Reap the Whirlwind

Qui

Pe

The scruffy older man frowned at Terrell, who simply repeated, in an imploring tone, “She’s alive.”

“Well,” Qui

Me and my big mouth, Pe

Wind buffeted the small ship and tossed it like a toy. The wings bobbled, and the nose dipped, threatening to knock the ship into one of the massive, organic-looking towers that it was dodging between. A steady stream of low curses attested to Qui

The downpour had become so intense that visibility ahead of the ship was reduced to a few dozen meters. Jagged forks of lightning flashed across their path, flooding the cockpit with blinding light as godhammers of thunder pounded the hull.

A split-second to a collision. “Look out, mate!”

Qui

“Good call,” Qui

An updraft nearly stalled their forward motion. Then it ceased, and they plummeted into a nosedive. Qui

“Bear to starboard when we’re clear,” Terrell called out over the roar of the engines. “We’re close to her, maybe two kilometers. I’ve got her life signs locked in.”

“Roger that,” Qui

Pe

An explosion rocked the ship. Sparks fountained from all the cockpit consoles, which then belched acrid smoke. The engines’ whine fell in pitch and volume, and Pe

The helm controls stuttered on and off as Qui

Pe

“I’ve made worse,” Qui

“So that’s a yes?”

“It’s a maybe.”

A final tap on the thruster controls brought the ship to a rough and sudden stop inside the hollow tower. Qui

“Wait a second,” Terrell said, and to Pe

Hooking one thumb over his shoulder, Qui

“What am I supposed to do?” Terrell asked sarcastically, waving his hand over his mauled body. “Run in and get her?”

Pe

“Send the newsboy,” Qui

Damn you, I told you not to say it.

Terrell turned his desperate gaze to Pe

He took the tricorder from Terrell. “Right,” he said, slinging the device’s strap diagonally across his torso, as he had seen the Starfleeters do on Vanguard. “I’m on it.”

Terrell handed him his communicator. “Take this, too. Contact us as soon as you find her.”

“Will do, mate.” Pe

As Pe

Pe

Halfway across the bridge, sprinting through the deluge, deaf from the ca

And that had to count for something.

“I’ll hold the plasma conduit steady,” Threx said to Torvin. “You lock it in. And make it fast.”

Before the spindly young Tiburonian engineer’s mate could explain to Threx that hefting the end of a plasma conduit by hand without an antigrav was impossible, the burly Denobulan had already done it. “Threx,” he said. “That’s not possible.”

Forcing words through a pained grunt, Threx snapped, “Just lock it in, Tor!” His gruff instruction drew the attention of nearly the entire crew, including Captain Nassir, who was pitching in to speed the repairs.

Torvin put aside his fascination with Threx’s display of raw strength and rapidly sealed the mag clamps that would secure the starboard nacelle’s plasma line to the ship’s warp core. Halfway through the job he stopped and strained to pick out a muffled sound from behind the clatter of work on the top deck and the ambient low-frequency warble of the river.

Threx quickly grew a

“Shh,” Torvin hissed. “I hear something. Outside.”

Ilucci, overhearing their exchange, told everyone on the deck in a sharp whisper, “Hold the work! Quiet!” In seconds a hush fell over the crew, and Torvin closed his eyes to concentrate on the sounds that were all around them. He tuned out the huffs of the others’ breathing, the gentle humming of the computer core, even the sound of the river itself.

Then his delicately sensitive ears found it, far off but getting closer: irregular percussive tremors, throbbing along the riverbed, through the ship’s hull, and into his feet. “Impacts,” he said to the captain. “Something punching through the water and hitting the bottom, over and over again. And it’s coming this way. I’d say we’ve got ten minutes, tops.”