Have Tech, Will Travel (SCE Books 1-4) - Keith R. A. DeCandido_. [et al.] [26]
For a moment there was silence, then, finally, an idea came to Duffy. “The ship’s systems are mostly dormant now. We could set up a feedback loop that would only kick in if a system like the shields was brought back on-line.”
“Perfect,” Bart said. “That would—”
Gomez held up her hand for silence. “No more talk about what you are doing until you are back on the da Vinci . I’ll explain then.”
Duffy nodded, and Gomez smiled a faint thanks.
“Duffy, Faulwell, Stevens,” Gomez said, “do what you are thinking about in the next three minutes, and then get to a beam-out level and get off this ship. Not one second longer. Understood?”
Duffy nodded at the fierce look in Gomez’s eyes, then glanced at his chronometer. In all the years he had known her, he had never seen her look like that before. Something down there in that core had clearly spooked her good.
“Understood,” Duffy said.
“Dr. Lense, you stay with them and get off as well. Corsi, you and Pattie come with me. We’re going back to help.”
“You only have about nine minutes,” Dr. Lense said.
Duffy looked at the doctor, then at Gomez. Nine minutes, and Gomez was going back down with a team. What was happening?
“Set it up and make sure it’s going to work. Two minutes and thirty seconds, and then out of here.” Gomez nodded to him and then headed off at a run.
He didn’t have a good feeling about any of this. But with just barely two minutes to figure out a way to sabotage an alien ship, he didn’t have time to think about it.
“Fabe, you take shields,” Duffy said. “Bart, weapons systems. I’m going to try to make sure nothing gets out of the core area into space.”
He went quickly to work, setting up a feedback loop in the commands to open the cargo doors that led down into the core from the surface of the ship. If something, or someone, were to try to open those doors, the computer would shut them and freeze the door permanently shut.
“Done,” Stevens said, with eighteen seconds to spare.
Faulwell went right to the last second.
It took Duffy an extra five seconds over what he had promised Gomez, but he took the extra time anyway. Whatever was in that core had spooked the woman he loved. And she didn’t spook easy, so he didn’t want it coming out any time soon.
Then, at a run, they headed for the lift.
They asked the lift computer for deck fifty-five, but before the lift stopped, the transporter took them to safety.
There was only five minutes and ten seconds left.
CHAPTER
14
Geordi couldn’t believe that Gomez and Pattie and Corsi had come back down. He would have done the same thing in Gomez’s place, but it was still insanity, plain and simple.
He glanced at his chronometer. There was less than six minutes to go before those black-hole drives started cascading in on themselves. It was going to cause one major explosion. Not big enough to harm the colony, but enough to make sure nothing survived on this ship. And that meant all of them as well, if they were still here.
“We have to get out of here,” Gomez said.
“We must build up—”
“—thirty seconds—”
“—of reserve time,” the Bynars said.
Geordi knew exactly what they were doing. They were trying to make sure that everyone had thirty seconds to get up that lift and to safety before the hive-mind regained control of the computer.
“Thirty more seconds and they should have it,” Geordi said to Gomez. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement—fast, like a bug.
“They’re out!” he shouted, pulling his phaser and taking cover.
Gomez and Corsi moved to take cover near a computer bank, pulling Pattie with them.
Vale stayed with him, moving to cover his back.
The two Bynars stayed in position at the computer terminal, never hesitating, standing and working as if nothing was happening around them.
“What is that?” Corsi demanded as Gomez fired, spraying the guts of one of the bugs against the wall.
Geordi was stunned at how big it was. Just a short time before, they