Survivors - Jean Lorrah [40]
“Damn! Get him down to nurse those engines! If anyone can get warp six out of them, he can.”
By the time Yar turned, the Captain was looking at her. “Do it.”
The ship shook from another blast.
“Only three torpedoes left,” the helmsman reported in a frightened voice even as Yar relayed the message to send Bosinney to Engineering.
“Go, boy!” she heard Dare tell Bosinney, then his voice just a bit clearer as he turned back to the intercom, “Security armed and deployed to transporter and shuttle bay, and at least one phaser issued to each department. I’m on my way to the bridge with arms for all of you.”
The Starbound was too small to have a turbolift. By the time Dare reached the bridge, Jarvis had deployed the last of the torpedoes and only the shields stood between them and the enemy.
One of Yar’s screens whited out with overload. When it came back, she reported, “Aft shield out, Captain.”
“Captain,” reported Sethan, who had kept at her controls all this time, “I have life-form identification on the hostile ship. Copper-based blood. From size, body temperature, ship’s atmosphere, and attack pattern-” she swung around in her chair, a doll-like figure pronouncing their doom, “- they can only be Orions.”
This isn’t happening, thought Yar. It’s another test-it has to be! Orions never come this far into Federation space—
But as the back of her mind tried to deny it, the foreground kept her to Starfleet efficiency. “Engineering reports damage to portside warp engine in that last blast, Captain. We’re losing power.”
“Losing speed,” reported the helmsman. “Warp four point six. Warp four. Warp three point five … and holding.”
“Hostile ship closing!” Yar reported.
“Surrender,” said Captain Jarvis.
“Captain?” Yar spoke without thinking.
Jarvis spun her chair to face Yar. “Surrender, Ensign! We’ve no weapons left, our engines are damaged, and our distress signal is jammed on all channels. If Orions take us alive, Starfleet has a chance to ransom us.”
Yar clamped her teeth over the automatic response, If they can find us.
“Better alive,” said Dare, although his thunderous expression told how much he hated to admit defeat. “Always better alive.”
He was right, of course. There was only one reason for Orions to take such an incredible risk: they had to know about the dilithium. Slaves were not worth an incursion so deep into Federation territory … which meant that the people were expendable. If they did not surrender, the Orions would simply blast the crippled Starbound to rubble, and from the remains sift out the impervious dilithium crystals.
Before she had even thought it through, Yar’s reluctant hand had set the surrender signal broadcasting.
There was … “No response!” she reported in astonishment. “Captain-they don’t acknowledge our surrender!”
“What the hell?!” demanded Dare, pushing Yar away from the Security console. He double-checked the signal. “It’s broadcasting, and the visual light display is active if their jamming keeps them from picking up the radio signal. What can they want beyond surrender?”
What the Orions wanted, apparently, was to cripple the Starbound totally. They sent another barrage of torpedoes against the helpless training ship, then came alongside and boarded via a docking tube to the shuttle bay hatch. Since their surrender had not been accepted, Security and other armed personnel met them there. With only Phaser One operative they had little chance against the Orions’ disruptors, phasers, and blasters.
“Dare,” Yar objected as they watched the slaughter on the ship’s monitor, “shouldn’t we send the personnel from the transporter now that-“
“That’s just what they hoped we’d do, Ensign!” he interrupted. “There they come!”
Sure enough, Orions were now transporting aboard-and the Security trainees Dare had placed in the transporter room blasted them before they were recovered enough to move. “Good work!” he told them over the intercom. “Stay there for a moment-“
“Dare!” Yar gasped, directing his attention to the viewscreen that showed the chaos in Engineering. Orions were beaming