“Look,” Helga said, “I need to tune up the manifolds. When I’m done, I can walk you through this, if you want.”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Sonya said quickly. Helga had her own duties to perform, and Sonya was tired of people covering for her. “I’ll figure this out.”

  “You sure?”

  Sighing, Sonya said, “Not really, but I’m gonna do it anyhow.”

  Helga smiled. “Good. ’Cause the manifold’s gonna take at least three hours.” She walked off.

  Letting out another sigh, Sonya went back to peering at the inside of the console.

  Four hours later, Sonya was grinning ear to ear. Helga, it turned out, had been right—all the shunt did was streamline the impulse drive. She’d doped out the entire system and figured out what needed repairing, what needed replacing, and what couldn’t be repaired or replaced but still worked around.

  La Forge came up to her at almost a dead run. “Sonya, just the person I’m looking for.”

  Clambering to her feet, Sonya brushed several locks of hair out of her face and wiped sweat from her brow with her sleeve. Holding up the padd she’d been taking notes on, she said, “I’ve done it, Geordi, we’ll have full impulse as soon as—”

  “That’s great, Sonya, but we need you for something else.”

  Sonya blinked. “But if the impulse drive—”

  “Did you do up a schedule like I asked?”

  She stared down at the padd. The haphazard notes she’d doodled could, she supposed, be translated into something resembling a schedule. “Sort of.”

  “Give it to Costa and Sherman, I need you at the core.”

  Again, Sonya blinked. “Geordi, the warp core’s inactive, what do you—”

  “Just—come with me, Sonya, okay?”

  Sonya shook her head. “O-okay. I’ll be right there.” She looked around, saw Gar Costa, handed him the padd, and then walked off.

  “Criminy, HC, is this even in English?” Gar asked, but Sonya ignored him, walking over to where La Forge and Wesley were working with some kind of widget that was hooked up to where the antimatter injectors would be were there any antimatter.

  When Wesley moved out of the way, Sonya saw the widget more clearly, and realized it was a module designed to channel high-energy plasma reactions with antimatter. She also realized that she’d seen it before, and not on the Hathaway. “Isn’t that your plasma physics homework, Wes?”

  Smiling sheepishly, Wesley said, “It was.”

  “Now it’s our best shot at warp drive,” La Forge said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I need you to calculate the best thermal curve to give us a controlled reaction.”

  “And then what?” Sonya asked. She’d been thinking purely in terms of impulse engines for several hours, so it took her a second to reboot her brain, as it were. She ran over the specs of the module from what Wesley had told her. (She also wondered how the hell he smuggled it over here, since they weren’t supposed to bring things over from the Enterprise. If they could have, Sonya would’ve brought a Shange shunt and saved three and a half hours of her life.) “That thing doesn’t have more than a few micrograms of antimatter, right?” she asked Wesley.

  He nodded.

  “You think the chips we have will be enough to channel the reaction?”

  La Forge shrugged. “If it doesn’t, we’re stuck at impulse, which is where we were in the first place. But the Enterprise won’t be expecting it.”

  “They won’t be expecting us to blow up, either.” Sonya grinned. “But it should work, yeah. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Good.”

  She went off to a computer terminal to start working up the equations. Then she stopped. “Uh, Captain Riker did okay this, right?”

  Both La Forge and Wesley said “Right” a little too quickly.

  “O-o-o-okay.” This once, she was more than willing to let someone else take the heat.

  By the time they were two hours out of the simulation, Sonya was ready to cry.

  The impulse engines were up and running as expected. Gar said that “once we translated your notes,” the schedule was spot-on. The problem was that the control systems they had available to them were limited, especially since they had to adapt components from the impulse drive in order to accommodate Wesley’s module, which meant that the impulse and warp drive components were doing double duty instead of being separated as usual.

  “It’s only a simulation,” La Forge said, “and it’s only for a couple of hours. Even the duotronic circuits can probably handle double duty.”

  “That’s not the problem,” Wesley said. He had that open-mouthed expression of his that Sonya had learned meant he was scared he was going to get yelled at.

