Relics - Michael Jan Friedman [71]
Only a captain could make the decision to leave a team behind-to sacrifice the few for the sake of the many. And if Picard refused to make that decision, neither Geordi nor anyone else could make it for him.
Come on, Will, he thought, silently encouraging his first officer. Don’t make me be the one to sign your death warrant.
A bloody-shirted Kane held Andy Sousa’s injured leg -the one the alien machinery had all but crushed -as he made his way through the winds of the long-dead Dyson Sphere world. Beside him, Riker held Sousa’s good leg, and up ahead, Krause and Bartel led the way. Each of them held one of Sousa’s shoulders; they took turns supporting his head.
Every now and then, the ensign glanced at his friend’s face. It looked ruddy, but that was the effect of the weather. Beneath that deceptive glow, Sousa was hanging onto his life by a thread.
Some time ago, Kane had lost the feeling in his hands, but he refused to ask for help. Krause and Bartel had each been replaced by Counselor Troi at least once since they left the tower, but he was determined she wouldn’t replace him.
After all, he was the one who’d gotten them into this mess. He wasn’t going to let anyone else carry his rightful load.
Fortunately, the gusts had diminished somewhat in their intensity. Or at least he thought they had. The crosswinds were still vicious, still eager to tear them sideways off the ramps-but the team seemed to be making good headway despite them.
“Look!” cried the empath suddenly. She was pointing up ahead.
Kane had no perspective on how far they’d come. He’d been too intent on keeping his footing and not dragging the others down with him. But as he looked up now, following Troi’s gesture, his heart leaped.
They were almost at the last tower. And just past that was the beam-down site. Now if only they’d made it in time …
With renewed determination, they forged ahead. The tower seemed to loom larger and larger still, until they were almost on top of it. Then they were inside, and the winds were silent, if only for the briefest of moments.
They didn’t have the luxury of resting up, of gathering themselves for that last stretch of rampway between them and their goal. They had to push on if they were to make their deadline.
And push on they did, the wind like a fist in his face. Kane’s muscles fairly screamed from his exertions-especially those he’d used to pull Commander Riker back from certain death-but he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore the pain. It would all be over soon enough, he promised himself. It would be over in a few steps … and a few more … and a few more …
Then, as if in a dream, he heard someone shouting. At him? He forced his puffy, wind-scoured eyes to focus-and saw Commander Riker, thundering at the top of his lungs.
But not at Kane. He was hollering at the heavens. And his hand-little more than a claw now-was pressed tightly to his communicator emblem.
The ensign looked around … and wanted to cry. They’d reached the ramp that led to the beam-down site. They’d made it.
Now all they had to do was get through to the ship. The hatch wasn’t far from here. The Enterprise would probably have to pass within transporter range on its way out of the sphere. Unless… unless the ship had already left without them. That was possible, wasn’t it? No matter how badly the captain had wanted to retrieve them, he couldn’t risk the lives of everyone else on board if the chance to escape was slipping from their grasp.
For a moment, Kane pondered the prospect of remaining in the sphere. Of wandering from tower to tower in a futile search for food and water until their legs couldn’t support them anymore… of being forced to haunt this strange, sterile place along with all its other ghosts.
Then he heard a familiar voice wafting in the savage winds “Acknowledged, Number One! We’re on our way!”
The ensign looked at Andy Sousa-and as if the injured man had heard Picard’s voice too, he opened his eyes. For a