Part 21 (1/2)
Picard rounded on the tactical station and stood beside Tasha Yar. ”Then we're going to have to force it to compact again. Where's that gas giant?”
Yar shook herself and bent over her console. ”Bearing point-seven-nine mark three-four, sir.”
”Head toward it.”
Riker came aft on the lower deck and asked, ”Your plan, sir?”
”We're going to hide behind a tree, Mr. Riker,” the captain said, moving down the ramp with his hand tracing the shape of the bridge horseshoe. The strange light across the monitors cast a b.l.o.o.d.y purple glow on his face. ”It won't be able to absorb all the energy inside a level-ten gas giant a half million miles across. It's going to have to decide to come around one way or the other. When it does, there'll be a standoff.”
Riker turned immediately and said, ”Geordi, point-five-zero sublight to the gas giant, tight orbit.”
”Point-five-zero, aye,” Geordi repeated, avoiding a glance at the Ops position, where Wesley had slipped into Data's seat.
Picard kept his voice steady. ”Prepare an emergency warning dispatch to Starfleet, single-pulse and high-warp. If we don't make it, I want to be sure the Federation's ready for this. s.h.i.+elds at maximum,” he added, holding a hand up to shade his eyes from the sizzling screens.
”s.h.i.+elds up,” Yar said shakily. ”Maximum energy available for defensive-” She stopped, glaring at her readouts, and almost instantly had to gasp, ”Sir, it's moving in!”
”Keep tight to the gas giant. Tighter, LaForge!”
”Trying, sir ... ”
Across the Enterprise's s.h.i.+elds crashed the punis.h.i.+ng force of the phenomenon. It knew where the stars.h.i.+p was, but discovered it had found two things-a stars.h.i.+p, and a ma.s.sive planet that was virtually a ball of twisting energy. No matter how it contracted, no matter how it closed its fist, the planet confounded every effort to devour the stars.h.i.+p. Every time the thing tried to contract upon its quarry, it was driven back by the energy put out by the gas giant. Spasms of electrical energy pounded the s.h.i.+p and flooded through the gas giant's churning atmosphere. The s.h.i.+p defied the attack, s.h.i.+mmying with every pulse of energy that flogged the s.h.i.+elds, draining them moment by moment.
”Outer skin heating up, Captain,” Yar reported. ”We're entering the atmosphere.”
Picard ignored her. ”Move in closer, LaForge. If it wants us, it's going to have to face us.”
”Captain!” Troi shouted. When he neither fired the weapons nor hit that blue b.u.t.ton, frustration crumpled her features and she blinked into the bright screen.
Threads of smoke and fans of sparks shot from half the bridge consoles as the s.h.i.+p fought the mauling once again, but Picard made no further orders. He would stand his ground and so would this s.h.i.+p-though he stood now beside his command chair and gripped the arm with the blue b.u.t.ton.
”Captain!” Yar shrieked then, and raised her eyes to the main screen. Even as she spoke, every screen dropped its color in a great wash forward, as though all the images had been sucked out of the back to the main viewer. The main screen now glowed with a compact view of the creature, back in its original form.
”Get ready!” Picard shouted, but it was already upon them, das.h.i.+ng around the protective tree and pouncing on the s.h.i.+p alone, while beside them the gas giant spun ignorantly.
The Enterprise was taken by a great fist of lightning many times more powerful than that of moments before, and electrical bombardment once again blitzed the bridge.
”Fire phasers point-blank!” Picard ordered over the shrieking noise.
The s.h.i.+p spewed energy. Rocked by each shot, the Enterprise endured the punishment as the radical new phasing system dragged energies apart that wanted to be together, then shoved them into each other at the last instant. The ent.i.ty bucked in the a.s.sault, shaking the s.h.i.+p. Around him Picard saw his crew attacked by the silvery lights and blue undercurrents.
”s.h.i.+elds draining ... ” Yar shouted from her post above them.
