The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [5]
“Fluctuation,” said the technician seated immediately behind Cunaehr. The sharp note of alarm in the young woman’s voice was unmistakable.
“Compensate,” Ehrehin said automatically.
“Warp six point five,” Cunaehr said.
“Containment instability,” another tech reported.
“Reinforce!” Cunaehr barked before Ehrehin could interject.
The room was suddenly awash in green as the hue of the banks of monitors and gauges changed in unison, accompanied by numerous horrified gasps and pointed exclamations from across the length and breadth of the room. Ehrehin’s attention was drawn back to the window, through which he watched the preternatural orange light that was washing across the horizon. The distant rumbling gradually became audible, not quite drowned out by the rising clamor of alarm klaxons. But Ehrehin found this orange light anything but reassuring.
THOOM.
Chaos. A hard jolt made the floor jump. A bank of unanchored instruments leaned forward and tipped over with a resounding crash. Someone cried out in pain. A ceiling beam collapsed directly on top of a man and a woman, spraying emerald blood across the floor and showering the rear wall as several others struggled toward the now partially blocked exit. The overhead lighting flickered and failed. A frantic voice boomed over one of the room’s com speakers, saying something about beaming to the safety of an orbiting bird-of-prey before it was too late.
Cunaehr had somehow moved to Ehrehin’s immediate right, and was shouting into his ear. “Doctor! We have to evacuate immediately!”
No wonder the military didn’t want to post any of their people down here, Ehrehin thought bitterly as he watched a trio of bleeding, injured technicians vanish in a blaze of amber light as the bird-of-prey’s transporter seized them.
An earsplitting crack barely preceded the fall of another beam. This one narrowly missed Ehrehin, brushing just past his right arm as it neatly stove in Cunaehr’s skull. Outside the window, Ehrehin could see the fires of Erebus consuming the forest as they swept hungrily from the test apparatus toward the control complex. The control room shook, twisted, and began to tear itself apart. The air stank of coppery blood and ozone.
Ehrehin noticed that the room was already nearly empty, and hoped that whoever hadn’t died here already would make it to safety. Then his skin began to tingle; he knew that he was either being transported up to the orbiting bird-of-prey, or was about to discover what it felt like to be vaporized, along with the wreckage of the control complex.
Considering the way the admiralty sometimes dealt with failure, he wasn’t at all certain which fate was the preferable one.
Two
Friday, January 24, 2155
The Presidio, San Francisco
CAPTAIN JONATHAN ARCHER smiled broadly as he looked over his shoulder and up into the rapt faces of four of his most valued officers. Ensigns Hoshi Sato and Travis Mayweather, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, and Doctor Phlox, Enterprise’s chief medical officer, stood on the steps just behind and above Archer on the broad spiral staircase that overlooked the wide meeting room. Here representatives of Earth, Vulcan, Tellar, Andoria, and Coridan were beginning to take their seats around a series of large, curving tables arranged in a broad semicircle. They were in turn surrounded by assorted VIPs from Starfleet, Earth’s various governmental ministries, and numerous allied and neutral worlds, as well as a fair number of headset-wearing media people.
Among the ranks of the journalists, Archer spied a slender, youthful woman with straight brown hair whom he recognized immediately as Gannet Brooks, Ensign Mayweather’s former girlfriend. A quick backward glance confirmed that the young helmsman had also picked her out of the crowd. Mayweather didn’t appear exactly thrilled by the possibility of bumping into her again so soon after the revelation that her journalistic credentials were merely a cover for her Starfleet Intelligence work during the recent