Personal Log 2-14: Cry Baby, Cry

“Stall him, Harken. Tell him the video link isn’t working, whatever you can think of.” I waved Angie and Turner close. “Can you get Delphi to set a course? We’re going to have to run fast.”

Angie frowned. “Delphi won’t operate beyond the safe parameters. We can’t go faster than warp six. Plus, it’s going to take a few minutes to find reference points for the nav computer.”

“We’ve got a bigger problem,” Turner said. “I checked the power levels. If I’m reading things right, we’ve battery power but no reactor core. We might make it to warp speed but not for long.”

“What if we shut everything down and play dead?” Angie suggested.

“They just scanned us, too late for that,” Harken said.

“Do we have weapons? Anything?” I didn’t want to escape just to die.

“We’re going to fight that?” Turner jabbed his finger at the monstrosity on the viewscreen.

“We have to do something.”

“We’ve got empty torpedo casings and probes,” Angie said as she clicked through the controls. “I’ve got an idea. Hey, Rachel, you got things up here?”

Harken nodded.

“Buy us some time. You two, come with me.”

Angie’s grin scared me, just a little, but I followed her to deck two, Turner on my heels. She took us to the torpedo bay.

“We got extra exocomps on board. Caligula didn’t find them, I checked.”

“How are repair robots going to help us?”

“Change their programming, sweetheart, and they break things just as well as they fix them.” Angie waved at the empty torpedo casings. “You get those ready to fly and I’ll get the exocomps ready to load.”

“What makes you think Mad Dog is going to let these anywhere near him? We have to get them on board his ship to do any damage.”

“We make it look like we’re jettisoning cargo. He’ll sweep it up.”

I wished I had Angie’s confidence.

“You know, Vasha said something to me once about probe self-destruct commands,” Turner said. “We can always try to blow him up that way.”

I shook my head. “We’re going to take on that battleship with empty torpedos and armed probes. Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?”

Turner grinned. “No more insane than taking over Del Brugado’s ship with a handful of Klingons. You managed that, Adrian.”

The comm beeped. Harken’s voice came from the speakers. “Whatever you’re doing, you have about fifteen minutes to do it. Caligula’s ship is about to blow and that battleship is impatient. It’s moving this way.”

“Go!” Angie pushed Turner from the room. “Get those probes launched.”

“How many torpedos do you need?” I asked.

“Twelve, if you’ve got them.” Angie typed furiously on a keyboard.

I opened the first empty shell, loading it onto the cradle.

Personal Log 2-15: Who's in Charge Now?