Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [52]
“Level Three?” Riker exploded. “Turn it off, O’Brien! Turn the damned thing off!”
The transporter chief took a moment to recover from the force of Riker’s reaction—but only a moment. Then he whirled and pressed the abort program area on the holodeck computer panel.
Nothing happened. According to the monitor, the program was still in progress.
“It’s not working, Commander,” said O’Brien. He tried to terminate the program a second time, but with no more success. “The program won’t abort.”
“Damn it,” said the first officer. “Riker to bridge—”
That was all O’Brien heard for a few moments. Then the lights went off in the vicinity of the holodecks, and with them the faint hum of the ventilation system.
“O’Brien?” It was Riker again.
“Aye, sir?”
“We’ve cut power to Deck Eleven. Can you hear anything from inside the holodeck?”
O’Brien listened. His stomach tightened.
“Nothing, Commander.”
A muffled curse. “Try to pry the doors open, Chief. There’ll be a security team there in a minute or two.”
O’Brien tugged at one of the doors, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to budge it by himself—even with the power shut down. Of course, that didn’t stop him from giving it his best shot.
By the time the security team showed up, he’d actually created an opening the size of a hand’s-breadth. A familiar face loomed before him as other hands gripped the interlocking segments of the doors.
“Fern,” he said, acknowledging her.
Resnick smiled grimly. “Any idea what happened?”
He shook his head. “Just that Lieutenant Worf’s in there, and Captain Morgen as well. And they’re in some kind of trouble.”
He and Resnick strained along with the rest of the security team, but they weren’t making much progress. It seemed that the doors had moved about all they were going to.
“Everybody step back,” said Burke, the team leader. Waiting a moment while O’Brien and the others complied, he plucked his phaser off his belt, selected a setting, and trained it on one of the doors. Then he activated the thing.
The blue beam knifed out, vaporizing the duranium door in a matter of seconds. As the air filled with steam and the smell of something burning, Burke made his way through the twisted metal remains.
Resnick was right on his tail. And O’Brien was right on hers.
With the power off, the holodeck had reverted to a yellow-on-black grid. There were two figures inside. Both bloody, but both still standing—if barely.
Swaying, panting heavily, Worf waved away Resnick’s offer of help. “See to Captain Morgen,” he ordered, his voice little more than a rasp.
A couple of security officers approached the Daa’Vit. “No,” said Morgen. “Let me be.” And promptly fell to his knees.
Burke pressed his insignia. “Sickbay—we need a trauma team in holodeck one. We’ve got two casualties—one Klingon and one Daa’Vit. Hurry.”
Seven
“But I feel fine,” Worf protested.
“I’m happy for you,” responded Crusher, using her tricorder to check the dermaplast patch on the Klingon’s back. It was adhering perfectly—a good job, if she said so herself.
“There’s really no need for this, Doctor.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Morgen. “Another sector heard from.”
The Daa’Vit shook his head disapprovingly. “What is it about medical officers?”
“They are excessively cautious,” Worf observed.
“To be sure,” agreed the Daa’Vit. “No offense, Doctor, but sickbay is the one thing I will not miss about Starfleet.”
Crusher chuckled. “Listen to you two. One would think you’d been here for days. It’s been only a couple of hours.” Finished with her examination of Worf’s dressings, she moved over to Morgen’s biobed.
“A couple of hours too many,” complained the Daa’Vit as the doctor positioned her tricorder near his thigh. The gouge there had been deep, but it was healing nicely, with no sign of infection. “You can see we need no further attention.”
“I can see,” she countered, “that you know nothing about medicine. Or else you choose to ignore what you do know.” She moved the tricorder up