Equinox - Diane Carey [7]
"Voyager! You've got to extend your shields around our ship! Match the emitter frequency!"
Making one attempt at confirmation, Janeway asked, "Are you under attack?"
"Shields! Quickly!"
No hello, no formality, no nuthin. Save my ship.
She knew that tone.
"Do it."
Now the crew had something to do. Paris had to maneuver the starship directly above the science vessel to make full use of the shield dome. On the viewscreen they could see the shape of Equinox, about half the size of Voyager, engulfed in the fracturing bulb of her own shields. Tuvok had to gauge and calculate the assault in order to modulate the starship's shields to repel the level of attacking energy. Torres worked to reroute necessary power to the grid. Kim made sure the way be-
fore them was clear of meteoritic obstacles or gas clouds that would only make things harder.
Chakotay kept a close watch on the detail monitors at his chair's access, while Janeway watched the overall scene. Neelix sent his best good wishes across the gulf of space.
"We're in position," Paris reported.
Tuvok, at the same time, said, "I'm matching their shield frequency."
Janeway ticked off the seconds. She could order them to work faster, but why? Her ears were ringing. Anticipation? A midshipman's reaction. She tried to get control over it, but the whine only got worse.
Behind her, then, The Doctor's voice, talking to someone else on the upper deck-"Do you hear something?"
That was no ringing in the ears. Malfunction?
Janeway spun around, but Seven was already working the problem.
"Interspatial fissures are opening on decks ten, six... and one!"
Janeway turned again. "Tuvok!"
He didn't look up or respond at all. His large hands played on the controls with swift intensity. That was his way of responding.
The shields' activation lights blinked red, orange, then went to green. On the monitors around the bridge, schematics of the Voyager's deflectors engulfing the Equinox as well as the starship made a big theoretical bulb in space. The attack was forced back by the starship's considerable power-whatever the attack was.
"Shields are holding," Tuvok told them.
"The fissures?" Chakotay asked, implying that he might be seeing something on the detail monitors that Janeway couldn't see on the large screen.
She was glad he was here.
"No sign of them," Seven answered.
After a moment of relief for all, Janeway pressed forward. "Voyager to Ransom. Captain?"
Her chest constricted. No response. Not a flicker. Had she failed before her rescue mission had even begun?
"Assemble rescue teams. Secure the Equinox. Tuvok, you're with me."
She spoke on the run toward the turbolift. If they thought she was worried, frightened, anxious-okay, so they knew her better than she liked.
The others followed her. Chakotay, Tones, Paris, Neelix, Seven, Kim, all rushing to collect tricorders, wrist beacons, hand phasers, and a medikit. The on-watch crew filtered back to their positions, allowing the primary crew to be the away team. Janeway was glad it happened to work out that way this time. She wanted her primary team to experience whatever was coming and to back her up if it went wrong.
A simple rescue mission, a Starfleet vessel. She hungered to be there.
The shields were holding. What could go wrong?
CHAPTER
3
COMMANDER CHAKOTAY LED THE AUXILIARY TEAM DOWN into the secondary hull of the science vessel, directly into the engine room. Somewhere above, the captain was picking her way through to the primary hull, heading for the bridge. They'd had to beam in down here, then split up. The Equinox's primary hull had taken so much damage that they couldn't even find a beam-in point that wasn't so damaged that the sensors couldn't read the integrity of life support. Beam into a vacuum and you'll feel pretty silly at that last nanosecond before you die.
Beaming in-it seemed so ordinary in practice,