Star Trek: Pantheon (26 page)

“Hi, sweetheart. Life on the
Stargazer
is…how can I put it? Eventful. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been charting a couple of gas giants on a collision course in the Beta Expledar system. The theory was that if two of these gas giants come together with enough force, the resulting body will be heavy enough for its own gravity to instigate fusion—in other words, for the thing to become a star in its own right.

“Well, it’s no longer a theory. I wish you could have seen it. You can’t imagine the outpouring of light…the sheer magnitude of the spectacle…I know I’m not very good with words, but I think you get the idea. It was magnificent.

“On a more mundane note, I’ve made friends with my first Pandrilite—a fellow named Vigo, who’s in charge of the weapons around here. Don’t worry—he hasn’t had any chance to use them yet, and he probably never will. In any case, he’s trying to teach some of us this game called
sharash’di.
I’ve never heard of it, but it looks interesting, and Vigo says I’ve got quite an aptitude for it. I think he means for a
human—
but I just might surprise him one day.

“Fortunately, we’ve got a good group on the
Stargazer.
When you’re working in close quarters, that’s pretty important. You’ve been hearing about Jean-Luc for a long time, of course, but my respect for him grows each day. There can’t be a man alive better suited to head up a deep-space exploration. Ben Zoma’s another born leader—though he’s got a much more low-key approach. Sometimes I think he’d rather hear a good joke than eat. And then there’s—”

Jack’s voice was drowned out by that of Jean-Luc Picard, coming over the
Enterprise’
s intercom system: “This is the captain. Once more we will be attempting to free ourselves from the subspace anomaly. The maneuver may take some time and involve a fair amount of turbulence; please take all necessary precautions.”

Reluctantly, Beverly switched off the tape mechanism and got to her feet. She would resume, she promised herself, once this “maneuver” was over.

Off duty or not, she wasn’t about to let sickbay get bounced around without being there to pick up the pieces.

As Worf approached the brig, the two security officers faced him and straightened. He set them at ease with a nod and came to stand before the force barrier.

Asmund had been sitting on her bunk. She looked up—and saw immediately that he had nothing in the way of good news for her.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I spoke with the captain on your behalf—”

The woman finished the sentence for him: “But he won’t take the chance.”

He eyed her. “That is correct.”

She nodded. “I suppose I’m not surprised. As one who was raised a Klingon, I hate the idea of sitting here, caged, while the one who arranged it runs loose.” Her eyes blazed with dark fire. “The very idea,” she began, her voice trembling, “the very idea consumes me.”

It took her a few moments to achieve control again. “But as a Starfleet officer,” she said, “I can’t blame the captain. I would probably have made the same decision myself.”

“If you are innocent, it will come out in a court-martial.” He did not expect that to be of much comfort to her now—but what else could he say?

Asmund grunted.
“Tuv nagh?
Wait for weeks, months, while someone else decides my fate? And I remain an object of scorn and loathing? I am not
that
patient, Lieutenant. But then, that is not your concern. You have done all you could; I am grateful.”

Turning away from him then, she went back to her bunk and sat down. He stood there for a moment, watching her. Wondering what he would do, how he would feel, if he were in her place.

Then he turned and, with a brief acknowledgment of the officers on guard, made his way back to the bridge.

Standing at his engineering console, Geordi scanned the bridge. Every one of his fellow officers was in his or her place—not to mention Morgen and Simenon, who had gotten the captain’s permission to witness the maneuver from a position near the aft stations.

Getting up from his command chair, Picard turned to look at the chief engineer. “You may proceed, Commander.”

“Aye, sir,” Geordi answered. Focusing his attention on his monitor, where the shields were depicted as a series of blue lines surrounding the ship, he took a last look at such items as environmental resistance, energy consumption, and field integrity. Satisfied, he tapped in the first set of alterations. Immediately, the blue-line configuration began to writhe and change.

“Forward shields flattening,” Data reported. “Forming a surface perpendicular to the axis of our passage.”

For Geordi, the information was redundant. His monitor showed him the effect in some detail.

“Obverse stress increasing,” Wesley announced.

The ship quivered momentarily—just as it had when they’d tried reversing engines. It was a good sign, La Forge told himself.

Unable to keep the excitement out of his voice, Wesley said: “We’re slowing down, Captain. Warp nine point nine four five…warp nine point nine four zero.” He leaned back. “Stabilizing at nine point nine four zero.”

“Hull integrity?” Picard snapped.

“Stresses are well within acceptable limits,” Worf replied from tactical.

A
very
good sign, Geordi noted.

Simenon had been right—shield structure had an effect on their progress through the slipstream. But would it have enough of an effect to dump them out of it?

There was only one way to find out. A second time, his fingers skipped nimbly over the console.

“Rear shields flattening,” Data informed them.

A shiver ran through the deck, through the bulkheads. It was more strident, more noticeable than the one before it.

“Obverse stress
de
creasing,” Wesley declared. “Accelerating…” He shook his head. “Back up to warp nine point nine five now.”

