Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [200]
With neither shields nor hull to stop them or even slow them down, the torpedoes entered the enemy vessel and vented their matter-antimatter payload in a massive outpouring of yellow-white splendor.
Even if he had wanted to watch the resulting debris spin off into space, the second officer didn’t have the time. He had to turn his attention to his other adversary.
“Give me a visual of the other ship,” he told Gerda.
The image on the viewscreen changed, showing him the lone surviving diamond shape. It was exchanging fire with the planet’s surface, perhaps unaware that its sister vessel had been destroyed.
“Target their deflectors,” said Picard, “just as we did before. Ready phasers and torpedoes.”
“Ready, sir,” came Vigo’s reply.
The Nuyyad vessel began to come about, leaving Magnia alone for the moment. Obviously, its commander had recognized a more pressing concern.
“Engage tractor beam!” snapped the second officer. On the viewscreen, the pale, barely visible shaft of the tractor opened a window in the enemy’s shields.
“Fire!” he commanded.
The diamond shape didn’t stand a chance. Before it could launch an offensive of its own, before it could try to get out of the Stargazer’s range, a pair of crimson phaser beams sliced through the opening in its defenses and penetrated its hull.
As before, Vigo followed the phaser attack with a pair of photon torpedoes. And as before, they exploded inside the enemy ship, blotting out the stars with a splash of deadly, yellow-white brilliance.
“Well done,” said Picard. He turned to Gerda. “Damage?”
“Shields are down twenty-two percent,” the navigator reported. “Otherwise, all systems are functioning at rated capacity.”
The second officer was pleased beyond all expectation. “Well done indeed,” he told his officers.
“Sir,” said Paxton from his communications console, “Mr. Williamson is hailing us from the surface.”
Picard smiled. “Put him on screen, Lieutenant.”
A moment later, the Magnian’s visage appeared. “Tell me our instruments are accurate, Commander. The Nuyyad…?”
“Have been destroyed,” the second officer confirmed.
Williamson looked relieved. “And the Stargazer?”
“Has not been,” Picard said. “How is Magnia?”
“Unharmed as well,” the colonist reported. “Our only casualty was a stand of old trees of which I was rather fond.”
“It could have been worse,” the second officer told him.
He glanced at Vigo, recalling their momentary shield failure, and contemplated the danger in which it had placed them. If the weapons chief hadn’t managed to get the deflectors back on-line…
“Much worse,” he added.
Fifteen
Picard sat behind Captain Ruhalter’s desk and regarded his acting weapons chief. “What happened out there?” he asked.
Vigo frowned. “Honestly, sir…when we lost our shields, I was too surprised to even think for a moment. After all, nothing like that had ever happened to me. Then I thought of the saboteur.”
“As did I,” the second officer admitted.
“I remembered how he had run a parallel data line through that command junction, and I started thinking of which command junctions were involved in the deflector function. As it turned out, there were only four of them, so I began bypassing them one after the other. After I bypassed the third one, we regained shield control.”
“And you brought the deflectors back up,” Picard concluded.
The weapons officer nodded. “That’s correct, sir.”
Picard sat back in his chair. “I hope I don’t have to tell you how critical that action was. If not for you, Lieutenant, our encounter with the Nuyyad might have had a very different conclusion.”
Vigo looked a little embarrassed. “I was glad to be of help, sir.”
“You can be of further help,” the second officer told him. “I want you to examine this altered shield command junction. See if you can glean anything from it—perhaps in comparison to the first altered junction we discovered. Then report back to me.”
“Aye, sir,” said Vigo. But he didn’t get up from his chair right away.
“What is it?” asked Picard.
The Pandrilite looked apologetic. “Begging