Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [20]
“We’re slowing down,” Welch whimpered.
The bridge noises and the hum of the ship grew slower and weaker, like batteries running down to their last bit of charge.
“He’ll be on us in two seconds,” Bateson mourned, and swung around to the port monitors to see the approach of Kozara’s warship.
But those monitors were empty. Only stars.
Mike Dennis had been leaning one hip against his mate’s board, but now pushed himself squarely around and bent forward over something on his panel. He didn’t look up. “Captain …”
Bateson turned. “Yes, Mike?”
Bush looked up there too, but Dennis shook his head, changed his controls, tried something else, and shook his head again. “John, you seeing this?” he asked.
Wolfe frowned and double-checked what his co-new-guy was looking at.
During that moment, Bush discovered one of the things about Captain Bateson that perplexed him so much—Bateson didn’t prod or demand answers, even though he had been summoned. He didn’t snap his fingers or climb to the upper deck to hustle the crew there into explanations they weren’t ready to give. He just waited. In the middle of all this, he found a few seconds to just wait and let his crew do their jobs.
“Can’t be,” Wolfe uttered. “You got eighty-nine percent too?”
“On almost everything,” Dennis answered.
“Can’t be.”
Bursting to ask, Bush clamped his teeth down on his lower lip and clamped his hand on the helm chair. The captain still didn’t press, but only turned fully toward the port deck and continued to wait.
Dennis shook his head again, clicked at his board, and shoved aside a piece of conduit support that had flaked down onto his controls,
“Tell him,” Wolfe said, looking at Dennis as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to confirm.
Dennis stared at him a moment, then turned to the captain and wiped a hand across his moist cheek. “Sir, the Klingon’s gone.”
As if he’d been ready for the absurd statement, Bateson said, “No, he’s not. Find him.”
Ignoring a shooting pain down the side of his right leg, Bush limped to the weapons console. When they found the Klingon, he should be ready to keep up defense, joke that it may be. Maybe a few lucky shots … maybe a torpedo … maybe an act of desperation … Kozara’s ship outgunned the cutter fifteen to one. Maybe an act of God …
At the science monitors, Wolfe turned to the captain with his conclusion. “No readings at all, sir.”
“Gabe, Mike, Ed, all of you look for Kozara.”
The bridge fell to a bizarre silence. Only the blips and shivers of damaged systems and the hum of ventilators made any noise at all. All faces bent to their boards, except Welch, who stared into the main screen, trying to steer without computer guidance.
“No residue,” Dennis reported. “He didn’t explode.”
“No warp trail either,” Wolfe said. “He didn’t leave—”
Bush glanced up there. “Is he shut down?”
“Million-dollar question,” Bateson responded. “To tease us out, maybe … nah, he’s not that scared of us to play a game like that. Keep looking.”
“Captain, I’ve got some kind of malfunction here,” Dennis complained. “The planets are reading way off position from a minute ago.”
“It’s your instruments,” Perry told him. “Planets don’t move like that.”
“Maybe, but this distortion we’re in,” Dennis went on, “I think it’s temporal.”
“Time distortion?”
“That’s what I’m reading. Could be a malfunction. I’ll check, sir.”
“Wait—got him!” Dennis yelped suddenly. “Coming up on us fast from high forward—but the readings aren’t the same. These are …”
“Coming in fast and high,” Wolfe warned. “Collision course!”
“Great God!” Bush choked out as he looked straight forward.
On the forward screen, the fractured sensor systems coughed up a view of the oncoming vessel—and it was no Klingon ship. It was a moving mountain! The thing in front of them was triple or more the size of Kozara’s ship and made the Bozeman rumble just from the proximity of its energy wash. God, it was big!
Bateson plunged for Welch’s controls. “Emergency propulsion!”
“Haven’t got it,” Perry said, gawking with an engineer’s eye