The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [129]
Would Shenar even have contemplated doing such a thing, had the Romulans left him able to do it? Theras thought as the team finally reached the darkened Romulan transporter room and herded him and the rest of the Aenar inside. Would Vishri?
Would Jhamel?
Malcolm Reed had expected to have to spend perhaps a few minutes puzzling out the Romulan transporter’s scanning, range, targeting, and transmission controls, after which he expected to execute a short series of swift beam-outs back to Enterprise.
What he hadn’t expected was to discover that the now-deceased Romulan guards had utterly destroyed the transporter with their disruptors, melting both the console and the stage to slag, no doubt to prevent their Aenar prisoners from getting off the ship once they had gotten free of the ship’s detention area.
“What now?” Shran said, exasperated.
Reed sighed. “What about Theras? Can’t he send our coordinates to Enterprise telepathically?”
“Perhaps,” said Shran, gesturing toward the environmental-suited Aenar. “If he hadn’t gone catatonic right after the firefight, that is.”
Reed turned and saw that Theras had slumped next to one of the walls. He sat motionless and limp, resembling an empty environmental suit that someone had neglected to stow properly.
“Firefight,” Reed said with a humorless laugh. “It was a slaughter.”
“Without their slaughter, it would have been our slaughter. He’ll just have to learn to deal with—”
“Gentlemen,” Commander T’Pol said, stepping suddenly between them, interrupting. “There are still other alternatives.” T’Pol held up one of the small transponders. “I believe we still have a number of these, Lieutenant. Perhaps we can use several of them in tandem to restore our communications with Enterprise, and establish a transporter lock as well.”
Reed grinned. “Let’s get to work.”
“Continue evasive maneuvers!” cried Jonathan Archer, tightly gripping the arms of his command chair as the bridge rumbled and tipped all around him.
Archer wondered just how much more pounding Enterprise could take before the constant barrage forced him to withdraw from weapons- and transporter- range. The forward viewer displayed an image of one of the two Romulan war vessels that had continued aggressively defending the transport vessel that carried the Aenar prisoners, despite the fact that Enterprise had crippled the engines of all three ships.
The bridge shook and rattled again, and Archer was very nearly thrown from his captain’s chair. However crippled their adversaries’ engines might be, their complement of weaponry was in decidedly better shape. He knew he’d been lucky in managing to take out the engines of both escort ships while evading what could have been critical damage to Enterprise; he also knew that his luck was in very finite supply, and that it would run out entirely should the Romulans score many more hits.
“Sorry, Captain,” said Travis Mayweather, seated behind the helm, just ahead of the captain’s chair. “The hull plating can’t take much more of this. It’s down to forty-three percent and falling.”
“Understood, Ensign. Keep trying to evade their guns as best you can. But maintain maximum transporter distance.”
Archer knew that the time was rapidly approaching when he would have to make a painful and final decision, weighing the lives of his boarding party, Shran, and the few Aenar who remained to be rescued against the safety of his ship and her entire crew.
He knew that only one decision was possible.
The ship rocked again. Archer spoke toward the intercom pickup in the arm of his chair, into the channel to D deck that he’d left open. “Ensign Moulton, if you can’t reestablish a transporter lock now, we’re going to have to withdraw.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll keep trying.” She didn’t sound confident.
Rising from his chair, he walked to the side of the helm. “Travis, take us out of their weapons range.”
The helmsman nodded grimly. “Aye, sir—”
“Captain!” The voice coming from the arm of the command chair belonged