The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [86]
“I am not an engineer,” Troi added, “but let’s look at it this way. What could a Romulan engineer have used that would disable Enterprise long enough for Khazara to get away? Assuming Commander Toreth preferred flight to destroying us, and believe me, Toreth wanted little more than to destroy us. Except, perhaps, to interrogate me, then eject me from an airlock.”
Using the stealth he had developed as a survival skill throughout his years in the empire, DeSeve edged unobtrusively over toward the chief engineer and the screens he studied. The engineer was reviewing the failure analysis as if he could force solutions from it. Failure, now, that was a subject DeSeve understood with all his heart.
“Suggestions?” This time Picard’s question was directed toward him as well as the Romulans.
M’ret glanced at his aides, then down at the deck, as if abashed.
“Engineering is not a study for the Noble Born,” DeSeve heard himself say. He flushed to find himself the center of attention, which always had been the worst place to be in the Romulan Star Empire. “They not only prefer to keep their hands clean, the Senate considers it unsafe for them to study this particular discipline.”
“Twelve minutes,” came the computer warning as it ticked down toward warp core breach. Radiation levels were rising, too, but not fast enough to render the ship’s crew unconscious before the warp drive blew.
“The Senate fears what warring factions could do with expert knowledge of quantum singularities,” M’ret agreed. “My own clan had trouble enough even with an early cloaking device.”
“Where precisely did the disruptor beam hit?” DeSeve asked. Then, remembering his status, he added, “Please, sir.”
La Forge pointed at a ship schematic. “The blast hit here, in this power transmission nexus, like a ganglion transmitting nerve impulses to the rest of the body.” His hand went again to his VISOR. That was where he had taken his worst hit, barring some burns to his hands and face. It had left him shocky, still practically out on his feet but forcing himself to keep alert.
“Apparently, when you combine disruptor fire with Romulan transporter technology, you get an unexpected—and very dangerous—synergy. It begins small, in power couplings, then spreads…just as it’s doing now…”
“And we wouldn’t know this because ordinarily, shields are up, and you can’t transport when shields are up.”
Picard brought his fist down quietly on a console. In the flickering blue light, he looked very pale.
“Can the fail safes be operated mechanically?”
“My people have been trying, sir,” Geordi said. “Someone’s got…The only way I can see to work them is to get in there and do it by hand.”
“There’s more than that,” DeSeve spoke up again. “The last ship I served on, before I was sent back…the ship was decommissioned. They were experimenting with a kind of grenade. It doesn’t blow at once: it radiates. The idea is to render a ship incapable so it can be captured.”
“You think Khazara’s engineer might have known about them?”
DeSeve shrugged. “Stories get around. Even to me. If I heard it, so did most of the fleet.”
“Toreth had no love for Tal Shiar,” Troi added. “Khazara would have been exactly the sort of ship a disaffected engineer, who felt himself being watched, would try to serve on.”
DeSeve edged in closer toward the screen. “Can’t see…the thing is probably cloaked,” he muttered.
“Oh, there’s something there, all right,” La Forge backed him. “I don’t like that at all. Whatever it is, it’s getting stronger too.”
Computer’s warning confirmed that. At this rate, they would need a backup injection soon, and there were only so many of those a body could take before breaking down—assuming the warp core didn’t blow first.
The solution hit DeSeve like disruptor fire. He straightened to face the captain as a proper officer would.
“You’d have to go up and check,” he said. “I would assume the weapon is cloaked. At that close range, even if I couldn’t see it, I could pick it up as the source of the emissions.”
“Then I’d better be on my way,” La Forge