Crossover - Michael Jan Friedman [96]
Spock looked only vaguely satisfied with himself. But then, from what little Geordi knew of him, it was typical for him to make such a contribution and then gloss over the value of it.
“Ahead impulse engines,” the Vulcan suggested.
But Riker seemed to know what Spock was thinking. “Full impulse, Mister La Forge. On my mark, accelerate to warp eight-point-three. And come as close as you can to one of the warbirds.”
Geordi sensed that Scott wasn’t comfortable with that rate of acceration, but the older man kept quiet nonetheless. If they were to have any hope of getting out of this, they’d have to take some fair-sized chances.
The surge to impulse speed wasn’t bad, especially for an old ship like this one. In fact, Geordi barely felt it. But going to warp would be a different story entirely. In preparation for it, Spock made his way to the navigation console and sat down beside the engineer.
On the viewscreen, the Romulans were nowhere to be seen. Then, suddenly, they appeared as specks in the distance. And before Geordi knew it, they were filling the parameters of the screen.
“Target photon torpedoes!” the first officer ordered.
“Targeted,” Scotty assured him.
They’d better make them count, Geordi thought. After this, they’d only have a couple left.
“Engage warp engines!” Riker roared.
As the engineer activated the faster-than-light drive, the Yorktown leaped forward with the abandon of a rogue planet, thrusting him back into his seat with bone-breaking force. Geordi could feel the inexorable tug of too many G-forces pulling the skin of his face tight as a drum.
But not before he directed them to within a whisker of one of the warbirds. Any closer, in fact, and their hulls would have scraped together.
Geordi winced, anticipating a massive impact from the Romulans’ torpedoes. But the barrage—a sudden and devastating one—missed the Yorktown entirely. In fact, he could only see it as a flare of energy on his monitors.
“Fire!” thundered Riker.
As before, the Yorktown sent a pair of photon torpedoes after the warbirds at point-blank range. As before, the torpedoes nailed one of them, caving in its shields in the process.
“Direct hits,” Data declared. “We have incapacitated another weapons bank.”
The first officer nodded. “Good shooting, Mister Scott.
“Without turning, Scotty smiled to himself. “Glad to be of help, sir.”
But they weren’t out of the woods. Not by a long shot.
Sure, they’d bought themselves a head start with their bold and unpredictable maneuvers. But the warbirds were still faster than the Yorktown—and now that they’d been burned twice, they’d be more calculating in their next attack.
Just as Geordi was thinking these things, the situation got worse. Much worse.
“Damn,” he blurted, staring at his instruments in disbelief.
“What is it?” Riker inquired.
“We’re losing warp speed,” Geordi told him. “Looks like a problem with the power transfer conduits.”
“We can fix it,” Captain Scott determined. He was already half out of his seat, no doubt headed for the turbolift.
“No,” said Geordi, stopping the older man in his tracks. “It’s not just one conduit, Scotty. It’s all of them. The strain of that last maneuver took too much out of them.”
In other words, the Yorktown just wasn’t built for such stress—not even when it was new. Even Scotty, the twenty-third-century miracle worker, had to accept that.
“Aye,” said Scott, taking his seat again. He uttered the word as if it were a curse. “But,” he suggested, “we can at least reduce power to nonessential systems. That’ll allow us to keep goin’ a wee bit longer.”
“Agreed,” replied Geordi.
“Cloak first,” called Riker. “Then weapons.”
He didn’t sound happy. But like it or not, those were nonessential systems right now. Particularly the cloaking function, which consumed a great deal of power and wasn’t fooling anyone anyway.
“The cloaking device has been disengaged,” Data remarked.
“Cutting power to the phaser banks,” Spock called from the bridge’s science station.
“And I’ve got the photon torpedoes,” Scott responded.