Early the next day, after an uncomfortable night spent on the floor in the briefing room, Erin dressed in an environmental suit and stepped into the airlock on deck four. “Magnus, I’m performing a com check. Can you hear me?” Her voice echoed in the helmet, and her breath formed a fog on the faceplate before quickly dissipating.
“Affirmative, Erin.” Magnus’s voice was tinny over the channel, and it seemed loud and harsh in Erin’s ears.
“How are you going?”
“I’m just approaching the computer core,” said Magnus.
“Okay,” said Erin. “I’m activating the manual cycle.”
The airlock cycled, air escaping with a hiss. The outer door opened, and she climbed down the ladder, emerging on the outer hull of the Raven, just under the nose. Around her, she could see the shield emitters. The debris of the birthing solar system was floating gently about her.
The shield grid of the Raven was made up of a series of shallow trenches which contained the distortion amplifiers, a series of small bumps the size of her fist that projected the powerful energy field of the shields around the ship. The grid ran both fore and aft as well as across the beam of the ship, with the lines of the emitters averaging a distance of two meters between. Some of amplifiers were dislodged, sitting at odd angles in the grooves. Still, Erin had expected the damage to be much greater than what she could see. Around her, only a few of the distortion amplifiers were dislodged.
“Erin to Magnus.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m in position on the shield grid,” she said. “The damage isn’t as bad as we thought, I should have it repaired in a few hours.”
“Acknowledged, Erin,” said Magnus. “That’s good news. I should have the damaged sections of the computer core bypassed in a few hours as well, and then I’ll get started reinstalling the corrupted files.”
“Okay, Magnus.” Erin closed the channel and ignited her laser welder.
*
Erin called Magnus to suggest a late lunch; her repairs to the deflector grid were going well, and at midday she had decided to continue for a little while longer. Magnus had readily agreed, and he had completed his scans of the computer core and then had managed to bypass the damaged sections before joining Erin in the briefing room with a ration packet. After they had finished their lunch, they returned to work. Magnus began to reinstall the corrupted files, and Erin completed her repairs of the shield emitters.
They had continued working until the next morning was a few hours old before they returned to the briefing room for dinner. Magnus brought the emergency rations to the table, and they began eating.
“We need to address the problem of our low antimatter reserves, Magnus,” said Erin. “Unless we refuel soon, we won’t be able to get main power back online.”
“I’ve managed to reinstall the communications package, and I’ve been scanning for any Romulan transmissions,” said Magnus. “I picked up something a few hours ago that might be of use to us. It looks like there’s an automated subspace relay station a few light years away from here. Our shields are back online now, so if we can get warp drive and the navigational deflectors online we can refuel our antimatter supplies.”
“What, we just waltz on up and ask them politely?” asked Erin.
Magnus gave her a look. “No, of course not,” he said. “We might be able to adjust our multi-adaptive shields to disguise ourselves, trick the relay station into thinking we’re a Romulan ship, a scout vessel maybe.”
“That’s going to be tough,” said Erin. “I can change what the Raven looks like to different sensor scans, but what you’re suggesting will need more than that. I’ll need to know what the relay station scans are, exactly what a Romulan ship looks like to those sensor scans, and then I’ll need to make the adjustments to the Raven. It’ll be tricky.”
“The Nomannic databanks should contain information on that,” said Magnus.
“Once we get to the relay station, how are you planning on getting the antimatter?” asked Erin.
Magnus sighed thoughtfully. “The station’s antimatter supply is probably stored in pods like ours. We should be able to remove a number of those pods from the station.”
“Surely they wouldn’t be compatible with our systems,” said Erin.
“We wouldn’t need to keep the pods,” said Magnus. “We’ll transfer the antimatter from the Romulan pods into our own pods. That will save us a bit of time. We’ll just need to collect the pods, we can transfer the antimatter later, when we’re out of range of the relay station’s sensors.”
“We’ll need to fool the station’s internal sensors as well,” said Erin. “Prevent it from realising that we’re taking the antimatter pods.”
