Dyson Sphere - Charles R. Pellegrino [53]
It could easily have been a lot worse, he realized. The Horta crewmember near him had just missed his head by a margin measurable in gnat’s breaths.
“Out of here!” Dalen called. “Everybody out of here!”
There followed a confusion of shuffling Horta bodies, some obeying and leaving, others coming forward.
On the screen, more sun-fountains were taking aim. Many more. Yet Picard did not move. Would not move.
“Abandon ship, Jean-Luc,” the Horta captain said. “That’s an order.”
“You, too,” Picard demanded.
“No. You wouldn’t abandon your ship, would you? I won’t abandon mine. I am not finished, here.”
“Nor I.”
“Yes, you are!” the Horta shouted, and the bridge screen began to fill the room with a yellow-white glow. “I know you,” she continued in a softer tone, “and you have another destiny. Now leave.”
Dalen was right. This was her ship and her command; he had done everything he could to help her, and would only be another problem distracting her if he remained aboard. Now his duty was to his own ship and crew.
“You gave us a plan that just might work,” Dalen went on. “In fact, I’m betting that it will. Time for you and your people to get out of here and give us a chance to put it to the test.”
“Bonne chance, Captain Dalen,” Picard said as he moved past her toward the lift.
A lifetime later, the shuttlecraft Balboa, in accordance with both Captain Dalen’s and Captain Pi-card’s orders, was away, with Worf as pilot. A second later, the Engford—filled with water and piloted by refugees—detached from the Darwin; but when Pi-card looked back, he saw that the second shuttle was staying too close to the Horta ship, like a faithful pet that refused to leave.
It was all part of some great ballet being put on by Dyson’s impresarios—except that no one had told anyone who was to dance and who was to be the audience. Anyone could be forced to watch or dance at a moment’s notice as the great pas de deux of sun and inner surface threatened.
“Darwin to Engford,” Captain Dalen called, pressing herself against the saddle at her captain’s station, “away all boats! Impulse power! Engford, you are
She never finished the order. The ships were ripped from their paths, and seared, and strewn about in a concussion of heat and light; and the Darwin was in the center of the concussion.
The Horta saw something and tried to speak; but then, of course, she could not, and her ship was falling…
Falling…
Falling…
The starfish had been flung ahead of the Balboa, to judge from the views being transmitted on the comlinks. Picard, watching the images, could see that its captain was alternately thrusting forward and braking, trying to gain control of the ark. Oddly, it became a graceful motion to watch. The ocean, some two million kilometers below the starfish, was vaporizing in apparent silence. Nearer the red star, far away to starboard, both atmosphere and water had been hurled away completely. The porcelain city and the archipelagos, what was left of them, stood now in a vacuum on bare ocean bottom. They stood deep within the corona of Dyson’s sun.
Riker listened to the voices from the captain’s command station on the bridge of the Enterprise.
“Darwin!” the Enterprise called across the void. “Captain Dalen, can you hear us?”
“Balboa to Darwin!” Picard called. “Captain Dalen. Please respond.”
“This is Jani. We are moving through the position last occupied by your vessel called the Darwin. There is no sign, we regret to tell.”
The comlink from the Dooglasse ship showed the sun lashing out at a distant target, producing another concussion of light.
“I think that was Captain Dalen’s ship,” Picard said.
“I’m afraid so,” said Riker, and then, on the Sphere below him, a bright spot appeared. There was hardly time for Riker to take note of it, the event happened