9
The engine room of the Invisible Hand resembled an enormous steel cathedral. Far below the domed ceiling, a vast maze of humming and hissing machinery cast sinister, spiky shadows upon the gleaming walls and floor.
Anakin Skywalker and Trip Tucker were all too aware that assassins could be lurking anywhere in the labyrinth of craggy alloy gears, or spying on them from the narrow walkways high overhead.
Trip held his phase pistol in a secure double-handed grip. Anxious yet vigilant, he stayed as close as possible to the comforting blue halo of Anakin's lightsaber. Hunched over to reduce visibility, the pair of them moved quickly but cautiously toward their destination, the noisy equipment around them helpfully drowning out the sound of their footsteps.
The hyperdrive itself stood in the center of a vast clearing in the middle of the room. Cylindrical in shape, it looked like a huge jet engine cut in half and resting on its side. The semi-circular plasma coils at each end shone a brilliant shade of orange.
Four spindly battle droids equipped with blaster rifles stood guard beside it.
Crouching behind a giant moving cog, Trip whispered, "Guards! If we go back the way we came and follow the freon cooling pipes around the perimeter of the room, we might be able to sneak up behind 'em. Hey, where're you—"
But Anakin had already revealed himself to the enemy.
A powerful Force-push turned two of the unsuspecting droids into scrap metal before their microchip brains could react. Stunned into action, the two remaining droids managed to raise their blasters and fire. Anakin cooly deflected the laser bolts back at his attackers with three quick, graceful strokes of his lightsaber, and they crumbled to the ground like broken puppets.
Trip peeked around the corner. "Yeah, that'll work too …"
Anakin's lightsaber came in handy again a minute later. Using its blade like a saw, he carved away a very solid-looking panel from the hyperdrive's sleek alloy casing.
Anakin gestured to the newly exposed meter-square window of naked circuitry. While R2-D2 stood guard, Trip moved in for a closer look.
"These are radioactive conductor cells," Anakin explained with haste, pointing them out to Trip. "Don't remove them until they cool. To deactivate the hyperdrive, we need to reverse the flux-particle relays sustaining the main generator. Yellow earth-wire, green earth-wire …" He indicated both in turn. "Be sure not to overlap them until I'm ready to do the same at the second terminal; a short-circuit could cause an explosion. After that—"
"Sorry, but …" Trying not to seem pushy, Trip moved nearer to the exposed circuit panel. "Wouldn't it be safer just to reroute the primer cable – which I assume is this – directly into the particle-flow regulation port? Assuming there's an inbuilt proton-decelerator – or somethin' similar – nothing should overload. Safe 'n' sound ... or near enough."
Taken aback, Anakin smiled, his serious eyes sparkling for the first time since he'd demonstrated his Force abilities to Captain Archer.
"I think you're right," he said. "That's the first time somebody's given me technical advice since I left Watto's junkshop on Tatooine. Well ... Master Obi-Wan tries. Frequently," he added in a long-suffering tone. "I don't like to hurt his feelings."
Trip shrugged. "Well, we Earth folk have never been all that great at throwin' things around with our minds or fightin' with laser swords. Leaves a lot of spare time to tinker with engines an' such."
Back to business, Anakin pointed out three tiny switches. "Next, deactivate these backup fail-safes – here, here and here – in that order. That should do the trick. You take care of this terminal, I'll take the one on the opposite side. Understand?"
"Crystal clear."
Anakin frowned.
"Native expression," said Trip. "Means 'yep'."
"All right, let's—"
At that moment, R2-D2 gave an earsplitting yelp of warning. Looking up, Anakin understood why.
Hot on Artoo's tail was a veritable legion of battle droids and droideka, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. They must have been camouflaged in the mountains of surrounding machinery, waiting for the perfect time to strike. An ambush!
Adopting an aggressive combat stance and a loose-fingered grip, Anakin spun the hilt of his saber twice to get a feel for the weapon, and then angled the shimmering blue blade downwards over his right shoulder.
"Artoo, take my place," said Anakin, his eyes never leaving the battle droids as they formed a semi-circular attack formation. "Trip, tell Artoo what I just told you. Hurry! I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold them off."
Trip's shoulders sagged. "Aw, you've gotta be kiddin' me …"
As Anakin somersaulted into battle like a man possessed, his lightsaber a spinning tornado of hissing, crackling, fizzing destruction, Trip fought an internal battle of his own.