“I’ll try to establish a connection between our computer and the station when we get there,” said Magnus. “We might be able to use our computer to send signals to the relay station that nothing’s happening.”
“That’s a lot that can go wrong,” said Erin.
“True.” He sighed. “Anyway, we can’t really do any more work until we get some rest. I’ll try to find the information we want when we’ve had dinner. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get the warp core online.”
“Okay,” said Erin. “I should be able to get the navigational deflector online tomorrow if it hasn’t been damaged too greatly. That will give us some protection from the gas and micrometeoroids.”
Magnus nodded. “After I find the information we need and repair the warp systems, I’ll have to write a computer virus so we can access the control routines of the Romulan relay station. We don’t want it scanning us.”
*
“Magnus?”
Magnus blinked and looked up from the engineering console on the bridge. He had been searching the Nomannic database for the information they needed, but he hadn’t been able to find it. The only information he had found on Romulan vessels was the specifications for the larger warships. The Raven, being a small science vessel, could never pass for a warship, but the information on smaller Romulan vessels – scout ships and shuttles – was simply not in the database.
Magnus tapped his combadge. “What is it Erin?” he said, yawning. He checked the chronometer in the lower corner of the screen. It was nearing 0400. He shook his head to clear the weariness and rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of his hands.
“We’ve got a slight problem in the briefing room,” Erin said.
Magnus sighed. “I’ll be right there.”
*
Erin was standing at the far corner of the briefing room when Magnus walked in. She looked up as he entered.
“What is it, Erin?”
“The water circulator in the toilet is broken,” she said. “The inlet valve failed just a few minutes ago. It’s leaking water all over the carpet.”
“You can’t repair it?”
“It’s designed to be replaced, not repaired,” said Erin.
“Can you replace it then?”
“We don’t have a spare part for it,” said Erin. “If the replicators were online, I could replace it easily enough.”
“There’s got to be another one on the ship somewhere,” said Magnus.
“There is, but the only reason this one is accessible is because we added it when we made this room into quarters for Annika,” said Erin. “All the others are buried in the Jefferies Tubes back in the primary hull. And I don’t fancy crawling around back there in an environmental suit.”
“Well just deactivate it.”
“Then we’d lose our only toilet.”
Magnus sighed. “We’ll just have to make do then. Get some towels, put them around the leak to soak up the water.”
*
Magnus woke slowly, and when he looked at the chronometer on the wall in the briefing room, he was surprised to see it was near lunchtime. He turned to Erin and gently shook her shoulder. “Erin,” he said. “Wake up.”
Erin moved in her sleep, then slowly opened her eyes. “What is it?” she slurred, putting her arms around him.
“We slept in,” said Magnus. “It’s nearly lunchtime.”
“Oh bugger,” said Erin. “We shouldn’t have worked so late last night. We’ve missed half the day.” She groaned. “We’d better get up.”
They rose and dressed, then opened a packet of rations each. Annika, who had not had a late night the evening before, had already risen and eaten, and was playing with a tricorder on the floor.
“Did you find the information you were looking for?” asked Erin.
“What?” said Magnus. “Oh, about the Romulan ship. No. The only information I could find was for large ships, battle cruisers and the like. Nothing that the Raven could pass for.”
“Any idea what we can do then?” asked Erin. “We have to disguise the Raven somehow, or the relay station will send a signal that will have every Romulan ship in range on our tail.” She sighed. “Maybe we should wait until the Raven is in better condition, just in case something goes wrong.”
Magnus shook his head. “We should get moving as soon as we can.”
“The multi-adaptive shields are online. They can hide us,” said Erin. “And with so many systems offline, we aren’t putting out much of a power signature. We aren’t going to be found.”
“It’s not that,” said Magnus. “The longer we stay here repairing the ship, the further behind the Borg we’re getting. If we’re here for too long, they’ll get so far ahead that we’ll never be able to catch up.”
