Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [119]
As Spock and two CST crewmen hustled McCoy down the other side of the ridge and Zevon hoisted his wife’s limp form over his shoulder, Stiles aimed his service phaser at the roaring newcomer and opened fire.
His phaser scored the body of the other ship with a great show of noise and sizzling, but the wounds were only superficial.
The blue ship fired again, but not at him. Instead its weapons scored the body of the CST as it had before, leaving steaming gashes on the nose and side of the big tender. As he skittered down the incline, he heard the CST’s impulse engines throb to power. In a few seconds, they’d be ready for escape velocity. That is, if they weren’t fried right here on the ground. Gouts of smoke blew across the bottom of the ridge, blinding him to the people running in front of him toward the tender’s ramp. “Keep going!” he shouted, and fired again.
A third time the lumbering blue ship screamed at them. Once more the deadly energy weapons scratched the body of the CST. If that beam hit the defenseless people running toward the ship-A hard form-metal-slapped the bottom of his boot and tripped him. He skidded forward, almost dropping his phaser. The ramp! In the smoke he hadn’t seen how close he was!
“Travis, get us out of the atmosphere!” he called, scrambling on all fours up the treaded surface. “They can’t come after us!”
The ramp whined up behind him. He found himself on the midships deck, with Alan Wood pulling him out of the way of the closing ramp.
“Always an English butcher around when you need one” Stiles choked, gagging the last of the smoke out of his lungs.
”Tea’s good for that;’ Alan offered. “I’ll get you some. Want cake?” “I want red alert!”
“Red alert, aye.” Alan swung him to his feet and Stiles raced through the hatches to the cluttered little bridge, where Zevon sat on the deck, holding his groggy but awakening wife. Beside them, Dr. McCoy had been planted firmly in one of the anchored chairs at tactical. Jeremy manned the science station, Travis was just ordering full power to the escape velocity thrusters, and the evil twins were at the helm and navigation. Spock was standing beside the helm.
Stiles skidded into place behind the helm and in front of his command chair, but did not sit. “You look good there” he commented.
Spook seemed surprised that he’d even been noticed. “Comforting to know one is picturesque.”
Indulging in a nervous grin, Stiles watched the main screen, which showed the thinning atmosphere as the CST powered toward space, and the side monitors, which showed the blue ship with its constellation of white hull buttons moving deliberately after them.
Quite abruptly, the mist on the main screen parted with a nearly audible swoosh, and they broke out into the blackness of open space. Unlike the darkening evening on the planet’s surface, here it was once again day, bright and fierce, as they moved away from the protection of the planet with the sun on their port side.
“They’re following us!” Jeremy White gulped. “Coming right into space after us!”
Zevon left his wife’s side, bolted to his feet and grasped the edge of the helm and stared at the main screen. “Impossible!” “Well, here they come anyway !”
The whole CST jolted then with a terrible butt-stroke from the pursuing ship, a blow that peppered the tender with hot energy.
Stiles glanced at Zevon, fielding a bitter distrust. “Shields up. Battle stations.”
“I’m not imagining things, am I?” Stiles asked. “That’s not a Pojjana ship, is it?” “No!” Zevon insisted.
“Nor do I recognize it,” Ambassador Spock said. “I have never seen that configuration or those markings.