Caretaker - L. A. Graf [81]
"You're breaking up! Stand by to transport!"
If Voyager transported now, the Kazon would dust this little ship like so much space debris, and all they'd have for their efforts was one less target to draw the enemy's fire. "Wait!" He had their timing down now. Glaring powerfully through the splintering viewscreen, Chakotay waited until he saw the weapons tubes at the mouth of the vessel glow orange, then ducked his limping ship straight downward when it was too late for the Kazon to alter their lock. The shot went wild above him. That left a good six seconds before they could bring whatever cannon they were shooting back up to charge. Pumping the last of his ship's power into a leap he knew would probably rip its loyal engines apart, Chakotay spiraled toward the cruiser's wide-open belly and waited until nothing but starship filled his viewscreen, nothing but momentum still powered his craft.
"Now!"
The brilliance of destruction overwhelmed him, blasting away even the coarse boom! of impact and the undignified reality of pain.
Then the spangles of triumphant light closed around him in a column of warm, welcome song, and lifted him away into nothing.
Chapter 21
A peal of what might have been summer thunder trembled through the darkened barn, and Janeway found herself glancing upward in response.
She wondered what was happening with the battle outside.
The holographic projection lifted its whiteless eyes to a point beyond Janeway's shoulder. Twisting around, she saw Tuvok approaching softly through the darkness, his tricorder now folded shut in one hand. "I can access the system to send us back to Federation space," he reported, squatting beside her, "but it will take several hours to activate."
Several hours the Kazon weren't likely to give them. Janeway turned back to the entity with hand extended. "Unless you help us..."
It looked away, its face all but fading. "I wish I could. But I have very little time left." Lips moving, it stared blindly outward for several seconds before its voice abruptly returned.
"I am taking your advice. I've begun to transmit the contents of my data banks to the Ocampa." It blinked, all attention coming back to them in a flash. "I have also initiated a self-destruct program."
Janeway's heart leapt into her throat. "If you destroy the Array, we'll have no way to get home!"
"The Ocampa's enemies cannot be allowed to control this installation," the entity whispered. She didn't know if she was hearing its voice, or simply reading the words off its fading lips. "In minutes, it will be destroyed." Its face loomed closer, and this time the voice came from nowhere specific that Janeway could name. (You have to go now.)
She thought at first that the entity had physically banished them, thrown them somewhere far from the Array with the same powerful abruptness with which it had seized their ships and stolen their bodies. Her body felt battered, plummeting down to nowhere, striking a hard surface that pitched and slewed beneath her like the deck of a dying ship. Then the darkness of the barn leapt back into existence, flickered away, dashed back again.
Janeway pushed up onto her elbows, craning around for Tuvok.
Cloudy, smoke-filled light suddenly became the final reality, and she recognized her security officer climbing to his knees a few meters away at the same time as she placed the huge, open room now around them as the same depthless chamber Kim and Paris had discovered on their first visit to the Array. Whatever had happened, it had eradicated whatever maintained the holographic projection system. Janeway didn't know if that was good or bad.
She rolled onto her back, slapping at her comm badge. "Voyager, report!"
"A Kazon vessel just collided with the Array, Captain. ..."
Paris's voice crackled and broke across the open channel. Behind him, Janeway could hear the battering Voyager must be taking.
"Are you all right?"
"Affirmative." She took the hand Tuvok