Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [131]
“Yes, Captain,” Redpath said, looking intent, and started working over his panel again. Picard sat quiet, hearing faint groans from the fabric of his ship that he didn’t in the least care for.
“They are making warp nine point six, Captain,” Data said quietly. “Eighty thousand kilometers now.”
“Mr. Redpath.”
“Doing what I can, sir.” Redpath was sweating.
Picard watched him, thinking that at the moment he could do little more.
“Hold it steady!” Geordi’s voice came from down in engineering. “One minute!”
“Steady as she goes,” Picard said, though the phrase was extremely relative, considering what the tactical display was showing. The ship was moaning more loudly around them. “Mr. Worf, ready on the photon torpedoes. Probably the only effect they’ll have will be to keep the other Enterprise from running right up our tail, but that may be enough.”
“If you can keep them at a little distance, Captain, we can gain some ground,” Hwiii’s voice said. “If they can be kept from transiting at the same time that we do—and they cannot transit during shield impacts, they would experience the same kind of power spikes that were giving us trouble.”
“Consider it done, Commander. Mr. Worf— choose your spread for maximum disruption rather than a clean breakthrough. Try to flank their rear shields as they come in.”
“They’re changing attitude, Captain!” Ensign Redpath said, his hands flying over his console. “Coming in high and wide, corkscrewing.”
“I see it,” Worf said, and went at his controls. Picard gripped the arms of his chair and did his best to radiate calm as usual.
“Twenty seconds!” Geordi said. “Nineteen, eighteen …”
“They are firing photon torpedoes,” Data said. “Full spread of twenty.”
“Evade, Mr. Redpath,” Picard said, “any way you can, we can’t boost shields now.”
The ship’s fabric made an appalling noise, a groan scaling down through into subsonics. “Structural field holding,” Data said. “But marginal.”
“… eleven, ten, nine …”
“Impacts on their shields,” Worf said, examining his console. “Minimal effect, but some power fluctuations. Torpedoes incoming.”
“Repeat our fire, Mr. Worf,” Picard said. “Another fluctuation or so can’t hurt. Take out some of their torpedoes if you can.”
“Setting up another spread, Captain.” A pause. “Torpedoes away.”
“… four, three, two …”
The ship rocked with the impact of torpedoes on its shields: lights flickered—
—and at practically the same moment there was another flicker, a bizarre darkening, as if the universe had closed its eyes to sneeze—
—and then the lights came back up again, and they all looked at each other, blinking a little.
From the engineering section came a high-pitched cry, too pure to be called a squeal, that twittered down into a long happy chatter of noise. “Positive result!” Geordi shouted. “Positive transit!”
“Congratulations, Mr. La Forge,” Picard said. “Are we where we ought to be?”
“We’re home,” Hwiii cried. “I would know this space anywhere, Captain, I could feel it in my sleep!”
“And did, as I remember. I’ll take your word for it. Status of pursuit.”
“We will not be able to tell until they come out of transit themselves, Captain,” Data said, studying his console. “Most likely they have a record of the hyperstring properties associated with our Enterprise and will be using them to locate us.”
“Let’s not wait around,” Picard said. “A little more speed, Mr. Redpath. In a straight line, for the moment.”
“We’re at nine point four at the moment, Captain. Lost some residual in the passage.”
“That’s odd,” Hwiii said from engineering. “There’s no reason we should have dropped velocity.”
“First law of thermodynamics, Hwiii,” Geordi said. “Not between universal boundaries! Both universes’ thermodynamic constants are the same. They have to be, or they can’t have such a high congruency constant.”
“Gentlemen,” Picard said, somewhat amused. “If you can let it rest for a few minutes …”
“The other ship has transited,” Data said, and all around the bridge, heads turned and hearts