Collective Hindsight (Book 2) - Aaron Rosenberg [12]
“What if we just scuttle it and go?” Pattie asked. “Toss it into the nearest sun and take off? They’ll stop to see if they can retrieve it, which should give us the time we need to get away safely.”
But Fabian shook his head again. “No good. They’re too practical for that, and there are three of them. They’ll leave one ship behind to watch the sun, and the other two will pursue us. Keep in mind that the Androssi would love to get their hands on Starfleet tech, too, and they’ve no compunctions about killing us to get it.” He stopped pacing and glanced up. “I do have one idea, though. It’s a bit crazy, but I think it’ll work—and it’ll keep both us and the Dancing Star out of their hands.”
* * *
“You want me to do what?” Gold wasn’t sure he’d heard her right, but Gomez repeated herself, with Stevens behind her nodding in agreement.
“We want you to move the da Vinci into the hold of the Dancing Star.”
“So that you can then—”
“Dive into the nearest sun, yes.”
“Are you insane, Gomez?” He leveled a finger at Stevens. “You, I already know the answer. But you want me to take my ship into a sun? We’ll be incinerated in an instant!”
“No, we won’t, sir.” Stevens had that mad gleam in his eyes, the same one he got every time he played a practical joke—or came up with an amazing engineering trick. “The Dancing Star is built for this—it can dive into a star without being damaged.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, son, this isn’t the Dancing Star.”
“No, but that is.” Stevens stabbed his finger toward the viewscreen, which showed the Dancing Star sailing along beside them. “And its hold is big enough to fit this entire ship. Its shielding is designed to keep the heat and energy from bleeding into the inner compartments. Its crew survived sailing through a supernova, sir! We’ll be fine in there.”
Gold glanced at Gomez. “And you agree with this?”
She didn’t hesitate, which convinced him that either she was right or that she’d also gone mad. “Yes sir, I do. We can’t fight three Androssi at once, even with that ship, and we can’t outrun them without leaving the Dancing Star behind—and possibly being cut down anyway. This is our only option.”
He sighed. “You know, in the old days, I never had to worry about this kind of thing. I’d be sent to fight this ship or that one, or to carry this device from here to there, or to explore that area. No one ever asked me to fly into suns or through unstable rifts.”
“That’s true, sir,” Stevens replied, and the gleam intensified, “but you probably didn’t have nearly as much fun.”
Chapter
5
“How are we doing with the Dancing Star, Tev?”
The Tellarite glanced over at his superior as she and Stevens entered engineering. “Computer systems online, Commander. We’ve reactivated the safety protocols, and have vented enough energy to prevent overload for another fifteen hours. We have also set its thrusters to begin braking—the ship is currently at warp one-point-two and decelerating.”
“Nice work. Now, where are we going to put it?”
“I don’t know,” Stevens replied. “It won’t fit in the living room.” Tev stopped himself from rolling his eyes. What was it with humans that they always thought they were funny?
But Gomez, Stevens, and Blue had stepped over to study a map of the immediate area. Tev joined them.
“We’ve already passed through Sandion,” Blue was saying, one antenna tapping a spot on the chart. “And we’d have to turn around to get back to its sun. The next system in our current path is Franjean,” she tapped the chart again, a little higher up, “but we won’t hit that for another four hours at current speed.”
“We don’t have four hours,” Tev reminded them. “The Androssi will reach us in two-point-five.”
“What about this one?” Stevens tapped the map. “Cardienne? We can reach that in…” he started to type into his padd, then glanced at Tev instead. At least he now recognized his inferior abilities!
“Two-point-three hours at present