The grating gave way as Larssen put her weight on it and
she grabbed frantically for the edge of the hatch. For a
moment she managed to hang by her fingers, but then
gave in to the inevitable and dropped to the corridor floor.
~Well, this would be hydroponics,~ she thought, looking at
the low rows of plants that stretched away from her in the
gloom. Some looked a little sick after so long without
attention, but the air was still heavy with moisture and the
smell of earth. A tang of copper, a hint of sweetness
mingled with it, telling Larssen that somewhere in the
room there was spilled blood and a body a few days dead.
She catfooted her way down the rows, looking for another
crawl-way hatch. The crawl-ways had taken her straight
across the starbase and hydroponics had to be near the
core, but where exactly? There would be a hell of a lot of
hydroponics labs for a Starbase, no doubt on several
levels.
~The last level marking I saw was Alpha 14,~ Larssen
thought, ~and that was two ladders away. That means this
must be - ~
A phaser blast blew up the tub beside her.
"Rottingstinkingfryinggarbage-" She ran in a crouch
fifteen feet and belly-flopped behind a water distribution
unit.
The cultivation lights hung low over the plants, and from
the floor Larssen was looking straight up into them. Her
eyes teared and watered with the light. It was impossible
for her to see anything over the top of plant tubs but she
could hear footsteps moving back and forth somewhere to
her left.
"Larssen!" Whittaker fired again and again, blowing out
the lights and exploding plant tubs. Larssen flinched as
the light above her exploded and she was showered with hot
glass, and then took advantage of the sudden gloom and the
hiss and bubble of burning plants to slide around the water
unit and scramble a little further towards the door.
"Larssen!" The next shot came uncomfortably close, and
to prove that was no coincidence the next two also
nearly singed her hair.
Out of time, out of choices, don't think don't stop - she got
her feet under her and ran, phaser fire stitching the air
behind her and the long rows disappearing into the gloom
ahead of her as if they were infinite. Her knee hurt, her
knee was on fire, there was no end to the hydroponics
rows - one hallucinatory moment when she wondered if
she had already been shot dead and this was her own
personal hell, all eternity spent running for her life in an
infinitely expanding hydroponics lab with Jack Whittaker
on her heels -
The wall came up out of the gloom so suddenly Larssen
nearly ran straight into it, swerving for the door and
bouncing one shoulder off the doorframe, then through
and into -
"Boiledandfriedstinknggarbage-"
Processing. She had escaped hydroponics and run straight
into processing. Around her were the interlocking compressor
towers with their maze of coolant pipes and pulley links.
Condensation mist drifted across the grating that formed
the floor, heavier than usual - a sure sign that
envirocontrols were off somewhere in the Starbase.
Larssen kept going at full speed, brushing aside
the pulley links that hung from the compressor towers,
dodging through the maze of abandoned loaders, lifters
and anti-grav pallets. There were bodies here too and
Larssen was almost grateful that Whittaker was chasing
her, it lifted any responsibility she might have felt to stop,
to check, to make sure there was nothing she could do.
The little she could see in her peripheral vision as she
ducked under coolant pipes and hurdled trolleys was going
to haunt her dreams.
~Optimist,~ she thought, ~let's just hope I have the
opportunity for nightmares.~
Phaser fire behind her and she found the strength for
another turn of speed, knocking aside another set of links
and-
"Hnuuh!"
There was no floor underneath her feet. Flailing
backwards, she got one hand on a dangling cable and
fetched up with a jolt that nearly pulled her shoulder out of
it's socket. Her feet scrabbled at the wall and she
resolutely refused to look down.
The processing pits for the ramscoop 'scrapings'
collected and differentiated the raw materials from the
space debris that drifted around and past the starbase.
They were designed to contain a massive amount, and
stretched almost the entire vertical axis of the
Starbase, all the way from level 14 gamma to level 9
Alpha, a huge chasm fifty feet wide down the centre of
processing, accessed from the decks on either side.
Larssen had run right over the edge of one.
She got her other hand on the cable and struggled to get
her feet back on solid ground. She'd almost managed it
when her efforts dislodged the cable lock and the flying
fox engaged.
"Hunargh!"
The pulley slipped along the well greased line and
picked up speed, hurtling Larssen over the pit. ~Don't
break don't break don't break,~ she willed it, ~don't
break don't break don't break~ - the other side of the
pit loomed up at her and she could see that she was not
going to be high enough to slip over the top of it.
"Hunhh!" She slammed into the side of the pit and lost
her grip on the cabling , clawed it back. ~ Up, up, up,
move it, Sulu shouted as she hung from the rope in the
Enterprise gym, c'mon Larssen, there's a Klingon targ at
your heels, up, up up! ~
She got her knee over the lip of the pit, dragged
herself over and lay there gasping for a moment before
she could lever herself to her feet. ~Got to get out
of here, got to find the captain, got to~ - a phaser
blast went zimmm! past her arm.
Her legs moved without her own volition, carrying her
forwards in a zig-zag pattern to the scanty shelter of a
power grid. Larssen pressed herself against the wall
and tried to get her breath. He was below her on the
other side of the pits. So long as she kept something
between her and the pits, he shouldn't be able to get a
clear shot.
"Larssen! We know you're there, Larssen!" Zap! and part
of the wall went to slag. "Larssen... Lay Down
Larssen! Time to lay down, Larssen! Time to lay down!"
Phaser fire took out two of the struts for the floor she
stood on. Larssen looked down through the grating and
saw a dangerous dip in one of the remaining struts,
pushed beyond its specifications.
~Gotta mention that to the Brass,~ she thought, took
hold of her nerve and bolted across the open space
between her and the next section of flooring. As her
foot left the grating it gave way and for a horrible
moment she was hanging in space with nothing but her
momentum to depend on. Crashing down on the edge of the
secure section with her legs dangling, she dug her
fingers through the grating and pulled.
~Roll, roll, roll!~
~Lieutenant Commander Sulu,~ she thought, ~if we all get
out of this alive I am going to buy you a drink as tall
as you are.~
Peeking around the edge of her next piece of cover, she
could see Whittaker striding back and forth across his
side of the processing pits, looking for her.
"Time to lay down and *die*, Larssen!"
Movement behind him caught her eye. A massive,
threatening shape looming in the shadows, drifting
soundlessly forward across the platform.
~Harry, get out of it!~ she willed him. ~He's looking
for me! Get out of it! Go on, you bloody great bastard!~
As Pateman moved forward, Larssen saw that another step
or two would bring Whittaker to the end of the platform.
And then he'd turn, and turning, would see Harry...
If there'd been time to think about it she never could
have found the courage, but there was no time. Out of
cover, straight into Whittaker's view and across his
line of fire, phaser fire singing her heels as she
gained the shelter of a garbage compacter and flattened
herself into the wall.
Drop low and look around the corner, keep it short,
Whittaker fixed on her now and Pateman still creeping up
behind him. That damn phaser had to be running low on
charge, Whittaker wasn't blasting randomly now. She
hurled herself out of cover and across the next ten feet
of open space, feeling the centre of her back itch with
the expectation of the fatal shot.
"Hey, Jerkoff Jack!" she yelled from the shadows behind
a recycling tower. "Hey, Jerkoff! You're a pretty lousy
shot, you know!"