Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [112]
An angled picture of the warp propulsion monitor cubicle cleared on the small screen. Seven … eight Klingons in view, having some kind of argument.
“Where’s the audio?” Riker asked.
“Doesn’t seem to want to come in.” Scott plucked a little more. “If I tamper, the unit might light up.”
“Don’t do it then,” Bateson ordered. “We’ll just watch.” He carefully, quietly crossed the deck to a janitorial closet and disappeared inside. Agonizing seconds slogged by before he came out again, with an armload of cleaning and disinfecting chemicals, and oddly, a first-aid kit. “Scotty, Will, feed these ingredients into the computer and come up with a formula.”
Riker squinted. “A formula for what?”
“Now, this ought to turn their crank.”
“Oh, my God … this is disgusting! Look at those numbers!”
“Especially with those first-aid chemicals included, Will. Scotty, are you ready?”
“When you are, Captain.”
“Fire away.”
“Operation Skunk, firing away, sir.”
Riker and Scott worked together from two separate consoles, combining—very quietly—the ingredients of the medical substation into a computer-constructed formula, for a specific result. The chemicals themselves had been rather crudely introduced by Captain Bateson into the ventilation system from a duct access down the corridor, in heavy concentrations. Disinfectants, sterilizers, cleaning agents, solvents, medical salves … now the captain was back, the door was closed, the screen was showing the Klingons next door, and the computer was taking over.
Finishing his sequence, Riker hurried to Scott’s console, where Bateson hovered over Scott’s shoulder. Together they all looked at the small screen, which showed a ceiling view of the eight—oh, there were ten now—Klingons.
Ten. That was all of them in there, according to the thermal registry in the computer.
Ten more … would it work?
“Their sense of smell is stronger than ours,” Bateson murmured as he peered over Scott’s shoulder at the working Klingons. “When’s it going to start?”
Scott hunched over the controls, delicately adjusting a dial. “Any second now …”
On the screen, four Klingons’ faces were toward them, with the other six standing with their backs to the recorder. They continued their argument and kept working at the controls. Riker wished there were sound, but that would be too risky. Systems were scrambled all over this ship, thanks to the sabotage they’d suffered. Better not risk tampering too much. The ship would require a full sensor sweep when this was all—
“Look!” Bateson pointed at the screen.
Two of the Klingons had stopped working. They were glancing at each other, frowning, wondering. One more started glancing around. One waved at the air in front of his face. They kept eyeing each other.
Now, one by one, two by two, the rest of them noticed something less than flowery in the room.
One Klingon pointed a finger and shouted at another. The second waved his hands furiously, then pointed at another Klingon. The first Klingon clawed at his eyes and tried to plug his nose.
“They think it’s each other!” Riker crowed.
Bateson actually giggled. “I wish I’d thought of this back at the fraternity house. How it must stink in there!”
“It’s got to reek in there,” Scott corrected. “And it’s about to get mighty worse.”
He cranked more on the dial.
On the screen, the Klingons began gagging. Two of them retched. Another scratched at his eyes and tried to block his nose and mouth with his arm.
“Masks,” Bateson ordered, and handed Riker a small personal emergency gas mask. “Get ready.”
“Do we have to?” Riker put his mask on, still watching the ten Klingons gag and double over at the sickening stinkpot gasses flooding the room. Six Klingons were on their knees. Two more were folded over chairs, another over a console. The assault was turning debilitating, as Scott fed a combination of methane and various other fetid odors into the chamber.
“I’m putting in enough methane to make them dizzy,” Scott said. “Any more’ll kill ‘em. Now’s the time, sir.”
Bateson shoved off toward the door. “Come on, Will!”
Grabbing a box