Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [92]
The concussion sent the ship catapulting through open space, blown out of orbit by megatons of exploding matter.
The ship turned in space, gravity gone to hell, tossing its people about like dolls, and finally settled a quarter million miles from the gas giant.
Picard dragged himself to his feet and stumbled forward. An instant later, Riker was beside him. Around them, the crew grabbed for their control boards and tried to accept the fact that they were still alive-really alive.
Before them on the screen, the creature fluxed and twisted against the glowing rubble of the gas giant’s remains. A million explosions raged around them where it was forced to digest the gas giant’s released energy and, finally, in one singular blast, was ripped apart.
Nodules of false-color energy splayed outward across the system, and all the glitter was suddenly gone. Only blobs of dissipating energy remained, cascading by the millions around the ship and outward into open space.
“It couldn’t take it….” Riker murmured hoarsely.
Picard rasped, “Status!”
Yar’s voice trembled. “Shields down … main reactors unstable. The phaser core is a complete burnout. Totally fused. Nothing but molten metal in there, sir.”
“Bet it smells,” Geordi grumbled as he pulled himself back into his helm seat and gingerly touched his own equipment. Beside him, Wesley simply held on to the Ops console with both hands, and shook. They both knew. Fused. The whole core. All the safety systems had somehow saved the ship from being part of that meltdown. Wesley’s model had had no safeties. If he’d turned it on, it would’ve created a dead short, the reserve antimatter containment would’ve collapsed, and a thousand people would’ve disappeared and Starfleet would never have known why. There was a sudden ringing clarity about why a starship had rules.
Wesley continued to stare, to blink, and the color stayed out from his face for a long, long while.
“Report on that thing?” Picard barked as he got to his feet.
It was Worf who finally came forward on the upper bridge and made the stark announcement. “Dissipated, sir. No central mass any longer.” He looked at Picard directly now and said, “You did it, sir.”
Picard sighed, his shoulders aching. “Collaborative effort, Mr. Worf.” He stepped to one side now and reached downward for Counselor Troi’s hand.
She sat on the floor, stunned, her face a thousand emotions slowly wringing out of her as she regained control. As her hand closed on his it was weak and shaking.
He lifted her to her feet and privately said, “Well done, Counselor. Your prognosis?”
She swallowed hard, then looked up at him and forced herself to speak. “I can’t feel them, sir … anymore.”
He smiled. “Congratulations.”
Troi nodded, trembling, still working at once again being in total possession of herself. For a fleeting moment, loneliness filled her eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
GEORDI LAFORGE SAT at his helm with depressingly little to do. The ship couldn’t move until the warp engine core was stabilized, and couldn’t leave the vicinity anyway, at least not yet. As soon as the immediate danger had blown itself to bits, their duty as a main Federation extension kicked in and they were obliged to make sure the area was secure before they even thought of moving on.
He was one of only five people on the bridge now. Worf and Tasha occupied the upper deck, feeding through the intricate readings that correlated the first repairs on the phaser lockup. The meltdown would take weeks to clean up and mend. Mr. Riker was on the upper