What's Past_ Many Splendors (Book 6) - Keith R.A. DeCandido [20]
“We can’t fine-tune it that much,” Sonya said. “Besides, Data’s the one who said one millisecond. You’re gonna doubt him?”
“Then we’re agreed,” Picard said on the speaker. “On my mark—four minutes.”
Data added, “Remember, Geordi, if the implementation is off by one millisecond, the Hathaway will not survive.”
Sonya gave Chao-Anh a “see?” look. The other engineer simply shrugged.
Sounding more worried than Sonya had ever heard him, even during the Borg attack, La Forge said, “Data, that’s the one part of this plan we’re all absolutely sure about.”
One minute later, La Forge and Wesley entered engineering. Both Sonya and Denny Russell walked up to them with padds in hand.
La Forge looked right at Sonya. “Tell me the warp drive’s okay.”
Handing him the padd, she said, “Okay, and already programmed to go off when the Enterprise tries to blow us up, per Mr. Data’s plan.”
Briefly, La Forge smiled. “Bless you, Sonya. What’ve you got, Russell?”
Denny held up his padd display. “I’ve plotted a course that minimizes risk of gravitational fluctuations from either Braslota or the planet when we go to warp. With your permission, I’ll send this to Ensign McKnight on the bridge.”
“Do it.” He walked over to the core. “Let’s get this party started.”
Wesley went over to the injector control systems, Sonya right next to him. The kid looked nervous as hell. “I hope this works.”
“If it does, we owe it to you, Wes,” Sonya said. “If you hadn’t smuggled that thing over, we’d be stuck.”
“And if it doesn’t work, the Enterprise will blow us up.”
Sonya shrugged. “Like the captain said, nobody said life was safe.”
“Yeah, but with these old control systems and the duotronic circuits, and—”
“Hey, don’t count the Hathaway out. There’s some life in these old circuits.”
Wes smiled. “Weren’t you the one who was afraid to touch anything two days ago, HC?”
Pointing an accusatory finger, Sonya said, “Don’t you start with the ‘HC.’ And…well, let’s just say I’ve been converted.”
Sonya had only been half-listening to the monitored communications between the Enterprise and the Kreechta, but then she heard Picard say, “You believe the Hathaway has value? We deny you your prize. Fire!”
“Here it comes.” Sonya held her breath.
The ship rocked for a second—Dammit, Gar, Sonya thought, you were supposed to fix the intertial dampeners if they weren’t working!—but then steadied.
Then the walls seemed to stretch for a second. Looking down, Sonya saw that her hands were doing the same thing. It looked similar to the visual distortion of the stars one saw at warp speeds, but of the ship, not what was outside it.
Looking over at Wesley, she saw that his face was also distorted, like it was in a fun-house mirror. But oddly, Sonya didn’t feel any pain.
Then everything snapped back to normal. This time there was no jerking of the ship. Good work, Gar.
She checked the display. “Warp speed operational for one-point-nine seconds.” She looked over at Wes. “You were right.”
Now Wesley was grinning ear to ear. “Looks like I was, yeah.”
When they arrived in Ten-Forward, the “corner office” already had an Earl Grey tea, a green tea, a synthehol Scotch, a birch beer, a synthehol bitters, and a raktajino sitting in front of each place.
Lian raised her green tea as they all took a seat and said, “To Ensigns Gomez, Costa, Van Mayter, and Russell for earning commendations on the Hathaway!”
“Here, here,” Tess Allenby said, hoisting her Scotch. She and Lian were the only ones from the corner office who hadn’t been assigned to Captain Riker, though they had been sent to the battle bridge after the Ferengi attacked, in case the Enterprise needed to do an emergency saucer separation.
They all sipped from their drinks and cheered. “You all did amazing work,” Lian said. “Everybody’s talking about it.”
Denny shrugged as he swallowed his birch beer. “Just another day at the office.”
“C’mon,” Tess said, “doing what you did with an eighty-year-old ship? I’m amazed the thing