Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [111]
“Well, it didn’t exactly happen the way you heard.”
The doctor felt the blood drain from her face. “What do you mean?” Joseph thrust his chin out. “I mean, Jack didn’t have to die.” He paused. “It was because of me that he got killed. Because of me. was Crusher felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach. Clutching the armrests of her chair for support, she stared at Joseph. Watched him hang his head, watched his shoulders rise once and sag. “It was hard work cutting through the nacelle assembly,” he told her. His voice was distant. “We were drenched with sweat despite the cooling systems in our suits. And as hard as we worked, it didn’t seem we were making much progress. Being out there, being so focused on what you’re doing, you lose track of time. You feel like you’ve been hanging out over the edge forever, your whole life. “And all the time, the energy is cycling through the warp field generator. Building and building, getting ready to explode. And you don’t know when—you just don’t know. Any moment could be the one.” He shook his head. “It gets to the point where you believe you can feel the explosion-the heat, blistering your skin. And the impact-like someone’s taking a hammer to all your bones at once. And the shrapnel-the tiny pieces of hull ripping through you like razors. “We thought about that. I did. Jack did too—you could tell by the expression on his face, by the feverish look in his eyes. He was just as scared as I was. But he didn’t panic. He just kept at it, slicing away with his phaser rifle. Talking with the captain every now and then, putting on a show of confidence despite the emptiness comhe felt in his gut.
“Getting into the transfer tunnel was the worst part.
The worst. We could imagine all the energy jumping around inside. Lightning in a bottle. And yet we were pouring on all that phaser fire-like lighting a giant fuse. It was crazy. We knew that, I was telling myself that, but we kept firing at the tunnel as if we were too stupid to accept it.
“Suddenly, we were in. We were in and we hadn’t blown up. Jack told the bridge and everyone was happy. I was happy too. I was giggling like a madman.” A muffled groan. “I think I lost it then. I used up all my nerve getting into the transfer tunnel. After that I had nothing left-nothing. I fired away, I did what I was supposed to, but it wasn’t me that was doing it. It was somebody else’s arms holding the rifle, somebody else’s eyes staring into that mess of tangled metal and circuitry and hellfire. And after a while, that someone didn’t have the brass to stick around.”
He raised his head, looked at her. If Crusher had thought his eyes were tortured before, she knew now that that had been nothing-compared to this.
“At one point Jack was grabbing my arm. He tried saying something to me, but our communicators were dead—silenced by all the energy running wild around us. And even if they’d been working, I don’t think I would have heard him. I was too rattled by then. Too intent on just getting out of there, getting back inside the ship. Getting safe. I let go of my rifle and started back for the hatch. And I screamed—I think—for him to do the same thing. “He didn’t. He stayed out there, cutting at the assembly—comtrying to do it by himself. More than halfway to the hatch, I looked back and saw him.” Joseph’s brows came together into a twisted knot. “I’ll never forget it. There he was, blasting away like he couldn’t stop.” Pug’s
eyes went wide. “And the energy leak from the nacelle was getting worse. It looked like something alive, something fierce-like the bloody Angel of Death or something. But he’d done some damage. It looked as if he was close to severing the nacelle entirely. Maybe with a little help from me, he would have. “Suddenly, without warning, the energy leak began accelerating— growing like crazy. It was obvious that something was going to blow. But Jack didn’t budge. He kept firing his rifle, even