The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [71]
And that thought made her think of the small Verunan vessels clustered together with Paris's shuttlecraft. The perfect target.
She had just turned around to face Kim, her mouth open to voice her suspicions, when the young Asian man interrupted her.
"Captain, the ship on our starboard bow has just launched its pods at us!"
Her mind's eye filling with the last, disastrous time those shiny black pods had approached her ship. "Get us out of here, Chako--" He executed another sharp zig-zag, this one upward and to port, before she'd even finished her order. "On screen!" Janeway cried.
Chakotay, fast as he'd been, hadn't been fast enough. The gleaming black circles were spiraling toward them, already forming their dreadful hexagon. The ship that had fired had lined itself up astonishingly well and daringly close to compensate for the Voyager's speed. Even that brilliant calculation, though, would have failed them had the Starfleet vessel been able to move as she had been made to move--swiftly and efficiently. The Verunan ships were slowing the vessel down, and now, it seemed as though the Verunan ships would be made to pay the price.
"They've attached themselves to our shields," said Kim. Unsaid was, just like the first time.
"Paris to Janeway," came Paris's strained voice.
"Go ahead," she replied, though she knew what he was about to say and wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear it.
"We're only about fifty meters away from where the Akerian pods are opening a hole." His voice revealed his distress, though he was clearly fighting to stay calm.
Janeway thinned her lips. There was no alternative. They'd have to stay and fight their way into the concavity.
"Paris, advise your group to slow to impulse, and keep this channel open. I want you to know what's going on up here. We'll be slowing down ourselves on the count of five. Ready, Chakotay?"
"Aye, Captain."
She nodded to Kim. He began the countdown. Janeway kept her eyes on the six Verunan ships as they dropped out of warp. Paris had been right about the pilots: they kept perfectly in synch with the starship.
Her mind raced. The last time they'd fired phasers on those pod ships, they'd ended up further damaging the shields and the ship. And right now, that was the last thing they needed. The shields would have to hold flawlessly in order for Voyager to safely navigate the gravity well.
She was about to suggest tractor beams when a flurry of movement on screen caught her eye. One of the Verunan ships had broken formation.
It had swiftly flown out of the expanding hole in the shields--a hole barely big enough for it to get out--and was headed straight for the big Akerian vessel that was controlling the pods.
Dear heaven, thought Janeway, it's a suicide run.
At that precise moment, Tom Paris's voice reached her ears. It was tense, almost strangled.
"Captain, that's the Conviction. That's Kaavi's ship."
***
For a heartbeat, Paris watched in frozen horror as his friend and her two comrades aboard the Conviction sped toward their certain doom.
He flicked open a channel. "Paris to the Verunan fleet," he cried, "everybody stay put! Keep up with the Voyager!" Then he sprang into action. He didn't bother to contact the Voyager; Janeway could hear him through the open channel. He slammed his shuttlecraft hard to port, circled back behind the remaining five Guardian ships, and fled through the hole in Voyager's shields after Kaavi.
The complete and total unexpectedness of the Conviction's maneuver had caught the Akerians utterly off guard. For a long moment, nothing happened. The Conviction, dipping and dodging like a crazed hummingbird as she approached her target, fired twice on one of the glowing red generators.
Paris's eyes dropped to the sensor readings on his console. As had been the case the last time they approached the concavity, the sensors were going crazy. Even so, they were able