The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [72]
Suddenly the Conviction zagged wildly to starboard. Trusting Kaavi's piloting sense, Paris immediately imitated the movement.
He was glad he had, for the space around the area where he had just been shivered and distorted. The Akerians had fired their gravity wave at him and the Conviction.
"Tom Paris, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Janeway's voice was tense, hinting at anger.
"What does it look like, Captain? I'm being the good shepherd and going after a wandering lamb."
The comment was flip, automatic, but nothing about Paris's expression or his emotions was humorous. He was grim, intent.
That was his friend out there, about to plaster herself, her companions, and her ship against the front end of the giant Akerian warship in a not-very-vain attempt to destroy its control. "If you can keep the wolves off our tail," he continued, "I should be able to bring it back to the fold."
Kaavi's plan had been a good one. Tuvok would have approved of its logic. The small black pods were mechanical, operated by the Akerians from the larger ships. Without the big ship to control them, the pods would probably cease to function and drift off, nothing more dangerous than space debris.
The problem was, it would take the destruction of the Conviction and the three Verunan pilots aboard her to do it. And Paris was not about to let that happen.
"Captain, I'm going to try to get a transporter fix on two of them and beam them out of there. Can you get the third?"
"We can't drop our shields now!"
"You don't have to," replied Paris, speaking quickly. "You've already got a hole in your shields. It's narrow, but a transporter beam--" "It just might work. We'll try. But the spatial distortion around that Akerian ship won't make it easy to lock onto them.
Good luck, Tom."
Red suddenly flashed off the metal of his console. Paris knew that Janeway was carrying on her own fight aboard the Voyager and had fired at the Akerian vessels.
"Paris to Conviction," said Tom, keeping his eyes on the vessel before him. "Prepare to be beamed out."
"Paris, you can't!" came Kaavi's voice. "We must be permitted to destroy the generators aboard that ship! Your own ship is in danger unless--" "Voyager will find another way out of this mess," replied Paris.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement. "Watch out, bearing two-four-six mark zero-seven!"
Kaavi heard and dove, narrowly missing another gravity wave attack from a second Akerian vessel that had come to the rescue of its fellow.
Paris swallowed hard, aware that his forehead was dappled with perspiration. Conviction had no shields. One square hit from that weapon"Get a running start, Kaavi, and I'll try to beam two of you out.
The third I'm leaving to Voyager. Ready... go!"
The little ship turned around and headed directly for the bow of the first Akerian vessel. Paris swore softly under his breath, working the controls. With the sensors being so untrustworthy, Paris would be unable to distinguish who he would be able to beam aboard. That was, if he could get anyone. He couldn't get a lock on them. It was like trying to sculpt an object out of mercury. Every time he had them, there would be an energy surge from somewhere or the sensors would fail, and their coordinates became confused. Finally, for an instant, he had them.
He immediately hit the controls. "Paris to Voyager. I've got a lock on two of them. Have you got the third?"
"Transporter room is having a lot of problems, Tom," came Janeway's voice, revealing her tension. "And we're pretty busy up here as well."
The truth of her words came an instant later in another flash of red that bathed the interior of the shuttlecraft in warm crimson.
"Captain, we don't have much time..." Paris's blue eyes were fastened on the terrible sight of the tiny Conviction speeding toward her doom.
"Kaavi, I'm bringing two of