Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [87]
“Warp drive is disabled again,” Geordi chimed in. “But we pretty much expected that. What shields we’ve got left are running on impulse power.”
“Injuries?” the captain asked.
The Klingon consulted his board again. “Widespread. But so far, none appears to be life-threatening.” Picard’s forehead wrinkled. “I would say we were lucky, under the circumstances.” He turned to Wesley. “The question is how lucky. Mister Crusher?” The ensign hunched over his monitor and frowned. He shook his head. “I wish I could tell you, sir. But astrogation is down.” He swiveled in his chair to face the captain. “I don’t know if the maneuver worked or not.”
Picard grunted, unable to quite conceal his disappointment. “I see.”
“There’s a way to find out, though,” Geordi reminded them. “All we have to do is find an observation port.” “Good idea,” Simenon said. And without waiting for anyone else to agree, he headed for the observation lounge.
A half-dozen others moved to follow him— Morgen, Picard, Riker and Troi. And finally, Geordi himself. The lounge doors parted, revealing the cabin and its conference table. And beyond it, a generous helping of starlit space.
La Forge smiled. Past those who had entered before him, he could see that the stars were standing still-no longer streaks of light, but mere points.
They were out of the slipstream, back in normal space. And though it wasn’t clear yet exactly where in normal space, it felt pretty good to be there.
Simenon was standing in the front of the group. As Geordi watched, he turned his serpentine head and looked back at him. And winked. As if to say we did it!
Though nobody saw it—not even Simenon-La Forge winked back. When Asmund regained her senses there was a nause-ating, dull ache in the vicinity of one of her temples. She touched the area gingerly, winced at the pain even that light contact provoked, and inspected her fingertips. Blood-and not a little of it. But her guards had come through even worse. The bearded man was out cold, one of his legs twisted in such a way that it had to have been broken. And the one called John, while conscious, was gripping his side and grimacing in anguish. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten about his phaser; it was lying on the deck a couple of feet from where he lay propped against the bulkhead.
She saw all this in darkness, aided only by the strobe of a naked, fizzling circuit-though she couldn’t at first pinpoint its location. Then it dawned on her. It was the one just to the side of her cell-the one that controlled the energy field. Rising from the floor, she approached the place where the barrier should have been. Carefully, ever so carefully, she reached out. And watched her hand pass over the threshold, un-scathed. No flash of light, no energy charge to make her regret her trespass. No barrier.
No barrier.
Then she looked down and saw that John was watch-+ her. That he had realized the barrier was down as well. Without a word, he launched himself in the direction of his phaser. Ignoring the pounding in her head, Asmund dived for the weapon too. Unfortunately for her, he got to it first, managed to raise it and fire.
Twisting in mid-air, Asmund somehow eluded the narrow beam of red light. And before the blond man could take aim again, she grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands.
Knowing what she knew about pressure points, it wasn’t difficult to make him scream out and drop the phaser. But all her faculties focused on the task, she never saw the blow from his free hand. It hit her in the back of the neck, stunning her, intensifying the spike of pain in her temple.
Still, she found the strength to lash out backhanded— to hit her adversary across the face hard enough to knock him out. As he slumped beside her, she laid claim to the weapon and got to her feet.
The other guard was still unconscious, his breathing shallow but regular.