Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [74]
“Fully operative, Scotty?”
“Yes, sir. But specialist Tomlinson is manning it alone.”
“Scotty,” Picard murmured, smiling. “Captain Scott …”
Stiles swiveled around. “Sir, my first assignment was in weapons control.”
“Go,” Kirk said. “Lieutenant Uhura, take over navigation.”
Spock left his controls and came down from the upper decks, then gripped the command chair as Kirk leaned toward him to hear what he had to say. “We have engine power now, Captain, if you’d like to move off and make repairs.”
“No, no.” Kirk looked weary. “Maybe we can pull him back to our side of the Neutral Zone. Hold our position … play dead.”
As Spock moved off without response, in fact leaving the bridge entirely to go belowdecks, Kirk took the moment to wipe a hand across his sweat-glazed face. He was probably exhausted, Picard realized. They all were. They hadn’t had a change of watch, evidently, in those nine hours. Not unusual, under emergency conditions. It was usually preferable to leave officers at the controls they were handling when trouble popped up, but this seemed a bit of an extreme.
Kirk sat at his command, a shadow lying passively across his right shoulder, his eyes in a band of light.
“Enemy vessel becoming visible, sir!” Sulu said then.
As quickly as that, everyone came back to life.
Kirk gripped his chair, ticking off seconds as the Romulan ship faded into clarity on the screen. “Forward phasers … stand by … fire.”
But there was no response, no shots fired. Nothing—
“Fire!”
“What happened?” Picard asked. “Why don’t your weapons fire?”
“Coolant-seal malfunction.” Kirk shoved out of his seat. “Stiles, can you hear me? Fire! Fire! Stiles, can you hear me? Fire!”
“Phaser controls not on the bridge,” Picard said “—I’d no idea it had been such damnable trouble! Haven’t you got men in there?”
“Yes!” Kirk snapped. “Stiles and Tomlinson.”
“They’ll be poisoned.”
“They were. One died. Spock’s on his way there—Stiles! Do you hear me? Fire!”
Fweeee—the whine of phasers finally broke out. A flash in the darkness blew toward the enemy ship, and this time the Enterprise was first to score a hit. The other ship never had the chance to fire its plasma weapon.
Even at this distance they could see the Romulan ship quaking bodily as if someone had struck it with a big hammer.
The forward screen flickered, blurred, then sharpened. Picard found himself looking into the bridge of the mysterious enemy ship. It was a gray and pared-down place, spare and simple, with a control kiosk in the center of a completely shattered compartment. There, bent in agony over the kiosk, was a man in an old-style Romulan uniform. Huddled in obvious pain, he gradually pushed himself up, now allowing Picard to notice the rank insignia. A full commander.
The Romulan commander was clearly injured and struggling just to breathe in the smoke-clouded bridge. His dead crew lay around him or hung over their sparking, snapping controls, dying in the poisoned smoke. One of the bodies twitched, and the sight was disturbing.
Only the commander moved now. Picard felt his own chest tighten in empathy for the destroyed man over there who was trying to breathe in that poisoned compartment.
For a moment Picard watched Kirk, expecting him to say something, but Kirk didn’t. He simply sat in his chair, his legs crossed, still cowled by a stripe of shadow, and gave his enemy the time he needed to see what was going on.
Gasping, the Romulan struggled across his demolished bridge, hardly a step or two, grasped a support beam just above the viewing mechanism, then paused—he could see them now. He knew they could see him.
For the first time, the two commanders gazed into each other’s eyes, each seeing the other. Kirk must’ve been something to gaze at for the first time.
Picard took a moment to appreciate that. Like George Washington’s face, James Kirk’s was known to everyone. Not so for this Romulan who had been so tightly engaged with Kirk for the past many hours, and had watched his important mission crushed by this unseen captain. Probably years upon years of preparation