTER FIVE
***********************************

Location: Doctor Meyiou's compound, Coral Key, Risa
Stardate: [2.17]0715.2330
Scene: Turbolift


Finn Shackleton gritted his teeth against the feeling of the Ferengi's disruptor barrel in his side. The orange-skinned tuxedoed troll had led him away from Doctor Meyiou's inner sanctum and towards the turbolift, intending to take him to a place of execution. Meanwhile, the Doctor was alone with Tiki Devine, intending to satiate his lust on her before she, too, was to be put to death.

This insanity was an extension of Doctor Meyiou's crackpot plan. Coral Key, an isolated island off the western coast of Risa's southern continent, had been converted into a thaleron generator, and Doctor Meyiou planned to release the thaleron into Risa's ocean, completely destroying the planet's ecosystem - in turn, it would cripple the economy for dozens of sectors and put a severe dent in the Federation's treasury. A Starfleet Intelligence agent named Bentley had been investigating Coral Key, but had been murdered - his death had led Shackleton to this world, where he had uncovered Doctor Meyiou's insane plan. Now, Doctor Meyiou's nameless Ferengi henchman was jabbing a disruptor pistol into the small of Shackleton's back as this turbolift moved up through the levels in the madman's compound.

Shackleton had inferred from Doctor Meyiou's speech that there was an entire operation underway in Coral Key, but since he and Tiki Devine had been captured on the beach, they had seen nobody save the Doctor and this Ferengi. Shackleton thought it unlikely that a thaleron generator the size of Coral Key would be automated - there must be a command room somewhere in the complex from where the whole situation could be controlled.

The turbolift slowed to a halt, and the door hissed open. Beyond it lay the same white, featureless corridor that led back to Shackleton's cell. The Ferengi jabbed him with the barrel of the disruptor. "Move it, hew-mahn!" it sneered. "Die here and I will have to clean up the mess!"

Shackleton scowled, and stepped forward. He walked as slowly as he dared down the corridor. "Didn't they teach you manners where you grew up?" he said - then he looked down at the diminutive troll. "I shouldn't speak too soon. Perhaps you still have time to put on a growth spurt."

"Silence!" bellowed the Ferengi, baring its bodkin teeth. Its manners were a far cry from an hour ago when it had invited Shackleton and Tiki to dinner on behalf of the Doctor. "Just because you are taller than me does not mean you are superior! I am the one holding the - "

Shackleton swivelled on the ball of his foot, delivering a lightning-fast side kick into the Ferengi's stomach. The troll made a whooshing noise, all the wind kicked out of him, and its orange finger depressed the firing stud. A sizzling red disruptor beam shot past Shackleton's head, the superhot energy charring a portion of the wall even as Shackleton grabbed the Ferengi by its ears and delivered a devastating knee right into its ugly mug. The Ferengi made a garbled noise as its ridged nose shattered like glass, red blood spurting out of its ruined face like a geyser. Several of its teeth clattered to the floor as it reeled backwards, and Shackleton grasped its wrist, whipping the disruptor out of its grasp and reversing his grip on the weapon. In a moment, the situation had been totally flipped - now Shackleton was the one holding the disruptor to the Ferengi's face.

The troll collapsed onto its rump against the wall, gasping in pain. Blood was fountaining out of its ruined nose down its face and into its mouth. In a daze, it looked up through wild black eyes. "You're... you're fast - "

"And you'd better be too with your answers," said Shackleton fiercely. "Where's the command centre? Where is Doctor Meyiou planning to launch the thaleron from?"

"You'll - never find out," whispered the Ferengi, but Shackleton saw it surreptitiously move its hand towards a pocket on the right-hand side of its pants. "You won't kill me in cold blo- "

Shackleton pushed the firing stud, and a lance of red energy incinerated the troll's head in a steaming mess of bubbling blood and brains. The superheated disruptor beam played over the troll's head, melting the hapless Ferengi's face all the way down to the throat, leaving only its two large round ears sticking up from the ruined sides of its neck, one on either side, before they flopped down onto the shoulders in a welter of wet tissue and blood. As the awful stench of charred flesh rose into the air, the Ferengi's body began to twitch spasmodically. Shackleton rifled through the Ferengi's pocket and found a small palm-sized PADD. Flickering on the main screen was a code for the turbolift.

