Part 19 (2/2)

”No,” admitted Riker, studying the woman's honest face and large brown eyes. ”In truth, we probably couldn't make it to Bajor.”

”Then the Bajorans may be stuck on this starbase ... for the duration.” Winslow left the school of sardines and wandered toward a wall tank of swaying seaweed and skittery octopus. Riker silently followed her between the soothing tanks of fish.

When he reached her, she mustered a smile and said, ”You haven't asked me about your s.h.i.+p all evening. I don't know whether to thank you or be offended.”

”I know you and everyone else on 209 are doing all you can.” He reached out and brushed a strand of dark hair off her p.r.o.nounced cheekbone, as he gazed into her wide, sultry eyes. ”It's funny. When we first got here, I was in a big hurry to leave. But now I'm not in such a big hurry. I'd be a fool not to enjoy these last few days ... with you.”

”You don't expect to come back either?” asked Winslow hoa.r.s.ely.

”To tell you the truth, Shana, I don't know what to expect. I'm scared. But I'll keep doing my duty and trying to protect my crew until ... until there's no point. All I'm trying to say is that you've made these few days better than I had any reason to expect-”

Before he could finish, Captain Winslow pulled him toward her with surprising strength. Her mouth met his in a kiss that was fierce and demanding, only becoming tender after they tasted each other. She gripped his broad shoulders as if hanging on for her life, and he pulled her slight frame into his chest.

They heard giggling, and they turned to see two of the schoolgirls watching them intently. ”Shoo!” said Riker with a good-natured grin. The girls ran off, joining the larger pack of children as they wound their way out of the aquarium.

Winslow stepped away from him and pushed a few strands of hair back into place. ”I should think twice about public displays of affection, or the other captains will think you have the inside track.”

”Well, don't I?” asked Riker with a grin.

”I mean, for getting your s.h.i.+p serviced faster.”

”Ah.” His hands encircled her waist. ”That's not on my mind anymore.”

Winslow gently pushed him away. ”We need to be more discreet. Shall we return to my quarters?”

”It's your call,” said Will, giving her a graceful way to escape his clutches. Under the best of circ.u.mstances, he knew he could be something of a wolf, and these weren't the best of times. He only knew that Shana Winslow filled some empty spot within him, and he hoped he did the same for her. These weren't good times to be alone.

”I'm inviting you,” she answered, taking his hand and squeezing it. ”But, Will, I want you to know that I ... my body is-”

”You're an oasis of beauty,” insisted Riker. ”I've got a few scars, too-we can compare them. The Klingons gave me a dandy one when I served aboard the Pagh, and it's in a place few people get to see. Then this Borg scratched me across the back with a drill bit-”

Winslow snuggled into the crook of his arm. ”I look forward to exploring all of them.”

They walked slowly through the suddenly quiet aquarium, and Riker asked, ”Are you going to get any emergency calls?”

”Not tonight. The admiral's s.h.i.+p is gone.” She gave him a worried smile and gripped his forearm tighter. ”Unless all h.e.l.l breaks loose-”

”It won't tonight,” Riker a.s.sured her. ”Maybe tomorrow, but tonight the galaxy is going to stand still for us.”

After several s.h.i.+fts and a dozen loads of Corzanium, a professional level of confidence was creeping into the work of the tanker crew. No longer was every extraction from the black hole into the recom chambers a white-knuckled dance with death. More and more, the process was like a slow-motion relay race, where the baton kept getting handed off until it crossed the finish line. The flaky Carda.s.sian equipment began to seem stable, even adequate.

They began to think of the Eye of Talek as a deep mining shaft instead of a black hole, and they called it simply ”the Hole.” It was still dangerous, to be sure, but the Hole was no longer the ominous mystery it had been when they had first seen it. For good or evil, they began to see the black hole as a resource to be plundered.

Grof was still bossy, but he was in a fairly good mood over their progress. The best result of their latest fight was that Grof was now keeping away from the bridge entirely, which suited Sam just fine. Most of the others were good company on the bridge, whenever they filled in at relief or simply stopped by to hang out. But even his best friend, Taurik, wasn't around very much. In the pecking order, it was beginning to seem as if the real action was belowdecks in the cargo hold, and Sam was just an afterthought, like the shuttlecraft pilot on the company picnic.

n.o.body thought much about the Jem'Hadar s.h.i.+p off starboard, except for Sam. He watched it every spare moment and thought about it constantly. After all this time, he still didn't have a plan to capture the attack craft or disable it. He didn't know whether the Jem'Hadar were getting c.o.c.ky and overconfident at all, but they deserved to be. So far, everything had gone their way. Patience, Sam told himself, a good idea will come. An opportunity will present itself-be ready to act.

