Author's Note:
A couple of people I have to really thank for this act - Distracted for some medical advice concerning the eye; HTH2K4 for some really good points about the dumb Romulan tactics for taking the station - some of his thoughts leaked into a character's point-of-view; and of course, pookha for inadvertently giving me the reason why the Vigrid system is so important for Romulan strategy...Thanks!
ACT FOUR
The ship disintegrated in a flash of flame.
Biting back a curse as he watched the last of the Boomer combat ships blow apart under Romulan fire, Nathaniel Hayes pulled back hard on the control stick while simultaneously working the thruster pad with his other hand, sending the gunboat into a spinning climb that carried it out of the path of the exploding Boomer ship. The loud clangs of debris smacking into the outer hull of the gunboat echoed loudly through the command deck. Nate winced with each impact even as the Romulan responsible continued through the expanding cloud of fire, unconcerned about collateral damage.
Not for the first time, Hayes was glad for his maternal grandfather's teachings. In his youth, David Sinclair had been a pilot, a "fighter jock" as they had once been called, and had spent countless hours with Nate, teaching him the ins and outs of flight. Unlike many of the more esoteric abilities that the Section had taught him, flying was an easily explainable skill; Nate's possession of an official pilot's license proved that he had enough recorded flight time to assuage the suspicions of all but the most paranoid investigators. He had, for a very long time, wanted to be a pilot just like his grandfather.
That desire had faded the moment that he discovered the truth about his birth.
A shrill tone suddenly sounded, warning of a weapons lock, and Hayes reacted without thought, sending the Orion ship into a tight barrel roll in an attempt to confuse the Romulan targeting computer. Equipped with omni-directional maneuvering thrusters, the gunboat had never been intended for atmospheric operations and was instead optimized for zero-gee conditions; Nate took full advantage of that very fact. Firing a short burst from the forward port jets, he slewed the gunboat around, seeming to pivot the ship on its horizontal axis although it continued along its current trajectory. A second burst from the forward starboard thrusters halted the spin almost at once, and Nate punched the throttle hard. A surge of power erupted from the engines and the gunboat darted forward, streaking by the pursuing Romulan ship. The abrupt change in facing and momentum broke the targeting lock, and Hayes could only imagine the frustration of the Romulan gunners.
That almost made him smile.
Another burst from appropriate jets and they were once more on the Romulan's aft. Seated at the weapons console, Chief Petty Officer Gray sent a pulse of disruptor fire at their target; stabbing through the depleted shields, the sizzling beam sliced into the bird of prey's outer armor. The damage was minimal at best, but it was enough to keep the Romulan ship's attention focused on the gunboat and away from Endeavour.
And that was all that mattered.
A soft but incessant beeping drew Nate's attention and he risked a quick glance at his display board. Almost at once, he felt his stomach lurch as he noticed the rapidly declining fuel pressure.
"We've got a fuel leak," he declared with a frown. Despite having a modern warp drive and impulse engine, the Orion gunboat relied heavily on some form of liquid propellant to fuel the maneuvering jets, and those thrusters were the only thing currently keeping them alive. Shrapnel from that Boomer ship must have punctured a fuel line, Nate mused grimly. At the rate they were losing pressure, the gunboat would be a sitting duck in less than a minute.
As if sensing their straits, the Romulan ship that they were pursuing twisted away, accelerating into a wide loop that would, once more, bring its main guns to bear. Already, its smaller point-defense weapons were barking, lashing out with small pulses of fire that slammed into the gunboat's already weakened hull plating. Nate cursed as his controls suddenly turned sluggish and an explosion of sparks from an aft panel filled the deck with light.
"Weapons are down!" Gray reported and Hayes shook his head in annoyance, keying the intra-ship comm with a quick flick of his wrist. That damned Murphy was hard at work again...
"Endeavour, Hayes," he snapped as he sent the gunboat into another diving spin to evade the Romulan fire, fighting the uncooperative controls the entire time.
"Endeavour," Lieutenant Devereux responded almost instantly.
"I am bingo fuel," Nate declared, not even thinking about whether the COM officer would recognize the archaic reference, "and my weapon systems are down." A Romulan torpedo flashed toward the gunboat and Hayes banked hard to avoid it; the shrill warning tone warbled and went silent as the warhead streaked on into the endless void before finally detonating harmlessly kilometers away. "Connect me to Ricker," Nate ordered sharply. A half-second later, it occurred to him that he had just issued a directive to a bridge officer two grades his senior.
"Acknowledged," Devereux replied without hesitation, and the comm-line went fuzzy.
"Counter-measures are gone," Gray announced, and Nate frowned hard. Shooting a quick glance at the tactical display, he was unsurprised to find that the Romulan bird of prey was now on their six.
"This is -" came the voice of the officer manning the transporter.
"Lock onto Chief Gray and beam him out," Hayes interrupted, not even waiting for the lieutenant to finish identifying herself. Gray shifted at the tactical board but said nothing, clearly recognizing that he had no reason to remain aboard the ship now that the weapons were out. As Nate sent the gunboat into a wide split-S, he heard the distinctive hum of an active transporter.
