Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [15]
Chapter 4
The forward screen kept a forward view, virtually a big window, giving Helmsman Welch a good look at where he was steering. So all they saw in front were planets swinging around nauseously. It was a portside monitor, over the engineering station, that gave them the harrowing view from behind.
The massive Klingon ship dipped its forward bridge bulb and came charging at them shooting streaks of energy that blistered the Bozeman and caused the cutter to stumble even without a direct hit. Shields were made of energy too and reacted to the proximity of the disruptor beams as if the Klingons’ shots creased the very space they were flying through.
Gabe Bush felt every sizzle on his arm hairs as the cutter turned hot inside. Environmental control was breaking down with the strain of trying to outpace such a powerful pursuer. Systems stretched their limits, infighting until something shut down and something else got the surge of power, creating their own turbulence inside the Bozeman’s hull.
In a turn that almost pulled the crew’s heads off, the cutter dodged under an asteroid belt and angled around a small dustball with a rocky core. The Klingon ship fell far behind, too heavylegged to effect so tight a turn. An instant’s victory, but there was no getting away from them without warp speed.
Over the whine of straining impulse engines, Bateson called, “We’re getting gnawed. I’ll take suggestions, boys, while that ponderosity comes around! Klingons aren’t very imaginative. Any ideas for making use of that? After all, we’re the ‘best of the best,’ right?”
“Might try a subspace burst in a sensor blind, sir!” Perry shouted.
“What blind?” Bush asked. “We can’t stop long enough to establish—”
Dennis cut him off. “We could go around the largest planet, then maybe change course to stay there long enough to use the planet as a block.”
Bateson paused. “How long is long enough?”
Suddenly on the hot seat, Dennis had to check his calculations before he spoke again; and before he could answer, the cutter was heaved on her nose by another disruptor hit somewhere on the saucer section.
“Whoa, good shot!” Bateson looked at Bush and shook his head. “Don’t just stew, Gabe. Say ‘Holy Jerusalem’ and shoot back. You know you want to.”
“Thank you!” Bush dived for the weapons control podium. His shout filled him with a hunger to return fire, and a shell came up and over his sense of humanity, one trait which did not serve well in a situation like this. Some things had to be jettisoned, and giving a damn about the enemy’s life was the first.
Of course, that wasn’t so hard lately. Quickly he got off two bursts of phasers before Welch recovered control and plunged the ship downward on their flight plane.
The ship squawked as the metal in her hull strained and her lesser systems suffocated. Flush-mounted hull plates grated like teeth as the whole ship stretched on one side and compressed on the other, and the braces all made groaning sounds.
“Sir,” Dayton called over the noise, “we need nineteen seconds to broadcast a subspace message!”
“Too long,” Bateson called back. “Keep the suggestions coming.”
“Bridge, engineering! Joiner bulkheads in the storage areas are buckling, compromising the DP’s.”
Clinging like a really big barnacle to the port side, Perry punched the nearest comm link. “Take a club to those joiners, Ham. Don’t let the plates break.”
“My kinda answer. Mitch, where’s the sledgehammer! Ham out.”
A blowtorch streaked across their main screen, so close that the bright light blinded the bridge crew for a moment. Andy Welch shielded his eyes and somehow kept piloting.
“They’re on top of us!” Dennis shouted. “Nine-three degrees by seven-one. Make it seven-three. Closing—”
The captain responded, “Veer off, starboard!”
Skneereeech—
Howling, the cutter scrolled off to the right, leaving the bulb keel of the Klingon to slug around stumpily after them, and open space to spew out between.
Something about that open area of space … the Klingon ship grew momentarily smaller as it