Perhaps his troubled thoughts were distracting him that first s.h.i.+ft of the day, when he should have been at his most alert. But why was Enrique so un.o.bservant at the tactical station? Why was n.o.body even at the ops station? Were the Jem'Hadar groggy from their white stuff? It probably wouldn't have made any difference, but somebody should have seen that meteoroid come streaking out of nowhere, headed straight toward the Eye of Talek.

The meteoroid caught them at the most critical juncture of the extraction, when they had just extended the tractor beam into the black hole to attract the escaping Corzanium. The probe hung on the edge of the event horizon, centimeters from plunging into another realm of s.p.a.ce and time. It couldn't have appeared at a worse time.

”Oh, my G.o.d!” muttered Enrique when he saw the thing on his readouts.

Both he and Sam stared up at the viewscreen in time to see a monstrous rock as big as a house come hurtling past them. As if that near miss wasn't bad enough, the meteoroid crossed the tractor beam, breaking the seal with the probe. The delicate piece of machinery, which they had babied since dropping the first one, was sucked into the blackness in a microsecond. It disappeared from Sam's readouts like a phantom blip.

”What's going on?” demanded Grof over the s.h.i.+p's comm.

There was no time for Sam to reply, because the meteoroid's path was altered by the tractor beam. It pa.s.sed through the beam again, caught hold, and jolted the s.h.i.+p. Having much greater ma.s.s than the probe, the meteoroid abruptly dragged the tanker toward the Eye of Talek.

”Cut the tractor beam,” ordered Sam, but it was too late. Angry footsteps sounded on the ladder behind him.

”We're falling into the hole!” yelled Enrique.

Sam threw every forward thruster into full reverse, and they were tossed out of their seats by the opposing forces. He heard Grof roar with rage as he was dumped off the ladder, but Sam was totally preoccupied with his job now. With every reflex, instinct, and sliver of experience he had, Sam worked the controls in a desperate attempt to save the Tag Garwal and themselves.

But the response was sluggish-it was as if the s.h.i.+p were under water, a submarine. Sam realized it was the gravity from the Eye of Talek and possibly some unknown effect of the event horizon. They were too low-on a reentry course with something they couldn't possibly reenter.

Finally Grof stomped up the ladder and stormed out of the hatch, his face purple with rage. ”What are you doing, you idiot? You're wrecking my s.h.i.+p!”

”Shut up,” growled Enrique. ”He's trying to save it. Look at the viewscreen-it's a huge meteoroid!”

Sam heard gasps as the giant rock disappeared into the hole, which had come close enough to fill the entire viewscreen with blackness. All of this was on the periphery of Sam's senses, as he struggled with the helm. Perhaps a first-cla.s.s shuttlecraft with a slew of thrusters would have survived this descent, but not the awkward antimatter tanker, which was not a terrestrial craft. It didn't have enough power to fight this kind of gravity.

”Pull out!” bellowed Grof. ”Before we hit the event horizon.”

”I'm going into warp drive,” declared Sam.

”No!” said Grof. ”They ... they'll kill us.”

”Not if we're already dead.” He was about to apply an emergency procedure that would probably tear them apart, when something else jolted the Tag Garwal. Sam looked at his controls and was amazed to see that their plunge into the hole had been slowed by eighty percent.

”The Jem'Hadar s.h.i.+p,” said Enrique. ”They've got us in their tractor beam.”

Sam changed the viewscreen immediately, putting up the pulsing blue vessel, which was closer than it had ever been before. It was even in transporter range! Although they had just saved his life, his first instinct was to disable them. But he wasn't prepared-it was too sudden.

He again jammed on the jets and finally began to pull away from the gaping singularity, which had swallowed a gigantic meteoroid and a probe without so much as a burp. The Jem'Hadar s.h.i.+p backed away quickly, but Sam was already counting in his head how many seconds they had stayed within his transporter range. They didn't release his s.h.i.+p and return to their former position until the tanker was well out of danger. For almost a minute, they had been vulnerable.

Sam didn't relax until the Tag Garwal was safely parked in her former orbit. He felt an odd mixture of anger, fear, and elation. They had almost gotten killed, but they had learned a valuable lesson: the Jem'Hadar were willing to risk their s.h.i.+p and their lives to save the tanker from disaster.

He flicked on the comm. ”Captain here. We're okay now, but we lost that probe. Start looking for damage.” He tapped it off.

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