Signs from Heaven by Phaedra M. Weldon Page B

“Incoming!”
    The city shook again.
    Fabian glanced at Scotty. “I’ve been timing those little shakes. They’re about six minutes apart. I’m gonna lower the shields while they get Bart out of here. Then I’m going to try to raise them again.”
    â€œCan you do that?”
    Fabian shrugged. He wished he knew a way to turn that bell sound off. He had to shout to be heard. “I won’t know till I try. Either way, if I can’t get the dampeners back online, it won’t matter. Seems to be a safety feature—if they fail then the city comes down instead of flipping over.”
    Sonya put her hand on his right shoulder. “What about those paintings in the vault with Bart? Was there anything in there that might have helped?”
    He grinned at her. “Yes, there is. I need you to get down there and tell me what colors you see on the one Bart was pinned too. I have to know that final sequence. Scan it into your tricorder if you have to.”
    She nodded.
    â€œHey, Sonya.” He lowered his voice.
    She turned back to him.
    â€œYou’re not mad at me, are you?”
    Her dark eyes searched his own. “Mad at you? For the dense crack? No, but I’m going to have to demand a drink in payment later.”
    Even though his thoughts centered around there being no more laters for himself, he smiled. “Sure. But, mad at me because”—he looked down before he said what he’d been thinking out loud—“because I didn’t kiss you back.”
    Her eyes widened. They were huddled together, speaking in low voices. Sonya frowned. “Fabe, I wouldn’t expect you to return the kiss. I took you by surprise. I mean—if you kissed me back, I’d have to question your loyalty to Corsi. I know you care about her.”
    â€œYes…I do.”
    â€œThen get this done so we can go home.” She moved away from him to the transmat pad on the lowest level. “I’ll go find the painting.”
    He nodded. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the truth. They were friends and she respected how he felt about Corsi. Though at that moment he finally realized what had been nagging at him ever since that night.
    Ever since it happened.
    The fact he couldn’t forget it.
    The city shook. He looked over at Scott as a keyboard appeared in front of him. With a determined expression, he picked out the notes of the song in his mind.

    â€œShabalala, target the southern region, lock on to the initiation point for the bombs hurled at my people.” Gold didn’t realize he’d stood up from his chair, his fists clenched, his jaw set hard.
    Yaffie looked as if someone had taken away his favorite pony. He shook his head. “Captain, there must be something you can do — ”
    â€œI am doing it. I’m stopping this insanity. Shabalala—”
    â€œCaptain!” Haznedl called out. “The shield’s down!”
    â€œGood.” He had an open channel to the transporter room. “Poynter, send everyone in that vault to sickbay—including the pole, ten centimeters front and back. Energize! ”
    â€œEnergizing.”
    Gold sat back down, put Yaffie on mute, and opened a channel to sickbay. “Lense, he’s on his way!”

    â€œFaulwell’s on board the da Vinci, ” Scotty said to his right. “Pattie, engage the tactical you found earlier.”
    A large, holographic, wire-framed schematic appeared in the air in front of the cylinder. Fabian stared at it, amazed at the different patterns, the eddies and flows of the colors as they moved around the city like lights.
    He’d been unable to raise Plasus’s shield again. The only way he knew how was to cut power again, but Conlon had already said the da Vinci wasn’t up for that right at that moment. Another hour maybe.
    They didn’t have another hour. The city was slowly starting to fall straight