Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [87]
A single phaser beam broke from the ship’s weapon array and bolted down toward the planet, but hadn’t made it a half second away before suddenly bending sharply and bouncing like a ricocheted bullet off an invisible field between them and the planet.
Alan Wood covered his head, as hot sparks and bits of melting metal blew into the bridge from section two. “Insulate!” Stiles yelled at the same time. From where he stood he could see his experienced shipmates grab the trainees and yank them to the interior areas of the CST
Sure enough, the phaser beam lanced around, bending every time it hit the egg-shaped energy field and shooting back past the ship, until finally, inevitably, it struck hull.
An explosion ripped through the midsection electronics, blowing sparks, hissing-and somebody cried out in pain. Shouted orders and desperate measures shot forward, audible even through the closed hatches. “So much for phasers…”
“Rupture! Section four, starboard PTC! Automatic sealant nozzle heads are fused-“
“Tell ‘em to do it manually;’ Stiles called. “Is everyone okay?”
Jeremy looked at him grimly. “It’s a reflector envelope! Our own phaser hit us! We can’t fire out!” “Pardon me… would you take a suggestion?” Spock!
The voice jolted Stiles. He spun around and looked up to the grand figure on the starboard deck. “Are you kidding?”
The stately Vulcan kept a grip on the buffer edge of the science console and somehow made his awkward position look graceful on the wickedly tilted deck. “Quicksand. If we struggle, the beam sucks us down at a commensurate rate, drawing upon our own energy to exert more pull than we can exert thrust. If we hold still, all it may do is hold us in place.”
While the engines howled and the hull peered, Stiles gazed at the ambassador and Spock back at him as if they had all week. Doubt and illogic spun through Stiles’s training and experience, then jumped the gully to irrational trust.
He looked at the readouts, at Jeremy’s face skewed with doubt, at Travis desperately trying to make sense of what the ultrascience officer had just suggested… as precious seconds slipped away, Stiles found himself adding up the crazy numbers.
His eyes flipped again to Spock, and he shook his head and winced. “I was about to fall for something again, wasn’t IT’ “Literally.”
“Sir… I hope you’re everything I think you are.” Without turning away from Spock’s steady eyes, Stiles tossed over his shoulder, “Cut thrust?’
“That can’t be right!” the panicked trainee at the helm protested, his eyes swiveling wildly. “We’ll get pulled into the planet!”
Stiles started to explain, then cut himself off and waved. “Travis !”
Perraton instantly yanked the midshipman from the helm and slid into the seat himself. “Cutting thrust. Sorry, kid. Go sit down till we see how dead we are.”
His own order eating at his stomach, Stiles leered at Spock as if to share the burden. His mind raced, as he scoured his memory of all those recorded missions on the first Starship Enterprise, when Spock faced the worst mysteries of the cosmos as Captain Kirk’s unswerving sidekick.
The whine of the engines depleted noticeably, like howling wolves running over a hill and disappearing into the mist. “Is it working?” Stiles dared to ask.
Quiet with victory, Travis half-turned to confirm with a good glance. “We’re slowing down….”
“We’ve just bought ourselves about twenty more minutes,” Jeremy assessed. “I wouldn’t bet on more.” “Keep measuring”
Irritated with the knowledge that he wouldn’t have been able to save his ship if Spock hadn’t been here, Stiles bristled with selfconsciousness, fighting to think with a divided mind.
“Can’t fire out… can we beam through the reflector bubble?”
“I don’t know that!” Zack Bolt rebelled at the idea. “I know for sure I could never beam you back up through that thing!” ‘What doesn’t make any-“