Crossover - Michael Jan Friedman [27]
Thinking that the young Romulan would be an interesting student, the Teacher began the afternoon’s lesson.
CHAPTER 6
Sitting in engineering, Scotty passed the time by inspecting his cloaking device. It resided just where he had installed it, on the dilithium reaction chamber.
Of course, it looked a little different now. In addition to its basic components, it sported all the new add-on
modules he’d constructed out of equipment scavenged! from the Yorktown.
The Romulans had abandoned most of the cloaking technology behind the device after the Enterprise stole] this prototype. That was a mistake, Scotty thought. 1
With a little ingenuity, he’d been able to increase the power of the device drastically, and all without taking the thing off-line. Also, he’d been able to eliminate most of the trace energy discharges that had rendered the thing] susceptible to Starfleet sensors. With the way she was working now, the improved cloak would almost certainly ensure him safe passage out of Federation territory.
Now there was just one more piece of business before he could head for the Romulan Neutral Zone. And a very important piece of business at that.
Once, a long time ago, he and his friends had tried to operate a starship with a skeleton crew, using a centralized computer control system he installed himself. That was on the refitted Enterprise 1701.
Unfortunately, the vessel was incapacitated by a single volley from an underpowered Klingon Bird-of-Prey. And when push came to shove, the centralized computer control system overloaded, leaving the ship a sitting duck.
For years afterward, Scotty had blamed himself for the destruction that followed, thinking that his automated system had failed because it simply wasn’t good enough. However, he had known even then that he’d been pushing twenty-third-century technology to the limit.
A vessel meant to be crewed by 430 people just couldn’t cut it with a crew of five. Or, in this case, a crew of one.
Likewise, Scotty knew that he was pushing the Yorktown computer to its limits now—even though he was asking it to do little more than stay on course. Very shortly, all that would change. He would be asking a lot more. But, this time, he had some twenty-fourth-century technology to back him up.
And according to his control panel, which was lighting up on the other end of the room, the biggest component of that technology had just made itself available.
Swiveling in his chair, Scotty hit the switch that opened the shuttlebay. Then he left engineering control and headed for the shuttledeck at a trot.
He arrived at the shuttlebay control room just as the doors were opening. Through them, he could see the Romaine hanging in space. The shuttle had been called the Goddard when Captain Picard gave it to him, but the engineer had rechristened the ship—naming it after a lovely lass he had known. The shuttle’s autopilot had brought it obediently to the rendezvous point, but Scotty would have to handle the rest of its journey.
Taking the controls, he locked the Yorktown’s tractor beams onto the smaller vessel. Then, watching through the control room’s transparent-aluminum window, he guided the shuttle inside with well-practiced hands.
Once the Romaine was where he wanted it and the bay was secured, Scotty shut the doors and waited several painfully long seconds for the chamber to repressurize. The warning light finally shut off.
At last, Scotty entered the shuttlebay. Striding across the deck, the engineer noted the contrasts between the shuttles the Yorktown normally carried and the Romaine, which was built more than a century later.
On the outside, the improvements were subtle. The modern shuttle had more curves and rounded surfaces and a decidedly streamlined look. Of course, Scotty knew that the real differences ran much deeper.
Entering the shuttle, the engineer made his way to her control console. “Computer,” he said, “activate Constitution-class command interface.”