The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [84]
“Commander, if they’ve come this far, they probably want to live too. Objection noted, Number One. You can note it in your log.”
Picard hurled himself into the turbolift, followed by the Romulans, the traitor, his security chief, and the ship’s counselor. The lift took off at speed.
“Suggestions?” Picard spoke into his combadge.
Voices barraged him from all over the ship. Picard seemed untroubled by the ship’s vibrations as he listened to his crew, processing different voices over the comm with ease.
“Think,” M’ret hissed at him urgently. His hand grasped DeSeve’s arm and pressed with almost enough strength to break it. Almost. DeSeve had long practice at not flinching. “If they can’t use the android, you’re the only one here who knows enough about both systems to be of any help!”
“What are you talking about?” Worf demanded.
“Your captain called for ideas. Do you have any?” M’ret replied as if he were questioning an antagonist on the Senate’s floor. That too was a form of blood sport.
DeSeve had heard Romulans furious, amused, and even—shortly before their execution—afraid. He had never heard desperation from one of them before.
They probably want to live, too, Picard had said.
M’ret had discarded his honor on Romulus to perform a mission in which loss of life was the smallest risk he faced. The imprisonment he had been threatened with, even death itself, would have been far easier. He had to want to live not just to succeed, but also to justify his loss.
M’ret was not alone in wanting to live. In wanting to repair his name.
They both knew the empire. They both wanted the impossible.
DeSeve struggled not to add spacesickness to treason and let the greater strength of the Romulans, used to help him for once, brace him until the turbolift shuddered to a halt.
This close to the warp drive, DeSeve felt it beat like an imperiled heart when the turbolift, shaking and speeding by turns, finally released them into engineering. He lurched out onto the deck and steadied himself against a blank console.
Blue light spasmed across the vast bay from the engines, splashing the high bulkheads in uneven patterns. Deck, consoles, rails, and bulkheads vibrated, subsided, then shook. Lights high above flared red while the computer’s voice reported constant rises in ambient radiation.
Engineering was not a safe place to be and was about to become less safe.
But even the sight of the great tower of the jeopardized warp drive struck DeSeve as an oddly welcome change from a warbird’s engineering deck. Every Romulan engineering deck DeSeve had served on had been cramped, confined, and tense. Armed guards prowled, gazing over engineers’ shoulders as they tended the mysterious sealed violence of the captive singularity that made the warbird fly.
Picard raced past DeSeve to where Doctor Crusher leaned over Lieutenant Commander La Forge. The chief engineer sat, hands over his face, hunched over on a spare container. His dark skin was almost ashen, especially where his fingertips pressed against his temples.
“Starboard nacelle shut down!” came a call. “We got it!”
The flickering lights and shrill deranged vibrations subsided, but only somewhat.
“Well done,” Picard said. “Mister La Forge…Geordi…” He laid a hand on the engineer’s shoulder while silently consulting the physician. She nodded once.
Picard shut his eyes in relief, then made himself look at the covered bodies on the deck and the surviving crew who fought to bring Enterprise back under control.
La Forge sighed. “Wish I’d been able to get the other one before I blacked out. Any chance you can shut down portside before the warp core blows?” he called to the engineering crew. One woman broke away from the struggle and leaned over the rail.
“Negative, sir. Conduits are fused. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Back to work!” La Forge called.
He pushed himself to his feet. “No, let me up,” he told Doctor Crusher as she tried to restrain him. “The VISOR connections took a hit when the warp core malfunctioned. I should be all right now.”
As all right as any