Captain's Peril by William Shatner;Judith & Garfield Reeves-stevens

Author:William Shatner;Judith & Garfield Reeves-stevens
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Animals, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Space Opera, Fantasy & Magic, General, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743455947
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2002-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

BAJOR, STARDATE 55596.5

KIRK’S EYES STUNG. His nostrils burned. He felt a sharp snap in his knee as his foot caught under the edge of the gunwale, then pulled free as Picard’s hurtling form drove him into the depths.

All this in an instant, an eternity.

Then he felt the tug of his shirt under his shoulders, and the muffled sound beneath the water’s surface flared into sharp intensity.

Kirk coughed, wheezed in air. Saw Picard treading water beside him, one hand still clenched over Kirk’s collar.

“I’m all right,” Kirk sputtered just as Picard’s face blurred with crimson fire as the boat exploded.

The propulser’s hit, Kirk thought, even as he and Picard both dove beneath the surface again.

Kirk paddled his hands to keep himself submerged, all the while glancing up, eyes burning from the sharp salt and dissolved metals of the Bajoran sea. Picard was a shadow floating beside him. Above both, the splash and flare of flaming debris hitting the water’s surface, fractured shadows as metal sank in oddly tumbling motions, but all in utter silence.

Another shadow moved in the dim reaches of the cloudy water nearby. More debris? Kirk couldn’t be sure.

Picard pointed up.

Kirk made a circle of his thumb and index finger, signalling agreement. The boat hadn’t been big, there wouldn’t be enough of it to burn for long. The surface would be safe.

They kicked together and Kirk grimaced as his knee flashed with pain. He denied its hot demand, concentrated instead on the cold water slipping past him as he rose upward.

A moment from the surface, his foot struck something.

Debris was his first thought.

Then something struck him back.

Then Picard sank beside him, faster than a man could swim, and an instant later, Kirk felt himself pulled down, as well.

He felt his lungs strain as the light of the surface dimmed. All the air in the world, only two meters above him…only three….

A hand caught his ankle.

Kirk looked down, saw Picard, his face pale. And below Picard, a writhing shadow, an eclipse of the ocean, something unseeable in the murk and blurred vision of the water.

Then something else, hard and grasping, wrapped around his leg and pulled again.

Suddenly Picard’s body shot up past Kirk, free of whatever force had dragged him downward.

Picard grabbed Kirk’s hand, pulled tight as he kicked and pushed with his free arm.

Kirk kicked violently and, then he, too, broke free.

Together they swam for the surface, racing the last bubbles of escaping air that trickled from their mouths.

We’re not going to make it, Kirk thought clearly, dispassionately.

How many times had the story been told of a drowning man, but a meter from the surface, opening his mouth to breathe as if he were already saved?

Breathing was what Kirk’s body cried out for. Breathing was all that could end this agony.

The water above grew brighter. Kirk was closer. He saw Picard beside him. Both men rising. The bubbles led the way.

Only three meters now.

A dark shadow swooped between them. A sense of something sharp and spiked. Kirk kicked harder, faster, his knee not forgotten, but ignored.

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