Double Helix_ Red Sector Part 16

"Keep up the thrust." Stiles knew they were doing that already. Just wanted to make sure n.o.body pushed the wrong b.u.t.ton. The ship's sublight engines whined valiantly. "Let's see what we've got to fight with. Give me some numbers and colors."

Immediately Travis called into the comm. "Engine thrust control, give us numbers and colors."

Almost immediately section leaders' voices from all over the ship started bubbling through the comm system to the bridge, because now all the hatches were closed. Travis, Zack Bolt, and Greg Blake relayed what he needed to know and left out what he didn't. "Six GCG, sir." "Red over yellow on the plasma injectors, Eric." "Green on the pellet initiators."

"We are nine points overbudget on the MHD. They're trying to equalize."

To his shipmates across the bridge Jeremy called, "Just compensate when it spikes!" "Hear that, Jason? Compensate the spike only! Jason?

The engine noise swelled to a howl, as if a hurricane were transferring itself from section to section right through the sealed hatches. Beneath the engine noise squealed the grind of real physical stress, as the ship twisted and cranked against the planetary force hauling on them. It was as if they were towing some great body that insisted upon moving in the opposite direction. And they were losing ....

"Thrust increasing!" Greg Blake called. "No effect, sir! We're slipping down even faster!" "Put more power to it, then." What else could they do?

Stiles glanced sideways at Leonard McCoy, glad the doctor was sitting down. He didn't want to be responsible for the famous elderly physician being scratched, spindled, or mutilated from falling down in the Saskatoon. Spock, too, seemed stable enough, despite the ravaged tilt of the deck and the slow spin that tore at the artificial gravity.

Travis punched at the controls with one hand while holding himself in place with the other. "Maybe we can twist out sideways-use the lateral-"

"We'd gulp too much fuel," Jeremy argued. "We're already burning the deuterium at fail-safe rate! It's all we can do to hold position. Ten more minutes and we won't have anything left at all. We've got nothing to twist with:'

Pulling himself bodily upward to Jeremy's side, Stiles tried to make sense of what he saw on the maps and visual a.n.a.lyses of the planet below. "What's the source of this beam? Anybody reading the surface?"

Greg Blake was the one to answer. "Reading an energetic pulse station at the northern foot of the valley. It's east of the... looks like a swamp. No lifesigns. It must be automated" "Yes, there's a swamp. Zack, target that facility." "Targeted," Zack Bolt responded. "Phasers armed." "Fire phaser one;' Stiles ordered.

A single phaser beam broke from the ship's weapon array and bolted down toward the planet, but hadn't made it a half second away before suddenly bending sharply and bouncing like a ricocheted bullet off an invisible field between them and the planet.

Alan Wood covered his head, as hot sparks and bits of melting metal blew into the bridge from section two. "Insulate!" Stiles yelled at the same time. From where he stood he could see his experienced shipmates grab the trainees and yank them to the interior areas of the CST Sure enough, the phaser beam lanced around, bending every time it hit the egg-shaped energy field and shooting back past the ship, until finally, inevitably, it struck hull.

An explosion ripped through the midsection electronics, blowing sparks, hissing-and somebody cried out in pain. Shouted orders and desperate measures shot forward, audible even through the closed hatches. "So much for phasers..."

"Rupture! Section four, starboard PTC! Automatic sealant nozzle heads are fused-"

"Tell 'em to do it manually;' Stiles called. "Is everyone okay?"

Jeremy looked at him grimly. "It's a reflector envelope! Our own phaser hit us! We can't fire out!" "Pardon me... would you take a suggestion?" Spock!

The voice jolted Stiles. He spun around and looked up to the grand figure on the starboard deck. "Are you kidding?"

The stately Vulcan kept a grip on the buffer edge of the science console and somehow made his awkward position look graceful on the wickedly tilted deck. "Quicksand. If we struggle, the beam sucks us down at a commensurate rate, drawing upon our own energy to exert more pull than we can exert thrust. If we hold still, all it may do is hold us in place."

While the engines howled and the hull peered, Stiles gazed at the amba.s.sador and Spock back at him as if they had all week. Doubt and illogic spun through Stiles's training and experience, then jumped the gully to irrational trust.

He looked at the readouts, at Jeremy's face skewed with doubt, at Travis desperately trying to make sense of what the ultrascience officer had just suggested... as precious seconds slipped away, Stiles found himself adding up the crazy numbers.

His eyes flipped again to Spock, and he shook his head and winced. "I was about to fall for something again, wasn't IT' "Literally."

