Three - Michael Jan Friedman [76]
Come on, Picard thought, silently encouraging his security officers—or, rather, whichever of them arrived in Transporter Room One first. What’s going on down there?
“Sir,” said Paxton, “sensors show an energy buildup in the Balduk ship’s weapons arrays.”
The captain frowned. Clearly, their reprieve had come to an end. “Evasive maneuvers,” he told Idun.
She sent them veering to port just in time to avoid a lurid volley from the Independent. Then, veering back to starboard, she slipped them past a crossfire from the Satellites.
Unfortunately, each maneuver took them a little farther away from the anomaly—and it would be twice as hard to regain whatever ground they lost.
Picard held on to his armrests. Once again, the hunt was on—and the Stargazer was more than ever the hunted.
“What’s the matter?” Nikolas said, every word an effort.
[230] Gerda Idun frowned as she stood at the transporter console and studied its monitors. “We were almost there.”
“Almost at the anomaly,” he speculated.
She nodded, still avoiding his gaze. “Yes.”
“You know,” Nikolas whispered, concealing the fact that his voice was a little stronger now, “I really would have gone back with you.”
The muscles around Gerda Idun’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t say anything.
“I would have left everything,” he told her, “to stay with you.”
Her nostrils flared.
“Everything,” Nikolas said.
Gerda Idun covered her eyes with her free hand, and remained that way for a moment. When she took her hand away, her gaze wandered back to her monitor.
And her eyes, shiny and red as they were with tears, opened wide.
By that sign, Nikolas guessed that Idun had brought them closer to the anomaly again—maybe close enough to effect a transport. He watched Gerda Idun press a stud on the control panel, and hurry across the room to join Simenon on the transporter pad.
If he was going to stop her, he had to do it now, he told himself. Dragging himself along the floor, he worked his way toward Gerda Idun.
Wiping her eyes so she could see better, she trained her phaser on him. “Please,” she said, “don’t.”
Nikolas knew he might not get there quickly enough. [231] And even if he could, he might not be strong enough to accomplish anything.
Still, he had to try.
Gerda burst into Transporter Room One with unchecked urgency, the doors sliding open for her as quickly as they could.
With a glance, she saw several things. First, that Gerda Idun and Simenon were on the transporter pad, the former standing over the latter. Second, that Ensign Nikolas was dragging himself toward Gerda Idun, hobbled by some injury he must have sustained.
And third, that Gerda Idun had a phaser.
Gerda’s hands and face were damaged, but there was nothing wrong with her feet. Picking up speed, she sprinted across the room and leaped into Gerda Idun feetfirst.
But not before Gerda Idun fired her weapon.
Somehow, the phaser beam missed Gerda and struck a bulkhead behind her instead—and that one shot was all Gerda meant to allow. Plowing into Gerda Idun’s midsection, she sent the woman sprawling backward. More important, the impact jarred Gerda Idun’s phaser out of her hand.
Gerda watched it skitter across the floor and come to a stop. Her every instinct told her to go after it—to get it before Gerda Idun could—and had it not been for Simenon, she would have done exactly that.
However, she doubted that the Gnalish was lying on the transporter platform by accident. Gerda Idun’s purpose all along could have been to kidnap [232] Simenon—though the navigator couldn’t begin to say why.
But if it were so, the engineer might be beamed to another universe at any moment.
So instead of going after Gerda Idun’s phaser, Gerda scrambled in the direction of the Gnalish. Her scorched hands and face felt as if they were on fire, but she managed to get to Simenon and drag him off the transporter pad.
Then she turned her attention back to the phaser. By then, unfortunately,