Part 6 (1/2)
”Thrusters are gone,” Sanderson said as he got up and joined the last engineer on the transporter pad. ”I've slowed descent, but it'll pick up again fast now.”
As the pair dematerialized, Riker's voice said, ”Reactor plant is out of the atmosphere and pushed out of orbit, Captain. We're experiencing power drains. Interference from those dead zones. Better hurry.”
Picard hesitated a brief moment. He was leaving this vessel, an extension of his stars.h.i.+p, to crash in the wilderness of a barren planet. He touched the chair's headrest a moment more, then nodded to Data. ”Forty seconds before she crashes.”
”Aye, sir.” Data set the controls as the captain stepped onto the left pad, then he got onto the right pad himself. ”Energize.”
A feeling of desperation washed over Picard as he looked out into the runabout and waited for the transporter to work. He was on a cras.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+p, and doing nothing to stop it from happening. There was nothing to do, and he knew that, but... his instincts told him to try, not merely to stand and wait for rescue.
”Captain, we're... prob... can't... to...” Riker's voice deteriorated into comm static. Picard had the urge to step forward, off the transporter pad. He kept himself from doing so. Enterprise would still be trying to beam them off, even if they were having communications trouble.
”Sir,” the captain heard Data say, ”if they cannot beam us-”
But that was all Data had a chance to say. The universe crunched darkness and pain around Picard, and silence blanketed all.
Chapter Seven.
”WE'VE LOST THE TRANSPORTER SIGNAL!”
Riker stomped toward the ops console. ”I don't want to hear that. Get it back!”
”No use, Commander. It's gone.”
He jabbed at his comm badge. ”Transporter room, report!”
”Never got a clear lock, sir!”
Tapping at the console, Riker ordered the ops officer: ”Plot trajectory from last known course and position. I want them found now!”
”Wait, I'm picking up a beacon from the surface of the planet. Coming from a debris field.”
”Get a d.a.m.ned lock.”
”Aye, sir. Trying.”
Sound came first, undefined and wavering, like a soft rustling of paper or linen. Light danced in his head, and as he pulled himself from a bleak dream of nothingness, Picard heard Data telling him not to move.
The android's voice sounded quiet in the thin Martian atmosphere. Picard wondered just how great his pain would have been with one Earth G crus.h.i.+ng down on him instead of the lighter gravity of Mars. With that wandering thought of pain came the flood of agony, first in sharp needle-p.r.i.c.ks, then in hammers, and he gasped as Data removed a piece of wreckage that had sliced into the captain's leg.
”I am sorry, sir. That was necessary to free you.”
”Quite...” Picard grunted as he tried to get up, and failed. ”... all right, Mr. Data. I seem to have broken a leg, and perhaps my arm.”
Data ran a medical tricorder scanner over his captain. ”Yes, sir. And you are bleeding in three places.”
”Mm-hmm.” Picard tried to brace himself with his good arm on the wall of the transporter alcove. He couldn't do that either. He wasn't even sure where he would have gone if he could.
The runabout was mostly intact, except for some very large cracks. The cold wind poured through those, and actually felt rather good. It wouldn't in a few minutes, when Picard's body was out of shock from the crash, but for now ... ”I suggest you not move, sir. I have a medikit. Let me stop the bleeding.”
Picard nodded. ”Are you injured?”
”I am not damaged, and we appear to be either out of, or at least on the edge of, the dead zone, some two hundredand-seventy kilometers outside Vanes Marineris.”
”How do you know we're out of the dead zone?”
”I am feeling much better, sir.”
”Glad to hear it.” His right arm too painful to move, Picard tapped his comm badge awkwardly with his left. ”Heard to-”
The captain stopped, turning his neck painfully toward the din of a transporter beam materialization. Riker, Dr. Crusher, and two people from security appeared a few feet to Picard's left.
Almost before she'd fully beamed, Crusher was already plunging toward the captain. She ran her tricorder quickly over his body. ”Hairline fractures in your right leg, multiple lacerations, abrasions, contusions and a clean break in your arm. No wonder you hate these meetings with the admiralty.”
Picard nodded. ”Indeed. And it's going to get worse. Do what you have to do to get me mobile again, Doctor. I need to speak to the lot of them immediately.”
”Captain, th-that's a closed door meeting,” the young yeoman stammered. Obviously he didn't like having to yell at a stars.h.i.+p captain.
”I'm opening it.” Still a bit stiff, Picard limped quickly through the doorway as the entryway parted before him.
Seven admirals looked toward him simultaneously. He continued across the room until he was at their conference table. Hovering in the middle of the table was a MAXIMUM WARP: BOOK ONE.
holographic representation of the Alpha Quadrant. White blotches dotted the three-dimensional graph. What they represented, Picard could guess.
”Dead zones,” he said.
Dulroy, Picard noticed, was nowhere to be seen. In this room were the heads of Starfleet, those who were really in charge. Admiral Tucker motioned Picard to a chair. ”Have a seat, Picard.”
Tucker was the most senior member of the fleet and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Federation president. Venerable, un pliable a bit of a jacka.s.s to people he didn't like and didn't like him. But those were a misguided few. Picard didn't know him much better than knowing all of that, but he liked the admiral nevertheless.
”We have a very big problem,” Tucker said.
”I know.” Picard's tone was grave and a bit rough, in part because his bones were only freshly healed and his muscles still quite sore.
The admiral shook his gray head. ”You don't know everything. Three hours ago we received information that, two days previous, a s.h.i.+pment of antimatter had been lost, presumed destroyed. This s.h.i.+pment had been transferred from a Federation government freighter to a Romulan one. It was a replacement for materials leased from the Romulans in the Dominion War.”
”Lost?” Picard asked. ”How?”
Shaking his head and indulging in a sigh, Tucker leaned forward against the table. ”We don't know. We a.s.sume it's these dead zones, but we're not sure. And what's more, the Romulans aren't sure. Since their freighter never returned, they're beginning to a.s.sume the worst. As are the Klingons. They've lost twelve s.h.i.+ps, that they know of.”
”The Klingons know about the dead zones,” Picard said.
”Yes, but every government is suspecting that every other government is causing them.” Tucker looked tired. Worried. ”What's worse, we can't even discuss it with them. Subs.p.a.ce communications are all but totally useless now,” He tapped on the computer padd on the table and the holograph before them twisted into a network of communication lines that disappeared into the white blotches previously shown. ”Everywhere a signal falls into a dead zone, it's lost. But knowing that's the reason is little comfort. What's the first thing an enemy does before invasion?”
”Jams or destroys communications, of course. But why now? I doubt-”