Star Trek_ Generations - J M. Dillard [59]
The burst of speed caused him to step on the heel of a dark-haired fleeing lieutenantFarrell, with whom hed served for years, with whom hed joked the past fifty drills or so because somehow, theyd always managed to wind up the last two to make it out of engineering. Plus there was the fact that splay-footed Farrell ran like a duck. A running joke, Farrell had called herself last time, and Geordi had grimaced at the pun.
Farrell stumbled, half turned; there was no humor in her wide, stark eyes now. At the sight of La Forge behind her, she proffered a hand, tried to pull Geordi along with her.
No! Geordi shouted, waving her off. Keep moving! The longer they took to evacuate, the more danger the saucer would be inif it could afford to wait.
But Farrell remained until La Forge was alongside, and they ran together at full tilt, knees and elbows pumping.
The isolation door was halfway to the deck by the time they arrived. A small group of engineers crouched there, struggling through. Geordi ducked and let himself run into them, pushing them through the vanishing doorway.
They spilled out onto the civilian corridor, where a group of five-year-olds, some of them clutching hand-made brightly colored paper mobiles, were emerging from a classroom. Some of the children were saucer-eyed, somber; others wept openly as their teachers, one male and one female, tried to comfort them. Still others cried out to their parents, who scooped up their children and dashed down the corridor. The teachers, too, picked up their charges and began running; Geordi slowed long enough to grab a round-faced, almond-eyed girl clutching a stuffed bear.
She hugged him tightly as he ran. He felt something soft brush against his back, and realized, when the girl began to wail, that she had dropped the bear.
There was no time to retrieve it, no time even to gasp words of comfort. The bear was already a part of the past, of memory, like engineering; in time, the child stopped her crying and buried her wet face in his neck. Farrell ran alongside, a stunned, silent boy in her arms; behind them, a scattered trail of colored paper fluttered to the deck.
In front, one of the teachers slowed to adjust her grip on the child in her arm and half stumbled. Geordi hurried beside her, offered his free arm. Come on! Lets go!
The woman began again to run, making her way with the group until they came upon a small group waiting behind others to enter an open Jeffries tube. Adults were pushing children in first; one near-hysterical father called to his uncertain child, who balked at entering the tube: Go on, Jeffie! Crawl! Im right behind you …!
In frustration, the man finally pushed his son inside, then crawled in himself. Geordi and Farrell stepped forward and put the last two children inside the tube, then helped the rest of the adults.
And then it was down to himself and Farrell, who hesitated and motioned for Geordi to go first. Aggravated, Geordi pushed her inside, then climbed in himself. He paused to manually pull shut the hatch behind him, with the acute awareness that he was closing off what would soon become the past.
As it shut with a solid, final-sounding clank, he hit his comm badge. Thats it, bridge; were all out! And he cut off the communication abruptly, before Riker could hear his shaky sigh.
On the bridge, Riker released his own small sigh of relief after hearing Geordis message. He turned, inadvertently meeting Trois gaze; she was watching him tensely, waiting for the next command. Beside her, Data seemed to be in control of himselfbut looked like hed be sweating if he could. He glanced up solemnly from his console.
One minute to warp-core breach.
Begin separation sequence, Riker told him, then turned to Troi. Full impulse power once were clear.
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