What's Past_ The Future Begins (Book 2) - Michael Schuster [38]
“Did you try an emergency shutdown?” La Forge asked, joining the man at his console and looking over the readouts.
“Of course!” he shouted back. “First thing!” The other engineer, a Guidon, looked up from its panel just long enough to let off some agitated squeaks in the typical manner of its species.
Scotty shook his head. “Lasca, what have I told you, over and over? Get your hands dirty!” He moved to the rear of the runabout. “Give me a hand, Geordi!”
La Forge helped Scotty remove an access panel from the wall next to the transporters. Immediately, Scotty plunged his hands inside and began yanking out and rearranging bits of circuitry.
“Power is still building!” called Lasca, watching his screen. “It’s at one hundred forty-seven percent and rising! In another thirty seconds, the warp core will explode!”
La Forge briefly considered telling Scotty to hurry up, but years of unnecessarily being told that by his own commanding officers meant that he knew better.
“I cannot do it!” Scotty was frantically pulling bits out of the wall now, with no apparent regard for what he was doing. “I need more time!”
La Forge joined Lasca once more. “It’s no good,” he said. “The tetryon flow is continuing to multiply.”
“Slow it down, lad!” Scotty ordered.
“I cannot change the laws of physics!” La Forge shouted back—doing his best Scottish brogue. The Guidon engineer looked up from his console to stare in amazement. La Forge supposed not many of the people here would dare to mock the “living legend” that way.
Lasca was still watching the clock. “Fifteen seconds!”
Scotty grinned. “No, you can’t do that! But I can!” With that he jerked his left hand out of the mechanics compartment, and reached across the runabout to the opposite wall, where a finger stabbed down on a single button.
As La Forge watched, the power overload suddenly disappeared, the meters dropping down to zero.
“You did it!” shouted Lasca. “If that had overloaded, it would have taken out the entire Tucker Building!”
“At the very least, laddie,” said Scotty. “I knew let-tin’ you lot run tests on the surface was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have let you start up the whole tetryon plasma experiment again in the first place.”
“But aside from that, the Yellowstone is flawless,” protested Lasca.
“Aside from that, the Yellowstone is like any other runabout,” said Scotty, “so it would be, wouldn’t it? Well, except for your precious retractable sensor pod, but that’s bloody useless.”
The Guidon engineer waved his hand for Lasca to join him at his panel. The two conferred over the readouts briefly in hushed tones, and then Lasca looked up. “I don’t understand, Captain Scott. How’d you do it?”
Scotty shrugged. “Sure, I could tell, you, laddie. But who would want to hear me spout off a load of technobabble?”
“Are you sure you have to go, laddie?”
La Forge and Scotty were in the lobby of the Tucker Building once more, in front of the holoframe depicting the eponymous engineer. “Captain Picard has called me,” the younger man said, “and so I must go. Sorry I won’t get to hear the rest of your story.”
Scotty waved his hand dismissively. “There wasn’t much left, just a wee bit.”
La Forge looked around at the massive room, engineers and other Starfleet personnel streaming in and out. “You’ve done well for yourself here,” he said. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
Scotty shook his head. “It’s only been two months,” he said. “Give me time to be unhappy again, lad; it’ll come.”
“I don’t know…” said La Forge. He noticed the Vissian woman Scotty had berated this morning rush past, her head ducked to avoid attention. “I think you’re enjoying passing your knowledge on to the next generation.”
“I suppose so, lad,” Scotty admitted with a smile. “Someone’s got to whip them into shape—their professors certainly don’t.”
“You’re being challenged. That’s good for you.” La Forge tapped his