Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [100]
Twenty-five seconds after he had he logged onto the system, he looked up at Rhea and Vaslovik and said, “I must stay and make sure the program initiates correctly. Instruct the exocomps to evacuate the station. I assume you have a ship?”
“Yes,” Vaslovik said, his eyes narrowed. “It’s in the main landing bay.”
“Go to it and prepare for departure. I will meet you there in four minutes.” The station rumbled again and they all briefly felt the artificial gravity lose power. A panel on the wall at the periphery of Data’s vision sparked and blew out as circuit breakers overloaded.
Rhea took Vaslovik’s hand, but seemed unable to take her eyes off Data. He said, “I will not fail to make our appointment.” Still, she did not move, so Data added, “I do not make promises I have no intention of keeping. Your mother would have liked that about me.”
Rhea could not help but laugh. “All right,” she said. “But you’re on probation.” She left with Vaslovik in tow, her father asking what was all this about Rhea’s mother.
Data returned to his task and, one minute and fifteen seconds later, left the war room and headed back down the corridor to the living area. Two minutes after that, he was running down the wide hall to the landing bay, passing numerous works of art along the way. It was sad to think that so much beauty was about to be destroyed, but better that, Data reasoned, than the artist. Vaslovik could always paint more pictures, sculpt more statues, design more cathedrals.
Rhea awaited him in the hatchway of a small private craft and Data was absurdly pleased to see that it was the same ship that Vaslovik, Soong and Graves had used to travel to Exo III. He would have laughed aloud when he saw the name painted on the ship’s bow—Old Bastard—if he would have allowed himself time. Perhaps later, he decided and leapt through the hatch. Vaslovik must have been in the pilot’s chair because no sooner had the door closed behind him than the ship was rising up on antigravs. The sudden lurch caught Data off-balance and he tumbled into Rhea, who steadied him, then turned the motion into a quick hug. He slipped his arm around her waist—a new, but welcome sensation—and pulled her to him. “Hold on,” he said. “This is where it will get interesting.”
Four minutes earlier, the Enterprise burst out of warp at the edge of the system and slid into normal space. Sensors had already picked up signs of a battle: a score of the iceships were peppering the station with torpedoes and disruptor fire, but there was no sign that they had employed the subspace phase weapon. The station was shielded and heavily armored, but it didn’t appear to be defending itself. Also, strangely, none of the iceships paid the Enterprise the slightest bit of attention. Whatever was inside the station—and Riker had a pretty good idea what it was—the attackers wanted it pretty badly.
Then, as one, the ships focused their firepower on a docking bay on the station’s underside. As the doors opened, Picard commanded, “Tactical, covering fire for that ship. Attack pattern delta four. Torpedoes and phasers—fire.”
A small ship arrowed out from the bay at full impulse and the sensor readings showed that they were almost ready to jump to warp despite their proximity to the gas giant. Whoever was flying the ship, Riker decided, had guts and knew how to fly. Another second and they might have made it.
The Enterprise’s torpedoes and phasers hit their target, seemingly disabling at least one of the ships, possibly slowing two others, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The firepower concentrated on the tiny ship’s shields was more than any craft of its class could take, least of all a ship that, according to sensors, appeared to be over a hundred years old. The shields flared, then, in seconds, bloomed orange-yellow, then white.
“Hull breach imminent,” Riker said.
“Can we extend our shields—?” Picard began, but it was already too late. He counted silently as the data scrolled past on his tactical monitor.
“It’s