String Theory_ Cohesion (Book 1) - Jeffrey Lang [106]
“Ooo-kay,” Harry replied, but had nothing else to say. “Then tell her that she needs to get to work on the shield…”
“She knows. Already working on it. We should be ready in about two hours.”
“Can you make it one? I don’t think the shields will make it to…”
“One hour and fifteen is my best guess right now. I might be able to trim off another fifteen once I touch down, especially if Kaytok can remember some of the settings.”
“I remember everything,” Kaytok said.
“There you go, Harry. We’re touching down. We’ll call you every fifteen minutes with a progress report. Don’t hurt my engines!” She signed off before Harry could reply, and B’Elanna found herself thinking how inefficient verbal communication could be sometimes.
After a short consultation with Kaytok’s technicians, the work began in earnest. Though, as Kaytok had claimed, he remembered all the shield generator’s original settings, Seven had made considerable changes to the power supply and delivery middleware. While some of these alterations had to be undone, Torres agreed that other modifications should remain as they would not change the effect, but would enhance the shield generator’s performance.
Seven was pleased. She and Torres were now working together much more efficiently with thoughts and impressions flashing back and forth, words only occasionally necessary. They might not have found the level of intermingled consciousness a Borg work team achieved, but not too shabby for a couple of humans. Pausing, Seven asked herself, “Shabby?” I have never used that word before. She dismissed her distress. “Shabby” was a perfectly acceptable word. It had a nice ring to it.
“How much longer?” Chakotay asked. He knew he wasn’t doing anything useful in the engine room. Though he knew every square centimeter of every system on the rest of Voyager, he had never been able to find the time to dig into the detailed specifications of the warp engines. Theory? Yes. Every graduate of the Academy had to be grounded in warp theory, but theory and practical knowledge were two very different quantum packets.
“You can’t rush this kind of process, Commander,” Harry said. “If you make a mistake…” Ensign Kim and Joe Carey had been working for more than thirty-five minutes, and their time was running out. If Kim and Carey couldn’t coax the resin out of the warp core soon, there was no way they could be ready before the shields collapsed. Paris had been doing an astonishing job of anticipating the waves and guiding Voyager through the worst of them, but there was no way he could avoid every one.
“I appreciate your wanting to be careful, Harry, but you’re going to have to cut corners.” The makeshift magnetic container was attached to Harry’s belt and he had managed to squeeze under the warp core to a spot directly beneath a batch of alarmingly colored conduits festooned with warning labels and embellished with Starfleet insignia. “What would B’Elanna do if she were here?”
“Lieutenant Torres would likely just start yanking on things,” Carey said. “But she knows precisely how hard to yank and which bits are likely to explode.”
“Don’t you?” Harry asked, his casual tone attempting to mask his anxiety.
“Sure, if everything in this room was up to Starfleet spec,” Carey said. “But nothing is anymore.”
Harry said, “Sorry, but can both of you be quiet for a minute. I’m about to insert the probe. If this works the way B’Elanna said it would, we should be out of here in two minutes.”
Chakotay couldn’t resist asking. “And if it doesn’t?”
Carey said, “Then that sharp ringing you’ll hear will be your molecules moving away from each other at the speed of light.”
Chakotay heard Harry laugh (Gods of my father, we’re all getting punch-drunk), then grunted once with satisfaction. “Got it.”
“Great. What next?”
“Pull me out of here. I’m afraid to move.”
“How much longer?” Kaytok asked, turning his head slightly so that he was looking into a corner. He disliked watching the two Voyagers working together.