Worf raised his gaze from his monitor board. “Stress has intensified considerably, sir. It is as if we were being sandwiched between two forces.”

Picard looked over his shoulder at his security chief. “Any danger, Lieutenant?”

“No
immediate
danger,” the Klingon advised him.

In his seat at the captain’s side, Riker consulted the readouts built into his armrest and frowned. “So far, so good.”

Yes,
Geordi mused.
So far, so good.
But the easy part was over. From here on in, the going would get a lot rougher.

With careful precision, he instructed the computer to tilt both shield surfaces—forward and rear. Not a lot—just ten degrees.

This time, the deck didn’t just shudder—it jerked. So badly, in fact, that La Forge had to grab on to the edges of his console to keep from falling.

Through it all, Data’s voice was as calm and matter-of-fact as ever. “Shield surfaces pitched ten degrees,” he said.

Picard let go of his chair, which he’d used to steady himself. Straightening to his full height, he looked around. “Mister Worf?”

The Klingon’s answer was a second or two in coming. “Minimal damage, sir.” Another pause. “No serious injuries.”

The captain nodded. “Good.” He turned to Wesley. “Velocity? Bearing?”

“No change,” the ensign told him.

Picard cast a glance in Geordi’s direction. The chief engineer looked back, and a wordless communication passed between them.

Continue?

Continue.

Adjusting the blue lines on his monitor another ten degrees, La Forge input the change. And hung on.

It didn’t help. The ship bucked so badly that he found himself on the floor anyway. And it didn’t stop bucking—not completely—though the echoes weren’t nearly as vicious as the original jolt.

“Shield surfaces—” Data began.

But Worf’s cry drowned him out. “Structural damage to Decks Twenty-two and Twenty-three. Evacuating affected areas and sealing off!”

Could have been worse,
Geordi mused, lifting himself up off the carpet. Twenty-two and twenty-three were engineering decks which were less than crucial at the moment. And since they were sparsely populated, it would only take a few moments to clear them.

“Same speed and heading, sir!” Wesley called out.

More importantly, Geordi noted, the shields were maintaining their shape, despite the forces imposed on them. The drain on the engines was tremendous, but they were doing their job—and doing it well.

Behind Worf, Morgen was helping Simenon to his feet. The Gnalish had hit his head on something; he was bleeding. But he refused to leave the bridge.

La Forge didn’t blame him. Under the circumstances, he wouldn’t have left either.

As he got another grip on his console, Geordi exchanged looks with the captain again. Picard looked a little rumpled; he must have fallen as well. But he seemed no less resolute than before.

“Decks Twenty-two and Twenty-three evacuated,” Worf growled.

The captain nodded. Geordi nodded back.

Turning to his monitor, the chief engineer manipulated the shields.
Ten degrees more. That’s thirty altogether—pretty much an average of what the models said it would take.
On the screen, it looked like a lot. But would it be enough to free them?

Or just enough to tear them apart?

He called out: “Hang on, folks.” Then, bracing himself, he pressed “enter.”

Idun Asmund hadn’t said a word to the two security officers outside her cell since they started their shift an hour or so ago. Nor had she spoken to any of the guards on the shifts before that.

A cool customer.
That’s how one of them had put it, thinking she hadn’t heard. Well, she’d heard all right. And though she hadn’t corrected the woman, she was anything but
cool.

She was hot. She was
seething.
Just as any Klingon would have seethed, penned in like an animal.

Of course, this time it was more than her breeding that made her crave freedom so intensely. She had a
job
to do—a job that couldn’t wait. And she couldn’t do it from the brig. It ate at her, that while she sat, helpless, blood-justice went unsatisfied.

But she had long ago learned to contain her Klingon-bred tendencies to vent emotion. So well, in fact, that those on the
Stargazer
and elsewhere had seen her as some sort of iron maiden—highly disciplined, highly controlled.
A cool customer indeed.
She savored the bitter irony of it.

When the captain’s announcement came over the intercom, the goldshirts exchanged brief remarks. But she remained silent—even though she had an idea of the risks they had to be incurring. The last set of maneuvers had blacked out parts of the ship—and they hadn’t accomplished a thing. She didn’t know much about warpspace engineering, but she knew this—any serious attempt to escape the slipstream would place an even greater strain on the
Enterprise.
A strain that would put them all in jeopardy.

If her guards hadn’t fully appreciated that fact, the first jolt gave them an inkling of what was to come. She noted the look of alarm that crossed both their faces.

“Huh,” one of them muttered—a big man whose hair was as pale as hers. His first name was John—she’d overheard that. “The captain wasn’t kidding.”

His companion was smaller, dark and bearded; name unknown. “That’s all right,” he said. “Let’s just hope it does the trick.”

The second shock was worse. The blond man was thrown to the floor. The dark one managed to keep his feet by clutching at the bulkhead behind him.

And even then, it wasn’t over. There were aftershocks that made the ship tremble unnervingly.

“Damn.” John picked himself up, despite the continuing disturbances. “What’s going
on
up there?”

