Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [180]
His hearing began to return along with his equilibrium as he sat up gingerly, wondering when he would be rendered unconscious again. His last memory was of pushing the Romulan ships throttle hard to starboard, directing the helm right toward one of the nearest icy cometary bodies of Tezel-Orokos Kuiper belt, and hed felt the blow to his skull. He could recall nothing more.
Looks like I missed all the fun, Trip thought, wincing as he made a halting attempt to stand. The ship must have collided with one of those icebergs. He thought for a moment of holovids hed seen re-creating the seagoing Titanic disaster of the early twentieth century, and developed a ludicrous mental picture of a dinner jacket-clad Romulan string sextet playing below decks.
All around him on the dimly lit bridge were the unconsciousor perhaps deceasedbodies of Sopeks crew. Sopek himself was crumpled against a far wall, a splash of green above his head that was smeared down to the spot toward which his face was turned.
Trip limped over to one of the instrument panels that still seemed to be in working order and attempted to read the gauges he saw there. The main ships systems appeared to be completely down, so he knew that sensors were useless, but the artificial gravity and life-support systems were still functional, if only at one-third efficiency.
If he hadnt been in such pain, Trip supposed he might have chuckled at the irony of the situation; the arrenhehwiua telecapture system hed learned about that the Romulans were using to hijack ships apparently left the imprisoned crews similarly barely alive, though not in control of their vessels. Unfortunately, that system apparently hadnt been installed on Sopeks ship, so he had no chance to destroy it now. But Trip realized with a start that he could at least stop this ship from causing any further trouble.
From what he knew of the layout of the upper decks of this particular type of Romulan vessel, the second level had two escape pods. He prayed that at least one of them would be operational before he began to enter commands manually into the redundant auxiliary system.
He heard a sound behind him and saw one of the female bridge crew members sitting up, a disruptor pistol clutched in one shaky hand.
“Get away from those controls, the young Romulan said, her words slurred slightly as she appeared to have bitten partially through her lip during the impact.
Trips eyes flicked to the side, and he saw another disruptor lying on the deck near where he had gotten up. Why didnt I pick that up before? he asked himself silently. As he dove for the weapon, he heard the sizzle of an energy blast go past his falling body, connecting with part of the metal framework of the bridge. His attacker didnt seem overly concerned about hitting the sparking control systems; Trip reasoned that either shed expected the equipment to be able to take it, or else she was just in shock and not thinking clearly.
Hitting the deck hard, he snatched up the disruptor and aimed it quickly in the general direction of his attacker, squeezing off two quick blasts. By the time he blinked, he saw the Romulan woman sliding downward against the wall, a gaping hole burnt through the right half of her head. Trip turned away quickly; the blast may have cauterized the wounds, but that hadnt stopped some of the remnants of the insides of the womans skull from dislodging with a wet plop . He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on keeping his suddenly buoyant gorge from rising any higher.
Holding the disruptor protectively in one hand now, Trip continued entering the string of commands the woman had interrupted. As he finished, he heard another member of the bridge crew coming to, noting that this mans back was to Trip.
I dont want to do this, Trip thought, though he knew the situation was inescapable. What made killing the crew with a disruptor any worse than rigging their ship to explode