Above it all, the force of the shock wave was becoming more pronounced. Every surface of the bridge vibrated, and a deep rumbling reverberated through the hull. In her mind’s eye, Sarith saw the wave coming at her, threatening to envelop her and the Talonlike a wave crashing over rocks on a distant shoreline.
Beside her, Ineti tapped the control on a wall-mounted communications interface. “All hands, brace for impact.” Then there was nothing more for him to do except grab Sarith by the arm and push her toward a nearby bulkhead and the handhold mounted there. She gripped the handle with both hands, muscles tensing as she counted down the ewauntil…
A deafening thunderclap roared through the bridge as Sarith felt herself upended and slammed into the bulkhead. Her handhold slipped from her fingers and she was thrown to the deck as the reverberation of the shock wave playing across the Talon’s overstressed deflector shields was translated through the hull of the ship. The cacophony all but drowned out the alarm klaxons and cries of fear and distress that came as the lights flickered and died, plunging the command deck into near darkness, with the only illumination coming from the room’s array of display monitors and consoles.
Still tumbling without control across the pitching deck, Sarith finally came to a halt as she slammed into the support mounting that housed the central hub workstations. The column’s sharp corner caught her in the side just below her rib cage and she felt bone snap, forcing the air from her lungs and making her cry out in pain.
“Emergency power to structural integrity and inertial dampeners!” she called out, each word like a stab to her injured side. She knew there was no way to outrun or outmaneuver the wave, and that their best option for survival was to ensure the continued operation of those shipboard systems which could prevent the crew from being killed simply by being tossed about the vessel’s interior.
The effects of the shock wave finally were ebbing, and Sarith felt the ship slowly beginning to calm itself as the dampeners compensated and reestablished normal gravity. Holding her damaged ribs, she gritted her teeth and struggled to sit up amid showers of sparks illuminating the otherwise gloomy bridge. The odor of burned wiring and insulation stung her nostrils and she looked up to see two of the master systems monitors erupt into flame, spewing glass and composite plastics across the deck.
Other muffled explosions echoed across the bridge, followed by a howl of agony from somewhere over her left shoulder that made Sarith flinch. She looked up to see N’tovek falling away from his workstation and landing with a sickening thud as his helmeted head struck the deck. Even in the feeble light she could make out mangled and flash-burned flesh on his hands and face.
No!
“Alert the doctor,” Sarith called out above the chaos enveloping the bridge. Clenching her jaw to bite back her own pain, she pulled herself around the central hub to where N’tovek lay unmoving. Ineti beat her there, kneeling down beside the fallen officer and immediately placing his fingers to the side of the other man’s neck. Sarith saw the fragments of shrapnel that mutilated the centurion’s once-handsome face, and that his eyes were fixed and staring at the ceiling, and knew without doubt that N’tovek was beyond any help the Talon’s physician, Ineti, or even she might provide.
“It does not appear that he suffered,” Ineti offered as he reached up to close the dead centurion’s eyes. “That much is fortunate, at least.”
Forcing the gamut of emotions raging inside her to remain beneath the veneer of composure she was fighting to keep in place, Sarith used her free hand to pull herself up, every movement agony as she rose to her feet. All around her, emergency lighting positioned at key points along the bridge’s perimeter struggled to activate, their weak attempts doing little to dispel the near total blackness engulfing the cramped chamber.
“Damage reports coming in from all decks,” Darjil called out from where he had resumed his duty station. “System overloads and malfunctions are scattered across the ship.”
“Give me vital systems status,” Sarith ordered, moving her way across the bridge to the chair behind her small yet functional desk. As she slumped into the chair, she noted that the computer terminal was charred black, it too a victim of the rampant overloads plaguing the ship.
Darjil replied, “Life-support is operating on backup power systems, and warp drive is offline.” Looking up from his console, he added, “The engineer reports that the antimatter containment sphere was cracked and he was forced to eject the entire assembly.”
Sarith looked to Ineti as she absorbed the report, saw her own anxiety mirrored in her friend’s eyes. Both of them just as quickly buried their momentary emotional lapse beneath their professional façades for the sake of their subordinates on the bridge, all of whom were now regarding her with varying expressions of fear and uncertainty. There was no need for anyone to say anything more with regard to what Darjil had just conveyed.
To a person, all of them knew what the loss of the antimatter containment system meant. Without it, the Talon’s warp drive was useless. Unable to achieve faster-than-light velocities, the ship and its crew were centuries from Romulan space.
They would never see home again.
“What about communications?” she asked Darjil, for the first time noting that dark green blood was streaming down the younger man’s face.
“Partially functional,” the centurion replied. “Long-range communications are offline, but initial reports are that it can be repaired.”
Crossing the deck toward the central hub, Ineti asked, “What about the cloak?”
Darjil nodded. “Still functional, Subcommander.”
How propitious,Sarith mused with no small amount of bitterness. If we die out here, we still can do so with utmost stealth. Almost as soon as the thought manifested itself, she forced it away. There were always alternatives, even in the most desperate of situations, but unchecked emotion could blind one’s judgment and ability to see those options.
“Notify the engineer that communications and life-support are priority,” she said, sucking air through gritted teeth as the pain in her ribs began to assert itself with renewed force. She knew she would soon have to see the physician, but now was not the time. With the crisis they faced just becoming clear, her officers needed to see her maintaining her position of leadership and control over the situation.
Such as it is.
As if reading her mind, Ineti added, “Pass on to the crew that we’ll need to conserve power as much as possible.”
Sarith nodded in approval at the subcommander’s initiative. Without the warp engines to provide primary power, she knew that the additional strain on the impulse drive would force some shipboard systems to rely on battery backups until repairs were complete and power requirements assessed and appropriately redirected.
The bridge’s softer secondary illumination, coupled with the thin shroud of smoke hanging in the air, appeared to make the angled bulkheads loom even closer in the feeble, flickering light.
For an insane moment, Sarith was reminded of her childhood aversion to small, confined spaces, which had manifested itself one fateful summer when torrential rains had flooded caves littering the mining quarry near her family’s village. Naturally she and her young companions had disregarded parental warnings to stay away from the dangerous mines, a willful decision that exacted a tragic cost. It had taken several dierhato reach the surface in the dark, and only after one of her friends and playmates, a young boy whose name escaped her now, had been swept deep into the maze of underground tunnels by the onrushing water. His body was never recovered, and it was the last time Sarith ever would set foot anywhere near the quarry.
If only such a choice were available now.