Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [85]
Despite the fact that there was no real wood, the fire was engineered to crackle and snap-even to put forth the scent of burning autumn leaves. Still with his back to her, Sentinel Iavo lowered his head as if watching her words spin inside some kind of crystal bail in his mind.
Barely above a whisper, he told her, “You came here with no guards, madam.”
Crusher turned fully in her seat and robbed her hands on her knees. “Now that you know I might save her, you have to go through with it, don’t you?”
The guard at Iavo’s right drew his ceremonial dagger. A second guard did the same while the others watched and gripped the handles of their own weapons. Crusher stood up.
Sensing the change, Iavo now turned around to face her. Now the line of Romulans and the threat they posed clicked gracefully into place. For a brief moment Beverly Crusher stood in awe of this elegant race, so Vulcan in their stature, so human in their passion.
The last two guards pulled their knives. Firelight played upon the blades. And Iavo himself touched the still-sheathed ceremonial dirk that was the symbol of the highest nonroyal office in the Romulan Star Empire. Data came to her side. Ansue Hashley stood behind them. Crusher pressed back her shoulderlength hair, steadied herself, lowered her weaponless hands to her sides, and looked directly at Iavo. “How are we going to do this?”
.
Chapter Eighteen
“WHAT’VE WE GOT?”
Jeremy White responded with typically terse calm. “We’ve got thirteen minutes before we crash.” “Yellow alert, everybody;’ Stiles ordered. “Yellow, aye!”
The CST shifted its manner substantially, as certain lights and meters went dark and others popped on, systems deciding which were important and which could wait. The din was maddening-the ship screamed and strained, engines howling right through the bulkheads, setting up harmonic vibrations in every member.
On the main screen and all the other exterior visual monitors, black space and a planet gave way to the filtering gauze of clouds. They were entering the atmosphere!
While he tried to keep control over his voice, to keep from shouting or sounding excited, it was necessary to speak up over the tin bray of the engines fighting to keep them in space. “Veer out!” he ordered. “Get us some kilometers.”
Both hating and loving the fact that Ambassador Spock and the irascible Leonard McCoy were watching him through a dangerous moment, he forced himself to concentrate on any thing but the two of them. For a second he thought Spock might stay at the science-readout station, where he so obviously and eternally belonged, where he fit so well on a starship or any ship, but the famous officer subtly stepped aside for Jeremy White to take that position.
Stiles hesitated an instant, soon accepting the appropriateness and grandeur of the sacrifice. Spock was letting them handle their own destiny without interference. How did he know to do that? How could he hold himself in check like this?
His stomach turning, Stiles stepped to the starboard side. “Come on, Jeremy, analyze it.”
Jeremy’s usually sedate expression was screwed into annoyance, possibly because of Spock’s presence. “It’s some kind of hybrid of a tractor beam and a graviton ray. I’ve never seen energy combined this way. If a CST can tow a starship, how can they be holding us?”
Travis asked, “Did they have this tech when you were here, Eric?” “No, hell, no! Matt, can we-“
Realizing he couldn’t be heard five sections back over the scream, of the engines, he struck the nearest comm. “Matt, can