Intellivore - Diane Duane [15]
For a moment Picard thought that the structure would fail, that the ships would crash into one another. But with barely a kilometer’s space left among them, the little tight-packed aggregate of ships sprouted a common warp field and, at low but precisely angled warp, shot out of the englobement.
“They’ve done this before,” Riker said softly. Picard nodded. Only a tenth of a second’s warp was needed to get them free of the globe. Then the tractors dropped away; each Lalairu ship went into warp independently, spreading out and around the pirate ships … and suddenly the englobers were the englobed.
Then the phaser fire and the photon torpedoes lanced out in earnest. The earlier display had been merely a flourish of weapons, the unsheathing of the sword. Now the sword smote. One after another, the pirate vessels’ shields went down, and as they went down, they were destroyed.
One after another, the pirate ships flared into vapor, were gone. Picard saw one go arcing away into the night, leaking gases in long, glittering, crystallizing plumes. The second one, the lightcruiser-sized vessel, fought a while more, but eventually it, too, limped away; and the Lalairu, having been unable to destroy it, let it go and resumed the original course.
There the record ended, except for details of the Lalairu damage control operation: a few deaths, to be mourned in the ship family; some damage, to be repaired expensively.
“Well,” Picard said.
Riker nodded. “I would be tempted to say good riddance.”
“Tempted,” Picard said. “Yes. Anyway, those other ships are still out here …”
“Are you thinking that a wounded beast is the most dangerous?”
“Only in that it may have called friends,” Picard said.
“They’ll certainly take a while to get here.”
“We hope they will,” Picard said. “But right now, my main concern is for the ships in transit through this area—and I particularly want to have a look at Boreal, and make quite sure that they’re all right.”
“If they have had any little set-tos out here,” Riker said, “perhaps earlier ones than the Lalairu had—”
“It could mean that the pirates are going to be more in evidence than usual. A good thing we’re here.”
“Depending,” Riker said with a slight smile and a glance out in Data’s direction, “how you define good.”
“This is wonderful stuff,” Captain Maisel was muttering at her end of the three-way link, as she looked over the beginnings of the Lalairu recordings and files. “Terrific …”
“What a data-hungry little creature you are,” Clif said; but Picard watched him, too, scanning his output screen thoughtfully.
“Information is everything,” Ileen said, “and out in these spaces, too often it costs blood. The free gift of it, when the Lalairu are likely enough to have shed enough of their own ichor or serum or whatever for it, is priceless.”
“Well, it’s going to take weeks to go through all this,” Clif said. “But, Captains, if I may suggest it to you, probably we should now head after the bigger of those two pirate craft.”
“I’d already reached that decision,” said Picard. “Ileen?”
“With you two along, I’m sure I don’t mind,” Maisel said. “I don’t know if this is the same raider vessel we’ve been hearing occasional rumors about, but if it is, I’ll be delighted to meet it in present company. How long do you think it’s going to take to catch up?”
From behind her, Pickup said, “At warp five, I’d estimate twenty-four hours, Captain. Twelve, if we’re lucky.”
“Let’s make it so, then,” Picard said.
Data nodded. “Laying in the course, Captain …”
Picard sat down. “Engage.”
Swiftly the Lalairu ships fell away behind. “I’ll be in my ready room for a while,” said Picard when they were well under way. He turned in his seat. “Mr. Worf, I want to talk to those people on Boreal. You may have to keep at them to get them to answer … but I would sooner avoid the kind of greeting that the Lalairu ship received.”
“I will keep at them,