“Yes, I could,” rasped Carol, immense drowsiness overcoming her. “Why not?”
He touched her forehead, and his hand felt as cool and dry as the breeze. Carol took his hand and held it to her face as she drifted off to sleep, the happiest woman in the universe.
Maltz grumbled and cursed in Klingon for several seconds, then crawled out from under the instrument panel and looked forlornly at Leah Brahms. “It’s not going to work ... we’re still leaking plasma, and I can’t fix the comm system.”
Paldor and Bekra crowded around the cockpit of the shuttlecraft, shooting questions at the Klingon, but he ignored them while waiting for Leah to respond. In desperation, she finally turned to the Capellan and the Tellarite and shouted, “Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think!”
Chagrined, Bekra retreated and hopped one-legged back to his seat, but Paldor pressed forward. “What’s going on? We’ve got a right to know!”
Maltz growled and looked about ready to throttle the annoying Tellarite, but Leah put a calming hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay.
We have to face the truth.”
She took a deep breath and turned to her shipmates. “It’s like [137] this—we already had damage, and we took more damage from the Pellean attack. We’re leaking plasma, which means our fuel is going to run out sooner than expected.”
“How soon?” asked Paldor.
“That depends whether we want to keep life support going.”
“You mean, we can fly farther if we’re all dead?” asked Bekra snidely.
Leah sighed. “I guess that’s not an option, is it? I’d say we have twenty minutes ... half an hour at the most.”
“That does it!” shouted Paldor angrily. The Tellarite began to pace, making the cabin of the shuttlecraft seem even more cramped. “You should have listened to me! I never wanted to go to Pelleus V. I wanted to get out of the way of that thing! Now we don’t have enough fuel to get out of the way—it’s just going to eat us alive ... like it did all the others!”
Maltz countered, “No, you will be spared that, because I am going to kill you!” The Klingon jumped to his feet and lunged for the Tellarite, but the big humanoid threw himself over a row of seats and crouched in the back.
“That’s enough,” snapped Leah, grabbing Maltz by the sash and pulling him gently back to his seat. “We’re not going to spend our last few minutes bickering—we’re going to find a way out. If we don’t, we’ll join lots of other good people.”
“We’re not all going to die,” said Bekra with a sneer. “One of us is going to live.”
The Capellan pointed to the hulking white radiation suit in the corner, and everyone’s eyes followed his gesture. After a moment, Paldor timidly asked, “How will we choose who lives?”
“It’s not my suit,” said Maltz. He looked pointedly from Bekra to Paldor. “Not yours either.”
Leah couldn’t help herself—she laughed out loud at the absurdity of this argument, and the three males stared at her as if she were insane. Under their gaze, her deranged laughter trailed off. “I’m [138] sorry; I lost it there. One of you can have it. I lived through seeing my husband and colleagues all die, and I’m not going to do that again. Besides, judging by how quickly we’ve been rescued so far, whoever is in that suit is just going to float in space for a few days longer before he dies, too.”
“Still, it’s a chance, isn’t it?” said Bekra. “That’s all we’ve been doing for the last day, trying to turn disaster into a fighting chance.”
Leah nodded sadly, unable to argue with that. “Make sure you keep the isolinear chip in the pocket, so in a thousand years when they find your mummified body, they’ll know what killed you.”
“I think I should wear the suit,” declared Maltz. “I need to tell someone what I know about this weapon.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” suggested Bekra. “Then I could wear the suit and survive.”
“What about me?” wailed Paldor indignantly. “I work with Dr. Brahms, so I should be next in line. I’m also the youngest of everyone here. Most of my life is ahead of me.”
Maltz grinned and slammed his fist into his palm. “What do you say we fight to the death for the honor? That way, even the losers will benefit from a valiant death. Come on, I will fight both of you at once!” He crouched down, waving his arms.
“Maltz, there’s not enough room in this shuttlecraft for a brawl to the death,” said Leah with disgust. “It’s my invention, and I’ll choose. Paldor is the youngest, and he already knows how the suit works. I haven’t got time to train one of you.”
