Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [114]
“They’re about to fire directly into the Core,” he said, feeling utterly numb and helpless.
Hawk pointed the scoutship away from both the warbird and the singularity, pushing the single impulse engine to the limit. He was mildly surprised to note that the warbird was not in pursuit; in the condition the scout’s propulsion system was in, they wouldn’t have been at all difficult to overtake.
On the forward viewer, Hawk saw several of the cloaking buoys streak by the scoutship, looking like stars as seen from a vessel passing them at high warp.
“Let’s have a look at Commander Data’s handiwork, Mr. Hawk,” Picard said. His voice was strong, though he looked pale and drawn; Hawk chalked it up to a lingering effect of whatever the engine core’s tetryon burst had done to the captain’s artificial heart.
Hawk switched the forward viewer to a reverse angle, displaying what now lay aft of the withdrawing scoutship. On the screen, dozens of vessels, most of them small scouts and shuttles, dived and swooped to evade salvos from the spherical formation of stationary weapons pods, which were unleashing uncounted fusillades of disruptor fire in the general direction of the singularity’s containment equipment. At the facility’s core, away from the worst of the fighting, the singularity’s accretion disk glowed with a preternaturally angry brilliance, like some ancient war god enjoying blood sports being staged in its honor.
Hawk magnified the small image of the torus-shaped facility at the core of the cloaked zone-the heart of the array that kept the subspace singularity contained-and saw that the outer edge of the torus was under siege as well. Metal-eating molecular fires danced across several of its outermost structures.
Then the center of the torus gave off an expanding wave of energy, a deluge of iridescent brilliance that leaped outward in every direction. The phenomenon organized itself into a gigantic horizontal band, a vast and growing sapphire expanse that reminded Hawk of the tsunamis that sometimes struck Earth’s coastlines. It brought to mind holographic re-creations he had seen of the first human-controlled thawings of the subsurface Martian aquifers, and the titanic explosion that had devastated the Klingon moon Praxis eighty years ago.
Hawk watched uneasily as the strange phenomenon seemed to grow steadily, though its initial burst of light appeared to be dissipating harmlessly. Still, the thing hadn’t yet shown any sign of quietly disappearing.
“Sir, are you fairly confident that we were right about this?”
“How do you mean, Lieutenant?” Picard asked, his eyes barely open. The captain appeared to be in some pain.
“I mean our theory that a direct attack on the containment field would start an automatic abort and drop the singularity back into subspace,” Hawk said quietly.
“Mr. Hawk, there have been many occasions when I have trusted my life, and even my ship, to my senior officers’ expert judgment. This is simply another one of those times.”
But how many times was the whole universe in danger of being sucked into subspace if they made a mistake? Hawk thought.
Suddenly, the center of the accretion disk started to form a depression, as though some invisible but heavy object had been set down upon it. With agonizing slowness, the edges of the disk began contracting toward the center. The effect gradually accelerated until the phenomenon resembled a crumpled piece of paper. Then it collapsed onto itself completely, abruptly becoming too small and dark for the viewscreen to resolve.
It was gone.
Picard looked up at the screen and smiled. Hawk shot a brief, sorrowful glance at the motionless Data, whose condition was impossible to diagnose at the moment. I hope I’ll get to thank you, my friend.
Turning back to his instrument panel, Hawk grinned. “Looks like it worked. And their cloaking field is down as well.”
“One of the Romulan Empire’s most closely held secrets is now on display for the entire Chiarosan electorate to see.”
“Maybe they’ll petition Ruardh to hold a recall election over it,” Hawk speculated.