The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [131]
After he removed his helmet, the first thing he noticed was the absence of the rest of the boarding team except for the female MACO, who stood in her now-helmetless pressure suit beside a white-smocked human whom Shran assumed was a medic of some sort. He assumed that T’Pol and Reed were absent because Archer would have needed them urgently up on the bridge, and that the rescued Aenar and the injured MACO had already been taken to the ship’s infirmary, or elsewhere aboard Enterprise.
Shran launched himself off the stage, stopping in front of a small nearby console, behind which stood a human female whom Shran assumed was Ensign Moulton. The startled MACO raised her weapons defensively, but Shran ignored her.
“Beam Theras over, now!” Shran barked, unwilling to let the Aenar sacrifice his life merely for having defended himself and his teammates.
And for defending Jhamel, whose telepathic bond with Shran seemed to be growing stronger from moment to moment. Sickbay, Shran thought, listening to her presence as best he could along the subtle, diaphanous channel that connected them. She’s been taken to sickbay.
“I’m trying to establish a lock,” Moulton said, scowling alternatively at Shran and the console before her. She began toggling switches that Shran couldn’t recall ever having seen before, apparently trying to divert still more power to the already overtaxed system.
Then a small explosion sounded behind him, making his ears pop and his antennae retreat as though seeking cover. He turned to see a cloud of acrid-smelling black smoke slowly rising and spreading over the transporter stage.
“Dammit!” Moulton shouted, still examining the readouts before her. “The Heisenberg compensators are completely fused.” She focused a hard stare upon Shran as she snapped open an intercom switch. “Ensign Moulton here, Captain. I’m afraid I have some bad news about the transporter….”
As he made his way toward the bridge, escorted by the female MACO, Shran couldn’t help but wonder whether the machine had failed all on its own- or if Theras’s telepathic influence had had something to do with it.
They quickly reached the turbolift that Shran presumed ran directly through the primary hull’s midpoint, and therefore connected to Archer’s bridge along the most direct route. Shran felt his bond to Jhamel increase greatly in intensity as the lift doors slid obediently open before him.
A haggard but determined-looking Jhamel was inside the lift, leaning unsteadily against one of the walls.
“We can’t let the Romulans have Theras,” she said.
Then her eyes rolled shut and she collapsed into Shran’s arms.
“Captain, I’m afraid the transporter won’t be beaming anybody anywhere for at least a week,” Moulton said, frustration coloring her normally phlegmatic manner. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s not your fault, Ensign. I’m sure you did everything you could.” Archer now could no longer see any choice other than to withdraw immediately. He rose from his chair and stared at the pair of raptorlike Romulan spacecraft that loomed ahead like an augury of death, grimly aware that T’Pol, Malcolm, Hoshi, and Travis were all looking in his direction, anxiously awaiting his next order. Once again, he had no real choice, though it pained him to admit it.
“Travis, get us out of here. Maximum warp.”
“With pleasure, Captain,” the helmsman said with an unconcealed sigh of relief. He immediately began entering commands into his console. “Course laid in. Executing.”
Archer felt the subtle shift of vibration in the deck beneath his boots, which told him that Enterprise had just gone to warp. Even as the image of the two semicrippled warships vanished from the viewer, the turbolift doors at the bridge’s aft port side whisked open. Archer turned toward the sound.
He watched a gaunt, careworn Aenar woman whom he recognized as Jhamel step unsteadily onto the bridge, with Shran- still partially clad in a Starfleet-issue environmental suit- gently guiding her arm, balancing her. A MACO exited