"Sir... I hope you're everything I think you are." Without turning away from Spock's steady eyes, Stiles tossed over his shoulder, "Cut thrust?'

"That can't be right!" the panicked trainee at the helm protested, his eyes swiveling wildly. "We'll get pulled into the planet!"

Stiles started to explain, then cut himself off and waved. "Travis !"

Perraton instantly yanked the midshipman from the helm and slid into the seat himself. "Cutting thrust. Sorry, kid. Go sit down till we see how dead we are."

His own order eating at his stomach, Stiles leered at Spock as if to share the burden. His mind raced, as he scoured his memory of all those recorded missions on the first Starship Enterprise, when Spock faced the worst mysteries of the cosmos as Captain Kirk's unswerving sidekick.

The whine of the engines depleted noticeably, like howling wolves running over a hill and disappearing into the mist. "Is it working?" Stiles dared to ask.

Quiet with victory, Travis half-turned to confirm with a good glance. "We're slowing down...."

"We've just bought ourselves about twenty more minutes," Jeremy a.s.sessed. "I wouldn't bet on more." "Keep measuring"

Irritated with the knowledge that he wouldn't have been able to save his ship if Spock hadn't been here, Stiles bristled with selfconsciousness, fighting to think with a divided mind.

"Can't fire out... can we beam through the reflector bubble?"

"I don't know that!" Zack Bolt rebelled at the idea. "I know for sure I could never beam you back up through that thing!" 'What doesn't make any-"

"Beam out?" Travis swung around. 'When what? Find the beam housing and kick it down? That thing can take hand phaser fire!" "We'll use the nacelle charges" Stiles told him.

"Those are only five-minute charges," Travis explained, with sudden fear in his eyes. "They'll take out a mile and a half. You'll never get away in time."

"We'll do something," Stiles shabbily a.s.sured. "Let's try it. Ready the transporter."

"Are you nuts?" Jeremy grabbed at Stiles's arm, keeping one hand on his controls. "Give me tune to a.n.a.lyze the reflector envelope! Maybe you can't beam through it." "How long before it pulls us down, did you say?"

His face sheeting to white, Jeremy shook his head. "All right, all right."

Some inner checklist rang in Stiles's head, and he turned to Spock, prepared to use all the resources he had at his disposal-and this was one dynamite resource. "Can we?"

Now that he'd been invited, Spock leaned to look at Jeremy's science monitors that gave them the energy a.n.a.lysis of that beam. Even after several seconds of study and two significant frowns, Spock could only postulate, "Possibly." Stiles's leg muscles knotted. "Let's try beaming through."

On his other side, Jeremy protested, "Let me beam something solid out first."

"You got thirty seconds. Somebody get me a jacket. I'm going myself." "You are?" McCoy asked. "d.a.m.n! Another hotshot!"

The comm b.u.t.ton was hot under Stiles's finger. "Jason, bring me two of the shaped charges we use to blow off nacelles. Meet me in the transporter section." He accepted and yanked on a jacket somebody handed him from the aft bridge locker. "I've got to find Zevon. n.o.body else knows-"

"Neither do you know the way around the city;' Spock pointed out. He stood squarely before Stiles. "You were a prisoner. But I do." That's what he needed-a super-shadow.

But he couldn't think of any reason that didn't make absolute sense. Pushy, pushy Vulcan...

"What about me?" Dr. McCoy made a rickety effort to stand up.

Stiles gaped at him, instantly in a bind. His mouth opened, closed again, opened what could he say? McCoy couldn't possibly run or fight, but if he stayed here... and what about the others? Offer to beam a hundred-and-some-year-old man down to save his life and leave the entire young crew behind with their lives dangling?

McCoy's ice-blue eyes sharpened. "Are you going to refuse one of the greatest explorers and pioneers in Starfleet history?"

Choking on what he hoped was damage smoke and not something else, Stiles uttered, "I... I... uh...."

"Eric," Jeremy interrupted, "We're slipping. They're not pulling us down with our energy now, but it's still pulling us with whatever energy it can muster itself. We're slipping deeper into the atmosphere. Sixteen minutes till we hit the surface."

Travis looked at him. "Can we turn so we don't hit engines first?" "No chance."

Spock stripped out of his ceremonial robe and dumped it on the deck. "We should go, Commander."

But Stiles was still gawking at McCoy without 'knowing what to say.

The aged physician leered back at him with singular determination.

Spock snapped up the front of his formal jacket-it turned out the big clunky Vulcan molded jewels also had a clasping mechanism-and simply preempted, "Doctor, please."

