"Transporters are still blocked, and I don't believe you have time to reach the rest of the inhibitors before the poison reaches the jet streams. That leaves only one alternative."
He opened the hatch and clambered down into the last pneumo-car. The hatch clanged shut above him with a solid, final sound. He strapped himself in. The vertical pneumo-car began its downwards journey simply by dropping, straight down the central shaft. Compression of the air inside the tube slowed it as it approached the bottom. It was an efficient, if alarming, design.
"I hope you can hear me. I can't hear you, my communicator is set to broadcast only. I... don't want any arguments."
He touched the controls, and his stomach lurched as the pneumo-car began its free-fall descent. The swirling white mists rose up to receive him, visible only as a blur as the car rushed down the transparent aluminium tube. Shohl would argue, of course, he thought. If he let her. And it would be all too easy for her to change his mind. After all, wasn't... this sort of thing... why they had the military? So that steely-eyed, grim-faced people in uniforms could do this, instead of him?
"The only thing we can do now, as you've already realized, is detonate some kind of explosion inside the dome. And the only way we can do that.... The vortex generators, the force fields and the controls - they are all powered by a fusion generator. It is, in fact, the impulse engine from a decommissioned Federation starship."
Weight was beginning to return as the pneumo-car's descent slowed. So soon?
"It was manufactured on Earth, and it was a human conceit, at the time, to engrave on the base plate of any fusion reactor... its explosive equivalent, if it were to detonate on overload. The figure for this model is ninety-six kilotons. That should be adequate for our purposes."
The pneumo-car settled into its docking cradle with a thump that ch'Tholas felt in his bones. So soon? he thought again. Reluctantly, slowly, he unstrapped himself from his seat.
"By now, of course, you will have worked out why this proposed solution... contravenes Storm Command's health and safety policy. Please, don't do anything quixotic like trying to reach Central Overwatch. I've bled the air pressure from the pneumo-car tubes, so you won't be able to use them. Oh, it can be restored... eventually. I suspect, though, that the entire facility will have to be substantially rebuilt, once I've... finished."
Lights flickered into life in the darkened control room as he entered. The bulk of the impulse reactor was a black, massive, brooding thing, overshadowing him as he stood there.
"We put in safety features no one else knows about," he said, as he searched for the emergency toolkit. He found it, opened the casing. A prybar, a heavy spanner, a long sturdy screwdriver. Those would do. "I, and the other engineers here on staff, know where to find them, how to disable them. I suppose I could tell you how to do it, Vice Admiral, but, again... there's no time."
He made his way behind the reactor, to the vast hissing tangle of the deuterium and coolant feeds. He found the first of the inspection hatches, opened it. His hands were trembling, but they were steady enough to thrust the prybar between the spokes of the cutoff valve wheel. He tugged experimentally at it. It was seated firmly.
"I hope you're listening. I find it... something of a comfort. To know there's someone out there who can hear me, and who won't talk back. Some human religions make a ritual out of it, I heard once. One confesses all one's sins to a patient listener. " He laughed. "I don't intend to bore you with my sins, don't worry. I'm not sure I have any worth troubling you with. Except overconfidence, perhaps."
The second inspection cover was in a darkened corner, difficult to reach. The long screwdriver was long enough, but it slipped and fell at his first attempt. He picked it up off the floor, took a deep breath to control the shaking, drove the tool home. This time, it held.
"I won't bore you, either, with the conventional stuff. My bondmates know I'm doing this for them, and for our children." His voice hardened. "And to let our enemies know what they're facing. If a middle-aged civilian engineer and bureaucrat will go this far... what will the actual military do to them? Be sure to give them a good answer to that question, Vice Admiral."
He opened the last cover. The spanner was awkward to handle, barely clearing the spokes of the shutoff wheel... but it went through, and it held. It held. Nothing for it, now, he thought, but the last steps.
"We put emergency shutoff valves into the deuterium feeds, at random spots, not shown on the schematics. I've just jammed the last of them. There will be an exceptionally big bang shortly, so be prepared."
He made his way back to the reactor's controls. His hands, somehow, had stopped shaking. They were quick and steady as he cut out the safety circuits, opened the fuel feed to maximum, and closed down the cooling system. The reactor seemed to tremble, slightly, like a huge animal under an unexpected goad.
"Electronic systems are now all subverted, and the overload is building. I'm sure I'm not as good as a Vulcan computer saboteur, but I'm good enough." He turned. "Of course, there are mechanical failsafes and safety interlocks as well...."
Red lights were flashing on the control console, and a warning buzzer sounded. He shut it off. From behind the reactor, a dim irregular clanging sound began. Sensors, triggering servo mechanisms, trying to turn those jammed shutoff valves. The valve wheels were beating themselves against the obstructions he'd placed, repetitive and tireless. As a death knell, he thought, it lacked something.
He knelt before an inspection cover, opened it, reached in, and yanked out a handful of hydraulic lines. Black oil spurted out across the floor. The buzzer sounded again, louder and more urgent.
One last step. "There is a final mechanical interlock which short-circuits the fusion initiator when the reactor temperature becomes critical. Again, it's not on the original schematics." He opened the last hatch, wormed his way inside, looked up at the gleaming metal bar. "I suppose we could rig some sort of mechanism to stop it... but there's no time. Again. It's academic, now, anyway. With transporters down, there is no way I could reach the minimum safe distance."
The metal bar dropped, descending swiftly and accurately - then stopped, as it crashed with agonizing force into his chest. It ground against his body for a second, then withdrew upwards, then crashed down again. He gasped.
"It's - really quite effective," he managed to say. "If the motor was only a little more powerful, it would be strong enough to prevent -"
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