”Keep firing!” Picard responded, hanging on to the command chair as bolt after bolt of intensified phaser energy thundered through the s.h.i.+p and into the phenomenon's heart.
”The thing's output is becoming unsteady, sir!” Worf shouted over the electrical shriek. ”It's working!”
Suddenly the s.h.i.+p trembled so deep in her core that everyone felt it through his feet, and the phasers stopped.
”What-” Picard tried to turn, but managed only to twist the upper half of his body around to see Yar.
”Complete phaser meltdown, Captain! The core's blown!”
Picard's heart sank to his knees and rattled inside the electrical sheath that now strengthened on the bridge.
”Captain!” Troi's face appeared beside his shoulder. She was hanging on to his arm with both hands, her eyes tormented. ”Do it! Do it, sir! Please!”
He looked at the blue b.u.t.ton. He pushed his hand toward it. Even as he moved, forcing his quaking muscles to fight against the electrical attack, he felt himself slipping away. The beginnings of the chamber experience ... consciousness beginning to float, to let go ...
Troi's voice pierced his pain and struggle. ”Captain!”
The blue b.u.t.ton was an inch away from his thumb.
He concentrated on it, clinging to his ident.i.ty and his memories as if they were ropes dangling in an abyss. If only he could find the energy- ”Energy,” he ground through his gritted teeth. ”The gas giant! Yar!”
But she was helpless, plastered back against Worf by the lightning, which grew stronger with every pulse now that the s.h.i.+p's s.h.i.+elding was strained to its fullest.
”Riker!” Picard roared.
He could vaguely see Riker dragging himself step by agonizing step up the horseshoe rail toward tactical.
A form pressed against Picard's shoulder and a narrow shape came by his elbow ... a hand. Troi's hand. Reaching for the blue b.u.t.ton. He heard her struggling to move past him, to fight off the terrible a.s.sault as she promised she would.
He struck out with his left arm and held her back, but her determination made her strength superhuman and she was pressing harder against his shoulder, her hand clawing toward that b.u.t.ton.
”Let me!” she bellowed through the electrical blasts.
Picard wrenched her away from the command chair with the last of his energy, and the two of them collapsed across the command arena. ”Riker,” Picard rasped with a final breath, ”hurry! Full power!”
Even as he spoke, glowing photon torpedoes broke from the s.h.i.+p's primary hull and crashed down through the gas giant's atmosphere into its active heart, forcing it to release its energy. Bolt after bolt careened downward, drilling into the compacted energy, which spewed back out in great volcanic blasts. And still the s.h.i.+p didn't relent. It continued sending fully charged photon torps deep into the planetary reactor and forcing explosion after explosion, until finally the greatest of all disruptions came. Half the planet's violent core erupted and shot out into s.p.a.ce.
The concussion sent the s.h.i.+p catapulting through open s.p.a.ce, blown out of orbit by megatons of exploding matter.
The s.h.i.+p turned in s.p.a.ce, gravity gone to h.e.l.l, tossing its people about like dolls, and finally settled a quarter million miles from the gas giant.
Picard dragged himself to his feet and stumbled forward. An instant later, Riker was beside him. Around them, the crew grabbed for their control boards and tried to accept the fact that they were still alive-really alive.
Before them on the screen, the creature fluxed and twisted against the glowing rubble of the gas giant's remains. A million explosions raged around them where it was forced to digest the gas giant's released energy and, finally, in one singular blast, was ripped apart.
Nodules of false-color energy splayed outward across the system, and all the glitter was suddenly gone. Only blobs of dissipating energy remained, cascading by the millions around the s.h.i.+p and outward into open s.p.a.ce.
”It couldn't take it....” Riker murmured hoa.r.s.ely.
Picard rasped, ”Status!”
Yar's voice trembled. ”s.h.i.+elds down ... main reactors unstable. The phaser core is a complete burnout. Totally fused. Nothing but molten metal in there, sir.”