*
After they finished their meal, they both dressed in environmental suits. Magnus went back towards the engineering section, and Erin returned to the airlock.
She climbed through the airlock, emerging outside the ship. She could see the navigational deflectors just ahead of her, twin dishes on either side of the nose. She slowly stepped towards the starboard dish, which had suffered less damage than the port during the last Romulan attack. Still, she could see places where the fine duranium mesh had been ripped, holes the size of her hand, the torn metal hanging loosely from the framework. She ignited her laser welder and began work fixing the torn patches back into place. Small stones from the accretion disk of the forming solar system bumped against her, and she could hear the clacking as they bounced off her helmet. She used her arm to push them away from her work.
A beep sounded in her helmet. It was her tricorder. She opened it and read the display. One of the conduits nearby was weakening. Erin activated the comline. “Magnus?”
“Go ahead Erin.” Magnus sounded exhausted.
“Can you shut off the feed to the RCS coolant systems?”
“Stand by,” said Magnus.
“Make it quick,” said Erin. “There’s a coolant conduit here that’s about to rupture.”
“It’ll be another thirty seconds or so, Erin.”
“You won’t make it,” said Erin. “I’ll try to weld a patch over it, that should give us some time.” She took the cover off the maglock servo controls and began welding it over the weakness in the conduit. Before she could complete the patch, however, the conduit ruptured, and the cover flew off, banging against her faceplate. The laser welder flew out of her hand and floated out into the debris field.
“Erin?”
“Damn.”
“Erin, are you okay? I heard you scream.”
Erin cursed softly. “I’m fine, but the conduit ruptured. We lost the cover to the starboard maglock panel, and I lost my laser welder.”
“Can you get it back?”
Erin shook her head. “I can see it, but I’d need a maneuvring pack to get it. I’ll need to get another one. I think the toolkit on the bridge has one, I’ll use that. My suit’s low on oxygen anyway, I’m going to have to recharge my O2 tanks.” She was silent for a moment. “Can you join me in the briefing room? I’ve just had an idea.”
Magnus was silent for a moment. “Acknowledged Erin,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”
Erin began packing up her tools, and then she headed back towards the airlock. As the outer door of the lock cycled open, she looked out into the accreted debris of the birthing solar system and she could see the distant glint of the sunlight reflecting off the laser welder. She sighed.
“What is it?” asked Magnus.
“Just looking at my laser welder,” Erin said thoughtfully, “floating out to become part of a solar system.”
“You’re not concerned about the Prime Directive, are you?” Magnus sounded incredulous.
Erin laughed. “No, of course not,” she said. “But in a few billion years, somebody’s going to find that thing buried inside a planet, and they’re going to wonder where the hell it came from.”
She smiled in spite of herself.
*
Erin was waiting in the briefing room when Magnus arrived. Her helmet was sitting in the small table, and she was eating an emergency ration pack. The tanks of her environmental suit were recharging in the equipment room.
“You had an idea, Erin?” asked Magnus.
“Yeah,” she said. “About disguising ourselves as a Romulan ship.”
Magnus sat next to her. “Yeah?”
“We scanned the Romulan shuttle we found on Delorea II, didn’t we?”
Magnus was thoughtful for a moment, then he smiled. “That’s a very good idea, Erin,” he said. “I’ll get the information for you by dinner tonight, and you can make the modifications by lunch tomorrow.”
“Great,” said Erin. “How long before the warp drive is back online?”
“The repairs to the matter injector should be completed in another three days or so,” said Magnus. “The warp coils weren’t damaged, but the antimatter containment fields are a little low for my liking. I’m going to try to get them back up to normal before we get moving again.”
*
They stopped work at 1800 and returned to the briefing room for dinner. Annika joined them, still carrying the tricorder she had been playing with all day.
“It’s smelly in here,” she said.
Erin and Magnus sniffed the air. “She’s right,” Erin said. “I can smell something, very faint.”
Magnus shook his head. “I can’t smell it,” he said.
