Star Trek #88: Across the Universe by Pamela Sargent

Author:Pamela Sargent [Sargent, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, General
ISBN: 9780743454056
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 1999-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

MONTGOMERY SCOTT strode into the transporter room, where Lieutenant Kyle was standing behind the controls.

"Scotty," the captain's voice said from the comm, "can you beam all of those people out of there?"

"We're scanning, sir," Kyle muttered.

"We're still scanning, Captain," Scotty called out, "but they're scattered over a lot of territory!" Young Chekov was down there, and Longstreet, and those two had not yet sent out a call to the Enterprise. Rachel Zlatopolsky had also gone out with the weeders, as Scotty had started to think of the people in the land vehicles-Rachel, and Emo Tannan, and others from the Hawking whom he had come to know before they had beamed down to their new home.

"Can you locate them all?" Captain Kirk asked.

Scotty hurried to Kyle's side. "We're working as hard as we can!" the engineer replied. "For some reason, our

sensors aren't working the way they should-it's almost as if something is deflecting the signals."

"Get all of those people out of there, dead or alive," Kirk said.

Scotty looked at the display screen on the transporter control panel. The coordinates of one vehicle-and two people-were displayed, but there was no way to know yet whether those two were alive or dead. Time might be lost bringing up bodies of the dead while those still alive waited for rescue.

"Once I've got precise coordinates for each person," Scotty said, "I'll program the transporter to pluck them up one after another, but it'll take time with this bloody interference." No, he thought; interference was not an accurate term for whatever was confusing the sensors. It was almost as if something below was throwing up a kind of shield.

"Now, Scotty."

"I'm working as we speak, Captain." Scotty's and Kyle's fingers flew over the controls. "We're locked on two people right now. We can get them out if there's nothing in the ground to stop the scan or the transporter beam." He did not want to dwell on the possibility that this alien overgrowth might have a way of deflecting the Enterprise's transporter beams. "We've got a dozen other people besides our two laddies to rescue, don't we?"

"An even dozen," Kirk replied.

"Well, what other kind of dozen can there be," Scotty said softly.

Kirk found himself smiling at Scotty's comment, despite the gravity of their situation. The ability to smile or laugh, even at such an inappropriate moment-it made him wonder about the so-called callousness of professionals in a crisis. They had to step back, and even accept failure, or they would not be able to go on to the next job.

And at the moment, his chief engineer Scotty would be keeping any emotional stresses in check while trying to save whomever he could.

"Scotty?" Kirk asked.

"We have coordinates for six now, Captain," Scotty said.

Kirk felt a moment of uncertainty. Would it be better to beam up those six people now and then get the others? Or wait until all fourteen were found, as Scotty was attempting to do? Three or four people might die waiting for all the coordinates to be set, but if they started beaming some up now .

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