Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ship of the Line by Diane Carey

Author:Diane Carey
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780671009250
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1973-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Year 2266 - Bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise

(Holographic Simulation)

“Out—Outpost 4 . . . do you read me, Enterprise. This is Commander Hansen . . .”

“Kirk here. We’re minutes away, Hansen. What’s your status?”

“Outposts 2, 3, and 8 are gone . . . unknown weapon . . . completely destroyed . . . even though we were alerted . . . had our deflector shield on maximum . . . hit by enormous power. First attack blew our deflector shield . . . if they hit us again with our deflector shield gone . . . do you read me, Enterprise?”

“Confirm what hit you, Hansen. What vessel? Identity?”

“Space vessel . . . only glimpse of . . .”

“Can you locate the intruder for us?”

“Negative . . . it seems to have . . . disappeared somehow . . . I have you on my screen now . . . switching to visual . . .”

The poor man’s voice was a rag. His back was to the screen, and all around his wavering figure was the wreckage of a bombed-out room. Bodies of green and gray smoke boiled rom several spots, and from other spots open flame tangled the hot air. The color was faded, probably from burned connections in the visual broadcast system.

“Enterprise, can you see it? My command post here . . . we’re a mile deep on an asteroid . . . almost solid iron . . . and even through our deflectors it did this. Can you see!”

“Affirmative, you’re visual, Hansen. What do you have on the intruder?”

“No identification. No answer to our challenge . . . only a glimpse of . . . then it fired something at us, some form of high-energy plasma—fantastic power! And then the whole vessel disappeared. But it’s out there somewhere . . . our sensors show that much . . . Enterprise—something coming at our viewscreen . . . coming at us fast!”

“Lock us onto your screen.”

“Switching . . .”

Standing beside Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of his ship, Jean-Luc Picard was awash in nostalgia and until now had been watching the drama as if it were only that. He only half noted what was going on, at least until the screen came on and Commander Hansen’s burned face gripped him. Hansen was injured, gasping, probably suffocating from the acrid smoke and the flames eating up his oxygen.

Unlike a holonovel, this incident was real. It had happened. And it was being replayed here before him, as identical to reality as modern technology—and the participation of its primary player in later life—allowed. And that was considerable.

On the forward screen, now that Commander Hansen had switched views, was a matte of star-studded space. Then, at the top center, a chalky form appeared, like wings without a body, two pods of some sort on the ends of the wings. That was about it. Just a gash in space.

It came gradually into being, out of nowhere.

“A cloaking device,” Picard muttered. He snapped his mental fingers.

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