  La Forge folded his arms. “So what is the problem?”

  Sonya picked it up. “We’re still not a hundred percent sure the warp drive will work right. We’ve only got enough antimatter for a short warp-one jump, and a lot of these components are old and worn out. They haven’t been used or maintained in eighty years, and they’re not as adaptive as our tech is now.”

  “The worry,” Wesley said, “is that we’re going to overload the control systems, at which point the impulse and warp drive will both shut down.”

  La Forge sighed. “Great.”

  “Sir,” Wesley said with a pained look at Sonya, “I know you signed off on this because if it didn’t work we’d still have impulse power. So if you want to—”

  “Wes, we can’t give up now. We’ve already hooked everything up.” He sighed. “All right, the captain’ll be down in an hour for a status report. I want to quintuple-check everything. Wes, you look over the crystals and the reaction chamber. Sonya, you do the injectors. I’ll handle the control circuits. Let’s move it, people.”

  Sonya went to check the injectors. She ran every diagnostic she could think of, then realized that the standard diagnostics she was used to didn’t take everything into account—like, she thought with a dark smile, the lack of a Shange shunt. She found herself rewriting the diagnostics, which was wise, as she found four programming flaws and one bad hookup she would have missed otherwise.

  As she knelt behind the warp core realigning the injector after fixing the bad hookup, she heard Riker’s voice booming out over engineering. “The simulation begins in one hour.”

  “You’ll have warp drive, Captain,” La Forge said, “though it may not be what you expected.”

  That’s the understatement of the decade, Sonya thought.

  “I think that deserves some kind of explanation.”

  “We’ll have warp one for—”

  Wesley cut in. “Just under two seconds.”

  Sonya thought that was generous. One-point-four was her best guess, but Wesley seemed to think he minimized the excess flow of the antimatter.

  “That’s not long enough for an escape,” Riker said thoughtfully, “but used as a surprise, it may give a strategic advantage.”

  “Sir,” La Forge said, “all of this is theoretical.”

  “And if your theory fails to pay off?”

  Here it comes, Sonya thought as she fit the injector back in.

  “Have you ever driven a Grenthamen waterhopper?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever pop the clutch?”

  Sonya barked out a laugh and almost dropped her tools. One of the things she loved about La Forge was his way of explaining things. Given half a chance, Sonya would babble for half an hour in jargon before even getting to the interesting part. With two questions, La Forge had conveyed the appropriate information to Riker without getting overly technical.

  “You’re saying we’re gonna stall the Hathaway?”

  With remarkable calm, Wesley put in, “And the Enterprise will waltz right over and pulverize us.”

  Sonya walked out from behind the warp core with a nod to La Forge. Riker smiled at her. “Ensign Gomez.”

  “Captain Riker.”

  “It’s going well, I hope.”

  “I think so. And…and I’ve learned a lot, sir. These old ships have a lot of fascinating technology. It’s impressive, really, they have no Shange shunts, duotronic circuitry, dilithium crystals that break down, no EPS conduits, no isolinear chips, and I’m babbling again, aren’t I?” That last was added when Riker broke into what could only be described as an indulgent smile.

  “That’s all right, Ensign. As long as you keep the hot chocolate out of the engine room, we should be fine. Carry on.”

  Sonya let out a long breath through her teeth.

  An hour later, Sonya sat in engineering, working up a new diagnostic program while keeping an eye on the engines. The war-game scenario had gone rather badly. Lieutenant Worf had hacked into the Enterprise security computer and tricked them into thinking a Romulan warbird was attacking. In the confusion, the Hathaway got several dozen simulated hits on the Enterprise. Then, just when La Forge had run into engineering to tell Sonya to help him and Wesley implement the warp jump, a Ferengi warship, the Kreechta, showed up and attacked the Enterprise. The latter vessel was unshielded, since its tactical systems were in simulation mode for the war game, and so was especially vulnerable. Transporter and weapons were down.

  The daiMon in charge had given the Enterprise ten minutes to give up the Hathaway, which they had erroneously concluded to be a prize of value to the Enterprise in order for the Galaxy-class ship to be firing on it.