The Tellarite leaped to his feet and rushed forward. “Oh, Dr. Brahms, thank you very much!” he gushed. “I won’t forget this ... or you.”
“You have to get the suit on,” she pointed out. “And it wasn’t designed for someone your size.”
“I’ll get in,” promised the Tellarite, rushing to the back of the cabin and starting to strip.
[139] With a scowl, Maltz dropped into the seat beside her. “I can’t believe you let that ... that nuisance save himself.”
“I’m still going to try to save us all,” answered Leah.
Without warning, a beep sounded on her console, and the computer voice broke in, “Plasma injectors are depleted, and deuterium reserves are low. We are now operating on emergency gel-packs. We will come out of warp in one minute.”
“Hurry!” shouted Leah. “The leak was worse than we thought!”
Grunting and groaning, Paldor tried to shoehorn himself into the hard-shelled suit, but he ended up crashing to the deck in a heap. Grumbling and cussing, Maltz rose to his feet and tried to help the Tellarite get into the armor. Having to keep her eyes on her instruments, Leah couldn’t really watch them, but she heard howls of pain from Paldor.
“Keep going!” insisted the Tellarite through clenched teeth. “I’m almost in!”
“You people are fools!” shouted Bekra. “I should be the one who lives!” The one-legged Capellan suddenly lunged out of his seat, tackling Maltz and knocking Paldor over. The scene was surreal, although Leah only caught glimpses of it, with Maltz and Bekra grappling in the aisle while Paldor wrestled with the radiation suit. It looked as if the brawl to the death had broken out after all.
Maltz finally clawed his way to the top position, and he slugged the Capellan into unconsciousness. Without a word, the Klingon staggered to his feet and went back to helping Paldor, but the ruckus had cost them precious seconds. Paldor whimpered anxiously as he tried again to get into the suit.
With a low whine, the shuttlecraft dropped out of warp and began cruising at impulse speeds. Leah wished she knew some Klingon curses of her own, because she was all out of tricks. She fought the temptation to look for the wave, because she knew it was out there, churning through the heavens, bearing down on them.
She had a strong urge to call for help, which was futile, because [140] all she had was local short-range communications, hardly better than a combadge. Still she opened up her comm channel and shouted, “Mayday! Mayday! We’re out of fuel. We need help!”
“Maintain position,” came a calm male voice, breaking through the crackle of static. “Stand by to transport.”
“What?” she asked. No one else was paying the slightest attention, with Bekra sprawled unconscious on the deck and Paldor and Maltz still struggling to squeeze the Tellarite into the radiation suit. Maybe she had imagined that calm, efficient voice answering her hail, but it gave her the spark of hope she needed to keep thinking.
She stopped the shuttlecraft and checked her long-range sensors, certain the wave must be right behind them. Half-a-million kilometers away, there was nothing but the kind of destruction they had seen before, so it was almost on top of them. Behind her, she heard a howl of victory as Maltz finished fastening the back of the suit, encasing the Tellarite inside.
Brahms quickly hit her combadge. “Paldor, don’t turn on the phase-shifting yet.”
“Why not?” he demanded nervously.
“Because—” She felt a familiar tingle along her spine, or maybe it was delirium. “We’re being rescued!” she cried.
Leah closed her eyes as her body was whisked away, and she didn’t open them until she felt a deck under her feet. She looked up to see an angel with gleaming white eyes and outstretched hands, swooping in to catch her. Not only that, but he was an angel she knew. “Geordi!” Leah gasped with delight as she tumbled into his arms.
“Leah!” he shouted deliriously. “You’re alive!” He gripped her and hugged her ferociously.
“More coming though!” called that calm, efficient voice.
Geordi immediately pulled her away from the small transporter platform, which was inside another shuttlecraft. She found herself [141] weeping with relief, unable to do anything but shuffle along the aisle, going where he led her.
