The Q Continuum: Book Two: Q-Zone by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 1999-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

GALACTIC BARRIER, HERE WE COME, Riker thought as the Enterprise came within sight of the perilous wall of energy. He wasn’t looking forward to justifying this decision to Captain Picard, in the unlikely event that they ever met again. Two empty chairs flanked the captain’s seat; with Picard away and Deanna off in sickbay, the command area felt even lonelier than usual.

“There it is,” Ensign Clarze called out unnecessarily. Even through the stormy chaos of the Calamarain, the luminous presence of the barrier could be perceived, shining through the temperamental clouds like a searchlight through the mist and throwing a reddish purple radiance over the scene upon the viewer. Let’s hope that it’s not luring us on to our destruction, Riker thought. At maximum impulse, they would be within the barrier in a matter of moments.

“Steady as she goes, Mr. Clarze,” he instructed. A loose isolinear chip, its casing charred by the explosion that had liberated it from a broken control panel, drifted between Riker and the viewscreen, pointedly reminding him that the gravity had gone the way of most of their shields. Thank heaven we still have life-support, he thought, after the beating we’ve taken. He suspected that the old Enterprise-D, as durable as she was, would have already succumbed to the Calamarain’s assault. We upgraded just in time.

“Shields at eight percent,” Leyoro reported. Small wonder that the ship felt like it was shaking itself apart. The Calamarain, perhaps becoming aware of Riker’s desperate strategy, threw themselves against the hull and what remained of the deflectors with the same relentless ferocity they had displayed for hours now. Don’t they ever get tired, he thought, or is that just something we solids have to put up with?

“Data. Barclay. Where’s that extra energy?” He smacked his fist against the arm of the chair. “We need those shields.”

“Scanning for it,” Barclay said from the aft engineering station. Now that the pressure was on, the nervous crewman seemed to find a hidden reserve of professionalism, or maybe he was just too busy to be frightened. This had better work, Riker thought, drawing comfort from the fact that Geordi had looked over Barclay’s findings and seconded Data’s technical evaluation of the plan. That’s as much as I can ask for, given our lousy situation. “Yes,” Barclay reported, “I think I’m reading something now. The bio-gel paks are being energized by the proximity of the barrier. I’m picking up definite traces of psionic particles.”

Lightning crashed across the prow of the saucer section, and sparks spewed from the engineering station, the electrical spray gushing toward the ceiling instead of raining upon the floor as they would have under ordinary gravitational conditions. It looked like a geyser of fire. Barclay had no choice but to step back from the sparking console while he waited for the emergency circuits to shut down the geyser. “Commander,” he said, chagrined, “I can’t monitor the bio-gel paks anymore.”

Terrific, Riker thought bitterly. “Data, take over from your station. Divert whatever energy we’ve absorbed to the shields immediately.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.