  La Forge and Wesley had gone back to the bridge to talk to the Enterprise. La Forge had left Sonya in charge of engineering, telling her in no uncertain terms to make sure the warp drive worked, as it was now likely their only means of escape from the Kreechta.

  Now she was monitoring the conversation between the two ships. Data was speaking at the moment. “Premise: The Ferengi wish to capture the Hathaway, believing it to be of value. Therefore, we must remove the ship from their field of interest.”

  Kolrami, the Zakdorn observer and moderator, spoke up. “And they will soon relocate it after a two-second warp jump.”

  “One-point-four,” Sonya muttered. She still didn’t think Wesley’s module had enough antimatter for two whole seconds.

  “There is a way,” Picard said. “Number One, can you hear this?”

  “Yes, sir,” Riker said, “we’re all here—waiting for you to pull another rabbit out of your hat.”

  “Gar,” she said to Costa, “check over the inertial dampeners. With this warp drive, the last thing we want is to lose that or gravity.”

  “Right—wouldn’t want to escape the Ferengi just to go splat on the bulkheads.” Gar ran off to check that.

  “Mr. Data?” Picard prompted.

  The android said, “On the captain’s command, we will fire four photon torpedoes directly at the Hathaway.”

  They actually have torpedoes. That’s something, Sonya thought as she finished off the diagnostic program.

  Data went on: “One millisecond after its detonation, the computer will trigger your warp jump.”

  Sonya started running the program, and then immediately opened up a new program file on the terminal in front of her. If this is going to work, we’ll need to get this cranky old computer to do it.

  La Forge said, “I think I hate this plan. Data, we’re not even sure our warp jump will work.”

  “If the warp engines fail to function,” Data said, “the result could be—unfortunate.”

  “Very unfortunate—we will be dead.” That was Worf, as ever the voice of bluntness.

  Sonya, however, was pretty sure she could do it. She’d spent two days navigating these silly old duotronics, and she was fairly confident that she could make them tap-dance if she had to. Tying the warp drive-execution into the detection of a torpedo explosion was something she should be able to do.

  “Captain Riker, I cannot order you to do this,” Picard said, which struck Sonya as remarkably generous. Were she in Picard’s place, she wasn’t sure she’d stop short of giving that order.

  “What the hell.” Riker sounded rather morbid. “Nobody said life was safe.”

  Sonya looked around, saw that Chao-Anh Aleakala was sitting nervously. “Chao-Anh, I need a fresh set of eyes on this.”

  Looking almost relieved, Chao-Anh came over and eyeballed Sonya’s padd.

  Picard’s voice sounded over the speakers. “The advantage is that it will appear from the Kreechta’s perspective as though—as though you were destroyed in the explosion.”

  As she read over the program, Chao-Anh muttered, “Unless of course we are destroyed in the explosion.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Sonya said. To her own surprise, she believed it.

  “I hope you’re right, Sonya.” Chao-Anh, for her part, didn’t sound like she did.

  Worf said, “That will deceive them only for a few minutes. Their sensors will soon locate us.”

  “We’ll only need a few minutes, Mr. Worf,” Riker said, “because you’re going to prepare another surprise for them.”

  That confused Sonya. She knew that Worf could get into the Enterprise computer by virtue of being the ship’s chief of security. I guess he has an equal facility for Ferengi computers. Chuckling to herself, she thought, They probably get their security protocols on the cheap anyhow.

  Chao-Anh said, “I’m not sure about the timing. I’d go for one-and-a-half milliseconds to play it safe.”

  “We can’t fine-tune it that much,” Sonya said. “Besides, Data’s the one who said one millisecond. You’re gonna doubt him?”

  “Then we’re agreed,” Picard said on the speaker. “On my mark—four minutes.”

  Data added, “Remember, Geordi, if the implementation is off by one millisecond, the Hathaway will not survive.”

  Sonya gave Chao-Anh a “see?” look. The other engineer simply shrugged.

