The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [14]
Nata spoke again, breaking the silence. "Can you not find it in your heart, Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager, to help us stop these abominations? Your ship could do things that ours could not, could help us fight back with at least a chance of success!"
Janeway's voice when she spoke was heavy with regret. "Your plight does not leave me unmoved, Viha Nata, believe me. But we cannot embroil ourselves in your fight. When we leave our space, we have rules about interference in other cultures. In attempting to help, we might make things unspeakably worse."
Viha Nata looked unconvinced. "Tell me, how can things possibly get any worse for us?" A hint of sarcasm soured her voice.
They can't, thought Chakotay, the knowledge sitting like a lump of lead in the pit of his stomach. But there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
Janeway was spared the painful necessity of a bleak reply when the Operations station began to light up and beep like crazy.
Before Kim or Tuvok could even get words out, Viha Nata sprang up from her chair crying, "They have returned!" pausing only to hit a control.
Her image blipped out.
Simultaneously Kim yelped, "Captain, a ship has just emerged from the concavity!"
"On screen," snapped Janeway.
The small ship, an unattractive, gawky little vessel that made early Earth attempts at spaceflight look sleek and elegant, exploded out of the concavity. It was a pathetic hodgepodge of styles and materials, and Chakotay realized almost at once that it had been cobbled together by those who didn't have access to materials on their own but had to find them where they could. He was achingly familiar with the scenario. One thing the small craft had in its favor it was fast
Apparently, though, not fast enough. Right on its tail came another vessel, dwarfing the first. It was big, although not as big as the Voyager, and every line of its bulky form spoke menace. It did not move with the quick urgency of the first; it did not need to. It was already gaining.
"That," said Neelix somberly, "is an Akerian ship."
"Shields up, red alert," ordered Janeway. Immediately, the bridge lighting darkened. Red lights began to pulse.
Chakotay stared at the big vessel, taking in its blunt and angled sides, its gleaming gun metal blue hull. Red glimmered from its four cylindrical engines, which seemed to comprise more than half its weight and bulk. The ship moved purposefully, turning to follow its quarry and allowing Chakotay a good look at it straight on. At its front was the ship's most curious feature: six circular units that clustered about the face of the vessel.
They were gleaming black, chitinous in appearance, and reminded Chakotay of nothing so much as shiny black insects. In their center, encased by a semitransparent dome, throbbed four red units of energy.
The first officer couldn't even guess at their purpose.
In front of this threatening apparition, like a rabbit in front of a mining machine, the little scout ship--Chakotay presumed it was Verunan--dipped and dodged frantically. Suddenly, the space in the front of the Akerian ship shivered and twisted ever so slightly. The smaller ship went reeling from an invisible impact.
"What the hell was that?" demanded Janeway.
Tuvok, whose eyes had been glued to his console, had an answer ready.
"The Akerian vessel has just generated an intense wave of gravitons, which resulted in a spatial distortion. The distortion emitted a focused gravity wave of considerable force.
The impact on the smaller ship was tremendous. Its shields have been reduced twenty-seven percent by the attack."
Neelix snapped his fingers excitedly. "That's the weapon I was telling you about! All I knew from what I'd heard was that it was a forceful blow of some sort."
"Estimated effect of this weapon on our shields?" asked Janeway.
The Vulcan's dark fingers moved confidently on the pad. He shook his head. "Impossible to compute. It appears that the spatial distortion engendered by the weapon