Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [119]
The scanners refused to lock on to the two figures in the ship's cockpit. Quickly checking the system, Kathryn understood why: the annular confinement beam was too unstable to hold two bodies in the spatial matrix within which the dematerialization process occurred. She had enough power to transport only one person. Not two. One.
Fear clutched at her. Though the air was bone-chilling, she didn't notice the cold. Adrenaline coursed through her body, her heart hammered, and her head pounded with every heartbeat. She looked back at the sinking ship, its two occupants slumped over their seats, but moving slightly, still alive. Justin, her fiancd, whom she loved and adored, and with whom she would spend the rest of her life. And her father, beloved Daddy, who had challenged and inspired her and made her what she was. How could she choose that one would live and the other die? Flash visions of life with Justin-knowing she had sacrificed her father to allow him to live-flooded her mind. How could she be happy with Justin after paying that price? Life without Justin, knowing she had sacrificed him to save her father, was equally intolerable. How could fate have presented her with this bitter dilemma?
She took a deep breath of the frigid air, trying to clear her mind and rise to this challenge. She would thumb her nose at fate. She wouldn't yield to this situation, but create the situation she wanted. She would transport both of them, somehow. There had to be a way. She turned to the console, mind racing with every fact and figure she could remember about this experimental ship. The phaser banks were recharged through a neodyne capacitor circuit. If the capacitors retained enough residual charge, she might be able to bring the annular confinement beam up to eight hundred megawatts-the minimum she'd need to transport both men. But the only way to find out was to tap into the capacitors. She'd have to try to engage the beam and see if it gained enough power. Rerouting through the phaser couplings, she drew a deep breath and activated the transporter circuit. She needed that eight hundred megawatts only long enough to make one transport. Just five seconds, to dematerialize her father and Justin, transfer their molecular patterns to the storage buffer, and rematerialize them. It had to be possible. Little by little, the beam gained power. It was working! Just seconds more, and she'd have them both safely on land, next to her. The emergency medical kit was in her section of the cabin; she could stabilize their injuries and keep them warm until a rescue ship found them. They were being tracked on Starfleet scanners and it shouldn't be too long before help arrived. The annular confinement beam power inched upward in maddening slow increments... five hundred eighty megawatts... six hundred ninety... seven hundred forty... Valuable seconds ticked by as Kathryn concentrated with all her intensity on the readings, willing them to reach the needed number. Seven hundred seventy-five... seven hundred ninety... and then finally, the beam power registered eight hundred megawatts. She could transport them both. Quickly, she initiated automatic pattern lock, bypassing the diagnostic process in order to save precious milliseconds, manually activated the annular confinement beam, and whirled to meet them. The ship's fuselage had disappeared, sunk beneath the inky waters of the alien sea. And her father and Justin were not materializing next to her. She turned and reentered the commands; surely she could pull them from beneath the water's surface. But though she went through the process time after time, endlessly, with every combination and permutation of commands, there was no response.
She had lost them both.
She stood, numbed, staring at the black pool of water, churning from the upheaval it had endured. It was a long