Carolan had already raided the emergency storage compartment secreted in one wall of the bridge and found EV suits and magnetic boots. The suits weren’t yet needed even with life support down, but the boots and lights were immediately useful, so she had doled them out. Nog, Barclay, and Qat’qa all took boots and lights, which made assessing the situation a lot easier.
She had, quite sensibly, offered the captain and Dr. Brahms magnetic boots, but they had refused. The ability to stick to a surface would have impeded the journey that La Forge had decided to make.
It would have been a long and tiring climb through the Jeffries tubes for the pair, but the lack of gravity made it quicker and easier. They simply swam through the air in whichever direction was necessary.
Vol was waiting for them when they got to engineering, announcing his presence with a hearty cheer of “Ow, turn that bloody light away, you donut!” He blinked his huge eye several times.
“Sorry, Vol,” La Forge called back. He directed the light toward the floor, seeing Scotty there, secured between two consoles of the main console ring that had replaced the chief engineer’s office. His heart skipped several beats. “Is Scotty—”
“Still ticking,” Vol said.
“First question,” La Forge said, as it was the most urgent matter, “how come we’re still here if there’s no antimatter containment power?”
“He happened.” Vol pointed the tip of a tentacle at Scotty. “He’d installed a stator backup for the intermix and antimatter storage chambers. I just found out myself two minutes ago, when I looked at them.”
“Then we do have warp power?”
“We have the capability to generate it, but we don’t actually have it.”
“What happened to the gravity grid? The stator should have given us a good four hours of at least three quarters gravity even with the EPS grid dead.”
“Six hours, with our current upgrade, not that it matters.”
“Could we have been unconscious for six hours?” Leah asked.
“Not unless the chronometer in my tricorder stopped for the same length of time. That’s not why the gravity went down. The containment fields have a stator backup—so instead of keeping the gravity on, the stator is maintaining antimatter containment.”
Leah was incredulous. “For six hours?” It might take days to get power back.
“Yep. Sorry, mate.”
La Forge said, “Okay, Here are our priorities. We need life support and gravity back online. We also need to be able to inform everyone when we get the gravity grid back.”
“I’d have thought they’d notice.”
“I don’t want to drop everyone on their heads without warning.” La Forge thought about where they might find some power. “The portable generators we used to power up the Intrepid. Where are they?”
“Cargo bay one,” Leah replied.
“I’m thinking that if we can patch them into EPS grids to power the containment fields, life support, communications, and the gravity grid, that’ll buy us time to find a more permanent solution to the rest of our problems without worrying that the ship will explode in six hours.”
“I’ll see to it,” Vol promised, and he flew off into the darkness.
Leah and La Forge looked first at each other, then at the unconscious Scotty. Maybe it was the color his eyes generated to compensate for the lack of light, or the effects of the lack of gravity, but Scotty looked frail, for the first time that La Forge could think of.
Leah voiced the thought that was in his mind. “Let’s get him to sickbay.”
In the guest quarters Voktra shared with a couple of other Romulan officers, Sela wedged herself in the corner between a bulkhead and a structural support. “What happened, Voktra?”
“The same thing as happened to our ship, I think.”
“I doubt there’s any point in wondering who’s going to rescue this ship, then.”
Voktra didn’t bother to reply. Sela’s sense of humor had always seemed off to her. “Orders, Chairman?” Technically, Sela was a passenger, and Voktra the senior surviving officer of the Stormcrow’s crew, but she wasn’t foolish enough to try to push it.
“We can’t be sure how many casualties the Federation crew have sustained, or what shape this vessel is in . . .”
“If we’ve lost all power,” Voktra said, “then the vessel’s antimatter containment field will be a problem.”
“Take a group to main engineering and ascertain the security of the containment field. I’ll lead a group to the bridge, and see what can be done from there.”
“What do we do about the Federation crew?”
“Ignore the dead or injured. If they try to imprison us, deal with them appropriately. If they’re engaged in getting systems back online, then give them all the assistance you can. It makes me sick, but it is our best chance of survival.”
One of the other officers approached. “If it is necessary to take control of the ship, when will we make our move?”
“I’m sure it will be necessary, but not quite yet. When the time comes, you’ll know it.”
“We’ll need a signal, so we know to initiate the strategy.”
Sela nodded. “When I use the phrase, ‘as the crow flies.’”
“If we’re to take over the ship, we’ll need weapons, and we don’t have many.”
“This is a Galaxy-class starship. It may have been somewhat modified for a more experimental use, but it has a security team and tactical officer, and that means it will still have an armory.”
“Which will have security measures in place.”
“If there’s power to run them,” Sela reminded him.
“And guards.”
“Starfleet security,” she mused. “We’re fortunate that my mother was tactical officer on a Galaxy-class vessel. There are a few things I remember that might be helpful.”
If she had been asked to judge based only on first sight, Alyssa Ogawa would have sworn Scotty was dead when La Forge and Leah floated him into sickbay. His skin was split with cuts from the structural supports of the balcony, his internal wounds had reopened, according to a tricorder scan, and his skin was as white as polished bone. His limbs drifted limply as the captain and Leah maneuvered him to the surface of a biobed. They held him there while Ogawa reached under the bed and stretched a couple of restraints across him.
