Requiem - Michael Jan Friedman [88]
He hoped that Data had corrected the problems that the captain had encountered earlier. Otherwise, shuttle or no shuttle, the same kind of transport might take place—or maybe even something worse.
In the few minutes it took them to reach the airlock, Picard could hear the telltale hum rise and fall several times. The light panels were flashing on and off so quickly, they seemed to blur. Surely, the station couldn’t take much more of this.
Finally, as they negotiated the curvature of the corridor, O’Connor came into view. With an equipment kit hanging from her shoulder, she was waiting outside the airlock, her hand on its control plate. No—beside the plate, Picard realized—where she or someone else had installed a set of button controls. The captain recognized the thin line of circuitry and the generator below it as standard Starfleet equipment.
Excellent, he thought. We’re in good shape, then. All we have to do is get into the shuttle and shove off.
Then Data spoke up. Addressing O’Connor, he asked, “Have you heard from Commander La Forge or Lieutenant Barclay?”
The woman didn’t seem happy about the news she had to impart. “Commander La Forge received some sort of shock, sir. He’s unconscious. Lieutenant Barclay is trying to bring him back here on his own. I would’ve gone after them, but—”
“But you were told to stay here,” Data finished. “And you obeyed orders.” Abruptly, he turned to Picard. “Shall I attempt to expedite their arrival, sir?”
The captain nodded. After all, Barclay and La Forge had risked their lives to bring him back here. He wouldn’t abandon them unless and until it was absolutely necessary.
“By all means,” he told the android. “Get going.”
As Data took off down the corridor, Picard turned to O’Connor. “You did what you were supposed to do,” he assured her. “You remained at your station.”
She nodded, only half-consoled. “Aye, sir.”
Then, to pass the time as much as anything else, he asked, “Have you allowed for the failure of the outer door as well?”
“We have, sir,” she assured him. “There’s another switch like this one, inside. Also, we set up force field projectors—so if the outer door somehow opens before we want it to, the field will keep the atmosphere intact.”
Picard expelled a breath. “Good thinking.”
O’Connor nearly smiled, despite her fear for her comrades. “Thank you, sir.”
Outside, through the window in the airlock door, the captain could see the shuttle. It waited only to be boarded.
Inside the corridor, the humming and the flashing lights suddenly stopped—and then resumed again a second later with almost maniacal intensity. Picard swallowed and craned his neck to see a bit farther around the curve of the hallway.
Come on, he urged silently. We cannot wait much longer.
And then, as if in answer to his mental summons, he heard a distant tapping on the deck, which grew stronger the closer it came—a tapping like footfalls. At last, the three of them—Data, Geordi, and Barclay—rounded the bend. The android had hoisted the chief engineer over his shoulder and was pelting along at a torrid pace. Barclay, red-faced and panting, was doing his best to keep up.
At the same time, the captain heard a bellicose roar come to life in the bulkheads—the same kind of roar that had presaged a stationwide overload and his transport through time and space. Scowling, he tried to ignore the strobing light trails all around them.
“Open the inner door,” he commanded.
Almost before he finished uttering the words, O’Connor had pressed the green button under her hand. Immediately, the door slid up, allowing them access to the airlock. The outer barrier, and the invisible forcefield just inside it, were all that separated them now from the vacuum.
As Data came to a stop in front of them, Picard got a better look at Geordi. He was relieved to see that the engineer was moving, if only barely. With luck, his injury would be something they could treat on the shuttle.
Removing a remote-control unit from the kit on her hip, O’Connor established a link with the craft’s computer and prepared to open the door.