Levering a finger at Stiles, McCoy huffed, "If you don't come out of transport with your arms sticking out of your head and you find that Romulan, you bring me the whole package, not just a sample of his blood. I've got to have a constant warm, living source for several days to do what I need to do. I need him, got it? Not a sample. Him, himself" "Thank you" Spock said. "We shall do our utmost." "You'd better"

And McCoy stepped aside, out of the way of everybody who was working to keep the CST in the atmosphere.

"Travis, come here." Stiles grasped his friend's arm and held it fiercely. "Backup plan three, got it!' "Really?" "Yes, really. Got it?" "Got it." "Travis... don't let my ship sink."

Somehow Travis found a smile. "We'll do what we have to, Eric."

Stiles started to respond, but his words stuck in his throat. Travis a.s.sured him by returning the grip, and said nothing more.

Drawing a tight breath, Stiles jumped to the hatchway and grasped the hatch handle, then looked back for Spock. "Mr. Amba.s.sador? Let's fly or fry:' "After you, Mr. Stiles."

The Imperial Palace What had begun as a complex and troubling medical mission had first metamorphosed into the glimmerings of success-a chance to save a thousand royal family members and sh.o.r.e up the stability of the Federation's closest and most dangerous neighbor on this side of the street-and had now once again altered its form and function. Now Crasher, Data, and the hapless merchant named Hashly were about to fight for their own lives. As abruptly as wind shifts, they had become the targets of an a.s.sa.s.sination plan that had seemed as distant to them as stars were apart.

As her stomach muscles spun into spirals, Beverly Crusher thought fast, conjuring up a half-dozen 'alternatives before settling on one. She couldn't sedate them all. She couldn't seduce them all... there had to be something better.

"Allow me to play to your sense of honor" she began, with a bluntness she hoped Romulans would appreciate. "If your men can take my man, Sentinel, I'll pack up my instruments and leave, and let the empress and her family die. You won't even have to kill me."

Sentinel Iavo tipped his head as if he hadn't quite heard her right. He nodded once at Data after deciding she couldn't possibly be talking about Hashley. "Him?" "Yes," Crusher said. "Him.'~ "A duel?" "If you have the integrity."

Iavo glanced at the sergeant of his guards. The sergeant frowned in suspicion, but said nothing.

"How is it honorable," Iavo parried, "for five men to do battle with one man?"

Crusher shrugged. "Well, he works out a lot. You know Starfleet."

The five Romulan men, warriors all, looked at Data and saw a lanky, wiry human who carried Crusher's medical bags.

Crusher held her breath. Come on, men, think... how do we spell Romulan chivalry?

"He has no weapon" one of the other guards protested as he finally drew his own blade.

"You told us no active phasers or disrupters could get through the palace's security screen" Crusher said, %0 you can either give him a dagger, or fight him like he is."

Despite being obviously intrigued by the wager, Iavo's expression hardened. "There is no integrity in sacrificing everything on a game. I refuse, Doctor. I cannot afford to let you leave here now. You will die today."

Crusher shrugged. "Have it your way. You still have to fight him."

Data stood alone in the middle of the carpet, calm and waiting, seeming very small. Perfect-the Romulans didn't like this at all. Whether they won or not, they were petty about fighting and too chicken to bet on themselves. And she'd piqued their sense of fair play. Conscience could be such a burden, couldn't it? She hadn't expected them to take a silly wager, but now they were ashamed to fight Data in what appeared to be a no-win for Starfleet.

The Romulans glanced at each other in waves of hesitation, doubt, suspicion and a flash of guilt?

Over her shoulder, Crusher heard the faint voice of Ansue Hashley. "I... I can fight... a little .... " "Shh" the doctor murmured. "Go ahead, Data."

Without verbal acknowledgement, Data moved forward. Crusher pressed Hashley back, and the line of battle drew itself across the fur carpet. There before her, like a museum painting on a wall, stood the stirring vision of four distinguished Romulan charioteers and their Sentinel in rebellion, and thus they descended to the ranks of hatchet men.

Between the two factions in the bedchamber stood the couch and the oblong table and its chair. For a moment these three objects seemed as insurmountable as any moat. The recorded harp lyficals continued mindlessly to play, the fire to skitter and glow, the empress to suffer through her next breaths.

Ultimately the tension in the room became tangible, breakable-or maybe it was just the accursed tw.a.n.gy harp music-and the standoff was shattered by the battle cry of the sergeant of the guard. He flung off his helmet, dashed it to the hearth stones, and charged.

