"Can you see anybody?" Tony whispered to Stephen, his voice almost panicked. He quickly darted his phaser to and fro.
Kirk was a bit more calm, considering their situation. "Not a thing." As his eyes adjusted, he saw two large reman soldiers on the ground in front of him. He stood up and carefully made his way over to them. He nudged one with his foot. "Looks like the gas got them." He announced. "Get moving." He pointed over to a large column of green and brown lights near the center of the room. "I assume that's the main drive system. I'm going to look around."
Tony and Tom hurried over to the containment system. It was a large, cylindrical structure not totally dissimilar from their own anti-matter containment system, except this was larger. Around the base of the structure was a set of computer panels that ran the diameter of the system. "Help me find a way to access the computer." Tony asked quickly as he bent down and began searching for an access panel.
"Right." Lieutenant Kelly started looking around for the main computer terminal. Hopefully, there would be some kind of auxiliary access under or next to it.
Stephen pressed his comm badge. "Kirk to Warlord."
He heard the familiar pop. "Warlord, Bolerov here. What's your status?"
As Stephen's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see at least a dozen reman bodies fast asleep on the floor. He could also see a considerable amount of debris from the walls. A good chunk of the ceiling had caved in as well, providing chunks of debris large enough to hide behind, if necessary. "We're on board. They're working on connecting to the computer. What's our time?" His voice was quick, but calm. The last thing he needed to do now was panic. Deep inside, he wanted to yell at his captain for putting him, and other, in grave danger on such a foolish mission. Surely the romulans in the nearby warbird were better capable of handling this. If they want the information on this ship so badly, why aren't THEY here? He was tempted to let Moreau and Kelly fumble around for a few seconds, then declare they couldn't do it.
T'Nia's voice popped in. "You have two minutes, five seconds, Commander." Her voice seemed calm on the surface, but Stephen knew her well enough to know when she was worried, even though she'd never admit it.
"Lieutenant Commander T'Nia will keep in contact with you. Please advise when you have new information. Bolerov out." His voice seemed almost cold and uncaring.
"I think I found the access panel," Tony exclaimed. "I can't open it, though."
Tom rushed around and pulled out his phaser, dropping it several levels. "Step aside." He stated flatly.
Tony was shocked. "What are you doing? You don't have to blast the door, you know!" Still, to be on the safe side, he moved away.
Tom stared at him. "It's not like they're gonna kill us less if we're neat." With that, he shot the door, which flew off in a shower of sparks. The two dove for the open access and began pulling cables.
Stephen continued carefully stepping through the obstacle-laden floor. He was looking for the door to engineering. As his eyes continued to adjust, he could see the outline of a double door immediately in front of him. A glowing control panel rested on the wall near it. He briefly listened at the door, but heard nothing.
"Okay, I'm hooked in." said Tony. He let out a sigh of relief. "Whew... it's romulan. My PADD can translate it."
"I'm gonna see if I can figure out how to eject the core." Kelly added. "There has to be some kind of mechanism for that somewhere."
Kirk looked down at his badge. "T'Nia, time?"
Her voice replied quickly, "One minute, forty seconds. What is your status?"
"Tony's in their computer system. Tom's trying to eject the core. I'm..." he pressed the button to the door, which slid open slowly, with a loud, grinding noise. "checking to make sure we're..."
From down the hall, he could hear voices. "M'than ter hor-ik ne!" The green ray of A disruptor blast impacted the wall next to him, forcing him to stagger backwards to avoid the sparks.
Kirk quickly stepped back inside engineering and pressed the button again. Slowly, the door shut. Kirk could see remans racing for the door, disruptor pistols in hand. Kirk fired a shot between the doors. "We're trying to KEEP your ship from blowing up, you know!" he yelled at the door. His reply was another green disruptor ray firing between the closing doors that narrowly missed his ear. Instintively, he felt it to make sure it was still attached. It was quite warm to the touch. When the door closed, he aimed his phaser at the door control and fired. The control panel exploded. "That oughta hold you." He said with a nod.
Despite the noise of the alarm and the steam, Stephen heard that same grinding noise of the engineering double doors in the distance. His eyes bulged. "Crap... there are two doors into engineering!" he yelled. As quickly as he could, he ran to the other side of the room. "Guys, get down! Company's coming!"
Tom ducked down behind what he had guess was the main engineering terminal. Despite the fact it was all in romulan, he recognized enough of the symbols to guess his way into the security systems. He was quite proud of himself for getting as far as he did. However, the flashing, changing red symbols in perfect rhythm to the symbols surrounding a picture of the core quickly deflated him. "I think the core ejection system is tied to the countdown! It knows it's on self destruct, so it won't launch the core!" He yelled at Tony.
Tony ducked under the core control panel. He wasn't faring any better. "I got to the command routines and found the self destruct, but it looks like there are a pair of codes necessary to override it! It'll take me hours to figure them out!"
Green disruptor fire had already streaming into engineering as Stephen closed on the second set of doors. He began firing madly at the point of origin of the beams. He shot two remans who had already made it into the room, incapacitated from the heavy stun setting. The others cautiously backed away from the door, giving Stephen the moment he needed to press the button and close them. He continued firing until the door had closed. Then, he shot that control panel as well. He leaned against the wall and let out a deep breath.
T'Nia's voice came across his badge. "Commander, you now have one minute, ten seconds. What is happening?"
Still breathing heavily, he replied, "Let's see... we've got a shipload of angry remans just outside of engineering, a self-destruct we can't turn off and a core we can't eject... did I miss anything?" He asked to the other two, who were standing back up. They shook their heads and returned to their respective computer panels. "Nope... I didn't miss anything." Just then, he heard a hissing sound next to him. He turned to see a narrow, but bright white beam streaming through a small point in the double doors next to him. "Correction," he said into the badge, "the remans aren't just outside... they're burning their way in."