Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [69]
Thanks to the force field, the atmosphere in the shuttle-remained inside instead of rushing to join the vacuum of space. Still, it was disconcerting for Paris to look past Jiterica and see the gleam of naked stars.
Without a second look, the Nizhrak took hold of the hatch frame and swung out into space. The field sizzled around her for a moment, as if nettled at her interrupting its integrity. Then it was intact again—and Jiterica was floating outside the shuttlecraft, her momentum carrying her slowly toward the accretion bridge.
“Ensign Jiterica has exited the shuttle,” Paris reported.
“Keep us . . .posted . . . ,” Wu instructed him.
“Will do,” he said.
Then Paris activated the tractor beam device that Lt. Chiang had installed minutes earlier, trained its shimmering shaft on Jiterica, and established a lock. The procedure went every bit as smoothly as he had hoped.
But the hard part was still ahead.
Keeping an eye on his helm instruments, the ensign ever so carefully used the tractor beam to propel his colleague forward. Unaware that there was any reason not to trust Paris’s abilities, Jiterica wafted in the direction of the accretion bridge until Paris had to squint to see her through the viewport.
A little farther, he told himself. Farther still.
And then she was gone from sight, immersed in the furious stream of plasma moving from Alpha Oneo Madrin to Beta Oneo Madrin—her life and those of the Belladonna’s surviving scientists dependent on how Paris handled himself.
He told himself that he wouldn’t let them down, and he meant it. It’s just that he wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
Chapter Twenty-one
PARIS CLENCHED HIS JAW as he struggled to reestablish control of the shuttle’s tractor beam, which had suddenly begun whipping about as if it had a mind of its own.
With all the graviton flux in the accretion bridge, Commander Wu had anticipated that it would likely affect tractor integrity. She had warned Paris that it might be difficult to keep Jiterica on target.
But she hadn’t told the ensign to expect anything like this. It was like trying to thread a needle with a strand of overcooked spaghetti.
Frantically, he consulted his monitors. The graviton emitter seemed to be functioning within expected parameters. The same with the subspace field amplifiers.
So it wasn’t a malfunction. The graviton storm was just a lot more turbulent than it had a right to be. No doubt, with some careful analysis, Kastiigan and his people would figure out the reason for it after Paris got back.
But that wasn’t any help to him right now. And it wasn’t any help to Jiterica, either. She was at the mercy of a bizarre and chaotic environment, a small and very fragile leaf in a violent, howling windstorm.
If the graviton flux jerked her around like this much longer, Paris would lose his tractor lock on her. And if he did, he didn’t think he could catch hold of her again.
Chilled by the prospect of watching Jiterica spiral off into the sinkhole, the ensign expelled a breath. You can do this, he told himself, working his controls. You’re a good helm jockey, as good as any man or woman in the fleet.
But try as he might, he couldn’t steady the tractor beam. The forces acting on it were just too fierce, too unpredictable. Every time Paris tried to compensate, he found himself taking the beam the wrong way.
Come on, he told himself, a bead of sweat making its way down his face. Do it. Do it now.
But his controls felt funny—as if they were shivering in his hands. Paris looked down and saw that it wasn’t the controls shivering. It was him. His hands were trembling just as they always did when he found himself under pressure.
He could feel the weight of his family descending on him, crushing him, making it impossible for him to function. “No,” he groaned out loud. “Now now.”
He was a Paris. It was his destiny to succeed. But he wasn’t going to succeed. He was going to fail—not just himself and his family, but all those people on the trapped research ship.
And he was going to fail Jiterica, too. That felt