Erin stood, looking around. “There’s definitely something,” she said. “Annika, can mummy use your tricorder?”
Annika looked at her parents for a moment, then, seeing the expression on her mother’s face, she handed the tricorder to her.
Erin opened it, and began scanning. She quickly determined the source of the odour. “It’s the carpet,” she said.
“What?”
“Where the water has been leaking out of the inlet pipe, where the valve failed. There must be a mould growing.”
“Mould?” Magnus was incredulous. “In the carpet? You’ve got to be joking.”
Erin shrugged. “See for yourself.” She held the tricorder out to him.
“Well, there’s not much we can do about it now,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until we get the replicators back online before we can replicate cleaning products.”
Erin sighed. “I’m going to be smelling that whenever I’m in here now,” she said.
*
Three days later, the Raven’s repairs had progressed nicely. The impulse system was back online, but reactor two was only operating at two thirds normal. The driver coils had taken nearly a day to repair, but they had been the most damaged component of the impulse engines, and the system was approaching normal operating parameters. Currently, the Raven could maintain three quarters impulse for nearly twelve hours, and they had left the forming solar system. All the damaged computer files had been reinstalled, and the bad sectors had been bypassed. The defragmentation subroutines were running, and had increased system performance to seventy two percent. Magnus had taken the port Bussard collector to normal, reducing the strain on it after the computer had tried to compensate for the loss of the starboard collector. However, with only one operational collector, the Raven’s ability to replenish its deuterium reserves was diminished. He’d also managed to repair the damage to the matter injector. Erin had been able to repair the primary subspace antenna while she was repairing the shield grid, and had also been able to repair some of the damage to the astrometric sensors. The damaged EPS taps to the phasers had been replaced. And they had managed to get the replicators online as well.
“We should be able to attempt the raid on the relay station in less than a week,” said Magnus, bringing two plates from the newly repaired replicator to the table in the briefing room. “Once we’ve done that, we should be able to bring the warp core up to full power, and get main power back online.”
“When will we arrive at the relay station?” Erin asked.
“Five days now that we’ve got the warp core back online,” said Magnus. “Will your adjustments to the multi-adaptive shields be completed by then?”
“I’ll have to work through most of the morning, but I can get the modifications complete by lunch tomorrow,” said Erin. She was quiet for a moment. “Magnus,” she said, “now that we have the replicators back online, can you replicate the part we need for the water circulator? Or at least the cleaning products?”
Magnus shook his head. “Can’t spare the power,” he said. “It’ll have to wait until we get main power back online.”
“Magnus, I’m serious. That thing is really starting to stink. I can’t put up with it for much longer.”
“There’s not much we can do about it,” said Magnus. “Not until main power is restored.”
Erin leaned back in her chair. “Yes there is,” she said, standing up. She left the room and returned a moment later with a small hand phaser.
Magnus stood in surprise. “Erin, what are you doing?”
“What needs to be done, Magnus,” she said. She adjusted the phaser to a wide beam, aimed it at the wet carpet, and fired.
Magnus rushed forward, pulling Erin’s thumb off the trigger. “Geez, Erin,” he said, and he looked down at the carpet. The pile had shrivelled somewhat under the beam, and was perceptibly darker than the surrounding carpet. Magnus looked at Erin in shock. “What level was that on?” he asked incredulously.
“Setting three,” she said.
Magnus took the phaser out of her hand. “Are you trying to vaporize the floor?”
“Oh, come on, Magnus,” said Erin. “Setting three won’t vaporize anything. It only sends you to sleep.”
“For an hour,” said Magnus. “And what if Annika got in the way?”
“She’s over near the door, Magnus,” Erin said. “She wasn’t in danger.”
Magnus sighed. “And you burnt the carpet,” he said.
Erin looked around him and saw the black discolouration the carpet had received, and then she began to laugh hysterically. “Oh, God, I did go overboard, didn’t I?” she said when she could speak again. “Sorry Magnus, I just wasn’t thinking.”
