Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [46]
"Ready," Harry said.
"Do it, Mr. Tuvok," Janeway said.
A moment later Tuvok said, "Probe away."
To Janeway, time seemed to stop on the bridge as she and Harry both watched the board.
It all seemed fine for the first few seconds; then the transporter lock on the probe started to weaken. Exactly as it had done on the first two probes.
Harry's fingers flew over his controls and the lock strengthened again, just in time.
"Ten seconds to correct height," Tuvok said.
The correct height, as Tuvok had said, was just before the point where the tidal forces of the binary would fear the shuttles apart and set off the warp core breaches.
Two seconds between saving Tuvok's life and losing it.
Two very short seconds.
Again the lock weakened and for an instant Janeway thought Harry had lost it. But it remained as he adjusted, seemingly reading the intense variable forces before they hit the probe.
"Five seconds."
Harry still had a transporter lock on the probe. But he was fighting it. He had managed to stay with this probe far longer than the first two. It seemed the practice was helping.
"Three." Tuvok started the countdown.
Harry still had the lock.
"Two."
Still...
"One."
"Beam that probe back," Janeway ordered.
Harry's fingers were now really flying over the controls as he fought the probe into the transporter buffer.
"Got it!" he said, smiling up at the captain.
"One and a half seconds before the binary would have torn it apart on a molecular level even with its protective screen."
"Good job, Harry," Janeway said. "Drop it in the cargo bay."
"In the bay," Kim said, letting out a sigh.
"Can you download the information out of it?"
"No," Harry said after a moment. "It's too damaged."
Janeway nodded. "I'll go see if I can salvage anything. But in the meantime, I want you two to repeat this exercise. Do it over and over if you have to. I want to make sure we can do the same thing every time. Understood?"
"Yes, Captain," Tuvok said. "Prepare, Ensign."
"Give me thirty seconds," Harry said. "I want to make one more adjustment."
Harry went back to work as Janeway headed for the door. That probe would tell them exactly what kind of forces to expect-if she could get the information out of it and download it to Seven and Dr. Maalot. It would be very helpful to make sure their calculations were correct.
"One hour and twenty minutes remaining," the computer said.
"I know, I know," Janeway said as she reached the door.
Behind her, on the bridge, she heard both Tom and Chakotay laugh. She obviously said that a little too loud.
Janeway studied the exterior of the probe. It looked as if it had been put through a meat grinder. But somehow it had remained intact and collecting data. It took her less than five minutes to get the data to Seven. By the time she got there, Seven had incorporated the data into their calculations.
"Does anything change?" Janeway asked as she moved up between Seven and Dr. Maalot.
"Nothing, Captain," Seven said. "Our initial calculations were accurate."
Seven keyed up a schematic of the neutron star binary. Then she set in motion the entire picture, bringing an image of the shuttle in from above. "The shuttle must be at this height, at this exact moment," Seven said, bringing up the height and time on the screen.
"The force of the two warp-core ruptures, plus the gravitational-energy-container rupture, will be focused on this area of the secondary neutron star, which is becoming more bloated as it loses matter.
On the screen Seven brought up a blast point on the surface of the less massive of the two neutron stars.
"Thus causing it to explode exactly two point three nine milliseconds sooner," Dr. Maalot said.
"Do you believe this will work, Seven?" Janeway asked.
Seven stared