The other man just shook his head. He was looking at the light that indicated the barrier was still in effect.

Though Asmund couldn’t see it from her bunk, or indeed from anywhere in her cell, she gathered that the light was still on. Otherwise, her guards would have reacted to the fact. But the dark one was still scrutinizing it.

“What’s the matter?” asked the blond man, noting the direction in which his colleague was staring.

“I thought I saw the light flicker.”

John considered it himself. “It’s not flickering now,” he said.

“No. It’s not.” He shrugged. “My imagination, maybe.” He turned to his companion. “I guess that was it. My imagination.”

That’s when the third jolt came. Actually, it was more of an upheaval.

The floor of her cell came crashing up at her, and the world went black.

Lifting himself off the deck, Geordi straightened his VISOR. In the grinding, shifting moment of chaos that followed his implementation of the last shield-shape alteration, it had fallen askew.
Along with half my vertebrae,
the engineering chief remarked inwardly, noting the pain that was only now emerging in his lower back. And both his knees. And his left wrist.

He winced as the VISOR clicked softly into place.
Must have hit my head too,
he decided.
Damn. What a mess.

Then, as his unique variety of vision was restored to him, he realized just why he was so sore. He was no longer at the engineering console—he was no longer anywhere
near
the engineering console. Their effort to escape the slipstream had flung him clear over to the food dispenser—a good thirty feet!

As he looked around he saw that other members of the bridge contingent had been similarly strewn about. The captain, Riker, and Troi, for instance, had all been pitched forward and to the right, so that they were now dusting themselves off near the emergency turbolift. Worf was in front of the command area instead of in back of it, and Wesley had been plastered against the forward viewscreen—which had gone blank somewhere along the line.

Neither Morgen nor Simenon was immediately visible—not until they poked their heads up from behind the tactical station. The Gnalish muttered a curse.

Only Data had somehow managed to remain in his seat—though now that Geordi looked more closely, he could see that it had been at the expense of his control board. The thing was flipped up and mangled at one end—no doubt, where the android had gripped it to anchor himself.

This kind of stuff wasn’t supposed to happen on a ship like the
Enterprise,
Geordi noted. Not with all the damping and stabilizing features built into her. But then, no spacegoing vessel was designed to do what they had done.

“Is everyone all right?” Picard asked.

There were some groans, but no seriously negative replies. The captain nodded. “Good. Now let’s see where we stand.”

By then La Forge was already making his way back to the aft stations. He was pleasantly surprised to see that his monitor had fared better than the viewscreen: it still showed the blue-lined diagram that he’d been using to set up each maneuver. Unfortunately, most of the blue lines were gone.

“Damage?” Picard demanded, having resumed his place in the command center.

By then Worf too had returned to his original position. “Reports coming in from all decks, sir. Damage to ship and systems is considerable.” He looked up. “Nothing, however, that cannot be corrected by repair teams.”

“Warp drive is disabled again,” Geordi chimed in. “But we pretty much expected that. What shields we’ve got left are running on impulse power.”

“Injuries?” the captain asked.

The Klingon consulted his board again. “Widespread. But so far, none appears to be life-threatening.”

Picard’s forehead wrinkled. “I would say we were lucky, under the circumstances.” He turned to Wesley. “The question is
how
lucky. Mister Crusher?”

The ensign hunched over his monitor and frowned. He shook his head. “I wish I could tell you, sir. But astrogation is down.” He swiveled in his chair to face the captain. “I don’t know if the maneuver worked or not.”

Picard grunted, unable to quite conceal his disappointment. “I see.”

“There’s a way to find out, though,” Geordi reminded them. “All we have to do is find an observation port.”

“Good idea,” Simenon said. And without waiting for anyone else to agree, he headed for the observation lounge.

A half-dozen others moved to follow him—Morgen, Picard, Riker and Troi. And finally, Geordi himself.

The lounge doors parted, revealing the cabin and its conference table. And beyond it, a generous helping of starlit space.

La Forge smiled. Past those who had entered before him, he could see that the stars were standing still—no longer streaks of light, but mere points.

They were out of the slipstream, back in normal space. And though it wasn’t clear yet exactly
where
in normal space, it felt pretty good to be there.

Simenon was standing in the front of the group. As Geordi watched, he turned his serpentine head and looked back at him. And winked. As if to say
we did it!

Though nobody saw it—not even Simenon—La Forge winked back.

When Asmund regained her senses there was a nauseating, dull ache in the vicinity of one of her temples. She touched the area gingerly, winced at the pain even that light contact provoked, and inspected her fingertips. Blood—and not a little of it.

But her guards had come through even worse. The bearded man was out cold, one of his legs twisted in such a way that it had to have been broken. And the one called John, while conscious, was gripping his side and grimacing in anguish. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten about his phaser; it was lying on the deck a couple of feet from where he lay propped against the bulkhead.

She saw all this in darkness, aided only by the strobe of a naked, fizzling circuit—though she couldn’t at first pinpoint its location. Then it dawned on her. It was the one just to the side of her cell—the one that controlled the energy field.