Magnus opened his tricorder. “Well, at least you killed the mould,” he said, and Erin started laughing again.
*
“Affirmative, Erin.” Magnus’s voice was tinny over the channel, and it seemed loud and harsh in Erin’s ears.
“How are you going?”
“I’m just approaching the computer core,” said Magnus.
“Okay,” said Erin. “I’m activating the manual cycle.”
The airlock cycled, air escaping with a hiss. The outer door opened, and she climbed down the ladder, emerging on the outer hull of the Raven, just under the nose. Around her, she could see the shield emitters. The debris of the birthing solar system was floating gently about her.
The shield grid of the Raven was made up of a series of shallow trenches which contained the distortion amplifiers, a series of small bumps the size of her fist that projected the powerful energy field of the shields around the ship. The grid ran both fore and aft as well as across the beam of the ship, with the lines of the emitters averaging a distance of two meters between. Some of amplifiers were dislodged, sitting at odd angles in the grooves. Still, Erin had expected the damage to be much greater than what she could see. Around her, only a few of the distortion amplifiers were dislodged.
“Erin to Magnus.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m in position on the shield grid,” she said. “The damage isn’t as bad as we thought, I should have it repaired in a few hours.”
“Acknowledged, Erin,” said Magnus. “That’s good news. I should have the damaged sections of the computer core bypassed in a few hours as well, and then I’ll get started reinstalling the corrupted files.”
“Okay, Magnus.” Erin closed the channel and ignited her laser welder.
*
Erin called Magnus to suggest a late lunch; her repairs to the deflector grid were going well, and at midday she had decided to continue for a little while longer. Magnus had readily agreed, and he had completed his scans of the computer core and then had managed to bypass the damaged sections before joining Erin in the briefing room with a ration packet. After they had finished their lunch, they returned to work. Magnus began to reinstall the corrupted files, and Erin completed her repairs of the shield emitters.
They had continued working until the next morning was a few hours old before they returned to the briefing room for dinner. Magnus brought the emergency rations to the table, and they began eating.
“We need to address the problem of our low antimatter reserves, Magnus,” said Erin. “Unless we refuel soon, we won’t be able to get main power back online.”
“I’ve managed to reinstall the communications package, and I’ve been scanning for any Romulan transmissions,” said Magnus. “I picked up something a few hours ago that might be of use to us. It looks like there’s an automated subspace relay station a few light years away from here. Our shields are back online now, so if we can get warp drive and the navigational deflectors online we can refuel our antimatter supplies.”
“What, we just waltz on up and ask them politely?” asked Erin.
Magnus gave her a look. “No, of course not,” he said. “We might be able to adjust our multi-adaptive shields to disguise ourselves, trick the relay station into thinking we’re a Romulan ship, a scout vessel maybe.”
“That’s going to be tough,” said Erin. “I can change what the Raven looks like to different sensor scans, but what you’re suggesting will need more than that. I’ll need to know what the relay station scans are, exactly what a Romulan ship looks like to those sensor scans, and then I’ll need to make the adjustments to the Raven. It’ll be tricky.”
“The Nomannic databanks should contain information on that,” said Magnus.
“Once we get to the relay station, how are you planning on getting the antimatter?” asked Erin.
Magnus sighed thoughtfully. “The station’s antimatter supply is probably stored in pods like ours. We should be able to remove a number of those pods from the station.”
“Surely they wouldn’t be compatible with our systems,” said Erin.
“We wouldn’t need to keep the pods,” said Magnus. “We’ll transfer the antimatter from the Romulan pods into our own pods. That will save us a bit of time. We’ll just need to collect the pods, we can transfer the antimatter later, when we’re out of range of the relay station’s sensors.”
“We’ll need to fool the station’s internal sensors as well,” said Erin. “Prevent it from realising that we’re taking the antimatter pods.”
“I’ll try to establish a connection between our computer and the station when we get there,” said Magnus. “We might be able to use our computer to send signals to the relay station that nothing’s happening.”
