Resistance - J.M. Dillard [77]
They began to advance, moving out of the intersection and onto Nave’s side of the catwalk.
“Keep firing!” Nave shouted. She could not see past them, to Worf and the others. Apparently, the Borg had decided that her group posed the greatest threat.
A series of rapid-fire phaser blasts flared, limning the dark bodies of the drones, dazzling Nave’s eyes and clouding her vision with afterimages. Even so, she could see that none of the Borg hesitated when struck. They were moving steadily forward, forcing Nave and her officers to move steadily back.
“Recalibrate!” she called, as she did so to her own weapon. Chao and Diasourakis obeyed, but the slight hesitation allowed the drones to draw uncomfortably closer.
Nave gripped the trigger and squeezed it repeatedly, faster than she ever had in practice, faster than she ever had in her life. Her officers were firing madly beside her; white-hot bursts turned the dimness to daylight. One Borg fell, only one.
The others kept advancing. They were adapting to the phaser blasts more quickly now, she realized, and moving in faster. She could no longer see Commander Worf and his group and did not know whether they had escaped. She did not want to abandon them or separate the away team, but she had a responsibility to her own group. When the drones were no more than two steps away, she called out to Chao and Diasourakis.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
Nave turned and caught the crook of Chao’s elbow with her free hand and pulled her along; Diasourakis followed.
She ran madly, blinking as sweat stung her eyes, gasping at the hot, stifling air. The phaser rifle, strapped snugly to her, jammed against her ribs so that she found it hard to draw a breath. She could hear her own boot heels hammering against the metal deck, followed, too quickly, by the inexorable tromp of the Borg’s.
After the brightness of the phaser blasts, the corridor seemed darker than ever. Nave dashed recklessly through the faint mists, trying to ignore the fact that she might very well run directly into a waiting group of hostiles.
Abruptly, the deck forked in three directions.
“This way!” She veered hard to the right. The momentum flung her briefly against the railing. She grasped it tightly and caught a vertiginous glance of the hundred or more levels beneath her.
Chao almost collided with her. They caught each other for balance, then separated again. Nave straightened and led the flight.
She ran at top speed, throat and lungs burning, for a full minute, by which time her eyes had readjusted to the dimness. Another stride, two, then she pulled up short, panting.
A few meters in front of her, the deck terminated in a solid bulkhead. Swiftly, Nave glanced behind her. The Borg were following and closing the distance. It was impossible to go back, to try a different route.
Bringing up the rear, Diasourakis had noticed as well. “We’re trapped, Lieutenant!”
Nave scanned the area, squinting at the shadows. She tried her combadge. Nothing. There seemed to be no way out, short of crawling over the railing and jumping to one’s death—an option she refused to accept. She stared hard at the bulkhead, at the deck and the railings, until she spotted something to her left: a metal hatch covering a broad, enclosed cylindrical shaft. She hurried to it, Chao sticking close to her side, and pulled on the hatch until it yielded.
Inside, illuminated with faint, eerie gray twilight, was a shaft leading down several levels, equipped with metal rungs for climbing. Nave decided it existed because she had simply willed it. She looked up at the approaching drones, then motioned quickly to Chao.
Without a word, Chao tightened the body strap on her rifle, then crawled into the shaft and started climbing down.
Nave turned to Diasourakis. “Go.”
He shook