Crossover - Michael Jan Friedman [17]
The base commander’s angry face appeared abruptly on the auxiliary control viewscreen. “Whatever you’re doing, Captain Scott, I advise you to stop it immediately.”
Scotty ignored the face and the voice and concentrated on the task at hand. He regretted doing this to Commander Nelson, who seemed to be a good man and deserved an explanation—but Scott couldn’t possibly give him one right now.
As soon as the mooring tractor beams were off-line, he grabbed a tool kit from the storage locker, gave silent thanks to the museum curators for their thoroughness, and sprinted for the shuttledeck. Inside, he wasted no time freeing the cloaking device from its display case.
The job took longer than Scotty had expected. He resolved to make it up in the installation.
Down in engineering, Scotty headed right for the dilithium reaction chamber. He installed the cloaking device in eight minutes, which was comfortably under the ten he’d planned. Of course, he’d done this sort of thing before. He was even able to make a few improvements in the makeshift circuit that connected the Romulan beasty to the ship.
Scotty didn’t bother to test the cloaking mechanism as he ran for the nearest turbolift. If it didn’t work, there was no time to tinker with it.
The turbolift ride was interminably slow, thanks to the original shipyard specs. Upgrading the turbolift drivers had been one of his first tasks on board the Enterprise.
When he reached the bridge, Scotty bolted for Sulu’s station. He spared a glance at the viewscreen, which already held the base commander’s angry visage.
“We scanned the ship,” Nelson warned him, “and saw that you altered the engineering lockouts and the prefix code. I can tell you that whatever you’re planning, it won’t work. Captain Scott?”
Scotty laid in the course that he’d calculated on board his own shuttle, and hit the forward thrusters.
“You won’t get ten minutes out of dry dock,” Nelson told him, his voice taking on even more of an edge than before. “Our runabouts can easily overtake the Yorktown. You should know that.”
Watching the board carefully, Scotty calculated that it would take another full minute to clear the dock.”I can’t allow this vessel to be taken,” the base commander pressed. “Don’t make me fire on the Yorktown, Captain. I’m asking you as a Starfleet officer to bring the ship to a stop and release all controls.”
Nelson’s voice changed in tone again, softening this time.
“Please understand that no one here holds you responsible for what you’re doing. We want to help you.”
Of course ye do, thought Scotty. And I’m the blasted Prince of Donegal.
He looked up from his controls to face the commander “I regret that I canna comply with yer request,” he apologized. “But ye have my word that I’ll return the Yorktown, if it’s within m’power to do so.”
After all, losing a prized antique starship to a crazy old coot wouldn’t be good for Nelson’s career. If there was another way, Scotty told himself, he would have taken it.
Nelson’s composure was slipping fast. “Is this how you want to be remembered, after all you’ve done?” he asked “This is crazy!”
There, the commander had said it. Scotty knew it was the subtext of all the man’s arguments.
Well, so be it, he thought. At that point, he wasn’t sure he entirely disagreed with Nelson’s assessment of him.
“I’m sorry, Commander,” the engineer said. And he was.
All that remained was one more roll of the dice.
The commander let fly his last warning. “You won’t get half a light-year out of the system.”
Scotty half wished that Nelson was right.
Nonetheless, he pushed the button that would activate the cloaking device. Scotty could feel the slight shudder of the deck as the ship redirected a portion of its power to the alien machine.
Then a warning light told Scotty there would be no quick and easy end to this mission. The cloak was operational.
He took the ship to full impulse.
Scotty knew it would be a simple matter for Nelson’s people to recalibrate the starbase sensors and penetrate he obsolete cloaking system. But in those few minutes, he shuttle