Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [91]
Picard ignored her. “Move in closer, LaForge. If it wants us, it’s going to have to face us.”
“Captain!” Troi shouted. When he neither fired the weapons nor hit that blue button, frustration crumpled her features and she blinked into the bright screen.
Threads of smoke and fans of sparks shot from half the bridge consoles as the ship fought the mauling once again, but Picard made no further orders. He would stand his ground and so would this ship-though he stood now beside his command chair and gripped the arm with the blue button.
“Captain!” Yar shrieked then, and raised her eyes to the main screen. Even as she spoke, every screen dropped its color in a great wash forward, as though all the images had been sucked out of the back to the main viewer. The main screen now glowed with a compact view of the creature, back in its original form.
“Get ready!” Picard shouted, but it was already upon them, dashing around the protective tree and pouncing on the ship alone, while beside them the gas giant spun ignorantly.
The Enterprise was taken by a great fist of lightning many times more powerful than that of moments before, and electrical bombardment once again blitzed the bridge.
“Fire phasers point-blank!” Picard ordered over the shrieking noise.
The ship spewed energy. Rocked by each shot, the Enterprise endured the punishment as the radical new phasing system dragged energies apart that wanted to be together, then shoved them into each other at the last instant. The entity bucked in the assault, shaking the ship. Around him Picard saw his crew attacked by the silvery lights and blue undercurrents.
“Shields draining … ” Yar shouted from her post above them.
“Keep firing!” Picard responded, hanging on to the command chair as bolt after bolt of intensified phaser energy thundered through the ship and into the phenomenon’s heart.
“The thing’s output is becoming unsteady, sir!” Worf shouted over the electrical shriek. “It’s working!”
Suddenly the ship trembled so deep in her core that everyone felt it through his feet, and the phasers stopped.
“What-” Picard tried to turn, but managed only to twist the upper half of his body around to see Yar.
“Complete phaser meltdown, Captain! The core’s blown!”
Picard’s heart sank to his knees and rattled inside the electrical sheath that now strengthened on the bridge.
“Captain!” Troi’s face appeared beside his shoulder. She was hanging on to his arm with both hands, her eyes tormented. “Do it! Do it, sir! Please!”
He looked at the blue button. He pushed his hand toward it. Even as he moved, forcing his quaking muscles to fight against the electrical attack, he felt himself slipping away. The beginnings of the chamber experience … consciousness beginning to float, to let go …
Troi’s voice pierced his pain and struggle. “Captain!”
The blue button was an inch away from his thumb.
He concentrated on it, clinging to his identity and his memories as if they were ropes dangling in an abyss. If only he could find the energy-
“Energy,” he ground through his gritted teeth. “The gas giant! Yar!”
But she was helpless, plastered back against Worf by the lightning, which grew stronger with every pulse now that the ship’s shielding was strained to its fullest.
“Riker!” Picard roared.
He could vaguely see Riker dragging himself step by agonizing step up the horseshoe rail toward tactical.
A form pressed against Picard’s shoulder and a narrow shape came by his elbow … a hand. Troi’s hand. Reaching for the blue button. He heard her struggling to move past him, to fight off the terrible assault as she promised she would.
He struck out with his left arm and held her back, but her determination made her strength superhuman and she was pressing harder against his shoulder, her hand clawing toward that button.
“Let me!” she bellowed through the electrical blasts.
Picard wrenched her away from the command chair with the last of his energy, and the two of them collapsed across the command arena. “Riker,” Picard rasped with a final breath, “hurry! Full power!”
Even as he spoke, glowing photon