Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [59]
But the battle had to be taking its toll on the Stargazer. It had to be sapping their resources, just as it had sapped the resources of the other vessels that had braved this passage.
Valderrama wished she had been able to do something to help their cause back in the briefing room. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe that Simenon’s theory could work; in fact, she did think it could. It was that the captain had placed his faith in her, made her the chief of his science section, and she was letting him down.
When he had called for suggestions, she hadn’t come up with one. All she could think to do was state the obvious—that the vortices were liable to tear up their shields. For all the good she had done, she might as well not have been in the room at all.
Suddenly, the deck shot out from beneath her feet. Valderrama tried to hang on to her monitor and stay upright. But just as she thought she might be able to keep from falling, the ship lurched again and she found the floor rushing up at her.
The science officer managed to get her hand between her face and the plastic surface, cushioning the blow. Still, she felt stunned for a moment. Then she heard someone say, “Are you all right?”
The voice that had asked the question sounded strange. Metallic, almost. Valderrama couldn’t imagine why, until she turned to look up and saw the ghostly semblance of a human visage floating inside the clear-faced helmet of a containment suit.
“Are you all right?” Jiterica asked a second time.
“Yes,” said Valderrama. She propped herself up on an elbow. “I’m fine, Ensign. Thank you.”
By then, others had gathered around them. But it was Jiterica who gently grasped Valderrama’s forearm and provided the counterweight that pulled Valderrama to her feet.
It was an eerie feeling, to have those gloved hands tugging at her. But the science officer didn’t show it. After all, the ensign just wanted to help her.
And Valderrama knew how it felt not to be able to help.
“Thank you,” she said a second time.
“You’re welcome,” Jiterica replied in her tinny, computerlike voice, and returned to her terminal.
Valderrama regarded the Nizhrak a moment longer. Then she looked around at the others who had ringed her and said, “I’m all right. You can go back to your stations.”
One by one, the crewmen dispersed. Brushing herself off, Valderrama got a grip on her monitor again and tried to concentrate on the images she saw there. But it wasn’t easy.
Not when she felt like more of a burden to her colleagues than ever.
Picard relaxed his grip on his armrests as the vortices they were passing slid off the sides of the viewscreen. They did so reluctantly, it seemed to the captain, as if they regretted not having torn the Stargazer to pieces.
Ben Zoma leaned closer to him. “Are we having fun yet?”
Indeed, Picard thought. But he kept the remark to himself. What he said instead was, “Report.”
Idun was the first to respond. “Impulse engines still operating at peak efficiency.”
“Shields at seventy-two percent,” Gerda said.
It was better than the captain might have hoped. Simenon’s approach seemed to be working.
Up ahead, another pair of vortices loomed in front of them, their whirling energies wild and hungry-looking. Idun began to steer the Stargazer between them.
But as she did, Picard caught a glimpse of the next group of vortices, deeper in, and they were significantly more tightly packed than any the Stargazer had already encountered. There was barely any space between them for a Constellation-class starship.
Idun turned to the captain, her unspoken assessment evident in her expression. “I agree,” he said. “We’ll see if we have a better chance of getting through elsewhere.”
Turning back to her instrument panel, Idun backed them off the gap and moved them to