Star Trek: Erin

Part 29: Reaching for the Light

     The crisscrossed vines looked like the bars of a cage. Gabriel was remarkably calm, laying one hand against the turbolift walls. "Why aren't we dropping?"

     "Those." I pointed through the glass at the outcroppings that flexed upwards currently supporting the turbolift's bulk. "Those and whatever cables are left."

     CRACK!

     Gabriel and I flinched away from the sound. The turbolift floor shoved upwards under our feet, before our weight pushed it back down onto the remaining outcroppings. Out of the corner of my eye, Gabriel tried to adjust her footing. "Don't move," I snapped.

     Slowly the rocking settled. One of the three outcroppings had snapped, its remains already taken over by a thin cover of tendrils. Those aren't supposed to break. Ever. These damn plants are too strong to be normal.

     "Cobos, I said to bail out. Over."

     "Doors don't open, it's too high, and I don't fancy shooting myself if the walls are anti-phaser. We'll be fine, Tetra. Over."

     "What do we do?" Any trace of calm in Gabriel's voice disappeared. "What's your plan? Tell me you have one. You always have something stupid in mind."

     "Step one, shut up and let me think." I wanted to pace, but the floor was too unstable. Going down means plummeting to our deaths. Unless we slide down. But that's risky. Higher. What's stopping us from going higher? Vines, and how powerful this turbolift is. We can do something about those. I grabbed my communicator and opened a new channel. "O'Sullivan, you're the engineer. How can we make this turbolift push through?"

     CRACK!

     The top of the turbolift smashed into the transparent shaft, and a crack spiderwebbed away. My brain briefly spiralled into wondering if it would be better if we plunged straight down or burst from the shaft onto the atrium floor.

     Both would kill us.

     My pounding heart was slowly rising into my throat.

     Gabriel gripped my shoulders to steady herself. I returned the favour, and we managed to momentarily stabilize the floor. "I don't want to die," she hissed.

     "Neither do I. Can you keep yourself together for just one minute? If we're going to survive, I need you to be calm. Please, Gabriel. For me." The absurdity of that request seemed to help. I leaned on her and turned back to my communicator. "Any ideas, O'Sullivan?"

     "Do you have a command console?"

     "Yeah."

     "There are commands that can boost the turbolift's capabilities."

     "Any risks?"

     O'Sullivan paused. "If it still can't push through with the boosting, the system may register that you're moving, unlock the catching system, and drop you anyway."

     "So, not much different from odds at the moment." I clipped my still-active communicator to my belt. "Connect the channel to Gabriel. She'll be doing the console commands. I'm going to clear vines."

     Tetra chimed in. "You said the doors don't open, Cobos."

     "They don't, but I had an idea. Maybe you can't see the crack from there, but there is one. Which means I can break through. Over." I glanced at the rebar on the floor. "On three, move away while I get the bar."

     Gabriel nodded slowly. I clasped her shoulder. "Hey, we're going to survive this."

     She frowned at me. I was a little confused myself. The words felt natural, but comforting people didn't usually come naturally to me. I patted her a little too hard. "Good? Great. Three, two, one." We stepped in opposite directions, and in one movement I snatched up the rebar and drove it into the turbolift wall. The first time produced a starburst pattern of cracks while jarring my shoulder, but the second punched a hole in the glass. I hadn't realized how stuffy it was until I felt the vaguely sweet-smelling wind on my face.

     Using the weakened area, I widened the hole until I could poke my head and shoulders out. "Hey, Tetra? Can you prep something in case this doesn't work? I think I'd rather try jumping than hitting the bottom of the shaft."

     "Already on it." Tetra, Najjar, and Kiki were busy making some sort of leafy nest-pillow fort hybrid with the atrium's foliage and couches. O'Sullivan was standing around with communicator out and their eyes locked on our turbolift.

     Since I'm usually against stupid recklessness, I decided not to climb onto the turbolift roof, since that would involve jumping out and up to hook my fingers onto the glass edge of our cylinder, and I didn't want to place my life in my sweaty hands. My safer alternative was leaning out as far as I could and phasering the vines. A steady stun beam quickly caught the bundles on fire, after which pulses snapped the weakened fibres. Downside was we had to pass through the nest that was now ON FIRE.

     The turbolift settled farther, and more cracks spread from where it rested on the shaft. Maybe don't weaken it anymore. I shimmied back in. "How's it going, Gabriel?"

     Communicator was sitting on the console's lid while she typed on a tiny keyboard. Tacktacktack. "I don't know," she said.

     "Glad you're confident. Vines are more or less clear."

     She nodded, brow furrowed. Her legs were shaking. Understandable that she's terrified. Is she afraid of heights? Weird fear for someone on a spaceship. Although technically, there are no heights in space. Or it's infinite. I decided to stop staring at her legs and listened to her typing for a pocketful of seconds. Then I frowned. "Seriously, why do you wear the miniskirt? Seems really impractical as opposed to pants."

     Gabriel shot me a tight smile. "How am I supposed to look sexy in those shapeless leg-bags?"

     "That's what you're worried about?" I laughed. "No need. You'd look sexy in anything."

     She raised an eyebrow at me, but it wasn't the mocking kind. Made my face burn. "Shut up," I said.

     "Okay."

     Tacktacktack.

     "Finished?" came O'Sullivan's voice.

     She stabbed the last key with a flourish. "Yes. What's next?"

     "Run the program." There was a slight pause. "I'm praying for you."

     Another vote of confidence. I detached my communicator from my belt. "Hey, O'Sullivan, if we die, make up something heroic? I don't want to be remembered as the officer who died in a turbolift."

     "Just run the program."

     CRACK!

     Gabriel pressed the command just as the last support gave out.