He guided her gently into a seat and grinned. “We’ll talk in a second. The others—”
“Go, go!” she cried, anxiously gripping his arm. “Tell your pilot to go, too. There’s no time to waste!”
thirteen
Geordi had to use every ounce of discipline and sense of duty in his being to pull himself away from Leah Brahms. Then he heard a clomping sound, and he turned to see a grizzled Klingon step off the transporter.
“At last you showed up,” grumped the Klingon. “I am Maltz.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Geordi, shoving past him to catch an injured man who staggered off the transporter platform. The man, a Capellan by the look of him, shot a glare at the Klingon as Geordi lifted him into a seat. He noticed that the Capellan’s leg had been amputated at the knee and was freshly bandaged.
“The next one is a big one!” warned Maltz.
That was an understatement, decided Geordi, when an enormous being encased in white armor arrived on the transporter pad, thrashing around and filling up the rear of the shuttlecraft. Geordi rushed to calm him and keep him from breaking anything.
“Now!” called Leah. “Get out of here!”
“Very well,” answered Data. He worked his instrument panel, and the shuttlecraft jumped into space.
[143] “Here, I will get him out.” The old Klingon stood at Geordi’s side, and he waved through the faceplate at the inhabitant of the bulky suit. “He is a nuisance named Paldor, and that other one is a traitor named Bekra.” The Klingon pointed to the surly Capellan. “You seem to know our captain.”
“Captain?” said La Forge, glancing at Leah. “You got promoted?”
She shrugged. “It was my shuttlecraft.”
La Forge knew he should take statements and get particulars from everyone, but only one person on the vessel commanded his attention. Since the Klingon seemed to know how to extricate the Tellarite from the suit, Geordi gave in and rushed to Leah’s side.
“I ... I just can’t believe you’re alive,” he said, unable to stop grinning.
“That makes two of us.” She looked beaten down, depressed, and he could guess why.
“Are you two the only ones who got away?”
She nodded and sniffed back the tears. Knowing Leah, this was probably one of the few times she had allowed herself to cry. “It was ... It was horrible. I’d be dead, too, except for the radiation suit.”
“I’m sorry,” said Geordi, glancing behind him. The Tellarite was nearly out of the suit. “Yes, I remember the radiation suit from your last message. In fact, that’s when we knew something was wrong.” He quickly told her about his reply getting bounced, initiating the investigation which had brought the Enterprise here. But he could tell that she wasn’t listening—she was in shock, grief-stricken, and exhausted. Soon she would have to describe what she had seen, but he wasn’t going to make her do it now.
“I’m just glad that you were Paul Revere.”
“Pardon me?” she asked with confusion.
“That was our nickname for you when we didn’t know who you were.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but you’re all right now.”
[144] “No,” she said, shuddering. “As long as that thing is out there, we’re not all right. Everyone on Earth—”
“Earth?” echoed Geordi with alarm.
Data spoke up, “Which one of you claims to have secret information about this anomaly?”
“That would be me,” said the gray-haired Klingon haughtily. “It is a weapon.” He drew a bit closer to Data and peered curiously at him. “What kind of creature are you?”
“I am not a creature at all—I am an android.”
“Are there many like you?”
“No.” Data shook his head.
“Good.” Maltz sat down beside him at the copilot’s seat and studied the readouts. “Hmmm, this is a nicer shuttlecraft than she has. What ship did you say you were from?”
“The Enterprise. My captain would like to speak with you.”
“I am sure he would,” said the old Klingon with satisfaction. “The sooner, the better.”
While Data contacted the ship, Geordi leaned forward to listen, but he discovered that Leah was asleep on his shoulder. So he sat still and listened, as did everyone else on the shuttlecraft. He could tell from the rapt attention that the Tellarite and the wounded Capellan were giving to Maltz that they also believed he knew what he was talking about.
“This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise.”
The old Klingon lifted his stubbled chin and declared, “I am Maltz from the House of Grokan, formerly Klingon consul to Hakon. I have heard of you, Captain Picard. They say you respect our traditions.”
“I do,” replied the captain. “I would like to share a bottle of bloodwine with you, but right now we have more pressing matters. Do you know the origin of this destruction?”