“That’s a lot that can go wrong,” said Erin.
“True.” He sighed. “Anyway, we can’t really do any more work until we get some rest. I’ll try to find the information we want when we’ve had dinner. Tomorrow, I’ll try to get the warp core online.”
“Okay,” said Erin. “I should be able to get the navigational deflector online tomorrow if it hasn’t been damaged too greatly. That will give us some protection from the gas and micrometeoroids.”
Magnus nodded. “After I find the information we need and repair the warp systems, I’ll have to write a computer virus so we can access the control routines of the Romulan relay station. We don’t want it scanning us.”
*
“Magnus?”
Magnus blinked and looked up from the engineering console on the bridge. He had been searching the Nomannic database for the information they needed, but he hadn’t been able to find it. The only information he had found on Romulan vessels was the specifications for the larger warships. The Raven, being a small science vessel, could never pass for a warship, but the information on smaller Romulan vessels – scout ships and shuttles – was simply not in the database.
Magnus tapped his combadge. “What is it Erin?” he said, yawning. He checked the chronometer in the lower corner of the screen. It was nearing 0400. He shook his head to clear the weariness and rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of his hands.
“We’ve got a slight problem in the briefing room,” Erin said.
Magnus sighed. “I’ll be right there.”
*
Erin was standing at the far corner of the briefing room when Magnus walked in. She looked up as he entered.
“What is it, Erin?”
“The water circulator in the toilet is broken,” she said. “The inlet valve failed just a few minutes ago. It’s leaking water all over the carpet.”
“You can’t repair it?”
“It’s designed to be replaced, not repaired,” said Erin.
“Can you replace it then?”
“We don’t have a spare part for it,” said Erin. “If the replicators were online, I could replace it easily enough.”
“There’s got to be another one on the ship somewhere,” said Magnus.
“There is, but the only reason this one is accessible is because we added it when we made this room into quarters for Annika,” said Erin. “All the others are buried in the Jefferies Tubes back in the primary hull. And I don’t fancy crawling around back there in an environmental suit.”
“Well just deactivate it.”
“Then we’d lose our only toilet.”
Magnus sighed. “We’ll just have to make do then. Get some towels, put them around the leak to soak up the water.”
*
Magnus woke slowly, and when he looked at the chronometer on the wall in the briefing room, he was surprised to see it was near lunchtime. He turned to Erin and gently shook her shoulder. “Erin,” he said. “Wake up.”
Erin moved in her sleep, then slowly opened her eyes. “What is it?” she slurred, putting her arms around him.
“We slept in,” said Magnus. “It’s nearly lunchtime.”
“Oh bugger,” said Erin. “We shouldn’t have worked so late last night. We’ve missed half the day.” She groaned. “We’d better get up.”
They rose and dressed, then opened a packet of rations each. Annika, who had not had a late night the evening before, had already risen and eaten, and was playing with a tricorder on the floor.
“Did you find the information you were looking for?” asked Erin.
“What?” said Magnus. “Oh, about the Romulan ship. No. The only information I could find was for large ships, battle cruisers and the like. Nothing that the Raven could pass for.”
“Any idea what we can do then?” asked Erin. “We have to disguise the Raven somehow, or the relay station will send a signal that will have every Romulan ship in range on our tail.” She sighed. “Maybe we should wait until the Raven is in better condition, just in case something goes wrong.”
Magnus shook his head. “We should get moving as soon as we can.”
“The multi-adaptive shields are online. They can hide us,” said Erin. “And with so many systems offline, we aren’t putting out much of a power signature. We aren’t going to be found.”
“It’s not that,” said Magnus. “The longer we stay here repairing the ship, the further behind the Borg we’re getting. If we’re here for too long, they’ll get so far ahead that we’ll never be able to catch up.”
*
After they finished their meal, they both dressed in environmental suits. Magnus went back towards the engineering section, and Erin returned to the airlock.
