Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [32]
"Anything, Commander?" she asked as she moved up behind Tyla.
"Nothing," he said.
Tyla nodded, the frustration clear on her pale face and wide, green eyes.
"As far as we can tell," Chakotay said, "the Invincible is a standard Qavok warship. Except for an unusually large crew, nothing extra has been added or removed."
"Then they seem to think," Janeway said, "that a regular phaser shot that wouldn't even cut through our shields will change that binary's death course?"
Chakotay nodded. "It would sure seem that way. Unless they've discarded the idea of trying it."
"If they had done that," Tyla said, "the Invincible would not be in this position. They do not care about scientific data. Unless it can be used as a weapon."
Janeway tended to agree with Tyla on that count "Okay, then we're down to two options on this track. Either the Qavok calculations are so far off as to be laughable, or they have figured out another way."
"They are warriors, Captain," Tyla said. "Not bright, but clearly not stupid. I'm sure they think their method will work. And 1 would not bet against it."
"Okay, so we need to find what they have found. You two keep searching."
"And annoying Qados in the process," Chakotay said, with a barely perceptible grin.
Tyla seemed pleased with that notion, also.
"Good," Janeway said. "Keep scanning him."
"Will do," Chakotay said.
Janeway turned and glanced at Tuvok. "How many now in the Qavok fleet?"
"Three more warships have been added, bringing the total to seven holding one astronomical unit away."
Janeway shook her head. Captain Qados was about as obvious as they came. "Keep an eye on them."
"Captain?" Dr. Maalot said.
Janeway moved over between him and Ensign Kim. "Tell me you've found something."
"I just might have," he said. His fingers flew over the board in front of him. He was amazingly adept for someone who had only seen the system for the first time a few hours earlier. He pointed to the screen.
An illustration came up. It was a chart showing energy and results. Energy expended on the x axis, amount of motion resulted on the y axis. A simple diagram.
Dr. Maalot pointed to a peak area of motion. "We started with a desired result and worked backward," he said. "So we got a fantastic energy requirement for a result."
He tapped the board and another diagram filled the screen. Same layout, but different line in the center.
"I plugged in the energy output of one of Voyager's phaser beams set on continuous fire, then plotted the result on the neutron star binary."
"And?" Janeway said, still not catching the exact meaning of the chart on the screen.
"If you had fired one phaser at the bloated secondary neutron star six days ago and kept it up for three hours, against the star's rotation, it would have changed the final outcome of the explosion by exactly six-tenths of one millisecond."
Janeway looked at the Lekk physicist. He was beaming at his discovery. She didn't follow.
"Doctor," she said, "we weren't here six days ago. We only have a few hours. What can we do?"
"I don't know exactly," he said. "But don't you see? It's figuratively like using a fulcrum on a large rock. It takes so much energy to move a rock directly. It takes less when using a fulcrum. I've just found one fulcrum to move the secondary neutron star. There will be others, I'm sure, if we open our minds and think outside the desired result."
Janeway stared at the diagram on the screen and suddenly knew exactly what he was talking about. They had been asking for a result and working backward. They needed to research different methods and look at the outcome.
She tapped her combadge. "Janeway to Torres and Seven."
"Go ahead, Captain," B'Elanna said.
"Yes?" Seven said.
"I'd like you both in my ready room in five minutes."
"Understood," B'Elanna said.
"Someone must monitor our experiment," Seven said.
Janeway smiled. "Can you rig up a sensor