The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [179]
“Without doubt that would have been simpler,” said the man who went by the name of Tevik; he was bringing up the rear directly behind Trip, quietly rolling the wide toolbox forward through the cramped passage. “But our intelligence about this facility’s interior did not allow for such fine-tuned planning. Nor did it include either the precise positions of the ships moored here or a detailed layout of the prototype vessel’s interior. Besides, our current plan enables us to disable or destroy the entire facility, rather than just one ship.”
Assuming, Trip thought, that we miraculously keep avoiding encounters with the skeleton crew that seems to be running this place.
“I have reached the end of the crawlway,” Ych’a said from up ahead. For a Vulcan, her tone sounded downright irritated. “I would appreciate a minimum of chatter when I open the access hatch.”
“Sorry,” Trip said, holding his breath and clutching his phase pistol as Ych’a gingerly opened the small hatch and wriggled out into the dim illumination that now leaked into the tunnel. He pushed forward, following after her as the clattering sounds of a struggle resounded from just outside the barely passable exit.
Trip half climbed and half fell out of the aperture, spilling awkwardly onto a deck composed of a hard metal gridwork. As he rolled to his feet, his eyes were already adjusting to the dim light of the chamber, which was a good deal brighter than the illumination levels he’d grown used to during the passage through the access tunnel.
Ych’a stood in the wide corridor beside him, smoothing a wrinkle from her cloak. A pair of Romulan soldiers lay at her feet, their necks bent at unnatural angles, expressions of surprise and dismay etched onto their features. Trip looked away from the corpses, momentarily sickened, before helping Tevik drag them into the recesses of another access hatch.
Once the dirty work was done, Trip turned to see Ych’a consulting a map on the small padd she carried. “We read the schematics correctly,” she said as she gestured toward the right end of the corridor. “The facility’s main reactor core should be only twenty-two meters in that direction.”
Precisely twenty-two meters, one decidedly permeable hatchway, and three more guards later, the trio stood in the shadows of a four-meter-tall cylinder whose tightly controlled energies reminded Trip of the warp core aboard Enterprise.
“I believe I can identify the best places to set the thermal charges for maximum effect,” Tevik said. Trip nodded, then opened up the toolbox and began arming each of the lightweight, palm-sized charges one by one.
“How long until detonation?” Trip asked Ych’a as they worked.
“Detonation will occur precisely twelve siuren after the final charge is deployed.”
A little over ten minutes, Trip thought after doing a quick mental calculation.
Tevik and Ych’a finished placing the last of the charges. They had gone about their work so tidily, fastidiously hiding the charges among the farrago of control panels and cables and conduits that already festooned the place, that Trip couldn’t see any of the charges after they had been deployed.
Trip’s heart raced in a manner that would almost certainly have embarrassed any genuine Vulcan. This is the part where a whole pigpile of guards suddenly shows up and arrests us, then shuts down the bombs just before escorting us out the nearest airlock.
Instead, he watched in silence as an infuriatingly calm Ych’a activated the comlink on her wrist to transmit the prearranged we’re-all-done-now-so-beam-us-the-hell-out-of-here notice to the shuttle’s computer, which dutifully signaled its readiness to establish a signal lock.
Then he waited for the familiar ant-crawling, tingling sensation of a transporter beam.
And waited.
And waited a little longer