“I’ve got to get some equipment from main engineering,” she told him.
“Ah…I think Lieutenant Elvia wanted us to remain together,” he said.
“Rennis, I’ve discovered modifications to the helm and navigation systems,” she said. “I need to find out exactly what’s been done, and then try to undo it.”
“All right,” he said. “But when you…” His voice trailed off, and she saw him look over her shoulder in confusion. She turned and followed his gaze down the corridor. A Romulan officer, small in stature, marched in their direction. T’Sil did not recognize her. That was not unusual in itself— Tomednormally carried hundreds of crew—but the woman wore the dark blue sash that denoted engineering, and T’Sil doubted that there was an engineer aboard whom she didn’t know—particularly an officer.
T’Sil looked at Valin. She saw him begin to raise his weapon, and she realized that he must have come to the same conclusion as she had. The shriek of a disruptor suddenly filled the corridor, confusing T’Sil for a moment, because Valin had not yet aimed his weapon. But then a flash of electric-blue light surged past her, and Valin flew from his feet, sailing backward several meters. He landed with a dull thud, his arms and legs askew, his disruptor skittering along the deck beyond him.
T’Sil turned to face the unfamiliar officer, who now held a weapon in her hand. The woman came abreast of the open hatchway and peered inside, momentarily pointing her disruptor in that direction. T’Sil took that instant to reach for her own weapon. She had actually raised it up to fire by the time the wail of a disruptor blared once more. T’Sil had just enough time to register the visual sensation of brilliant blue light before she hurtled backward herself.
And then blackness took her.
Vaughn ran toward the large, reinforced doors at an angle, cutting diagonally across the corridor. They opened at his approach, and he sprinted into Tomed’s shuttlebay, his disruptor held out before him. He scanned the room with his eyes as he moved, searching for any of the Romulans who had remained aboard after the rest of the crew had abandoned ship. Of those six, none had been near the shuttlebay when Commander Gravenor had executed her sensor sweep in the equipment junction, but Vaughn could not afford to assume that nothing had changed since then. In fact, with Tomed’s external communications down, the comm systems in the shuttles seemed an alternative to which the Romulans could reasonably be expected to turn.
When he reached the lateral bulkhead without seeing anybody, Vaughn stopped and surveyed his surroundings. The shuttlebay stood two decks tall, with an observation platform overlooking the landing stage on either side. A control room sat behind a transparent wall on the near platform.
The facility housed four full-sized shuttles, he saw, along with twice as many smaller craft. The two-person pods probably functioned as maintenance vehicles, allowing Tomed’s crew to perform inspection and repair of the ship’s hull and exterior equipment. Boxy, with viewing ports in their curved fore and aft bulkheads, the simple, basic pods did not interest Vaughn. Although speculative as to whether or not a shuttle could survive the end of the mission, simulations had demonstrated conclusively that the pods could not.
Vaughn started toward the outer bulkhead, heading for the great clamshell doors that separated the shuttlebay from the unforgiving vacuum of space. He studied the vessels as he walked, still alert for the presence of any Romulans. In contrast to the pods, the shuttles had been designed not only to satisfy function, but to complement the distinctive bird-of-prey style of the Romulan fleet. The long, sleek hull, colored the characteristic grayish green of most Romulan vessels, tapered to a point in front of the forward viewing port, an effect evocative of a beak. The small-scale warp nacelles, capable of achieving warp two, sat atop graceful, arcing pylons that swept upward from the main body, like the wings of a bird swooping down from flight.
Satisfied that he was alone in the bay, Vaughn went to the shuttle nearest the outer doors. He read the name of the craft— Liss Riehn—printed beside the door in deep-red characters barely visible on the dark hull. The words translated as Blood Hawk.
Vaughn jabbed at a small panel beneath the name, and it opened with a click, swinging upward to reveal a control pad beneath. He studied it briefly, then reached up and worked the controls. A mechanical hum emanated from the craft, and a door appeared in the hull, pushing into the cabin and then sliding away to the left. Within, overhead lighting came on automatically.
He stepped up into Liss Riehn.The cabin ran the length of the shuttle, with no interior bulkheads providing any separate compartments. Two chairs sat before forward control panels, with two more chairs behind those. Benches had been built into the side bulkheads, accommodating perhaps another ten or twelve passengers. The cabin narrowed aft, with a short corridor reaching to a rear viewing port, set between two equipment columns in the corners there. One item that Vaughn did not see, but that he and the others had hoped to, was an emergency transporter.
Swapping his disruptor for the small case of tools hanging from the waist of his uniform, he moved to the forward stations. He set the case down there and examined the panels, scanning them once quickly, and then more carefully on a second pass. Confirming his observation, he found no transporter controls.
Wonderful,Vaughn thought. Just when I was starting to think this wouldn’t get any harder.
He strode to the rear of the cabin, to one of the two equipment columns. Vaughn pulled open a door that reached from the deck to the ceiling, exposing a maze of circuitry. He started at the top and followed it down, searching for what he needed. Not finding it, he moved to the second equipment column, looking out through the aft viewing port as he did so. The sight of the shuttlebay doors stopped him.
Eventually, those doors would have to be opened. The shuttle possessed only minimal armaments, he knew, probably insufficient to penetrate any section of the hull. But even with more powerful weapons, the special ops team could not simply blast through the doors; leaving them open would go unnoticed, but shooting a hole in them would produce a readily detectable energy signature, not to mention questions without satisfactory answers.
Vaughn returned to the forward stations and looked for the controls that would open up the shuttlebay, leaving only a forcefield between the landing stage and space. The original plan had called for the doors to be opened later, but it had also counted on the entire crew abandoning Tomed.With six Romulans still aboard, Vaughn felt that he could not risk waiting to open the doors, when he could potentially find his efforts blocked, without even the few minutes he would require to counteract the Romulan resistance.
The controls extended across the top of the port-side station, but Vaughn realized that he would not be able to lock the doors open from here. To prevent the Romulans from overriding his commands, he would have to reroute and reprogram the main panel in the shuttlebay control room. It would be a relatively simple matter to accomplish, but he needed to do it now.
Drawing his disruptor again, Vaughn stepped down out of Liss Riehnand jogged over to one of the two ladders that led to the nearer observation platform. He climbed at a brisk pace, heading for the control room once he had alighted. Inside, the landing stage and its dozen craft spread out before him on the other side of the transparent wall.
Vaughn set his disruptor down and examined the panel there. Only a few systems could be operated from this location, he saw: shuttlebay environmental control, forcefield, homing beacon, tractor beam, and the clamshell doors. As quickly as he could, he reprogrammed the OPEN/CLOSE controls, then pulled the panel up and removed the circuitry that would allow them to be operated from another location on the ship. He considered modifying the other controls for the other systems, but did not want to take the time to do so. No matter how much he had trained for this mission, he could not be sure how long it would actually take him to complete his assigned tasks here in the shuttlebay.