The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [137]
Shran felt the wind rush out of his lungs in one great whoosh, and he sat down quickly at the edge of the biobed.
“Are you… are you asking me to join with the three of you? To bond?”
He couldn’t believe he was allowing himself to think these words in Jhamel’s presence, much less say them out loud. In all his years, he had never entered a shelthreth quad, having devoted himself instead to his homeworld’s defense. His relationship with Talas, a similarly isolated soul, had been the most intimate one of his life, even though they both had known that without another pair of compatible bondmates, procreation- as well as social acceptance on Andoria- would forever be denied them.
“Yes. If you will have us,” Jhamel said, a hint of apprehension in her voice.
Shran bent over and nuzzled his forehead to hers, their antennae wrapping around each other.
He whispered in her ear.
“Yes. If the three of you can stand me.”
Forty-Two
Friday, February 21, 2155
Romulan Space
“ALL FLOW REGULATORS are finally showing orange,” Ehrehin said, his breath slightly fogging up his faceplate as he pulled the hydrospanner out of the open relay-circuitry drawer located near his booted feet. “Try it again now.”
Orange is good, Trip thought, reminding himself yet again that the instrumentation on Romulan ships differed from that of Earth vessels in sometimes unsettling ways.
“It’s now or never,” Trip said, glancing nervously down at the console’s tactical display, which showed that what they’d both assumed was Valdore’s lead ship was almost right on top of them, with a trio of other pursuers- the first vessel had evidently summoned rein-forcements- trailing very close behind. The closest of these ships could drop out of warp at any moment, perhaps with Trip’s vessel already within range of its weapons.
Trip held his breath and engaged the throttle lever, pulling it slowly and deliberately toward him so as not to overload it.
The starfield ahead of the ship immediately smeared and turned slightly blue. The deck plates vibrated and shuddered violently before quickly settling down to a familiar subaural frequency that Trip supposed reassured warp engineers all across the galaxy.
Once the velocity gauge had finished climbing back to where it was before the engines had failed, Trip turned toward Ehrehin and said, “Think maybe you can spare a moment to help me with our subspace transmitter?”
The elderly scientist stared at him inscrutably, and Trip thought he saw the slightest of smiles flicker across his face. He hoped it wasn’t just a trick of the starlight he saw reflected in the man’s helmet.
Although the gap between pursuer and pursued remained too narrow for comfort, Trip was relieved to note that Valdore’s ships- there were still four in all- were no longer gaining on them. If we don’t have any more engine trouble between here and home, he thought with no small amount of trepidation, we both might actually get out of this alive.
Trip was also thankful for another uncanny stroke of luck: the damage the subspace transceiver had sustained hadn’t been nearly as serious as he had feared. Nevertheless, getting the thing back into operational condition- with audio only, at that- had involved more than a little jury-rigging and swearing, as well as the diversion of precious power reserves that he was loath to divert from the drive systems while Admiral Valdore’s forces were still nipping at their heels.
But there was no alternative. He had to send a warning about the specifics of the coming attack on Coridan Prime, even if doing so landed both him and Ehrehin right back in Valdore’s lap.
Trip patched an optical cable that led from his suit’s com system into the microphone/speaker jack he had just discovered on his pilot’s console. He then punched in a particular subspace audio frequency and boosted the gain as much as he dared. At that moment, he noticed Ehrehin watching him from the copilot’s station, his once rheumy eyes now brimming with undisguised, almost youthful curiosity.
“Whom