“I do,” said the old Klingon. “But are you the right one to tell?”
“Why is it such a secret?” asked Picard.
[145] “I don’t know—you tell me,” said Maltz, holding up his palms. “This is the Federation’s secret.”
Frustrated, the captain scowled. “Listen, I’m about to meet with an admiral, and if you know anything that might be pertinent, it’s your duty to tell me. If you don’t, I have to conclude you’re a ‘yIHmey SurghwI’.”
Maltz bristled and bolted upright; then he seemed to relax once again. “An admiral, eh? Listen, Picard, if this admiral seems to be hiding something from you, not being honest about what they know, all you have to do is say one word. That word is ‘Genesis.’ ”
“Genesis?” asked Picard doubtfully. The word stirred a vague memory. Could this old Klingon mean that Genesis? If so ...
Maltz nodded to himself, and there was a genuine look of fear in his eyes. “When I get to your ship, I will talk with you and your admiral. In the meantime, you could learn much armed with that word.”
The Klingon sat back in his seat and made a regal motion to cut off the transmission. Data tapped his panel and said, “Captain, Dr. Leah Brahms is with us, and she believes Earth is in danger.”
Picard nodded grimly. “We’re working on those projections. We’ll see you at the rendezvous. Enterprise out.”
It suddenly became very quiet inside the shuttlecraft as everyone realized that they were safe but billions of people were not. But they had rescued four souls who would have been dead otherwise, and maybe one of them possessed the key to fighting this menace.
La Forge looked down at Leah, who was sleeping deeply, her head resting on his shoulder. He planned to live through this crisis, but if he had to die right this moment, he’d be a happy man.
Captain Picard rose slowly from his desk in his ready room, his lips thinning with distaste at the idea that Starfleet might know more about this peril than they let on. It was not beyond them to [146] keep secrets, as he had learned recently. Nevertheless, Admiral Nechayev had always been straight with him, often brutally honest, in fact. When she had a dirty job for him, she told him it was a dirty job. If his crew would face
extreme risk, she told him so.
His door chime sounded. “Come!” he said.
Will Riker poked his head in. “I thought you would like to know,” said the first officer, “Admiral Nechayev is on her way up from the transporter room.”
“We’re meeting here?” asked the captain, slightly surprised. “Very well. How many aides does she have with her?”
“None,” answered Riker. “It’s just her.”
Hmmm, thought Picard. It was odd that their conversation was to be private when they had so much they should be doing. He decided to follow the old Klingon’s advice and look for other signs of secrecy.
“Stick around, Number One,” he said. “I’d like you to sit in.”
“Fine, Captain.” Riker stepped inside, allowing the door to shut behind him. “We’re running projections based on our new data, and it doesn’t look good.”
“Is Earth in its path?”
“It could be,” agreed Riker with surprise. “How did you know?”
“One of the people on the Paul Revere shuttlecraft was Leah Brahms. She told Data that Earth was in the path.”
“Leah Brahms,” said Riker with a slight smile. “I bet Geordi is happy.”
Another chime sounded at the door, and both Riker and Picard snapped to attention as the captain said, “Enter.”
The door opened, and in walked a slight woman with grayish-blond hair, a cranberry uniform, and a bar on her collar with five pips. Alynna Nechayev was not the kind of woman you’d pay much attention to if you passed her on the street, but you couldn’t get around her in Starfleet. If you were an enemy of the Federation, she would have your head on a platter, and she was not above fighting dirty.
“Admiral,” said Picard, mustering a smile.
[147] “Captain Picard, Commander Riker,” she acknowledged. “I hope I haven’t interrupted you during a briefing, but we haven’t got much time.”
Picard nodded. “I was hoping Commander Riker could sit in with us and be—”
“Out of the question,” snapped Nechayev. “We’re trying to avoid a panic, so our plans have to remain secret for the time being. I’m sure you understand, Commander.”
STAR TREK: TNG - The Genesis Wave, Book One Page 14