Blocked by the table, the sergeant drove forward anyway and leaped into the air, took two steps across the tabletop, spread his arms, dagger down, and dive-bombed Data where he stood.

Barehanded, Data's arms shot up; he clasped the sergeant's nubby silver uniform with both hands and parried the man over his head. ff Data had simply completed the arch, the sergeant would've landed on Crusher, but Data's shock-fast computer brain measured the pivot-angle, force, velocity, energy-and he twisted exactly right. The sergeant bellowed his shock and surprise, slashed downward with his blade-raking Data across the back of the neck-and then flew into the wall as if shot from a cannon. Though it looked as if he had just struck the velvet drapery, his body made a distinct thok of bone and armor striking against sheer rock. He crashed onto the corner of the vanity and thence to the floor.

Enraged, the three other guards now charged in unison, vaulting and smashing past the furniture. Data's hands struck out like cobra tongues, skirting the slashing blades of his attackers with such blinding speed that two of the guards cut each other instead of him and stumbled back. The third received a kick in the gut and was thrown off. The first guard now flew from his position on the floor and jumped onto Data's back, clinging and grimacing viciously while trying to position his knife at Data's throat. Data merely turned under them as freely as a weathervane, his expression completely unfazed. Sentinel Iavo, astounded by what he saw, rushed between the table and the couch, his ceremonial dirk's long blade golden in the firelight, as he drove it forward into Data's ribcage. There the blade lodged.

Data reached over his head with one hand to clasp the clinging sergeant by the hair and down with the other hand, to grip Sentinel Iavo's dirk hilt as it protruded from his chest. Crusher winced as the three men waltzed together.

Behind her, Ansue Hashley's gasps and gulps narrated every move, and he somehow had the sense to stay back, no matter what he thought he saw.

"He'll be slaughtered!" Hashly empathized. "That knife-it's in him!"

Restraining herself from idle boasting, Crusher said, "Don't worry yet. Data's the best concealed weapon around."

In a spin of color and firelight, the sergeant slammed to the floor at Crusher's feet, dazed, his face bleeding, lungs heaving, weapon completely missing. Crusher stooped and heaved him up onto his knees. "There you go. Keep fighting:'

She stepped back, watching tensely to see if the seed of guilt she'd planted would sprout quickly enough to turn the tide. Already she sensed a half-heartedness in the Romulans' effort-or was she imagining it?

With a prideful roar, the Romulans surged back into the fight just as Sentinel Iavo and one of the other guards crashed into the couch and drove the whole thing fight over backward, dumping them into a stand of shelves, whose contents came shattering down upon them. "You're making a mess;' Crusher commented.

"I shall be happy to tidy everything later, Doctor;' Data responded as he whirled and took a blaze of vicious stabbings to the arms and upper body and blocked hard-driven blows that were meant for his face. In return he drove his fists, knuckles, and the heels of his hands into the soft tissues of his opponents. "By the way, I am expecting a communiqu? from the empress's first cousin's physician on Usanor Four. Would you mind activating the channel?" "Oh, sure."

Completely rattled by the casual conversation going on while they were panting like dogs, the Romulan guards let their anger get the better of them. Data's hand-eye coordination was at computer speed, he had the strength of any ten Romulans all equalized throughout his body, and he wasn't getting tired. When the next one came within grasping range, attempting to body-blow Data to the floor, Data instead grasped the man fully about the chest and heaved him into the air, propelling him up and into the comer.

"Data, it's getting out of hand. Wrap it up as soon as you can." "Certainly"

Sentinel Iavo was poised ten feet from them in an attack stance, staring at the body of his guard. Summoning the commitment he had made, he forced himself to swing once again at Dam with his dirk blade slashing. The blade fell on Data's shoulder and glanced off. Iavo stumbled.

In that instant, Data managed to drive off all three remaining attackers at once, just long enough to grasp the dagger hilt that was still sticking out of him. With a final yank, he drew it from his body. The blade dripped with colored fluid as he turned it toward the charging guards and the Sentinel. He was armed.

His eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted, Data's jaw locked, and there was a flush of effort in his complexion. The Sentinel and two of the guards attacked him as a unit with their blades, met with driving force by Data's weapon. The clang and shriek of metal against metal erupted over the harpsong.

"Uh-oh, he's getting mad," Crasher observed. "And they say he doesn't have those emotions... apparently he's got something like adrenaline on his side."

"How can he do this?" Hashley asked. "How can he throw those big guards around!"

"He eats his broccoli. This is what happens to all conspirators, Mr. Hashley. Sooner or later they have to show themselves."