She climbed through the airlock, emerging outside the ship. She could see the navigational deflectors just ahead of her, twin dishes on either side of the nose. She slowly stepped towards the starboard dish, which had suffered less damage than the port during the last Romulan attack. Still, she could see places where the fine duranium mesh had been ripped, holes the size of her hand, the torn metal hanging loosely from the framework. She ignited her laser welder and began work fixing the torn patches back into place. Small stones from the accretion disk of the forming solar system bumped against her, and she could hear the clacking as they bounced off her helmet. She used her arm to push them away from her work.
A beep sounded in her helmet. It was her tricorder. She opened it and read the display. One of the conduits nearby was weakening. Erin activated the comline. “Magnus?”
“Go ahead Erin.” Magnus sounded exhausted.
“Can you shut off the feed to the RCS coolant systems?”
“Stand by,” said Magnus.
“Make it quick,” said Erin. “There’s a coolant conduit here that’s about to rupture.”
“It’ll be another thirty seconds or so, Erin.”
“You won’t make it,” said Erin. “I’ll try to weld a patch over it, that should give us some time.” She took the cover off the maglock servo controls and began welding it over the weakness in the conduit. Before she could complete the patch, however, the conduit ruptured, and the cover flew off, banging against her faceplate. The laser welder flew out of her hand and floated out into the debris field.
“Erin?”
“Damn.”
“Erin, are you okay? I heard you scream.”
Erin cursed softly. “I’m fine, but the conduit ruptured. We lost the cover to the starboard maglock panel, and I lost my laser welder.”
“Can you get it back?”
Erin shook her head. “I can see it, but I’d need a maneuvring pack to get it. I’ll need to get another one. I think the toolkit on the bridge has one, I’ll use that. My suit’s low on oxygen anyway, I’m going to have to recharge my O2 tanks.” She was silent for a moment. “Can you join me in the briefing room? I’ve just had an idea.”
Magnus was silent for a moment. “Acknowledged Erin,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”
Erin began packing up her tools, and then she headed back towards the airlock. As the outer door of the lock cycled open, she looked out into the accreted debris of the birthing solar system and she could see the distant glint of the sunlight reflecting off the laser welder. She sighed.
“What is it?” asked Magnus.
“Just looking at my laser welder,” Erin said thoughtfully, “floating out to become part of a solar system.”
“You’re not concerned about the Prime Directive, are you?” Magnus sounded incredulous.
Erin laughed. “No, of course not,” she said. “But in a few billion years, somebody’s going to find that thing buried inside a planet, and they’re going to wonder where the hell it came from.”
She smiled in spite of herself.
*
Erin was waiting in the briefing room when Magnus arrived. Her helmet was sitting in the small table, and she was eating an emergency ration pack. The tanks of her environmental suit were recharging in the equipment room.
“You had an idea, Erin?” asked Magnus.
“Yeah,” she said. “About disguising ourselves as a Romulan ship.”
Magnus sat next to her. “Yeah?”
“We scanned the Romulan shuttle we found on Delorea II, didn’t we?”
Magnus was thoughtful for a moment, then he smiled. “That’s a very good idea, Erin,” he said. “I’ll get the information for you by dinner tonight, and you can make the modifications by lunch tomorrow.”
“Great,” said Erin. “How long before the warp drive is back online?”
“The repairs to the matter injector should be completed in another three days or so,” said Magnus. “The warp coils weren’t damaged, but the antimatter containment fields are a little low for my liking. I’m going to try to get them back up to normal before we get moving again.”
*
They stopped work at 1800 and returned to the briefing room for dinner. Annika joined them, still carrying the tricorder she had been playing with all day.
“It’s smelly in here,” she said.
Erin and Magnus sniffed the air. “She’s right,” Erin said. “I can smell something, very faint.”
Magnus shook his head. “I can’t smell it,” he said.
Erin stood, looking around. “There’s definitely something,” she said. “Annika, can mummy use your tricorder?”