Shackleton looked down at the cauterised stump where the Ferengi's head used to be. "Hard luck, old boy," grinned Shackleton nastily, smoothing down his tuxedo and fixing his black bow-tie. "You might have stood a chance if you'd had something between your ears."

He darted into the turbolift and a moment later was on his way to the command centre.

***********************************

Scene: Doctor Meyiou's command centre


As the turbolift slowed to a halt again, Shackleton prepared himself for action. The Ferengi's small PADD had been a handy interface device, capable of programming any networked terminal with a short range. The turbolift controls, although hidden behind a panel, were still accessible remotely, and after only a few moments of tinkering, Shackleton had managed to input his desired destination and transmit it to the turbolift.

As the doors opened to the command centre, Shackleton gingerly looked into the room, ready to duck if anyone opened fire on him, but nobody did. Indeed, nobody even noticed his arrival. It was a large room, dominated in the centre by a large circular pool of seawater. A solid wall-railing ran around the circumference of the pool, and rising from the centre was a cylindrical device that looked like the upper part of an industrial drill. Behind that was a raised platform where a bank of computers and monitoring stations were built against the wall.

There were people, too. Doctor Meyiou was standing up on the raised platform, overseeing the work of around a dozen scientist men and women who were working the controls of the computer banks. As Shackleton looked on, a transporter pad in a corner of the room whirred into life, a white pillar of light depositing another scientist into the command centre.

Doctor Meyiou had his hands behind his back and was moving around, casting a critical eye over the shoulder of each one of those workers, absorbed in whatever was going on. There was something wrong with the Doctor's face - three deep red gouges marred his right cheek, as if someone had raked their nails against the side of his head and drawn blood.

Tiki Devine was there, too. The mocha-skinned girl was still dressed in her golden gown, but she was sitting gagged in a chair, tied to it by a long cord of wire that looped under her breasts and pushed them up quite perkily. It was like they were winking lasciviously at him, one after the other, beckoning him onward, two delicious mounds of flesh into which he couldn't wait to bury his -

The doors of the turbolift, thinking that nobody was getting out, closed on his face with a hiss, suddenly bringing the peep show to an end. Cursing himself for his fixation, Shackleton slapped himself in the face, the sting driving the image of Tiki's perfect boobs from his mind. He frantically got out the PADD and keyed in another order. When the doors opened again, he scuttled forward, low and quiet, into the command centre.

Nobody noticed him duck down behind the wall-railing. There was nobody near him either, and Shackleton slowly began to sidle around towards the raised platform. He quickly guessed what was going on - the cylindrical device embedded in the seawater was a thaleron generator, and once it began its deadly work, this was to be ground zero for the oceanic pollution. That meant two things - one, that there likely was an underwater escape route from this room if he needed to use it, and two, that Doctor Meyiou's plan was imminently coming to fruition.

[[Five minutes to thaleron generation,]] intoned a mechanical voice from up on the raised platform, as a computer vocalised the goings-on deep underwater. Shackleton remember that thaleron was unlike other forms of radiation - the kind of thaleron that was used to destroy Paris was not a naturally-occurring substance, for example. It needed to be generated first - something to do with the mass destruction of some kind of chemical isotope that needed time to build up and become unstable - but was harmless until then. That gave him time, and he continued to move slowly around the outside the pool, grasping the disruptor tightly in his hand, ready to incinerate Doctor Meyiou as soon as he had a shot.

Tiki Devine, gagged but conscious, could see him from where she was sitting. Her eyes widened in alarm, breast heaving as she realised that Shackleton was inching his way closer to the command platform. Shackleton locked eyes with her for a moment, but he was all action now, focused on the mission. There were a thousand girls like Tiki Devine on Risa, a thousand more like Little Miss Rumpy, and all of them would be in heat for him once he'd saved the planet and stopped this mad plot.

