Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [58]
Greyhorse nodded even though he knew the captain couldn’t see him. “Acknowledged, sir.”
“Picard out.”
The doctor’s first thought was always the same: Gerda. Would she be endangered by what Simenon had proposed? Would he see her carried into sickbay on a gurney, her body broken and bleeding?
As he had on other occasions, Greyhorse forcibly put the unwelcome image from his mind. It was his duty as a physician and as a Starfleet officer to provide medical care for everyone on the ship, not just a single individual.
No matter how he felt about her.
As Picard emerged from the turbolift, he saw everyone on the bridge glance in his direction. His officers looked as determined as he was—an encouraging sign, to be sure.
“Mr. Simenon,” he said, “this is the captain.”
The engineer’s voice flooded the bridge with its sibilance. “Simenon here. Time to give it a go?”
As Picard approached his center seat, his first officer abdicated it and exchanged glances with him. Ben Zoma’s eyes crinkled at the corners, an expression of his particular brand of fatalism.
What could possibly go wrong? he seemed to say.
“Let us indeed give it a go,” the captain told Simenon.
“Reversing shield polarity,” the engineer announced.
Nothing changed on the forward viewscreen. The vortices still loomed ahead of them, savage twists of magnetic force daring ship and crew to try their luck.
Picard glanced at Gerda. “Lieutenant?”
She nodded. “He’s done it, sir.”
“Very well, then,” the captain told her, his words ringing ominously across the bridge. “Let’s proceed. One-quarter impulse.”
The Stargazer started forward, heading for the narrow gap between the two nearest vortices. Picard felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as mighty forces reached out for them.
“Steady as she goes,” he said.
Idun’s best bet was to follow a course midway between the vortices, keeping the ship from being savaged by either one of them. She did this with unerring accuracy, even when the magnetic phenomena tore at the Stargazer and her shields, causing the vessel to slide and buck and creak in protest.
The captain trusted Idun as he had never trusted any other helm officer, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Captain Ruhalter had said once that his right arm was less precious to him than Idun’s services at the helm.
If anyone could pull this off, it was she. Of course, the captain of the Mongoose might have felt that way about his helmsman. The same for the captain of the Leningrad or the Christopher, and they had been proven dead wrong.
So where did Picard get the gall to think he could prevail over the vortices? To imagine that he and the Stargazer could succeed where all the rest had failed?
He didn’t know. But he knew this—he wasn’t going to stop until he had snared the White Wolf and brought him to justice.
As if in answer to his vow, the ship jerked suddenly to one side and then the other, jostling them in their seats and forcing a groan out of the deck plates. Someone cursed beneath his breath.
“Shields down eight percent,” Vigo announced.
The captain frowned as the vortices on either side of them waxed immense on the forward viewscreen, two spectacular dynamos sizzling with magnetic energy. Come on, Picard urged his helm officer silently. You can do it, Lieutenant.
Sweat stood out on Idun’s brow in beads. And not just Idun’s brow, but Gerda’s as well, for the Stargazer’s navigator was sifting through incoming sensor data and feeding her sister whatever tidbits she deemed most critical.
Slowly, with infinite care and patience, Idun guided them along the razor’s edge. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the first two vortices fell away from them.
Only to reveal a great many more, rank upon rank as far as the eye could see.
Picard forced himself to take the sight in stride. After all, he was the captain now. He had to set an example.
Juanita Valderrama clung to the sides of her monitor in the science section and saw the same thing Captain Picard and his officers were seeing on the bridge.
One vortex