“Try again, Thex.” Then Halak heard Thex gasp. “What is it?”
“Commander, there’s an energy surge!”
“I knew it. They were playing dead, they’re powering up weapons!” Strong’s hand flashed over his firing controls. “Firing phasers!”
“No!” Halak shouted. He moved to override Strong’s phaser controls, too late. “No, Strong, stop!”
Their phasers sizzled. Horrified, Halak watched as the blast caught the scout amidships and knifed through the hull, shredding it like tissue paper.
“What are you doing?”Halak screamed. For a wild, insane moment, he wanted to punch Strong in the jaw. “They weren’t targeting us!”
Strong’s eyes bulged. “I’m s-sorry. I thought they’d laid a trap, I thought they were playing dead, I thought…”
“Commander!” It was Thex. “There she goes!”
“Damn!” Halak whirled around in time to see the shuttle go in two successive bursts. Frantically, he wrenched the shuttle about, trying to outrun the aftershocks. “Damn, damn!”
“Shock waves!” Thex cried.
The first shock wave caught them astern, the concussive force rippling over the ship and shaking them as if they were the grip of a giant hand. Alarms screamed. Strong smacked hard against his console and rebounded to the deck with a cry of pain. Something behind Halak shorted; he heard a yelp from Thex, and there was a smell of singed wire and ozone and burnt flesh. Another shock wave slammed them amidships. Halak fought for control, but the ship bucked, heaved, yawed, and then the ship banked sharply left, their gravity cut out for an instant, and Halak went flying. He crashed to the deck, the force of the impact knocking the wind out of him.
For an instant, he simply stopped breathing. The ship was spinning, and he felt his body flatten out against the starboard bulkhead. He knew, instantly: Their inertial dampers were gone. They were spiraling out of control
Through a haze of pain, he heard the computer intone a warning. “Warning. Hull shear stress approaching tolerance limits. Warning…”
Abandon ship.Halak shook his vision clear. We’ve got to abandon ship.
But he couldn’t move. His chest felt as if it was on fire, and he struggled, tried to get his burning lungs to pull in air. Finally, he drank in a great, wheezing gulp.
“Argh!” he cried. His neck arched, and he felt the muscles of his chest spasm. He labored to pull in another breath. “Strong, Strong!”
The centrifugal force that had him plastered to the deck made it almost impossible for him to move his head. Achingly, inch by agonizing inch, he fought against the invisible hand that pinned him in place and pulled his head around until he was looking aft, toward the command console. He saw two things. Strong was sprawled in the space between the pilot and copilot chairs. And Thex was lying, facedown, on the deck, to his left and just out of reach. The Andorian wasn’t moving.
“Strong!” Halak wheezed. “Strong, we’re spinning counterclockwise. Shut down the starboard thrusters! Throttle up on the port thruster, break the spin!”
In an agony of suspense, Halak watched as Strong clawed his way up the back of his chair. It was like watching someone doing ballet in molasses. Strong fumbled at the controls.
“Shutting down starboard thrusters! Port thruster, engaged. Now!”
Halak felt the ship quake. There was a shriek of protest from the computer. The bulkhead vibrated, and Halak felt the shudders running up and down his spine.
Suddenly, the pressure from the invisible hand on his chest lessened. Weakened. Was gone. Gasping, Halak sagged to the deck. For a moment, all he heard was the sobbing of his own breath.
Then, the computer shrilled: “Warning. Environmental systems failure. Hull stress has exceeded maximum tolerance levels. Hull breach imminent in three-point…”
“Kill that thing, Strong.” Halak let his head fall back for an instant. He knew how much time they had. Not much.
“Thex.” Halak groped at the Andorian’s neck for a pulse. He felt it: faint, thready. Reaching around, Halak heaved Thex over. Halak’s breath sizzled through his teeth. An ugly black rose of burnt cloth and skin blossomed on the Andorian’s chest.
“Strong, we have to get out! Get off a distress call to the Barker!”
The lieutenant’s chest heaved, and Halak saw that Strong’s face was slicked with blood gushing from a laceration in the man’s scalp. “Strong!”
“I’m okay,” said Strong, his voice hitching with pain. “I’m okay, I’m okay. There,” his fingers crawled over the controls, “done. Sending out a general distress. There goes life support.” Strong wiped blood from his eyes. Blinked. “Hull stress…”
“Forget that!” The ship shimmied, and Halak staggered, clutching at a bulkhead for balance. He clawed his way to the equipment locker, slammed his fist down, and broke the seal. The locker sighed open. Reaching in, Halak dragged out an environmental suit. “Help me!”
“But, Commander,” Strong was holding his head and blood leaked around his fingers, “there’s no time!”
“Did you hearme, Lieutenant? Get over here and helpme!”
Clamping his mouth shut, Strong said nothing more. Together, they shoved the inert Andorian into an environmental suit.
“All right, slap on a compressive and suit up!” Halak ordered, jamming on Thex’s helmet. He eased the Andorian to the deck. “Go, go!”
Jamming the white rectangle of a compressive bandage on his scalp, Strong shrugged into his suit. Halak fought with his suit, pawing clumsily at the legs, the arms; he was still dizzy and off-balance, and he could tell from the way the ship bucked, the groan of metal, that it couldn’t last much longer.
Without being told, Strong hooked his hands under Thex’s right arm, and Halak took the left. They dragged the Andorian upright.
“All right,” Halak rasped. His own breaths were loud in his ears. Looking over, he saw Strong’s grim, blood-streaked face staring at him from behind his faceplate. Halak read the look. They’d be lucky if anyone heard in time.
Eight hours of air.Halak activated the emergency transport. Then we suffocate.
The ship around him shimmered, dissolved, broke apart. The deck fell away from beneath his feet. And then there was blackness. The ship was gone.
Chapter 20
“And the next thing I knew we were floating in space,” said Halak. He’d omitted anything to do with his real mission, or his concerns about having been recognized by Qadir’s men. He was under orders not to divulge the truth of that Ryn mission to anyone, up to and including his captain. And, of course, SI knew nothing about his past. But the remainder of his story was true; his coal-black eyes had never left Burke’s face, and his voice rang with conviction. “No lifeboat. We clipped our suits together. But we were stranded, not even sure if our suit’s distress beacons would make it to the Barker.”
“So your situation was desperate,” said Burke, flatly. Throughout Halak’s recitation, her brown, appraising gaze betrayed no emotion save a faint derision.
“You could say that,” Halak said, without irony. “Thex died two hours after the ship disintegrated. We bled what was left of Thex’s air into our systems.”
Halak looked over at Garrett, his tone becoming a little defiant as if deflecting a perceived criticism. “Thex wouldn’t need it, and Strong’s suit was leaking, probably damaged in the beam-out.”