Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [85]
It was over. And, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the mutant had won.
Chapter Thirty
PICARD GRITTED HIS teeth and battled to keep his pod upright as it descended through layers of cloud, its tractor beams locked on the Draa’kons’ deadly cluster missile.
His eyes were stinging from heat and perspiration, his uniform soaked through and through, but he wouldn’t allow himself to lose his focus. Not when tens of thousands of lives were depending on him.
At the same time, Archangel was contending with the whipping winds and the frustrating lack of visibility to make his way to his objective. As the captain watched, the mutant was buffeted to one side or the other, but over and over again he fought his way back on course.
Picard had seldom seen such courage or determination. It was even more remarkable when one considered that the mutant had been in sickbay less than an hour earlier.
Teeth clenched and bared, wings beating with raw power, Archangel got close enough to the cluster to reach for one of its limbs … to close his fingers around it … and finally, folding his wings at just the right moment, to swing himself into the weapon’s innermost network.
That done, he found the access plate the captain had told him about. His hair whipping about his head, he took out the phaser Picard had loaned him after they set out. Then he activated it and trained its crimson beam on the plate’s lock.
Gently, thought the captain, gently. One wrong move by the mutant and they would both be vaporized. Worse, Verdeen would become a city of ghosts.
Fragments of clouds flew up past Archangel, obscuring him for a moment. When the captain caught sight of him again, he was putting away his phaser—a good sign, Picard thought.
Then, with the utmost care, the mutant slid open the access plate. The captain cheered inwardly. They were halfway home.
But only halfway. The next step would be every bit as tricky as the first. Inside the compartment, Archangel would find the cluster’s photon-based power source and its trigger mechanism. His goal would be to deactivate the trigger without disturbing the photon pack.
According to the shuttlepod’s sensor readouts, there was only one way to accomplish that—by pressing a single stud. But it was one of several such studs on the body of the trigger mechanism and pressing the wrong one would bring on disaster.
Grimly, the mutant put his hand inside the compartment. Picard watched him work, his throat bone-dry, his eyes feeling as if they had been scraped raw. The heat in the cabin was like a furnace, blistering and unrelenting.
But he still had a mission to perform. If Archangel were to succeed, the captain would have to persevere as well.
Seconds passed, with no relief. On his monitor screens, Picard could see the planet’s surface looming closer and closer. What’s more, he told himself, the aliens’ explosive might have been set to detonate before it reached the ground.
Meanwhile, in his perch on the missile, the mutant continued to probe its delicate inner workings. He worked slowly, cautiously, his face a window on his frustration.
The captain glanced at his board again. They were less than five kilometers from Verdeen. Five kilometers and a single minute—at the outside.
If Archangel were to disarm the missile, he would have to do it in the next few seconds. Otherwise, Picard would have to take matters in his own hands and try to wrench the weapon away from its target, as reckless a maneuver as that might be.
Suddenly, the mutant and the alien weapon were lost to Picard’s sight, blanketed in clouds. Cursing, the captain tried to make them out again, tried to discern even their outlines through the mask of water vapors.
But he couldn’t. And his sensors weren’t telling what he needed to know, either.
Grinding his teeth, Picard reached for his thruster controls, intent on veering