Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [58]
“This isn’t bad at all,” the security officer observed.
“All the same,” Picard said, “let’s not all pile on at once. We’ll go no more than two at a time.”
“You’re the captain,” Simenon told him.
Or rather, that was what he meant to say. Before he could quite get the words out, he felt the bridge give way.
It all happened so fast, the Gnalish barely knew what he was doing. But somehow, he managed to snatch one of the ropes that attached the span’s rail to its floor and hang on for dear life.
For a heartbeat, he couldn’t tell if only one end of the bridge had given way or both. Then he realized that it was only one—the one on the far side—and he was swinging back in the direction of the cliff he had left behind.
That was the good news. The bad came when Simenon crashed into the sheer rock surface with bone-crushing force, squeezing the air out of his lungs and awakening a terrible, sharp pain in his side.
Blackness threatened to overwhelm him. It seeped in from the edges of his vision, offering him the warm, welcome balm of oblivion.
But the Gnalish fought it off, pulling in air as hard as he could. His throat burned with the effort—burned horribly as if it were on fire. But he didn’t let that stop him. He kept gasping, kept sucking down what little his tortured windpipe would accommodate.
And somehow, he held onto the twisted remains of the bridge. The taste of blood filled his mouth and his ribs throbbed as if someone were taking a hammer to them, but he didn’t allow himself to fall to the bottom of the chasm.
“Simenon!” someone cried. “Pug! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said the security officer, who was dangling just above Simenon. “I’m fine.”
The engineer couldn’t answer. He was too busy trying to fill his lungs with air.
“Simenon!” someone called again.
“Here,” he croaked.
“He’s below me,” Joseph shouted over the wind. “Just a couple of meters.”
“Can you reach him?” someone asked. This time, Simenon recognized the voice as the captain’s.
The wind keened through the valley as Joseph made his assessment. “I think so,” he said.
“I’ll go down, too,” someone added. Vigo, thought Simenon.
“No,” the captain told him. “You’re too heavy.”
“Me, then,” suggested Ben Zoma.
A pause. “All right,” said Picard. “But first, we’ll secure this end of the bridge as best we can.”
While they did that, Simenon caught his breath. But the easier it came, the harder his side began to throb. And his right arm—the one that had borne the burden of his weight to that point—was beginning to ache with the effort.
“Take your time,” he rasped with false bravado.
Wu regarded Paris across the captain’s ready room. The ensign looked surprised by the assignment she had just given him—more so than she might have expected.
“Me, Commander?” he replied after a moment.
“Why not?” said Wu. “You may be young, Mr. Paris, but it’s clear to me that you’re the best pilot we have—with the exception of Lieutenant Asmund, of course. And we need her to pilot the ship, which won’t be any mean feat.”
“I suppose not,” Paris responded.
Wu briefed the ensign on the particulars of the mission—how far he would have to go and what he would have to look out for, that sort of thing. By the time she finished, he seemed to have gotten past his surprise and was again exuding the confidence that had distinguished him from other young men of Wu’s acquaintance.
It was a good thing, she reflected. She would need Paris at his best if they were going to pull this off.
“Then go get ready,” the second officer told him. “Mr. Chiang tells me he’ll have that shuttle ready in the next twenty minutes.”
The ensign lifted his chin. “Acknowledged.”
Then he turned and made his way out of the room. As the doors hissed closed behind him, Wu nodded to herself. If anyone could do this, it would be Cole Paris.
Simenon winced as Greyhorse used his fingers to probe the Gnalish’s tortured