Maximum Warp 02: Forever Dark by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

Author:Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur [Galanter, Dave & Brodeur, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction:Star Trek
ISBN: 9780671047573
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2001-02-27T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Romulan Warbird Makluan Romulan space Caltiskan system whatever had happened to the space around them-in them—it hurt. Folan was having trouble focusing, and she clutched at her head with both hands, pressing her fingertips into her skull.

“Get—lock.”

“Can’t—”

Struggling out of the command chair, Folan stumbled toward the tactical console. “Just—try… blind!” She gave the order to her subordinate, but pounded the commands into the control board herself.

“Warp field is collapsing,” yelped the helmsman.

7/9

“Keep it together!” Folan ordered. “Do we have them? Do we—”

“We’re pulling them out!” Someone said it, but Folan wasn’t sure who. She was looking down, at her boots, at the deck, her brain thrashing about within her skull, begging to explode.

“We’ve fallen from warp—” Helm again, yelling, barely heard over the din of—what? Folan wasn’t sure. It was loud, as if all atoms were singing at once with a strange vibration, off-key. A trillion violins breaking at once inside her head.

She tried to look around, get back to the command chair.

“I can’t get sensors online!” Medric called.

The helmsman pounded at his console. “My systems aren’t responding! We’re out of control.”

Folan crammed her eyes shut and wished she could block out all else. But the horrible noise that seemed almost physical bombarded her, and as her bridge crew called out around her, she didn’t know who said what anymore.

“Warp power is offline.”

“Auxiliary!” she ordered.

“Not responding.”

And then it all just stopped. As dust settles after a storm, so Folan’s body and mind did. The pain and the cacophony waned and she slowly shook off the agony of whatever had happened. All that was left now was a ringing in her ears and an ache throughout her body.

“Auxiliary power,” one of the engineering crewman huffed, “is now responding.”

“Sensors?”

Awed by his own response, Medric reported, “Active. Not showing anything, but active.”

“The other warbird?” Folan demanded, stepping awkwardly and a bit dizzily toward Medric.

“Off our port.” He looked up at her, his continued awe slackening his jaw.

“We did it,” the helmsman whispered.

We, Folan noticed. They were one crew, and they now trusted her. Perhaps more than they ever had Commander J’emery.

Her chest still tight and aching, Folan returned to the command chair to rest. She suddenly thought others might be more injured than she. “Casualties?” she finally asked.

“Light, SubCommander,” Medric said after checking a readout on his console.

Nodding her pleasure, she motioned back to him and noticed her arm was sore too. Everything was sore. “Open a channel to the other ship.”

“Trying.”

She swiveled back to another centurion. “Secure a tractor beam. Let us tow them to the planet.”

“Impressive,” Medric whispered, and when she turned back around she found him at her side.

“I wasn’t sure it would work,” she admitted.

“But it did,” he said, smiling widely and bending to her ear, “and you have done very, very well.”

Medric was not the only impressed Tal Shiar. The high-ranking Tal Shiar at the Caltiskan planet was as

well. He’d been a tall, thin, imposing man who held little emotion in his features save for a rather sinister gaze that actually scared Folan as if she were once again a schoolgirl.

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