Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [51]
Wu didn’t like hearing that. However, it was hard to argue the point. The stresses associated with space–time rifts were such that few vessels had a chance of getting through them intact.
She stood up and eyed the viewscreen. “Mr. Paxton,” she said, “do you think you can use the probe to punch a comm signal through that mess?”
“I think so,” said the communications officer.
“Good,” Wu replied. “Try hailing them again.”
Paxton’s fingers crawled over his controls. Then he sat back and watched his screens for a reply.
“Anything?” she asked.
Paxton shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
Wu frowned. A lack of response could mean one of two things: either their signal still hadn’t gotten through to the Belladonna or there was no one in a position to answer it.
She hoped it was the former.
“Commander,” Kastiigan said abruptly, “we have a problem. The probe is being drawn into the phenomenon as well.”
Wu turned to Paxton. “Get it out of there.”
The comm officer tried. But after a while, he shook his head. “It’s not responding. The pull is too strong.”
The second officer considered their options. They were too far away from the probe to get a tractor beam on it. And if they got much closer, they would be putting the Stargazer in jeopardy again.
Had the class IV been a manned probe, Wu would have gone after it without a second thought. But it was just a set of instruments surrounded by a duranium hull. And instruments—no matter how valuable—could be replaced.
“Try a sudden acceleration,” Wu suggested.
Paxton looked at her. “You mean slingshot it out the other side of the accretion bridge?”
“If you can.”
“It’s worth a try,” the comm officer said.
His fingers moving with practiced ease, he tapped out the second officer’s order on his control panel. Then he implemented it.
On Paxton’s monitor, the yellow blip that represented the probe suddenly leaped past the research ship, striving to free itself from the phenomenon’s embrace. And for a moment, it appeared to Wu that it might make it.
Then, slowly but certainly, the probe was dragged backward. Paxton gave it all the thrust he could, but it didn’t seem to help. Finally, the class IV device vanished from the screen altogether.
Paxton turned to Wu, looking apologetic. “We’ve lost contact with the probe, Commander.”
She sighed. Clearly, she needed more information, and she wasn’t going to get it by sending in more unmanned probes.
Wu gazed at the main viewscreen, where all she could see was the accretion bridge. Somewhere inside it, the Belladonna was slowly but inexorably slipping into the stormy maw of the phenomenon.
If she were going to do a better job with the research vessel than she had with the probe, she had to do something—and soon. But this wasn’t a problem with a simple solution. She couldn’t just transport the survivors off the Belladonna—not when she couldn’t even get a comm signal through.
Turning to the rest of the bridge contingent, Wu said, “I need a plan—and I need it now.”
The sanjarra were already within twenty meters of Simenon’s party when Picard got his first glimpse of the beasts through a gap in the screen of crimson trees.
They looked like sleek, black greyhounds with blood-red tiger stripes and faces like fruit bats. Their eyes were like shiny, black pebbles and their mouths were full of long, curved teeth. A strange combination to be sure, but hardly the strangest the captain had seen in the course of hundreds of planetary surveys.
It was difficult to tell precisely how many there were, but Picard reckoned that there might be a dozen. As they got closer, their growls deepened and they bared their fangs.
The sanjarra looked completely undaunted by the fact that they had never seen the likes of the offworlders before. But then, the captain supposed, meat was meat.
As they emerged from cover, they got lower to the ground and their muscles seemed to bunch. Picard was reminded of Simenon’s instructions: “As soon as you see them, go on the offensive. Keep them off-balance. Once they leap, we’re as good as dead.”
Taking the