After a brief pause, the blond engineer let go of his pride and took a knee beside Artoo.
"Okay, let's get something straight," he said to the droid. "You don't like me, and I sure as heck don't like you, but we're gonna have to put our differences on hold if we're gonna – Ow! What did y'do that for!"
Trip shook his electrified hand. R2-D2 razzed aggressively.
Beheading a droid with a vicious backhand, Anakin shouted: "He says you're wasting time!"
Trip clenched his jaw to suppress a tirade of droid-related swear words. Then, reminding himself what was at stake, he waved his hand, politely inviting Artoo to take a look at the exposed circuit board.
"Right, listen up … Don't make me repeat myself."
Aboard Enterprise, Hoshi Sato had some discouraging news to share with the rest of the crew.
"We've lost the captain's transporter signature. Which either means he's in a shielded area of the ship, or he's …"
Hoshi couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. She didn't have to. The mere insinuation that Jonathan Archer might never return seemed to suck all oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere.
"Is there anything we can do?" asked T'Pol.
"I … I don't know …" Hoshi looked lost. "If he tried to reach us on his communicator … the additional frequency data might help us to narrow-down the parameters of a transporter lock … But if he can't reach his communicator …" She trailed off.
Malcolm's contribution to the conversation did nothing to raise morale. "A fleet of Klingon Birds of Prey is moving to intercept."
"We're being hailed," said Hoshi.
T'Pol took a breath to steady her resolve, then said, "On screen."
The grizzled, muscular, battled-scarred Klingon captain was irate.
"What is the meaning of this unforgivable violation!" he raged, his thick gray-black beard trembling with every word her spat. "Interstellar treaty strictly forbids any Starfleet vessel from encroaching on Klingon space without expressed permission from a prominent member of the High Council!"
"If you'll allow me to explain the gravity of our—"
"For what purpose are you escorting this alien warship into our domain! Is this Xindi technology? A conspiracy to overthrow the Empire? You humans and Vulcans preach interspecies co-operation, but these are your true colors!"
"It's not how it appears," said T'Pol. 'The alien vessel is—"
"Turn your ships around right now!" Then, in a low, growling voice far more intimidating than anything he'd said so far, he added, "You will not get a second warning."
Just then, one of the hawk-like Klingon ships nose-dived from formation and fired a photon torpedo into Enterprise's starboard side.
Once again the entire universe seemed to shake. T'Pol clutched the back of Archer's command chair to prevent herself from falling. Electricity crackled across the surface of several control terminals. Luckily, nobody aboard the bridge was seriously injured. Just bumps and bruises.
Malcolm professionally blanked out the chaos around him. "There's a hull breach on D deck. We're venting atmosphere. And two of our antimatter injectors are in danger of overheating. That was one corker of a warning shot." He gave T'Pol a deeply concerned glance. "I have a target lock. Permission to return fire?"
"No. Not yet …" The floodgates of T'Pol's ice-cool composure were beginning to crack. With the barest undercurrent of fear in her voice, she said, "Captain, if you would just hear our side of the story …"
The Klingon warlord puffed out his chest and laughed mirthlessly. "I'm sure your lies would be most entertaining, but our ultimatum is final. The next attack will destroy you."
Thus far, Obi-Wan Kenobi had watched events unfold from the sidelines, hoping for a natural resolution that didn't involve the ship he was on being blasted into oblivion. Because this desired outcome was looking less and less likely by the second, he opted to intervene.
Obi-Wan, now wearing his sand-colored tunic and knee-high brown boots, strolled into the middle of the room and smiled pleasantly at the cantankerous Klingon.
"Perhaps I can be of assistance," he said. "I'm quite well versed in the art of negotiation."
Lowering her voice, T'Pol said, "Master Kenobi, I don't see how—"
"I insist," said Obi-Wan kindly.
The robust Klingon captain almost looked amused as the dapper Jedi turned to face him, feet together, hands clapsed behind his back as though he were a courtly messenger from another dimension – which, of course, he was.
Malcolm also seemed to have serious doubts about Obi-Wan's chances of winning the Klingons over. They had as much respect for good manners and etiquette as they did for personal hygiene.
"Good luck," Reed said skeptically to Obi-Wan.
A savvy smile passed fleetingly across the Jedi Master's bearded face as he pivoted at the waist to glance at Macolm, who narrowed his eyes shrewdly. Something fishy was afoot.
"In my experience," said Obi-Wan calmly, "there's no such thing as luck."
