Brooks felt an invisible hand grab her from behind and slam her to the deck. A horrible roaring sound struck her ears, as did the screams of her crew. With a loud pop, she felt her ears equalize as the pressure in the room dropped. There was only one thing that could cause that, she realized.
Hull breach! Her stunned mind was still trying to make sense of what was happening.
A loud screaming sound of escaping air was cut off as the damage control force fields snapped into place. The lighting, which had been strong moments before, started to flicker as main power fluctuated in its delivery. Crawling to her feet, she could feel the blood running down her cheek from a cut that she had sustained.
“Report!”
“We have taken a hit from frame three fifty to three sixty!” Lieutenant Wilson Groves, her top assistant, yelled to her.
Before she could reply, smoke started to fill the air from destroyed circuitry. Grabbing an air mask and portable air tank, Brooks slipped the mask over her face; the tank went onto her belt. With the flick of her wrist, she started to breathe clean, fresh air. She needed to know how badly they were hurt before she could do anything else.
The screams of the wounded reached her ears as she struggled to make her way to the power control boards. Being near the epicenter of the hit, they had been the heaviest damaged parts of the engineering section. Whoever hit them; Brooks reflected with rage, they knew exactly where to hit them!
“Main power is barely on, sir!” Ensign Tina Jenkins said as she worked the blood soaked board. Behind her, the mutilated bodies of the engineers assigned to the board lie on the decking. The blue lighting of the force field glowed behind them, a safety net that couldn’t fail unless every piece of energy of the ship died.
“Do what you can to keep it up,” Brooks snapped. “The Skipper will need it!”
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