One of Doctor Meyiou's scientists - a female Yridian with a nose that twitched like a rodent's - came down from the command platform, engrossed in a PADD. Too late, Shackleton realised that Tiki's bug-eyes were an attempt to warn him.

[[Four minutes to thaleron generation,]] intoned the computer.

Shackleton leaped up and drove a punch into the Yridian's throat. Cartilage crumbled beneath the blow, and the Yridian woman went down grasping her own neck, making awful choking sounds as she suffocated. Cover blown, Shackleton stood up, levelling the disruptor at the raised platform, but Doctor Meyiou had the reflexes of a cat, ducking down behind a computer console.

The other scientists screamed in alarm, a cacophony of madness blaring into life, and they scattered in all directions. Shackleton cursed - he had no clear shot at his quarry. He ran forward, reaching sprinting speed in four strides, vaulting up onto the raised platform -

- where Doctor Meyiou was waiting. The lithe Asian man scuttled forward from his hiding place, grasping Shackleton's wrist. As the two men struggled for control of the disruptor, red-hot energy beams shot out from the business end - one exploded a computer console in a shower of sparks, sending shrapnel spattering all over the floor, and several more zapped right into the seawater, superheating the liquid until it bubbled steamed like the dead Ferengi's brains.

[[Three minutes to thaleron generation,]] intoned the computer.

There were no words between them. Shackleton and Doctor Meyiou fought like professionals, eyes locked, knowing that only one man would be walking away from this. Shackleton tried to elbow Doctor Meyiou in the face, but the Asian's spidery counter-move sent Shackleton sprawling to the ground, the disruptor clattering to the floor. Before Shackleton could get up, Doctor Meyiou leaped on top of him, using his body weight to push Shackleton over the edge of the railing, bringing the agent's head perilously close to the boiling, churning water. Throwing out his arms, Shackleton grabbed on to one edge of the railing, grasping it for dear life, all his energy focused on his arms as he desperately tried to prevent himself from falling into the boiling water.

[[Two minutes to thaleron generation,]] intoned the computer.

The steam that rose from the boiling seawater was burning the back of Shackleton's head. His tuxedo was all creased and messed up, and things got worse when Doctor Meyiou got a hand around Shackleton's throat and began to squeeze. Unable to let go of the railing for fear of slipping into the boiling water, Shackleton began to choke.

Doctor Meyiou said nothing as he squeezed the life out of Finn Shackleton. He simply stared into the agent's eyes, impassively watching as Shackleton's tongue broke out of his mouth, lolling in desperation as the agent gasped for air. The other scientists had gone now, running for their lives to the turbolift or the transporter pad.

[[One minutes to thaleron generation,]] intoned the computer.

Black spots appeared before Shackleton's eyes. His universe had shrunk down to Doctor Meyiou's gaunt face, his cruel features looming at him out of the shadows that were lengthening at the periphery of his vision. An awful weakness was rushing through his limbs as he choked to death. he felt like he couldn't hang on much longer.

The thaleron, he thought. The entire planet will be poisoned, and billions of people will die. You're expendable. They're not.

Doctor Meyiou tightened his grip, and the first time a look of triumph crossed the arch-villain's face. He had won. In less than a minute, the thaleron generator would spool up, releasing the poison into the ocean. Minutes later, everyone in the Taino resort would be dead. By tonight, millions more.

"Goodbye, Mister Shackleton," said Doctor Meyiou.

You're expendable. Those people are not.

[[Thirty seconds to thaleron generation,]] intoned the computer.

Finn Shackleton let go of the railing, tipping himself backwards towards the boiling mass of water. He brought his knees up, slamming them into Doctor Meyiou's back, and his tormentor fell forward, the momentum of the blow sending him sprawling out into space. The look on Doctor Meyiou's face changed from triumph to terror in one heart-stopping moment, and then he pitched forward into the boiling water.

Shackleton's blindly questing fingers found the top edge of the railing and he grasped it like iron. Even now, even right now, he realised that he wasn't afraid, like he somehow knew that he wasn't going to die. Sweat was pouring from his scalp, down his forehead and into his eyes, but it was like he also knew that he would find the railing again. He hauled himself up, arm over arm, biceps burning with exertion, and turned around to look down into the water.

