Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [38]
The little storage cubicle was not made for storing living beings.
That was much in evidence to the six who were presently in self-imposed cellarage. The insufficient oxygen (all six were oxygen-breathers), the excessive body heat, and the awkward positions they had to maintain made for much misery.
The construction of this door might save our lives by hiding our brain waves from the one-eyes, thought Geordi, but it might also kill us by starving us for air.
He winced as he listened to the destruction from outside. Wildly arcing electrical energy, frying circuits, warping and shuddering panels.
He tried to discern some pattern to what the one-eyes were doing, but found he was baffled. He wondered if Chops might understand more. Through his VISOR sight he looked at the patterns of warmth and cold on the surface of her head, as if that could tell him something. Seen in infrared, Chops was very psychedelic. Suddenly he felt the whole situation so absurd that he had to chortle. He was deliriously punchy. He wanted to hug Chops or slap her bottom.
A word floated before his eyes. Hypoxia.
What the hell was that? He started to laugh again.
Oh yes, lack of oxygen to the brain. Delirium. Every Starfleet crewperson knew how to recognize it. His training now made him act automatically.
He picked up the hand of Skoel, the Vulcan ensign next to him, and in a silent gesture, put it at the juncture of his own shoulder and neck, then at the same spot on the other crewpersons in the closet.
Skoel, the Vulcan, had been anticipating such a decision. The most logical one. The only possible way to save oxygen.
One by one he nerve-pinched all of the humans in the closet, rendering them unconscious, a state in which they would use the minimum amount of oxygen.
Skoel then put himself into a trance and his green Vulcan blood slowed until it was barely moving.
Skoel roused them many minutes later. Wentz had called from the bridge; the one-eyes had left Engineering and were pursuing new opportunities for ship sabotage.
The six of them spilled gasping out of the closet. The air was thick with acrid vapors, but to the six it tasted delicious.
Chops quickly went from panel to panel, her sensitized fingertips “seeing” the scorched circuitry in microscopic detail.
Geordi went right to the main status board. It had enough function left to tell him that the warp engines were in bad shape. They could still produce power, but not much, and not safely. He’d have to take over manual control of the mix itself, the temperature and pressure controls, and the frequency range of the emissions.
The one-eyes had known what they were doing. They’d disabled the ship to the point where Geordi could barely defend it and keep it in orbit. All he could rely on now was impulse power, and if that went, forget it.
Skoel set to work securing the entrances to Engineering but found they were already secure. The one-eyes, not detecting anyone inside, had closed the doors and shorted the switches to keep everyone out.
Geordi touched his communicator.
“La Forge to bridge. Report.”
“The one-eyes that just left your area are on their way up to the impulse engines,” said Wentz. “We have no way to stop them.”
“Damn it!” Geordi cursed. “Do we ever need a deus ex machina! Has any help gotten to Worf yet?”
“He’s been evacuated to sickbay. Doctor Crusher says he’ll be out cold for a few more hours at least.”
“Let me know when he wakes.”
He saw that Chops and the others were already into repairs on the most vital controls. At best it would take many hours. Now he began to see his crew’s lack of sleep as a critical problem, and he knew that he and Chops were the worst off. But nothing could be done about it.
At Science Station Two on the bridge, Wesley faced the small display screen.
He knew Geordi had his staff working on the one-eye problem, but he wanted to contribute something useful if he could. He decided to go to the heart of the matter.
“Computer, I’ll be using the particle physics library.”
“Would you like to start where you left off?