At almost the same instant, the pursuing Romulan broke off and dove toward Endeavour, weapons spitting fire; Nate could only assume that they had detected the matter transfer and were taking advantage of Endeavour's brief moment of vulnerability. Now surrounded by the three smaller birds of prey and the slightly larger command ship, the NX-06 rocked under their combined fire and Hayes grimly realized that it was only a matter of time before she was crippled. Like ironclad battleships from ancient times, the ships exchanged shots in brilliant salvos that lit up the perpetual night; wreathed in near-constant explosions, despite her situation, Endeavour continued to hammer the command ship unmercifully. As the Starfleet vessel unleashed a crippling barrage, great chunks of polarized hull plating were blasted free and sent tumbling through the void. A stab of phase cannon fire flashed out from the NX-06, burning through the engine housing of the command ship and exposing the delicate components to the hard vacuum of space; seconds later, twin torpedoes impacted and a blossom of fire erupted forth.
The sensor board suddenly beeped, announcing several new contacts, and Nate's eyes narrowed as he noted the launch of four pod-sized craft from the bird of prey closest to the station and farthest from the battle. He recognized them at once: breaching pods. Already, that bird of prey was altering course and accelerating toward Endeavour. It didn't take a tactical genius to realize that the Starfleet ship simply could not take on another Romulan attacker.
"Lock onto my bio-signature," Nate instructed Ricker as he banked toward the limping command ship. A quick glance at his systems board revealed he had just enough fuel remaining for this. So much for accomplishing my primary mission, he reflected, darkly amused at the frustration his failed mission would cause the Section.
"Locked on," the lieutenant replied. Hayes drew a deep breath, holding it for exactly five heartbeats before exhaling it. With it, he exhaled his anger, his fear, his common sense...
"On my command," he said calmly, "get me out of here."
As Ricker signaled her acknowledgement, Nate kicked in the power. Engines howling in protest, the gunboat lunged forward, gathering momentum and speed with each passing second. The control stick started to vibrate in his hand as the flight control computer, already heavily damaged earlier, began to fail completely. The collision avoidance software was shrieking something at him in Orion, but he paid no attention to it. Looming before him, the damaged command ship suddenly seemed to recognize his intention and streaks of brilliant green reached out toward him as Endeavour intensified its barrage.
"Now!" he shouted into the comm, "Get me out now!"
The world exploded around him, dissolving in a loud hum that thundered through his skull and beat time with his heart. It wasn't cold this time; instead, a raging inferno seemed to well up within and around him, so unbearably hot that it felt as though his eyes were melting. Acid churned in his stomach and through his veins and in his brain. He tried to take a breath but it felt as if he was inhaling fire. Back and forth his vision danced, swimming in and out of focus; overlaid over the gray walls of Endeavour was a brief image of armored humanoid shapes blanketed in fire. The figures seemed to flicker in and out of existence, and Nate realized that he was seeing inside the Romulan command ship, as impossible as that seemed.
A thousand years seemed to pass before he felt cool air on his face again and he inhaled sharply, tasting the familiar air. Nausea swelled within him and he dropped to his knees, quickly bracing himself with his hands before his head could hit the floor. Hands were suddenly gripping his shoulders, holding him steady, and he became aware of voices echoing from an impossibly vast distance.
"-we got him, Captain!" a feminine voice was stating in a shout to be heard over shrieking alarms.
"Hold on, Ensign," another voice - this one male - said calmly, very close to his ear.
"This is Ricker," the female voice declared, "I need a medical team at the transporter immediately!" Pain suddenly raced through his body and Hayes heard himself gasp; every square centimeter of his skin felt raw, as if it were on fire, and he bit the inside of his mouth to keep from screaming. The urge to curl up in a ball and whimper was nearly overpowering and he struggled against the blind fury that simmered within him.
"He's got second-degree burns over most of his body!" the second voice - Chief Gray, Nate realized - was reporting. The Chief's tone was dark and angry. "What the hell happened?"
"I lost pattern recognition when he rammed the Romulan," Ricker replied sharply. "He partially materialized back on the gunboat." The distant and logical portion of Hayes' brain - the part that wasn't writhing in agony - acknowledged the lieutenant's words and recognized how lucky he'd been; cool metal touched his neck and, with a hiss, ice seemed to suddenly race through his veins. The muscles in his limbs began to quiver uncontrollably.
"Will he be okay?" a third voice - also male - asked.
"I don't know, sir," Chief Gray quickly replied. Another wave of dizziness caused Nate to nearly pass out and he had an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, a sensation he recalled all too well from his last experience with tequila.
"Call me Paul," the third man said. "I owe the two of you as much beer as you can handle."
Darkness loomed up to envelop him and, as he tumbled into unconsciousness, Nate hoped the gunboat's sacrifice had been worth it.