Relics - Michael Jan Friedman [20]
Come on, damn it. Work-just one more time. Spit this guy out.
At last, a figure took shape. It wavered in the beam, taking on density at a snail’s pace, until Geordi wasn’t sure it would ever materialize completely. Then, with a last surge of energy, the shape became a man.
“My god,” said Riker. “You did it.”
And so he had. For what stood before them was a living, breathing denizen of the twenty-third century. And except for the arm he held in a sling, he was hardly the worse for wear.
Chapter Three
FOR A MOMENT OR TWO, Scott was overcome by a wave of vertigo. He didn’t know who he was, much less where he was. His arm was in a sling, though he didn’t remember how it had gotten that way. Then his reeling senses started to steady themselves and it all came flooding back to him.
He was in the Jenolen-in the Ops center. They’d crashed. Only he and Ensign Franklin had survived. And with a dearth of supplies staring them in the face, their only hope had been …
He looked around. There were two men standing in front of the transporter platform, looking at him. Staring, actually. One of them, the shorter of the two, wore a strange high-tech band around his eyes. Both sported uniforms that he’d never seen before. But they were blessedly human and neither of them seemed to pose a threat to him.
Besides which, they’d rescued him from the transporter loop. So how bad could they possibly be?
The transporter loop, he thought. Franklin. Where was Franklin?
Shaking off his wooziness, Scott came down off the platform and headed straight for the transporter control console. As he passed his rescuers, he graced them with a single nod.
“Thank ye, lads,” he said.
Seemingly fascinated by him, they stepped aside to let him bustle by. No sooner had Scott reached the console than he began checking out its monitors … verifying his readings…
“We’ve got to get Franklin out of there,” he said, more to himself than to either of the two onlookers.
“Someone else’s pattern is still in the buffer?” asked the one with the high-tech band. There was a note of genuine concern in his voice.
“Aye,” Scott said absently. “Matt Franklin and I went in together.”
Almost done, he told himself. Another couple of levels to examine. Here … and here … and then he’d…
Wait a minute. Scott stared at the last monitor, the one that covered the inducers. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one wee bit.
“Something’s wrong,” he said out loud, hearing the strain of panic in his voice. “One of the inducers has failed …” Turning to the man in the band, he barked “Boost the gain on the matter stream.”
The man complied, apparently unhampered by the thing on his face. Moving to a nearby console, he carried out Scott’s instructions.
“Come on, Franklin,” he breathed, trying to dredge up more information. As long as the lad’s signal pattern was unaffected, he could bypass the bad inducer and bring him back through one of the good ones. “Don’t give up, Matt. I know you’re in there. I can hear your electrons buzzin’…”
Scott’s mouth had gone dry, so dry he could barely swallow. He worked furiously at his instruments, certain that he could perform one more miracle. After all, he’d pulled Jim Kirk’s bacon out of worse fires. What made this any different?
And then he saw it, flashing on one of the screens in a graphic so bright it made his eyes hurt. Franklin’s signal profile.
No, he thought. Oh lord, no.
For a time, he didn’t know how long exactly, he was transfixed. When he tore his eyes from the graphic at last, they were moist with sorrow.
The two who’d rescued him just stood there, not saying a word. After all, they hadn’t known Matt Franklin. Only he had.
Still, it seemed that someone had to say it. And since it was his friend…
“It’s no use. The signal pattern’s been degraded by fifty-three percent,” Scott whispered, unable to muster anything louder. “He’s gone.”
Despite the lack of force with which they were uttered, the last two words seemed to reverberate through the Ops center. The man wearing