Double Helix 06_ The First Virtue - Michael Jan Friedman [76]
The younger man turned his attention to his control panel. “I’m targeting her now,” he announced.
“Mendan!” Thul barked, a drop of cold sweat making its way down the length of his spine. “I know your worth. I know your courage. You do not have to demonstrate it anymore … not to me.”
His son’s laughter had an unnerving strain of bitterness in it. “Perhaps not to you, Father. But I allowed those Starfleet officers to slip through my fingers and Wyl is dead as a result. That leaves me with a need to prove something to myself.”
“Damn your stubbornness!” the governor roared. He had a bad feeling about this. “Listen to me, Mendan! You have time!”
But his son wasn’t heeding his warning. He was working feverishly at his control console, determined to gather all the power his tiny vessel could bring to bear.
Suddenly, Mendan looked up, his eyes alight with anticipation. “I hope you enjoy this, Father. I know I will.”
Picard eyed the Durikkan vessel that had appeared scant minutes earlier and established contact with the Thallonian. “Anything yet?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Cadwallader said. “However they’ve protected their communication, I can’t seem to break through.”
The captain scowled, wary of the newcomer. “And the Durikkan still won’t answer our hails?”
“That’s correct,” the communications officer responded.
Picard swore beneath his breath. “Keep trying,” he told Cadwallader. Angrily, he thumbed a control. “Engineering, this is the captain. We may need those shields in a matter of moments.”
“I wish I could give them to you,” the Gnalish answered, his voice drenched with frustration. “Unfortunately, sir, we’re not even close.”
“Then what about weapons?” asked the captain. “Would a single port be too much to ask?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Simenon promised drily.
“Sir,” said Ben Zoma, who was sitting at one of the peripheral stations, “the Durikkan is coming about.”
Picard regarded the viewscreen again. As his first officer had warned him, the newcomer was indeed turning away from the Thallonian vessel… and pointing its bow at the Stargazer.
“Open a channel,” the captain told Cadwallader, not knowing what other option to exercise.
“Aye, sir,” she answered. “Channel open.”
“Durikkan vessel,” Picard snapped, “this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Stargazer.”
The smaller vessel began to close in.
“State your purpose here,” the captain demanded.
Cadwallader shook her head. “Still no response, sir.”
“Captain,” said Gerda Asmund, duranium in her voice, “the Durikkan is dropping her shields and directing all power to her weapons.”
Picard bit his lip. The Stargazer had no protection. One good barrage would split her end to end like a walnut in a nutcracker.
“Mr. Simenon,” he said in a chill voice, “if I don’t get a functional weapons port very, very soon, all of this will be academic.”
“We can’t work any faster, Captain,” the engineer replied, his voice high and strained.
“You’ll have to,” Picard told him.
But even as he uttered the words, he already suspected that it was too late. Modestly equipped, the Durikkan would have been no threat under normal conditions. Given the situation, however, the Stargazer was little more than the proverbial sitting duck.
Inexorably, the enemy approached.
Picard realized that his hands were clenched into fists and relaxed them by force of will. This was a hell of a way to go down, he told himself, a hell of a way to perish. It was one thing to succumb in the heat of battle against a superior adversary, defending a fleet of innocents from destruction. But to bow to this little ship, a vessel a fraction the size and sophistication of the Stargazer…?
He didn’t even know who was at the controls. An ally of Thul? A rogue? A mercenary? He would never find out, would he?
And it irritated him.
“Captain!” Gerda Asmund’s athletic body was taut as she turned suddenly in her seat, her eyes