Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [81]
Engineer Perry and a couple of others hurried into the auxiliary turbolift and headed back down to the engineering decks where they were stationed, replaced almost instantly by three armed Security guards who came out of the lift as the engineers went on. The three guards took positions at the lift doors and stood back, out of the action.
“Mr. Riker,” Bateson addressed, taking his command chair, “defensive measures.”
“Defensive measures, aye, sir. Weapons on standby, Mr. Data. Shields up. Confirm power reduction.”
“Deflector shields up, weapons on line,” Data repeated studiously. “Power reduction confirmed, sir.”
“Short-range scanners on full search mode.”
“Full search, aye, sir,” John Wolfe responded from main science.
“Threat assessment, tracking and targeting systems, confirm ready.”
“Threat assessment ready, sir,” Wolfe reported.
Data said, “Tracking and targeting systems read functional, sir.”
Riker turned to Bateson. “All confrontational and response systems are standing by, sir.”
“Thank you. Have a seat. This’ll be fun.”
“Captain, picking up a warp trail already,” John Wolfe reported.
“They’re here,” Bateson said. He patted his chair’s arm. “Now we’ll see what this debutante can do. Everybody keep your eyes open. We’ll probably have to take the first hit. After that, we’ll have a fix on the bogey. The first thing I want to do is take a series of his running fixes and plot his method of tight maneuvering. That’ll be you, Mike.”
At tactical, Mike Dennis said, “Ready, sir.”
On the main screen, several nebulas and clouds floated in a spectacular panorama, some closer than others, some intermingling slowly, very slowly on the scale of cosmic time, so slowly that they seemed engaged in an unending kiss. The colors were stunning. Over three active years, Riker had forgotten what this sector looked like. Jewel-toned wonders of nature sprayed everywhere, mounted on the velvet trophy shroud of open space. Bright marigold dust streaks glittered like brocade in the middle of the screen. To the left were two moth-winged clusters intertwined, heavy with sparkling minerals the colors of sherbet.
To the right and below were a half-dozen disruptions in various shapes, still shrouded in the impact clouds from the asteroids that came free out of the belt at the edge of this solar system.
The sun here was far off, but very bright, casting glorious light upon all these wonders. What a lovely area of space, like a giant casino. Too bad it was so close to restricted space. Hardly anybody would be able to enjoy it.
At once he felt privileged. Sometimes he forgot to appreciate his special position in life.
He turned to mention some part of this, but instantly dismissed it when a hard hit from starboard knocked the ship sideways in space. Half the crew fell or fumbled, but scrambled back to position almost instantly, except for Mike Dennis, who went down on a knee—and apparently it hurt. He took a few seconds longer to pull back to his post.
The lights on the bridge flickered. The ship whined with strain as her systems tried to pull her back to her heading, but she recovered faster than Riker could think about what should be done to make her recover.
“Whoa …” Bateson looked around at the flagging lights. “I had no idea that lowered shield power would make that much of a difference—”
“Sir, that strike was ninety-seven percent Starfleet phaser power!” Mike Dennis reported. “Why haven’t they reduced their output?”
“Sir, I’m reading full shields on the other vessel,” Data reported.
“Identify that ship,” Bateson ordered. “Confirm registry as the Nora Nicholas.”
“Confirmed, sir,” Wolfe said instantly. “Emissions and configuration are Starfleet standard.”
That was fast, Riker thought as he pushed out of his chair. He just couldn’t sit down once the ship had been struck. Why had the hit been so hard?
“Could there have been a miscommunication?” he asked.
“We had direct acknowledgment from Captain