Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [86]
Neither did Bateson. “Is this finally your mutiny, Mr. Riker?”
Caught by the captain’s sudden charisma, Riker backed off a pace and took his hand off the command chair. “I already said I wouldn’t do that.”
“At least you’re a man of your word. Bridge to engineering.”
“Engineering, Scott here.”
“Scotty, how are you doing down there?”
“We’ve got you some phaser power back now, sir, but it won’t hold for long. Shields are holding at forty-two percent. They’ll take glancing blows, if your helm can handle it.”
“Then I’m going back in.”
“Understood.”
“Andy, one-third impulse, attack maneuver. Data, fire as your phasers bear.”
“Aye, sir.”
The starship peeled back into the core of the Typhon glory and swirled around the Klingon ship, which was taking some suspiciously lazy maneuvers out there.
“What’s he doing?” Riker demanded. “He’s not even dodging.”
“Fire, Data!” Bateson ordered.
“Firing, sir.”
Even reduced phasers were a frightening and formidable weapon against the blackness and the puff of nebula where Kozara had been hiding. The phasers sliced across the Klingon ship’s lateral shielding and miraculously broke through. Burns saturated the greenish hull and blistered the ship from stern to midships.
“Got him!” Bateson shouted, thrusting a fist into the air. “We found a weak spot! Keep hitting him right there!”
Without response, Data continued firing, surgically cutting Kozara’s ship down to the bone, at least in that one quarter. Riker didn’t know the configuration of that ship’s guts, but hoped there was something critical in that section.
Just as the starship rode out on her one victory, Kozara opened fire again with full disruptors.
The starship was caught on the underside of her main section, and the deck heaved up under Riker’s feet. Half the crew was thrown upward, only to come crashing down again as the gravitational systems fought to compromise and the ship screamed her way back to her heading. She didn’t know she’d been hit, so she was trying to keep on the same course, which actually made the hit even harder.
“Guidance is compromised, Captain,” Bush called from tactical. “He’s going after our impulse maneuvering capability!”
“We’re shallowing into the nebula!” Welch blurted. “I can’t stop it!”
“Starboard thrusters, full power,” Bateson ordered. “Mr. Riker, you do it.”
Aggravated beyond reason, Riker spun to the nearest propulsion access and fired up the thrusters manually.
The ship began to slow its faltering toward the nebula, and gradually angled back onto a plane with the Klingon ship. “Stabilized,” he reported.
He turned, and Bateson was glaring at him as if Riker’s prediction of disaster had caused it.
“Did he hit us again?”
“It’s not destruction, sir!” La Forge argued, “It’s not damage. It’s coded shutdown, and we don’t know the codes to put the systems back on line. We have to completely reboot the system, and that means total shutdown and restart simultaneously from Main Engineering, Impulse Engineering, and—”
“All stop! Hold position!”
“Captain, Mr. Riker’s right!” La Forge continued. “It’s got to be preplanned! He’s got somebody on this ship, shutting things down!”
Bateson’s head lolled as he closed his eyes tightly and moaned, “Goddamn it …”
“Cap,” Wizz Dayton interrupted, “he’s hailing.”
“Put the son of a bitch on.”
“Dog.”
“Butterfly.”
“We stand against each other again.”
“In two new ships.”
“And yours is falling apart.”
“Is it? Have any parts hit you? Because I wouldn’t want to scratch that royal coach. I’ll send some men right over with a couple of shammies.”
“And we will eat them.”
“The men or the shammies?”
“Both.”
“What have you done with the Nora Nicholas?”
“Was that little boat yours? Such a tragedy. But they got in my way.”
“Are you saying you destroyed those people?”
“Why would I say? I have the upper hand. I am old now, Bateson. My years have been spent in shame because of you, but that is nothing now. None of this is for me. I am lost. The fates will sooner or later get me again, but today I will prevail. I will turn