War Stories (Book 1) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [22]
The rest of the news was rather bad.
For one thing, the outpost itself turned out to be armed with energy weapons of a type Gomez didn’t recognize. They plowed through the Fredrickson’s shields with little effort, leaving the Excelsior-class ship a sitting duck for the Jem’Hadar. It was destroyed within two minutes of their arrival in the sector.
“Steinberg, give me a reading on that damn weapon!” Gomez bellowed at her assistant chief.
In a voice as calm as hers was frantic, the black-haired lieutenant said, “I’m almost finished with my analysis, Commander.”
“Finish faster.” She gazed at the viewscreen that showed what the bridge had on their main viewer. The Musashi had gotten some shots into the outpost before one of the Jem’Hadar ships cut them off. Now each ship had the Jem’Hadar on their tail, with the outpost itself taking potshots as well.
The Sentinel’s shields were now down to twenty percent.
Patel’s voice sounded over the comm systems. “Divert power to shields.”
In addition to getting their new assignment, the Sentinel had gotten crew replacements at DS9. One of them, a kid who didn’t look old enough to be let out of his house alone, said, “I can’t get the power to divert to the shields!” Gomez could hear the panic in the young man’s voice.
“Take it from wherever you need it, Ensign, just keep the shields up.”
“No, it’s not that—the control circuits are fused.”
Gomez rolled her eyes. “If you can’t reprogram, reroute.”
The ensign nodded quickly. “Right, of course. Sorry, Commander.”
“Just keep your head cool.” Was I ever that young and stupid? Gomez thought.
“Commander,” Steinberg said, “if we bring the shield frequency down to the lower regions, we should be able to defend against the outpost’s weapon.”
“Lower?”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a counterintuitive move—which, no doubt, was the Dominion’s thinking.
The baby ensign said, “Shields back up to eighty percent.”
“Nice work,” Gomez said. “Steinberg, bring the frequency down.”
“Aye,” the lieutenant said.
She tapped her combadge. “Bridge, we’re lowering shield frequency—that should allow us to defend against the outpost. Recommend transmitting data to the Musashi immediately.”
“Acknowledged,” Patel said. “Good job, Gomez.”
The Jem’Hadar ship then fired on them again, pounding at the shields.
“At this frequency,” Steinberg said, “we’ve got to keep them at sixty percent, or the Jem’Hadar will rip us to pieces.”
Gomez went through the mental picture of the Sentinel in her head. The Akira-class ship had a compact, retro design, reminiscent of the old pre-Federation Earth starships. There wasn’t a lot of wasted space. Still…
“Bridge, we need to evac decks eight, nine, and ten right away.” Those were crew quarters, holodecks, and recreational facilities—none of them necessary right now, and only minimal staff was there at present.
Amalfitano and Patel, bless their hearts, didn’t even question the request. “Attention all hands,” Amalfitano said. “This is the captain. Evacuate decks eight, nine, and ten immediately.”
“Steinberg, the second everyone’s out of those decks, cut off all power, and divert as much of it as you can to the shields.” Silently, Gomez cursed whichever idiot designer thought it was a good idea to make holodeck systems incompatible with other ship systems. We really could use that power right now. But at least the other power that was used for those decks would be put to good use.
Chatter from the bridge came over the intercom.
“Continuous fire on the Jem’Hadar.”
“Their aft shields are failing.”
“Concentrate fire there, Grimnar.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Tenmei, bring us to 253 mark 9, try to drive a wedge between them.”
“Direct hit—our shields are down to sixty-five percent.”
Steinberg looked at Gomez. “Sir, we can’t keep this up—if we stick with the lower frequency, we’re more vulnerable to the Jem’Hadar.”
“We’re not exactly overburdened with options,” Gomez said.
“Shields are down.”
Gomez turned. “What the hell happened?”
Steinberg checked a console. “Lucky shot—they got through to one of our emitters.”
“The Jem’Hadar don’t rely