Star Trek: Voyager - 041 - The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer

Author:Kirsten Beyer [Beyer, Kirsten]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Media Tie-In, Adventure
ISBN: 9781451673241
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2012-08-28T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

QUIRINAL

Captain Regina Farkas hurried against the tide through the halls of Deck 18. Lieutenant Commander Gregor Denisov, her security chief, jogged a few paces ahead, ostensibly to clear her path. She suspected he was under orders from Commander Roach to prevent her from taking any unnecessary risks once they reached their destination on Deck 16.

“Make a hole, double-quick!” Farkas ordered as she ran, not to get people out of her way, but to instill a sense of urgency as they made their way to the farthest fore section of the ship. Roach and Psilakis were overseeing the evacuation of all areas within half a kilometer of the “barrier.” At the same time her officers were coordinating the movement of supplies from the hazardous areas. The crew members she passed were carrying as much as they could.

“Commander Roach, what’s our count?” she called out to her first officer over the comm.

“ Confirmed four hundred twenty-three,” Roach replied. “But sensors are intermittent near the barrier. We’re still working to clear that up.”

“Understood. Any word yet from the Esquiline, Hawking, or Curie?”

“Communications are still down, Captain.”

“Carry on,” Farkas replied grimly.

The captain had come to the Delta Quadrant in command of six hundred eighty-one souls. Sixty-three of them had lost their lives in the Children of the Storm attack and Quirinal’s subsequent crash landing.

Thirteen minutes earlier, when her ship had slipped partially into the anomaly, Farkas had potentially lost another one hundred ninety-five.

No.

It was an unacceptable number. Of course, one was equally unacceptable. But she’d be damned if this day ended with triple the body count she’d once thought would be the worst the Delta Quadrant could show her.

“Crewman, I want to see you move!” Farkas barked at an unfortunate young man who’d been catching his breath while leaning against a bulkhead. “You can breathe when you get to cargo bay one,” she shouted to his back as he rejoined the jostling throng.

A few paces ahead of her, Denisov was already opening a hatch to the Jefferies tube that ran up to Deck 16. Every other available shaft was being used to bring crew down from the upper levels, but this one had been designated for Farkas’s route.

“This way, Captain,” the security chief called.

Nodding, she attacked the ladder. As her muscles began to groan after a few meters, she wished she hadn’t listened when Doctor Sal had ordered her to take it easy after her brush with death.

Fear steeled her resolve and quickened her pace.

Their sensors had told them that there was a barrier bisecting her ship at a ninety-three-degree angle. It separated normal space from what she hoped had been pulled intact into the anomaly. The barrier ran straight through main engineering.

The nacelles and rear shuttlebays she could live without, at least for the moment. Her engineering staff, particularly Lieutenant Phinnegan Bryce, was another matter.

Phinn had been critical in saving the ship from the Children of the Storm, and his diligence was largely responsible for the Quirinal’s speedy rebuild. They had stared down death together once, and the thought that he had been lost to this cursed thing galled her.

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