Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [94]
Warp six point five, he thought, translating those alien sounds into English. Plasma flow is up to eight thousand kolem, with twenty-two thousand melakols of pressure in the intermix chamber. Damn.
Even during the Drolae s swift voyage from Romulus to Cheron, Terix had not pushed the little scoutships warp drive nearly so hard as he was doing now. Once the Cheron mission had revealed Taugus III to be the most recent known location of the Ejhoi Ormiin cell responsible for Doctor Ehrehins murder and the theft of his warp-seven data, the centurion had seemed absolutely hell-bent on either reaching the dissidents enclave as quickly as possible or perishing in the attempt.
The little ship shuddered briefly, revealing what was probably an eddy of turbulence in the tiny, barely stable warp field that surrounded the vessel. He could only hope the unaccustomed vibrations didnt portend some impending catastrophic failure; at such high speeds, a sudden warp-field collapse could reduce a vessel to a light-year-long string of vaporized debris in a matter of moments. And with the propulsion systems under so much obvious strain, the margin for error within that superluminal bubble of survival was probably too small even to measure.
“Do we really have to ride this poor beast so hard, Terix? Trip asked, taking care to keep both Alabama and Florida out of his diction.
“We have no way of knowing for certain how long the Ejhoi Ormiin we seek will remain at the coordinates TLuadh provided, the centurion said. His gaze was focused straight ahead at the warp-distorted vista that rushed ceaselessly, and at unimaginable speeds, toward the scoutships forward windows. “We must reach the Taugus system before they find another hiding place.
“All this speed wont do us much good if we blow ourselves clear to Erebus getting there, said Trip. “Besides, if we can generate this much speed with such a small warp core, I have to wonder why its worth taking such risks to recover the data these dissidents stole from Doctor Ehrehin in the first place.
Terix turned to face Trip and looked at him as though he was being deliberately obtuse. “Look at the readouts on this ships support systems, Cunaehr.
With a shrug, Trip did as the centurion asked. A moment later he realized that both the life-support and structural integrity systems were redliningor rather greenlining, since the emerald-blooded Romulans had their own unique take on which color best signified imminent danger.
He realized all at once that hed been playing the spy game so long that hed momentarily forgotten to think like a warp engineer. The Drolae s extreme current speedwhich nearly rivaled that of Ehrehins yet-unrealized dream of a warp-seven stardrivecame at a trade-off cost that a larger, better-armed vessel could never sustain. Terixs current speed-at-the-expense-of-everything-else use of the Drolae reminded Trip that Ehrehins research hadnt been about merely reaching the upper reaches of the warp scale; it had been about doing so in a sustained fashion without sacrificing every scrap of a starships non-propulsion-related functionality.
“I understand, Trip said, nodding. He didnt relish the prospect of having a long conversation about the calculus of power utilization curves with the centurion.
Unfortunately, Terix seemed to be one of those martinet types who enjoyed lecturing those he regarded as his inferiors. “We cant very well assemble a viable war fleet out of ships configured like this one, he said. “An armada that has to expend all of its energy resources just to reach the battlefield is useless from a tactical perspective. Unless your ship needs only to deliver one or two men very quickly to a target by stealth.
“All right. So maybe taking a few risks to neutralize the Ejhoi Ormiin is a worthwhile thing after all. But I still say that blowing ourselves to quarks on the way there is a spectacularly bad idea.
“We have little time to waste, Cunaehr. And for reasons other than our urgent errand