“How is he?” Leah asked.
“I don’t know yet.” None of the biobed’s sensory or treatment functions were active, but at least she could keep an eye on him. Alyssa prepared a hypo of suitable compounds—anticoagulants and painkillers—but knew that there was no chance of putting his spleen, or other damaged internal organs, back together without the cellular regenerator array above the biobed.
“Is there anything we can do?” La Forge asked.
“I could really use power to get this place up and running again.”
“We’ll get you some. Come on, Leah.”
They left, and, a few moments later, Scotty opened his eyes groggily. “Doctor Ogawa?”
“Yes. You’re in sickbay.”
“Considerin’ all the possible alternatives, that’s a relief.” He tried to sit up, and found himself held down by the straps across his legs and chest. “What’s the meanin’ o’ this?”
“Nothing personal, Scotty. The gravity is down, and I don’t want my patients floating away.”
Scotty was already picking feebly at the restraints. “I don’t want to float away, lass, I want to get back to engineering and get the power back on!”
“And do you think you’re in any condition to do that?”
He looked at her with a cunning expression, and she could tell that he was experienced in having this kind of debate with doctors. “Let me ask you a question. Am I doin’ any good here?”
“You’re doing yourself good. You know: healing.”
“So ye’ve treated me already.”
“As much as I can. But without the cellular regenerator and biobed
systems—”
“Then there’s no more you can do for me now, but you’ve made me able to stand on my own two feet—gravity excepted.”
“Yes.”
“And who d’ye think might have the best chance of gettin’ the power for your biobeds back online?”
“You can barely stand!”
“I’m fine, lass. And if I don’t help I won’t stay fine. Ye just said as much yourself. So if you can give me a pair o’ gravity boots . . .” Alyssa debated whether to spare a pair of the boots for Scotty. There weren’t enough for everyone in sickbay, but he was right about one thing. The painkillers and treatment she’d given him would keep him upright for a while at least, and he did have a good chance of fixing the problem, if half of the things she’d heard about him were true.
Scotty grinned, and she could see in his eyes that he knew she would grant his request.
When he clumped out of sickbay in a pair of the boots, the nurse from whom he had borrowed them turned to Alyssa. “Do you really think he should be out there working in his condition?”
“No. But I think that trying to keep him in here would do more harm than good.”
32
“Ah, um, testing, testing. Can anyone hear me?” Reg Barclay’s voice echoed tinnily throughout the rooms and corridors of the U.S.S. Challenger. In the darkness of areas where there were no lights available, it cut through the moans, cries, and conversations like a blade. In Nelson’s it brought hope.
“Reg?” Guinan answered. “Is that you?” She had been cleaning minor cuts with the alcohol she normally kept for special customers, and tying tourniquets when the call came. In fact, she had organized a veritable production line of rough and ready field medicine, with the least injured people trying to help the most injured.
“Testing,” Reg repeated, and Guinan realized that the voice was coming not through the intercom speakers, but through her combadge. In fact it was coming through the combadges of everyone who was floating in the room. Guinan tapped her badge and tried again. “Reg, this is Guinan. We hear you. We all hear you!”
“Excellent!” Reg exclaimed. “Where are you?”
“Nelson’s?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. What’s the situation like?”
“We have injured people, no gravity, and only a few lights. We need medical assistance.”
“I hear you,” Ogawa’s voice cut in. “I’ll send up help.”
“Reg?” La Forge’s voice asked. “Where are you?”
“Ah, in a shuttlecraft, sir. It’s an independent system, so I thought I might be able to route communications through it.”
“Brilliant work, Reg!”
In engineering, La Forge paused to think for a moment. “Handheld devices operating off their own independent power supplies are fine. So lights, tricorders, phasers, that kind of thing all work. I’ve got Vol looking at switching antimatter containment, life support, and the gravity to the portable generators.” He tapped his combadge. “Carolan?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Status report. Let’s find out where our people are and, most importantly, tell everyone to find a secure spot on the deck. We’re about to bring the gravity back online in a few minutes. I’ll make a ship-wide announcement when we’re ready.”
“Will do.”
“Vol,” Barclay called. “How are those generators coming?”
“I got one hooked up to the containment field five minutes ago.” Vol’s reply came not through La Forge’s combadge, but from somewhere above in the darkness. It was followed by a metallic clunk, and a muttered “Bollocks!” There was another clunk, and a slithering sound. “I can bring the gravity online any time. It’ll last longer if it’s on a lower setting, though.”
“Thank you.”
“Bridge to Captain,” Carolan’s voice came through. “All sections report secure for gravity restoration.”
“Acknowledged.” Then La Forge ordered, “Half a g, Vol. Switch on now!”
Immediately, Then La Forge dropped to the ground. It was an odd sensation to be at half gravity. It wasn’t low enough to enable great long leaps, but it wasn’t enough to feel quite normal either. It was like walking in a swimming pool.
