Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [61]
But Idun managed to beat him to it. Dragging herself off the deck and back into her seat, she began tapping away at her controls. Little by little, she managed to right the ship.
But no sooner had the twisters turned vertical again on the screen than the Stargazer was bludgeoned anew. Wave after wave of magnetic energy broke over her bow, keeping her from advancing any farther.
Picard heard Idun growl as she struggled with her controls. Clearly, she needed more power.
“Mr. Simenon,” he snapped. “All available power to the impulse engines!” And as he thought about it, he added, “Cut life support!”
“Aye, sir!” came the engineer’s response.
The captain knew that they could survive on the air they had for as long as twenty minutes. Of course, the small amount of energy they saved might not make much of a difference, but it might also represent the margin between victory and defeat.
“Shields down to thirty-eight percent!” Gerda snarled.
Suddenly, the Stargazer began to make progress again. The walls of whirling energy seemed to crawl by on either side of them, yielding meter after grudging meter.
But they were far from free of the vortices’ embrace. Picard felt his vessel vibrate and slew sideways, then shoot forward and veer in the other direction.
“Twenty-six percent!” Gerda announced grimly.
The captain began to doubt that they would make it—not that they had any choice but to try. They were more than halfway through now, too far to think about turning back.
The Stargazer lurched forward, fighting the good fight, though the vortices grabbed and tore at her with all their insane power. Yet another console began to spit sparks, and the smell of smoke became strong in Picard’s nostrils, especially without the ventilation that was part of life support.
A little farther, he thought. Just a little farther.
And then he saw it.
Ben Zoma must have glimpsed it at the same time, because he pointed to the viewscreen and said, “Look!”
It was a narrow, vertical strip, seen between the seething near edges of the vortices. A ruddiness, as soft-looking as one of the clouds that stretched over the captain’s native France at sunset.
It provided Picard and his officers with a glimpse of what lay beyond this strait—a hint that if they could only squeeze past these last two vortices, they could at last put this ordeal behind them.
“Shields at sixteen percent!” Gerda told her colleagues, inserting a note of reality into the captain’s newfound optimism.
Picard felt his jaw clench. Once the shields were stripped away, there would be nothing left to protect them but their reinforced titanium hull, and no one could expect that it would last very long under such intensely adverse conditions.
“Six percent!” Gerda called out.
For just a moment, Picard had a vision of his ship being peeled like an overripe fruit, one section of hull at a time. Then, with an effort, he put the image from his mind.
Just in time to grab the back of his chair, because the vortices were clawing at them with renewed fury.
The Stargazer bucked and slid and bucked again, paying for every meter of headway with huge expenditures of energy. She shot forward, came up against what seemed like a tangible barrier, then pierced it and shot forward like an arrow.
And each time they made some progress, the scarlet strip ahead of them got noticeably wider, noticeably closer. The end is in sight, Picard assured himself. We can do it . . .
Gerda swiveled in her seat to look at him. “Sir,” she said in a disgusted tone of voice, “the shields are down!”
The captain bit his lip. Their defenses were gone, and they were hardly out of danger yet. Had they dared too much after all? Would they falter just short of the finish line and be torn to pieces?
Picard shook his head, answering his own unspoken question. Not today, he insisted.
As if to dispute his conclusion, a wave of energy slammed into them head on. It sent the captain sprawling across his center seat, its armrests digging into his ribs. Then another