The thrashing, screaming form sinking into the depths only looked Human. The skin, swollen and red, was sloughing off in great clumps. Already Doctor Meyiou's hair was scalding off his head as he sank into the darkness, eyes half-melted into an aqueous goo that blended with the salt water. As Shackleton watched with grim resolve, Doctor Meyiou mercifully passed out, and a moment later the boiling water rushed into his lungs to finish him off.

[[Ten, nine, eight - ]]

Shackleton turned and ran to the disruptor on the floor.

[[Seven, six, five - ]]

He picked it up, every nerve afire, not feeling the strain on his muscles even as they started to cramp up.

[[Four, three, two -]]

Shackleton levelled the disruptor at the bank of computers along the wall, the computers that were automatically controlling the generation of the most lethal substance in the universe. From her seat, Tiki Devine closed her eyes, awaiting the end.

[[One.]]

Shackleton fired, and the computer bank exploded in a fireball. Shackleton threw his hands up to protect his face -

- but nothing happened. As the noise of the explosion died away, and the shattered tritanium of its control surfaces rained onto the floor and the spattered into the seawater like rain, nothing happened. The thaleron generation had been stopped at the last second.

Shackleton dropped the disruptor and smoothed down his tuxedo, looking over the edge of the railing to where not even the ripples of Doctor Meyiou's existence remained. "Got yourself into some hot water, I see," he said to nobody in particular, to the universe in general.

He crossed the floor to Tiki and tore off her gag and restraints. The girl was in a daze at what she had just witnessed. Shackleton led her to the transporter pad and keyed in the co-ordinates for the Taino resort. Once back on the mainland, he'd contact local police and let them know that there was an inert thaleron generator in Coral Key that needed to be secured. They could take over and deal with the aftermath. He was too tired right now to think beyond that.

*********************************

Location: The Royal Sandal Hotel, Taino Resort
Scene: The Presidential Suite
Time Index: Two days later


Finn Shackleton relaxed on the bed, delighting in the feel of Tiki's soft hands as the girl massaged warm oil into the skin of his chest. He watched her through half-closed eyes. She was naked, and so was he.

They hadn't done much outside of the bed since they got back from Coral Key. Tiki had been divine, and he had enjoyed every inch of her, over and over again, and with her in his arms had slept more deeply than he had in a long time.

A noise intruded in his bliss, and Tiki shifted her weight on him, reaching to the bedside table. She had found his communicator, and it was chirping insistently. "Who is it?" she asked. "Is someone calling you?"

Shackleton didn't answer her, but he touched the communicator. "Go ahead."

Selyara's voice was on the other end, an ethereal presence intruding like an overbearing mother-in-law. [[Shackleton, this is the Director. It's been two days since we got your tip-off. Everything's been taken care of, and now we need you back. Where are you? Do you hear me, Shackleton? Where are you and what are you doing?]]

Shackleton lifted himself up onto his elbows. Tiki lay down beside him, all her soft curves on display. She licked a finger and ran it down the front of her body, teasing him. He sighed inwardly. Playtime was coming to an end. Back to work soon.

[[Did you hear me, Shackleton? What are you doing?]]

Tiki smiled at him, and Shackleton felt warm inside. He grasped one end of the sheet and drew it over them. "Just wrapping things up, Director," he said, as Tiki giggled.

The communicator fell to the floor and rolled under the bed, knocking out the connection. As the sunshine sparkled on the sea, and the breeze wafted through the luxurious room, Finn Shackleton drew Tiki into his arms and kissed her like she was the last woman on Risa.

************************************************
************************************************

NRPG: This is the fifth and final chapter of Finn Shackleton's adventure on Risa, with tongue planted firmly in cheek ;)




FINN SHACKLETON WILL RETURN

IN

"FROM ROMULUS WITH LOVE"




Jerome McKee
the Soul of Finn Shackleton
Agent
Section 31
**********************************************
**********************************************