Have Tech, Will Travel (SCE Books 1-4) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [48]
“Yes, well, we were afraid of something like this. Now, Emarur.”
Alarm bells went off in David Gold’s head at the priest’s words. He turned to Lieutenant McAllan at tactical and started to say, “Shields up,” but he couldn’t get the words out before some kind of weapons fire struck the da Vinci .
“Shields up, red alert!” he was able to say this time, as alarms started ringing out around the bridge. He also saw the priest stab the First Speaker, and watched her crumple to the deck. There’s a helluva lot more going on here than we thought. I should live long enough to find out what, exactly. “Return fire!”
“Phaser controls aren’t responding,” McAllan said. “Arming torpedoes.” Pounding a fist on his console, he added, “I can’t get a lock.”
“They’re taking evasive action,” said Ensign Wong from the conn position.
“Pursue them,” Gold said. “McAllan, target manually—use a damn scope sight if you have to, but target that ship!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damage report.”
Duffy’s voice sounded over the intercom from engineering. “I don’t know what kind of weapon they’re using, sir, but it took out half our tactical systems. Shields are fine, but phaser controls are shot to hell and the targeting systems are off-line.”
“That much I knew. Can you fix it?”
“Working on it.”
Gold thought a moment. They had someone onboard who probably knew as much about repairing battle damage on the fly as anyone. “Gold to La Forge. Get down to engineering and help Duffy out, Commander.”
“Already on my way, Captain.”
“Good.” Turning to the tactical station behind him, Gold said, “McAllan, any good news?”
“I can’t target them unless we get within thirty thousand kilometers.”
“Can you close the gap, Wong?”
“Working on it, sir,” said the young ensign. “That ship’s as fast as we are at impulse.”
From ops, Lieutenant Ina said, “They’re firing again, sir!”
After the impact, McAllan said, with surprise, “Shields down! Sir, I don’t know what they did, but the shields are completely gone.”
“Captain, I can get the shields back on-line, but you’ve got to give me ten minutes.” That was La Forge.
“They’re firing again!” Ina said.
“Veer off, Wong, give us distance.”
Sparks flew as the weapons fire struck the unshielded ship.
“Stevens to bridge. Sir, if you set course for the second planet in the system and maintain a low orbit, we won’t be picked up by their sensors.”
“You heard the man, Wong. Set course for the second planet, full impulse.”
“Yes, sir,” Wong said.
“McAllan, full spread of torpedoes—doesn’t matter where they’re aimed, they’re just cover fire.”
Nodding, McAllan said, “Torpedoes away.”
“Go, Wong.”
“Engaging at full impulse.”
“They following?” Gold asked.
“No, sir,” said Ina. “They did take some heavy damage, though.”
McAllan smiled. “Guess my aim was true.”
“We should be so lucky,” Gold muttered.
The Bajoran ops officer continued, “They’re setting course back for the moon.”
“All right, give us a low orbit, and keep an eye on them, Wong.”
“Yes, sir.”
Getting up from his chair, the captain said, “Gold to S.C.E. Briefing room, five minutes. McAllan, you’ve got the bridge. Contact the Sugihara and tell them to get over here, pronto. And the nanosecond something happens, let me know, got it?”
“Got it, sir.”
“Good.”
He headed toward the briefing room, wondering how the hell the mission had managed to go so bad, so fast.
And why, exactly, one of the Eerlikka clergy had killed the First Speaker in cold blood.
CHAPTER
7
“Where are they?” Undlar bellowed. He couldn’t believe it. They had had that Starfleet ship, and now it was gone.
“Scanners aren’t picking them up anywhere,” the pilot said.
“Maybe they blew up,” Undlar said, though it was wishful thinking.
“Then we’d be reading debris. There isn’t anything.”
Undlar slammed his fist into a bulkhead. It had been going so well.
The pilot continued to lean over his readout. Next to him, Emarur turned to look at Undlar. “I can’t believe you killed the First Speaker.”
“She was in the way.”
“You never told me