Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [19]
He had barely gotten the words out when Tarasco’s beam found its unlikely target. Without warning, a gout of blue-white electroplasma rose up and engulfed the engineer.
Agnarsson writhed horribly in the clutches of the energy geyser. Finally, with a prolonged snarl, he hurled himself out of harm’s way and landed on the deck with a thud.
However, the engineer’s exposure to the deadly electroplasma had taken its toll. He was curled up in a fetal position, his clothes burned off, his skin and hair blackened and oozing with blood.
But his eyes still glowed with that eerie, silver light. And as Tarasco looked on, Agnarsson’s flesh began to repair itself. Despite everything, he and his power had survived.
The captain bit his lip. It wouldn’t be wise to try to launch the engineer into space a second time—not at the rate his strength was coming back. And he could think of only one other option.
Cradling his damaged ribs, he raced across the room to the intercom grid. Then he pressed the pad that activated it.
“This is Tarasco,” he gasped. “All hands abandon ship immediately. Repeat, all hands abandon ship.”
There was no time to elaborate, no time to explain. There was only enough time to issue the order and hope his people would follow it, because Agnarsson was already healed enough to focus his thoughts.
That was clever, the monster reflected through the haze of his pain. But how many conduits can you open without destroying your ship?
The captain didn’t allow himself to think of the answer. Instead, he aimed his weapon at the deck below Agnarsson and fired again. This time it took a little longer for him to pierce the surface and reach the conduit, but the result was just as spectacular.
As the engineer was enveloped in the seething, blue-white flame, he screamed a high, thin scream. Then he lurched out of the plasma’s embrace and fell to the deck, thin plumes of black smoke rising from him.
Tarasco’s heart went out to the man. After all, Agnarsson hadn’t asked for what had happened to him. He hadn’t done anything to deserve it. In a sense, he was a victim as much as those security officers he had killed.
But as Pelletier had pointed out, this wasn’t about right and wrong. This was about evolution. This was about survival.
And the captain would be damned if he was going to let his engineer shape the future of the human race.
As Agnarsson whimpered and clutched at himself with blackened, clawlike hands, Tarasco tried to rouse Siregar and Offenburger. Both of them were still alive, it turned out, though badly battered.
“Get out of here,” he told them. “That’s an order. Grab the nearest escape pod and get off the ship.”
Offenburger glanced at the engineer, too dazed to fully grasp what was happening. “What about you, sir?” he asked the captain, his words slurred and difficult to understand.
“I’ll follow when I’m certain Agnarsson can’t come after us,” Tarasco assured him. It was a lie, of course. He had no intention of following the security officers.
Siregar’s eyes narrowed. Unlike Offenburger, she seemed to divine his intentions. “Let me stay and help,” she suggested.
“No,” the captain told her. “Now get going.”
Siregar hesitated for a moment longer, loath to leave him there alone with Agnarsson. Then she put her arm around Offenburger and helped him stagger out of the weapons room.
Tarasco turned back to the engineer. To his amazement, the man was almost healed again, his skin raw but no longer charred. Agnarsson glowered at him with eyes that had known unbelievable pain.
You can’t keep this up forever, the engineer told him. Sooner or later, I’ll destroy you.
The captain’s only response was to walk over to the launch console and punch in some commands. The first one armed the ship’s atomic missiles, overriding the protocol that would have kept them from exploding inside the Valiant. The second command accessed the missiles’ timers.
What are you doing? Agnarsson demanded.
“That’s simple,” Tarasco