The Children of Hamlin - Carmen Carter [10]
Reaching out blindly for another hold, the captain’s hand brushed against a body; the skin was cold to the touch. His fingers groped the outlines of the slumped figure and finally traced the slender shaft of an antenna. Only one Andorian had been on the bridge, which established the identity of the dead officer. Wishing Godspeed to his pilot, to whatever afterlife she was bound, Manin edged away from the helm in search of his command chair. When death came, he would meet it there. He took another step and his boot struck something soft.
The something kicked back. “Go away. I don’t want company,” said Ruthe, then broke out in a fit of coughing.
Her annoyance was ludicrous under the circumstances, and Manin was still alert enough to appreciate the humor of the situation. His laugh brought a gush of blood to his mouth. He wiped away the trickle that escaped his lips. If the translator was here, then Deelor’s body was not far away.
“A phaser death is clean, Deelor,” said the captain softly. “You got off too easy.”
Stars blurred and shifted their position on the viewer as Data enlarged the image of the USS Ferrel to fill the screen. Picard and his first officer stood side by side on the bridge, watching the death throes of the Ferrel. Removing the energy matrix had come too late to prevent the starship’s final destruction. Riker stirred uneasily as the metal hull jerked and quivered, its supporting structures collapsing from within.
The captain was the first to speak. “Merde. We’ll never make it in time. It’ll take at least twenty minutes to beam the entire-“
“There she blows,” announced La Forge from the helm.
A plume of white vapor spewed out from the underside of the saucer, dispersing instantly in the vacuum of space. Debris from the interior, wrapped with the frost of crystallized water, glittered and twirled outside the hull of the ship.
“Worf, launch every shuttlecraft we’ve got,” called out Picard. He knew such a rescue attempt would be useless, but it must be tried. “Data, focus a short-range scan sweep around the Ferrel. There may be survivors among the wreckage.”
“Not necessary, Captain,” announced Tasha Yar. “The transporter chief reports the entire crew is aboard.” She paused, stunned by the count. “All thirty of them.”
Picard felt the shock of her words like a physical blow. Thirty lives out of a crew complement of hundreds. He had lost the Stargazer nine years before-he knew that pain-but his crew had not perished along with the ship. He turned to Riker and saw his own alarm mirrored in the first officer’s eyes; anyone who accepted the responsibility of command was aware of all that could go wrong at that level. Picard knew better than to dwell on the disaster. Dread could turn to paralyzing fear. “Number One, check the transporter stations. Find the captain, or the most senior officer among the survivors, and have that person report here immediately.” The errand would end the first officer’s role as a helpless observer.
“Right away, Captain,” said Riker, moving quickly toward an exit.
The rescue mission was far from over, but Picard could feel that the height of the crisis had passed. During the battle, his attention had been tightly focused; his mind had filtered out all distractions. No longer. The staccato beat of Red Alert grew more irritating by the second. It was also a reminder of an unresolved conflict. “Lieutenant Yar, how far has the hostile traveled?”
“According to my sensors, the alien ship appears to be gone, Captain, passed beyond scan range.”
Her statement brought a protest from La Forge at the helm. “But, Tasha, it can’t have left the sector already, not in that short a time.”
“The matrix did leave an ionized cloud of residual energy,” noted Data with interest. “It is decomposing rapidly, but scan readings may have been affected.”
“What do you make of the energy matrix they threw over us?” asked Picard. This trap had been foiled, but the next one might not be escaped so easily. He had an uneasy feeling that another encounter was likely.
“The field did