Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [65]
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s those tetryon emissions again. I’m having trouble establishing a lock. I’m trying to compensate…”
Picard swiftly rolled and yawed the Kepler until the shuttle was headed directly for the nearest of their attackers. He felt the seat harness biting into him as gravity in the cockpit shifted, the force of acceleration threatening to overwhelm the inertial dampers. The distance between the two craft evaporated swiftly.
“There,” Crusher said. “Ready for transport.”
“Energize,” Picard shouted. A moment later, he sat alone in the cockpit.
The ship he was approaching went into an evasive swoop, but Picard had no trouble staying on top of the other pilot. He stole a glance at the transporter’s energy indicator; there still wasn’t enough power in the unit for a beam-out, though the system’s capacitors were slowly building up energy. If he could continue evading his opponents for perhaps another minute or two, he still had a chance to beam out to wherever Crusher had sent herself-but only if he avoided squandering the shuttle’s limited energy on the phasers.
Fortunately, there was an alternative to the phasers. As the shuttle came within meters of the nearest Chiarosan fighter, Picard touched a release toggle, then sent his vessel into a dive. The Kepler lurched slightly, and the light of a fiery explosion flooded the viewport.
At close quarters-and with no shields-a shuttlecraft log buoy made quite a projectile.
On the tactical display, only two hostile vessels remained. Both were maintaining the chase. Glancing at his console, Picard saw that the transporter was still steadily recharging. But it wasn’t quite ready yet.
Then he checked the transporter lock, only to discover that it wasn’t working properly.
Damn. Tetryons again.
Picard knew well that tetryon emissions were a by-product of certain Romulan technologies. If there was a “smoking gun” pointing to Romulan involvement with the Army of Light, then this was it. And the presence of Romulans-and their cloaking devices-would account for the rebel base’s complete invisibility from the air.
Suddenly, one of the Chiarosan ships increased speed, approaching the Kepler on an intercept course. And there were no more log buoys left.
A green light winked on in the transporter-power display. Relieved, Picard quickly compensated for the tetryons and locked the transporter onto the same coordinates Crusher had used.
Then, as he attempted to energize the transporter, every system in the Kepler’s cockpit went dead and dark.
Lack of time had forced Crusher to lock the Kepler’s transporter into the most easily detectable tetryon-free area in the rebel base-which was, ironically, located at the center of a tetryon-rich area. The eye of the storm, she thought as the transporter beam began disassembling her, molecule by molecule.
When the transporter’s shimmering light faded, Crusher found herself standing in a narrow, teal-colored chamber. A sign on one of the bulkheads bore several characters of angular, alien script.
In the center of the chamber, two men and a woman, all wearing gray uniforms, busied themselves around what appeared to be a partially disassembled warp core.
A Romulan warp core, Crusher thought, just as the woman turned toward her, a disruptor in her hand.
At least two dozen pairs of iridescent Chiarosan eyes stared balefully from across the wide, branching corridor. Riker seriously doubted that he and his companions could survive a firefight against so many determined opponents.
The troopers were holding their fire, apparently awaiting orders from Grelun, who stood in their front ranks. The Chiarosan leader seemed to be staring intently at Zweller.
Riker heard Zweller hissing at Gomp, the Tellarite. “I thought Tellarites had keen noses! How could so many of them slip right past you?”
Gomp snorted unhappily, wiping his snout with one of the sleeves of his