Relics - Michael Jan Friedman [51]
Picard felt his teeth grinding together as he considered the irony They’d come to rescue the Jenolen, but now they themselves needed rescue.
Would they survive the crash, as Scott had survived? Or would the Enterprise’s greater mass seal their collective doom?
“Run the impulse engines off auxiliary,” Riker commanded. “If we can’t back off, let’s at least try to slow down!”
But it was too late for that; the captain could feel it in his bones. As they approached the surface of the Dyson Sphere, their rate of descent was actually increasing. Even at full power, they’d have their hands full avoiding disaster. The sphere was looming closer and closer, larger and larger …
And then, as if by divine decree, the skin of the sphere started to part… started to crack open just a hair. The hairline crack became a fissure. The fissure became a chasm, the chasm a veritable canyon.
“It’s a hatch,” muttered Riker.
“Indeed,” Picard confirmed.
Suddenly, a blaze of light shot out at them, blinding them with its yellow-white brilliance-a brilliance that could not have contrasted more vividly with the sphere’s dark surface. Shielding his eyes, the captain thought he knew what it was.
A moment later, the viewscreen’s light filter automatically clamped down a notch, and they could see where the explosion of light had originated. Picard had been right.
It was the star at the center of the construct. The star that the makers of the sphere had captured and shut off from the rest of the universe-like some colossal slave, like a leviathan of burden. Like Prometheus, the fire-bringer of the myths … bound for all eternity.
Worf glared at the screen, his eyes wild with apprehension and fury. “The beam is too strong. We can’t resist it!”
“It is not just one tractor beam,” observed Data, the perfect counterpoint to the Klingon’s intensity. “There are six of them, sir.”
The captain could see them now a half-dozen faint tentacles of light, emanating at intervals from the somber and featureless lip of the hatch, inexorably drawing the Enterprise to its fate.
“We’re being pulled inside!” Worf roared.
And so they were. They were hurtling toward the mighty hatch, falling into a hole that was gaping wider and wider to consume them-drawn inexorably to their fate.
And there was nothing they could do about it. Nothing.
Chapter Ten
RIKER IGNORED the taste of blood in his mouth and tried to get a handle on what was happening to the Enterprise. It wasn’t easy.
Seconds ago, the hatch in the Dyson Sphere had closed behind them, trapping them within. And in that same moment, the stars had disappeared, replaced with a bluish-green sky.
But they still weren’t slowing down. He could tell by the readouts on the monitor that projected from his armrest. They were still plunging headlong toward the center of the sphere-and at the center was the hideous, glorious sun.
The impulse engines were struggling mightily against the forces that had pulled them in. The ship trembled with the effort, lights flickering on the bridge as engineering greedily sucked up what little power they had left. But it was all to no avail.
Only moments ago, the first officer had been glad to see the hatch opening in the sphere. It had meant they weren’t going to splatter themselves all over the thing’s surface.
Now he felt a little differently. At least a collision would have yielded them some hope of survival. Hell, the Jenolen had crashed and stayed largely intact, hadn’t it? But plunging into the heart of a star, captive or otherwise, was a death sentence no one escaped from.
“Auxiliary power failing,” said Rager. There were beads of sweat forming on her forehead; she wiped at them with her sleeve.
“Hull temperature approaching maximum tolerance levels,” announced Worf. His lips were drawn back over his teeth in an expression of defiance.
“We are passing through the sphere’s interior atmosphere,” said Data. “The resulting friction on the hull is causing the increase.”
“Raise shields,