Equinox - Diane Carey [78]
"Burke to Doctor! Report!"
The Doctor's voice came, but the words were all wrong. "I'm afraid your physician's no longer on call."
Burke felt his stomach constrict Everything was falling apart.
"Max, this is the captain. I've just dropped the shield grid, everywhere except the bridge and my current location. Vital systems are exposed. I suggest you beam to Voyager while you still can."
Slamming his hands to his thighs, Burke shuddered with anger and disappointment. This was maddening. Rudy was poisoned.
Fissures!
They began opening all over the bridge!
Beneath them, the ship trembled with a violent power drain..
"The core's overloading!" Thompson called from the engineering station, over the whine of entry tones. "We've got to get out of here!"
"Where!" Burke roared. "Voyager's brig?"
"It's better than being vaporized!"
"We've still got a working shuttle!"
Thompson abandoned his station and whirled to face him. "The shuttle bay's two decks down!"
Burke snatched up a phaser rifle and fired into two of the opening fissures.
"Sir," Thompson fitfully began, "the aliens-"
"We'll make it!"
Everyone on the bridge now rushed for the lift, drawing phasers as they ran. Thompson, Burke noticed, joined them at the last minute. What choice did he have?
They burst out of the lift two decks down, firing freely the instant the doors opened, and continued firing freely as fissures broke before them, behind them, and at their sides.
Fight! Keep fighting! Never give up! Rudy had taught them well. If only that damned Janeway had butted out!
"That way!" he called, and angled down the port corridor, around the corner-
Screams broke behind him-human screams. He recognized the tenor and didn't turn to see his shipmates die. When the alien tone broke, he whirled and fired at the sound, collapsing two more fissures. More screams.
A gurgling gush at his left side ... that was Thompson. Gone now.
Was anyone left?
He kept shooting, wildly now, frantically. The whole corridor was hidden now behind opening fissures. There was nothing to stop the aliens. Not even nominal, struggling shields.
When he turned to run forward again, he came face to face with his past and future. A green bony skull, fanged lips, claws out of a children's story.
He squeezed the trigger, but his phaser rifle sputtered and would not fire. Drained.
Energy coiled around him, an envelope of icy fingers, shriveling his skin instantly. He felt his bones dry up and his skin sink as he was driven to the deck. His eyes squeezed tight and there was air rushing through his skull.
Rudy... we made it. Look over there... you did it. We 're home...
Janeway stood on her bridge, unchallenged, perhaps vindicated in the crew's minds, though not in her own. She summoned all her self-control to avoid calling Chakotay back to the bridge until this played itself out She wanted him here, but that would send the wrong signal. She didn't like this win. It was corrupt.
"There's only one life sign left," Harry Kim sadly reported. "It's Ransom."
Only one. / know the meaning of that.
She worked the nearest console. "Captain?"
Rudy Ransom's calm face appeared on the screen, scored with dirt and lined with sudden age. His voice played through the starship's comm system like the narrator speaking over events playing out on a screen.
"Things didn't work out exactly as I planned. But you've got everyone worth getting."
Her chest caved in at his words-he meant everyone that could serve Voyager. The message was crushing. Burke. That strong, loyal young man. And Ransom himself-
"We're beaming you out of there," Janeway attempted, feeling a deep need to exercise a little charity, if a little late.
He shook his head mildly. "No. This ship is about to explode. I've got to put some distance between us. I've accessed helm control."
"You can set the autonavigation and then transport to Voyager."
"No time."
Nausea joined the crushing feeling in her gut. There was plenty of time. The screen cut out.
On