  Sounding more worried than Sonya had ever heard him, even during the Borg attack, La Forge said, “Data, that’s the one part of this plan we’re all absolutely sure about.”

  One minute later, La Forge and Wesley entered engineering. Both Sonya and Denny Russell walked up to them with padds in hand.

  La Forge looked right at Sonya. “Tell me the warp drive’s okay.”

  Handing him the padd, she said, “Okay, and already programmed to go off when the Enterprise tries to blow us up, per Mr. Data’s plan.”

  Briefly, La Forge smiled. “Bless you, Sonya. What’ve you got, Russell?”

  Denny held up his padd display. “I’ve plotted a course that minimizes risk of gravitational fluctuations from either Braslota or the planet when we go to warp. With your permission, I’ll send this to Ensign McKnight on the bridge.”

  “Do it.” He walked over to the core. “Let’s get this party started.”

  Wesley went over to the injector control systems, Sonya right next to him. The kid looked nervous as hell. “I hope this works.”

  “If it does, we owe it to you, Wes,” Sonya said. “If you hadn’t smuggled that thing over, we’d be stuck.”

  “And if it doesn’t work, the Enterprise will blow us up.”

  Sonya shrugged. “Like the captain said, nobody said life was safe.”

  “Yeah, but with these old control systems and the duotronic circuits, and—”

  “Hey, don’t count the Hathaway out. There’s some life in these old circuits.”

  Wes smiled. “Weren’t you the one who was afraid to touch anything two days ago, HC?”

  Pointing an accusatory finger, Sonya said, “Don’t you start with the ‘HC.’ And…well, let’s just say I’ve been converted.”

  Sonya had only been half-listening to the monitored communications between the Enterprise and the Kreechta, but then she heard Picard say, “You believe the Hathaway has value? We deny you your prize. Fire!”

  “Here it comes.” Sonya held her breath.

  The ship rocked for a second—Dammit, Gar, Sonya thought, you were supposed to fix the intertial dampeners if they weren’t working!—but then steadied.

  Then the walls seemed to stretch for a second. Looking down, Sonya saw that her hands were doing the same thing. It looked similar to the visual distortion of the stars one saw at warp speeds, but of the ship, not what was outside it.

  Looking over at Wesley, she saw that his face was also distorted, like it was in a fun-house mirror. But oddly, Sonya didn’t feel any pain.

  Then everything snapped back to normal. This time there was no jerking of the ship. Good work, Gar.

  She checked the display. “Warp speed operational for one-point-nine seconds.” She looked over at Wes. “You were right.”

  Now Wesley was grinning ear to ear. “Looks like I was, yeah.”

  When they arrived in Ten-Forward, the “corner office” already had an Earl Grey tea, a green tea, a synthehol Scotch, a birch beer, a synthehol bitters, and a raktajino sitting in front of each place.

  Lian raised her green tea as they all took a seat and said, “To Ensigns Gomez, Costa, Van Mayter, and Russell for earning commendations on the Hathaway!”

  “Here, here,” Tess Allenby said, hoisting her Scotch. She and Lian were the only ones from the corner office who hadn’t been assigned to Captain Riker, though they had been sent to the battle bridge after the Ferengi attacked, in case the Enterprise needed to do an emergency saucer separation.

  They all sipped from their drinks and cheered. “You all did amazing work,” Lian said. “Everybody’s talking about it.”

  Denny shrugged as he swallowed his birch beer. “Just another day at the office.”

  “C’mon,” Tess said, “doing what you did with an eighty-year-old ship? I’m amazed the thing didn’t fall apart when you blew on it.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Helga said. “Those old systems’ll surprise you—right, Sonya?”

  Grinning at her Earl Grey, Sonya said, “Yeah, okay, so I took a little while to get the hang of it.”

  “More than a little while,” Helga said conspiratorially.

  “All right, all right, more than a little while. But we did it, didn’t we? We made a warp drive and we beat the Ferengi.”

  Gar held his raktajino near his face, as if ready to sip it at a moment’s notice. “We made a warp drive with spit and baling wire.”