The Val Jean was surprisingly not that much more cramped than Voyager. Okay, there were some hallways I couldn't pass as they seemed to double as storage, but it wasn't too bad.
I followed Torres in through a hatch and she motioned forward while moving to the side, "And here we are, main engineering."
Moving inside, I looked around, "Fascinating," I said and then tilted my head, regarding the warp core, "That's not standard."
"No, it's from a Miranda class," Torres agreed, "Took some work getting it integrated, but it was worth it."
I slowly nodded as I moved to sit down, "Well worth it," I mused, "It would boost your power by... what, fifty, sixty percent?"
"Sixty two," she said with a small smirk, "Or when dialed back to our old specs, it's a lot more efficient than the old core."
While there wasn't much you could do about fuel usage, antimatter and matter was always used in a 1 to 1 ratio, there was a limit in how efficient a warp core could be with actually gathering and using that energy. So the slower you made the reaction, the more efficient you got with your fuel, at least to a limit.
There was a long range prototype they were thinking of building, it was at the blueprint stage right now. It had a warp core larger than a Galaxy class's for a ship the size of the Val Jean. Fully automated for long range, deep space missions.
Wonder if they'll ever get around to that.
"Resourceful," I said and looked around, "And I'm impressed that the warp drive can take the load when under full power. Also taken from a larger ship?"
"Actually, it's from a Klingon Bird of Prey," Torres said with a smile, leaning back against a console.
I considered that for a second before I slowly nodded, "That explains the strange pattern I detected in your warp field, I thought it looked off."
The Klingons may not be quite as advanced, nor run as many redundancies, but that's because their stuff was usually built out of 'fuckoffium'. They built it so ruggedly that you could generally drop one of their ships from orbit, unpowered and then get it flying again with some steel wire, a welding torch and an impact wrench.
"And why can you pour so much power into them," I said and then considered it, "They're less efficient though."
"A bit, but only under full load," Torres agreed, "And they're the only engines I could get my hands on that also... fit."
"Make sense," I said, slowly nodding, "Not a lot of small engines need to be able to handle that level of power."
"Has to look primitive compared to Voyager."
I turned my head to blink at her, "Primitive?"
Torres shook her head, crossing her arms, "Voyager is a brand new Starfleet design. The Intrepid is only... what, two years old?"
"About that," I agreed and then shook my head, "Primitive? No. Less shiny maybe, but not primitive," I said and then motioned towards a hatch, "Do you mind?"
She raised an eyebrow but motioned for me to go ahead with one hand.
I moved up and then sat down, reaching to pull the tray open and peered inside. Finding what I was looking for, I pulled a isolinear chip with a pair of claws before I turned back to her, "See this?"
"An isolinear chip."
"Exactly the same model we use on Voyager," I said and looked at it, "This ship is..." I glanced around, "Thirty, forty years old?"
"Thirty seven."
"Thirty seven," I confirmed and looked at the chip again, "This technology is close to fifty years old. Still in use today. While these aren't the same design nor the same speed as the original ones on this vessel, they're still compatible. This chip would work if I took it to Voyager and plugged it in. This ship keeps the same cruising speed as Voyager. It may not be able to keep up in a sprint, but primitive? No. Tech may move forward, but not that fast," I said and turned back. As my body blocked her view, I slipped the chip into my manipulation 'gloves' and slid out my own one, clicking that into place instead.
Just like the one back on Voyager.
I had been right. I had not been the only one with that idea. Somebody had planted exactly what I was not planting here in one of the isolinear connections close to the shuttlebay.
Not quite the same design, but pretty close in functionality. It even looked like it would piggyback on other comm connections to the ship to communicate, exactly like mine would. It had been a real bitch to find.
It made me apocalyptically furious. How fucking dare they touch my ship!
And with a hardline connection like that for... I don't even know how long, since the start? They would likely have broken into a lot of things by now. I wanted to pull it, but that would have alerted them to it having been found.
And who knows what sort of triggers they have installed by now.
For all I know, they have the captain's ready room bugged via the thing and if pulled, will shut down main power.
I highly doubt it was quite that deep, systems are segregated just to stop something like that, but they have had close to a year to work on it. So I couldn't rule any of it out.
I'm fairly sure they had at least the internal comm system tapped. That's the first thing I'd go after.
So if I told anyone, they might find out about it as well.
So I'm not. Instead, I'm going to tap their system in return, find out who it is and then eat them.
Metaphorically.
Maybe.
I slit the tray closed and turned back to Torres, "So primitive? No," I said and looked at the warp core, "Ingenious more like it. Being able to install that here? You're a great engineer. Check with me if you ever want a new job, I could use another good engineer."
She smiled and nodded before she sighed and looked around, "I may have to take you up on that sooner or later. We're not going to be able to keep this bucket flying forever. She already has a lot of lightyears behind her."
"Hmm," I agreed and looked around, "I think she can make it."
"Seventy thousand lightyears?" Torres asked, "No. To be frank, we're lucky if she makes it twenty. And that's if nothing shoots at us."
"I don't know," I said, "I have a feeling she's been through a lot her original designers didn't expect her to. I bet she'll surprise you too. She's a solid ship. Old, but old doesn't mean bad," I said and then turned back to her, "Want a tour around Voyager at some point? There's some things I think you'll like, and I bet some things we can implement here too."
She frowned, "Such as?"
"Well," I said, "While I didn't fit in your torpedo room, I could stick my head in and I couldn't help but notice your loading mechanisms were similar, but lacking a couple of modifications that would increase your fire rate by twenty percent or so."
"Isn't that classified Starfleet tech?"
I snorted, "Classified, meh, like it matters out here. By the time we get home, it'll belong in a museum. For all I know, by then they'll use... wormhole torpedos or something. Wouldn't surprise me if we're met half way by some Starfleet exploration ship."
"Good point," Torres mused, "Yeah, I'd love a tour of Voyager's interesting bits."
"I'll clear it with Janeway," I confirmed with a nod, "And then we'll see what we can do to make sure we can get this 'bucket' back home with us. I still believe it would be better to focus our resources on one ship, but if we are to have two ships, let's do it right."
"That would be good."
I then sighed, "...As for now, I should return to my ship," I said, "Work waits for no one."
"Now that's the truth. I have a phaser strip to refit."
And I have a computer core to infiltrate.