•••
When Scotty reached engineering, he was hugely impressed with Barclay’s ingenuity. “I don’t know that I’d have thought of that one myself,” he admitted. “How far can we take the idea?”
“Scotty?” Leah asked.
“What I mean is: how much of the Challenger’s systems can we run off a runabout’s warp core? The Thames is still in the main shuttlebay.”
She grimaced. “The runabouts weren’t designed for that, but I suppose it depends how long we do it. And how to connect them is the issue. We can’t use a power transfer beam without active circuitry at the receiving end.”
“Then we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way—with cables, like on Intrepid.”
“We could, but we can’t just plug into the EPS grid in the shuttlebay. We’ll have to have the runabout’s power supply entered into the EPS network through the warp core’s distribution node, and that means running cables from the shuttle bay to main engineering.”
“Can we help?” It was a Romulan woman. Three Romulans had entered engineering. “I am Voktra, chief engineer of the Stormcrow. These officers are also engineers.” Geordi hesitated, then nodded.
“We cut a direct channel through to the secondary hull to the EPS main,” La Forge suggested. “Fly the runabout outside the ship, magnetically grapple onto the exterior of the secondary hull, and cut directly.”
“That could work,” Scotty said.
La Forge turned to Barclay. “Reg, take one of the Romulan engineers with you. We’re all in this together.”
“I’ll go,” Voktra said, looking disdainfully at Barclay.
As Barclay and Voktra hurried out of engineering, Scotty approached La Forge and Leah. “What exactly happened to us? One moment I was workin’ in here, and the next, I woke up in sickbay. Was it some kind of collision, like happened to the Romulan ship?”
Leah shook her head. “Not quite. That collision sliced the Romulan ship almost in half. A direct impact would have destroyed Challenger as well.”
La Forge held up a padd, showing two sets of subspace sensor readings. “One of these is from the Intrepid’s sensor logs, and the other is from just before the lights went out.”
“Both trans-slipstream wakes?” asked Leah.
“It looks to me like we were caught in one, and dragged, or thrown—”
“I think we should all be grateful that inertial dampening technology has advanced in two hundred years,” Scotty said.
“This is what happened to Intrepid?” asked Leah.
“I think so,” La Forge said.
“Where are we, anyway?” Leah asked.
“Without sensors, or the main viewer—” La Forge started.
“Laddie,” Scotty said firmly, “have ye not thought to look out a window?”
Nelson’s had become an emergency field hospital by the time they arrived, but the wounded and the damage weren’t what drew the attention of La Forge, Scotty, and Leah.
They walked to the huge bay windows, looking out at the impossible sight before them. “Bloody hell . . .”
“You can say that again,” La Forge whispered, stunned.
Guinan joined them, wiping her hands on a bar towel. “I’ve traveled a lot in the last five hundred years, but this is the first time I’ve seen a view like this.”
None of the others could bring themselves to speak.
Outside, there was nothing. No stars, no nebulae, no anything. Except for a single shining light to port. There, the galaxy glowed with a pearlescent beauty. Edge on, it looked not unlike the profile of the saucer section of Challenger herself, and it was no wider than a saucer held at arm’s length.
33
Challenger still drifted in the depths of the intergalactic void, but it was no longer comple
tely powerless. The runabout Thames was now magnetically attached to the underside of the secondary hull, just forward of the aft torpedo launcher.
While Barclay and Voktra had monitored things from the cockpit, two Romulans in borrowed Starfleet EV suits had removed a floor hatch from the runabout, and cut through the hull plating of Challenger.
“You’re sure they don’t mind doing this?” Reg had asked.
Voktra had raised an eyebrow. “Cutting holes in a Federation starship? You must be joking; this is probably the most fun they’ve had in months.”
“Really?”
“It’s long been an ambition of mine,” she admitted. “Though I imagined that, if it ever happened, it would be under more politically unpleasant circumstances.”
“Oh.”
Once the Romulans had made a temporary air seal between the underside of the runabout and the underside of Challenger, Barclay and Voktra took over, leading the cables through the gap, remembering to turn around halfway as the gravity inverted where Challenger’s gravity grid took over from that of the runabout, and met with Vol at the aft end of the main power transfer conduit. Then they were able to leave Vol to link up the power from the runabout’s warp core to Challenger’s power distribution system, and bring the EPS network back online.
The runabout’s warp core wouldn’t be enough to take Challenger to warp, but it would give them back lighting, life support, main computer functions, and power to areas that were particularly in need, such as sickbay.
On the bridge, Leah used science station one to check that the computer had rebooted properly. Qat’qa tried out the helm, to see how much maneuverability they had. Scotty was at the engineering station, checking on Vol’s progress, and, of all the senior staff, he was happiest in the lower gravity. It was less painful to move around, and his injuries troubled him less.
“I had wondered earlier,” Kat admitted, “if the Romulans were responsible for what just happened, but obviously not.”
Scotty didn’t look around, but looked amused. “Lass, if anyone could have made a starship’s warp engine go through the galactic barrier like a cocktail stick through an olive, I’d have had the bugger working for us from the day I took command of the Challenger, Romulan or no!”
Star Trek The Next Generation® Page 32