Annika looked at her parents for a moment, then, seeing the expression on her mother’s face, she handed the tricorder to her.
Erin opened it, and began scanning. She quickly determined the source of the odour. “It’s the carpet,” she said.
“What?”
“Where the water has been leaking out of the inlet pipe, where the valve failed. There must be a mould growing.”
“Mould?” Magnus was incredulous. “In the carpet? You’ve got to be joking.”
Erin shrugged. “See for yourself.” She held the tricorder out to him.
“Well, there’s not much we can do about it now,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until we get the replicators back online before we can replicate cleaning products.”
Erin sighed. “I’m going to be smelling that whenever I’m in here now,” she said.
*
Three days later, the Raven’s repairs had progressed nicely. The impulse system was back online, but reactor two was only operating at two thirds normal. The driver coils had taken nearly a day to repair, but they had been the most damaged component of the impulse engines, and the system was approaching normal operating parameters. Currently, the Raven could maintain three quarters impulse for nearly twelve hours, and they had left the forming solar system. All the damaged computer files had been reinstalled, and the bad sectors had been bypassed. The defragmentation subroutines were running, and had increased system performance to seventy two percent. Magnus had taken the port Bussard collector to normal, reducing the strain on it after the computer had tried to compensate for the loss of the starboard collector. However, with only one operational collector, the Raven’s ability to replenish its deuterium reserves was diminished. He’d also managed to repair the damage to the matter injector. Erin had been able to repair the primary subspace antenna while she was repairing the shield grid, and had also been able to repair some of the damage to the astrometric sensors. The damaged EPS taps to the phasers had been replaced. And they had managed to get the replicators online as well.
“We should be able to attempt the raid on the relay station in less than a week,” said Magnus, bringing two plates from the newly repaired replicator to the table in the briefing room. “Once we’ve done that, we should be able to bring the warp core up to full power, and get main power back online.”
“When will we arrive at the relay station?” Erin asked.
“Five days now that we’ve got the warp core back online,” said Magnus. “Will your adjustments to the multi-adaptive shields be completed by then?”
“I’ll have to work through most of the morning, but I can get the modifications complete by lunch tomorrow,” said Erin. She was quiet for a moment. “Magnus,” she said, “now that we have the replicators back online, can you replicate the part we need for the water circulator? Or at least the cleaning products?”
Magnus shook his head. “Can’t spare the power,” he said. “It’ll have to wait until we get main power back online.”
“Magnus, I’m serious. That thing is really starting to stink. I can’t put up with it for much longer.”
“There’s not much we can do about it,” said Magnus. “Not until main power is restored.”
Erin leaned back in her chair. “Yes there is,” she said, standing up. She left the room and returned a moment later with a small hand phaser.
Magnus stood in surprise. “Erin, what are you doing?”
“What needs to be done, Magnus,” she said. She adjusted the phaser to a wide beam, aimed it at the wet carpet, and fired.
Magnus rushed forward, pulling Erin’s thumb off the trigger. “Geez, Erin,” he said, and he looked down at the carpet. The pile had shrivelled somewhat under the beam, and was perceptibly darker than the surrounding carpet. Magnus looked at Erin in shock. “What level was that on?” he asked incredulously.
“Setting three,” she said.
Magnus took the phaser out of her hand. “Are you trying to vaporize the floor?”
“Oh, come on, Magnus,” said Erin. “Setting three won’t vaporize anything. It only sends you to sleep.”
“For an hour,” said Magnus. “And what if Annika got in the way?”
“She’s over near the door, Magnus,” Erin said. “She wasn’t in danger.”
Magnus sighed. “And you burnt the carpet,” he said.
Erin looked around him and saw the black discolouration the carpet had received, and then she began to laugh hysterically. “Oh, God, I did go overboard, didn’t I?” she said when she could speak again. “Sorry Magnus, I just wasn’t thinking.”
Magnus opened his tricorder. “Well, at least you killed the mould,” he said, and Erin started laughing again.
*
