Pathways - Jeri Taylor [85]
He was giving her a headache. “If you’d maintained these engines the way you should’ve, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I can’t work miracles.”
“Klingon fool! You claimed you were an engineer! I’ve been duped!”
Irritation gave way to anger. B’Elanna swung out of the engine room of the Bolian freighter and climbed four ladders to the cramped, utilitarian bridge. That’s about all the ship consisted of: bridge, engine room, and four decks of cargo space. She and Mesler, the pilot, were the only crew, which suited B’Elanna just fine. It was all she could do to deal with Mesler; if she could’ve found a situation where she was the only crew member and could devote herself solely to the ship’s systems, it would’ve been even better.
Now, she burst into the bridge and was gratified to see the rotund, blue-faced Bolian jump in alarm at her unexpected entrance. His eyes widened with apprehension as she stood before him, fist raised.
“If you ever . . . and I mean ever . . . call me a Klingon fool again, do you know what I’m going to do to you?”
Mesler’s face took on a green tinge as he stared up at her. “Don’t get yourself upset, Torres . . .” he began, but she barreled on.
“Feel this?” she asked as she put one hand around the back of his neck and applied pressure to the sides of his neck with her fingers. “It’s a pressure point—see how it makes your mouth pop open? I could reach in right now, twist your fat tongue out of your throat, and eat it. And that’s just what I’ll do if you ever denigrate my heritage again.”
“All right, all right,” he croaked, squirming under her grip. “Just do whatever you have to to get those warp engines at peak efficiency. We can’t afford to lose any more time.”
B’Elanna dropped her grip and turned on her heel. “You’ll get them when you get them,” she growled, and made her descent once more to the engine room. The problem was in the freighter’s aging warp propulsion system, and she’d had to be endlessly creative in order to keep the ship running. Now she wasn’t sure how she was going to remodulate the plasma injectors in order to restore warp speed, but a little bubble of an idea was forming in her brain. She stared at the injectors as the bubble swelled, and then it was full enough for her to grasp and roll around her mind, testing it for weaknesses.
The injector open-close cycle was variable, from twenty-five ns to fifty ns. Each firing of an injector exposed its corresponding warp coil to a burst of energy to be converted into the warp field. At warp factors one through four, the injectors fired at low frequencies, between thirty Hz and forty Hz, and remained open for only short periods. If she didn’t try to restore the full range of their cycle, and required only low firing frequencies, the ship could achieve warp speed if Mesler didn’t try to push it faster than warp four. It would have to do.
She was ready to make the final modulation on the injectors when a muffled shriek over the comm system made her snap her head up, and then suddenly a rush of air disturbed the warm closeness of the engine room and a man materialized in front of her.
A Cardassian, to be specific, weapon drawn and pointed right at her. The cords of his elongated neck stood out, rough and fibrous. The bony cartilage that gave his face the appearance of a topographical map was distended and shiny—a sign, she knew, of aggressive posture.
She backed away from him slightly, arms in front of her, showing no hostility. She was about to ask him what he was doing there, but he spoke first.
“Your cargo, Klingon. Where is it?”
B’Elanna bit her tongue. She hated it when people addressed her simply as “Klingon,” and hadn’t tolerated the appellation from the pudgy Bolian pilot. But this Cardassian warrior was another matter. He was dangerous.
“We have four decks of cargo. It isn’t that difficult to find.”
His dark eyes flashed slightly at her impudent tone, and she felt him assessing her with barely disguised disdain. “Be careful, Klingon.