Three - Michael Jan Friedman [52]
Suddenly, the Balduk vessel took a desperate chance for a combatant in so comfortable a position. Instead of continuing to harry the Stargazer from a distance, she put on a blinding burst of speed and fired her phasers at point-blank range.
Picard swore ... and braced himself.
Gerda Idun watched her counterparts take off down the corridor, their haste a response to the urgency in Captain Picard’s tone.
And they weren’t the only ones. Refsland and his companions had taken off as well, albeit in the opposite direction. Though they weren’t required to appear on the bridge, they had their own stations to worry about.
Before she knew it, she was on the move as well, pulled along by Lieutenant Joseph. “Let’s go!” he told her.
“Where?” Gerda Idun asked, following him down one corridor and then another.
“To security,” he told her. “It’s not far from here.”
She didn’t have to ask Joseph why he needed to go there. As acting head of that section, he would be charged with directing any emergency procedures.
Gerda Idun wondered what he would do with her. After all, security was a strategically sensitive location, and her chaperone had studiously kept her away from such places.
But more than that, she wondered about Gerda. Though the navigator’s feelings about Refsland had [155] obviously been building for some time, her behavior had been inexcusable—at least, by Gerda Idun’s standards.
And the way Gerda had left the gym after her sister sparred with Gerda Idun ... that was strange as well. Was she always so volatile? And if so, why wasn’t Idun like that?
Before she could venture an answer, something happened—something big and bright and much too loud, as if a thousand people were shrieking all at once.
Then it stopped. Everything stopped. And somehow, an impossibly long time later, it started again.
Propping herself up on an elbow, Gerda Idun opened her eyes. Her ears were ringing, her head felt like it was stuffed solid with cotton, and she felt pain when she tried to move—lots of it.
Yet a moment’s inspection told her she was still intact. It was more than she could say for her surroundings.
Looking around her, Gerda Idun saw a corridor swiftly filling with smoke, and a spray of sparks coming from one of the bulkheads. Obviously, the aliens had scored a direct hit on the Stargazer—maybe even breached the hull.
Ihave to find a more secure part of the ship, she told herself. If the aliens pounded away again at the same place, she would be a goner.
Gerda Idun had already taken several steps down the corridor when she remembered that she wasn’t alone. Joseph, she thought. Where was he?
She scanned the corridor in both directions, but couldn’t find any sign of him in all the fumes. Had the security officer already gotten out of there on his own?
[156] No, she insisted silently. Not if he was anything like the Pug Joseph in her universe. More likely, he was lying on the deck somewhere, injured—or worse.
With that in mind, Gerda Idun started searching for him, waving her arms as she waded through the increasing billows of smoke. She found herself gagging on the stuff, but there was no way to avoid it—not if she wanted to find the security officer.
Damn, she thought. The corridor was only so big, and the blast could have carried him only so far. Where could he be?
Her eyes burning, she made her way back and forth from bulkhead to bulkhead, methodically covering as much ground as she could. If Joseph was there, she told herself, she would eventually stumble over him.
But it was rapidly becoming harder for Gerda Idun to breathe. Her throat and chest already felt like they were on fire, and it was only going to get worse. She estimated that she had another thirty seconds—no more—before she succumbed to the smoke and lost consciousness.
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t leave without Joseph.
Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of something red and black and low to the floor. But it was only for a moment. Then the smoke roiled over it.
Darting in that direction, Gerda Idun found