• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Abby and I could converse later, I thought. That is, if both of us managed to survive.

With some trouble owing to the stinging sensation in my eyes, I managed to restore the first connection. No sooner was I done than the warbird jerked again, sending me sprawling against the divan.

I bit my lip. Had the shock come a second earlier, I might have sent an unwanted charge through the circuit and blown up the ship prematurely. It was not a cheery thought, as you can imagine.

Abby helped me right myself. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Right as rain,” I assured her.

Spurred to a new sense of urgency, I went after the second connection. Again, we staggered under the force of the enemy’s barrage but this time I was prepared for it. Grinding my teeth together, I revived the energy flow and wiped sweat from my brow.

“Is it my imagination,” I asked, “or is it getting hotter in here?”

“Hotter,” Abby confirmed. “The damned Abinarri must have knocked out our life-supports.”

I chuckled grimly to myself. The enemy seemed determined not to make this easy for us. Rude of them, I mused, as I turned my attention to the third and final connection.

It was trickier than the others. Apparently, I had done too good a job rendering it ineffective. The ship bucked and shook all around me, reminding me how little time I had to accomplish my task.

Sweat trickled into my eyes, making them smart even worse than before. The smoke was making me cough rather violently, which didn’t help matters, and I was beginning to feel light-headed from a lack of oxygen.

Still, I plugged away with the Romulan charge inverter. And in time, I restored the deadly connection.

All that was left was to set the timer. I gave us three minutes to reach the transporter room and pulled Abby to her feet.

“Done?” she asked.

“Done,” I said.

“Will it work?” she wondered, as I tugged her across the room in the direction of the exit.

“It had better,” I replied. “Otherwise”

I never finished my sentence. Indeed, my entire reality seemed to turn inside out in a single, blinding moment.

The next thing I knew, I was stretched out on the deck ears ringing, pain awakening with spectacular results in the whole right side of my body. Abby was lying beside me, inches away, her face turned away from my own.

I tried to speak her name, to no avail. I tried to extend my hand, to reach for her, but I couldn’t do that either. In fact, I could barely roll my head to assess our situation.

Yet when I tried it, something strange and miraculous and thoroughly horrifying greeted my eyes through a break in the smoke. I found myself staring at the spattering of distant suns outside the ship and not through the protective medium of an observation port. The stars were standing there before me, big and fierce and naked in the void.

How was that possible? I asked myself. How could the stars have invaded the sanctity of our vessel?

Then I saw a flicker of blue-white current and, deep in the folds of myself where my mind still functioned, I understood. The hull had been breached, I realized but the warbird’s structural integrity field was still holding our atmosphere inside.

And us as well.

But that could change at any moment. Another well-aimed blast and the integrity field would shatter as well, allowing us to be sucked out into the vacuum. And I was too dazed, too battered to do anything about it.

Worse, we had less than three minutes before the warbird destroyed itself. Perhaps by then we had only two minutes, or one or a matter of mere seconds. I had no way of knowing.

Abruptly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Not Abby, but something else. Someone else, I realized. A powerful-looking figure, making its way toward us through the roiling fumes.

He loomed closer and I recognized him. It was Worf.

Kneeling, he gathered me up and slung me over his shoulder. Then he slung Abby over the other. Finally, rising under the weight of his double burden, he turned and