What stupid thing is he-

Wait, no, yes, they absolutely should.

"Let's be quick about it." she says, striding towards the replicator.

Along the way, she scans for anybody who might be useful.

"Seska! With me!"

God, should she replicate a bat'leth? She hasn't used one since her mom sent her to that monastery on Qo'noS. Still...

"You tell it what you want, let me specify the material. We should be able to do a bit better than you had back home."

How does he specify... oh, it should be able to figure this out, shouldn't it? "British sabre from the year 1804." And, to Torres: "Might it make a pistol? Or something similar but improved?"

To the computer:

"Make it out of tritanium."

That's probably not optimal but she hasn't studied sword materials and it's definitely going to be a step up over steel.

"Probably won't work, but we can try."

"Replicate, uhh, whatever is generally considered the best chemical projectile weapon. Authorization Torres zeta five."

B'elanna is barely more qualified than Laurence is since she's not a WW3 nerd but she at least knows how to delegate to the computer in a way it'll understand.

Maybe if this works she won't need to try and use a bat'leth.

A sword shimmers into existence.

"Projectile weapon replicator patterns are not available for safety reasons."

Ya know, if the Maquis had made the replicators they wouldn't have this nanny nonsense.

Fine. He might not be able to use whatever guns they have, anyway; it's not as though there's time for additional tutorials now.

He takes his sabre and nods to Lt. Torres.

She reluctantly addresses the replicator: "One bat'leth.".

One horrible spiky sword thing!

Seska runs up and grabs a knife from the replicator.

"Alright, let's go before the Kazon start touching my warp core."

Huh, the Klingon weapon. He supposes that makes sense. It's large and unwieldy, but perhaps she has the strength to treat it as he would a lighter weapon.

He grips his sabre in a ready stance and follows Torres and the other woman to main engineering.

The hallways are eerily empty despite the fact that there are enemies on board and, no doubt, battle raging somewhere else on the ship. He almost wouldn't believe that there were boarders at all, but the captain was very clear. It's just strange that the ship is so huge that a substantial boarding party can get lost in it.

He keeps his eyes moving and positions himself to be between the lieutenant and any unexpected threats.

They make it to engineering.

The door has been cut through, the edges of the hole glowing a dull red.

"Looks like they've gotten inside already" she whispers.

She hefts the bat'leth, a bit uncertainly. Maybe she'd be better off hitting them in the face? She's good at that.

Laurence carefully peers inside. There are two men(?) at different desks, doing something with the various screens in the room nearest the door. He can't see all the way back, though; there's a dark back room with some kind of glowing equipment that he doesn't recognize.

They have weapons in holsters at their sides, but they seem to need both hands to do whatever they're doing.

He whispers to Lt. Torres, "How far back does it go?" pointing to the back of the room. "Could there be more?"

"There are side rooms in the back left and right. Maybe somebody behind the warp core. Could be people upstairs."

That is way too many entry points and he hates it. Too bad. He wants to ask Torres which part of this room she needs to be in to do her work, but there are only two of the enemy and time is of the essence. They need to clear this room as fast as possible. And both his compatriots seem hesitant to engage.

He makes eye contact with Torres and the other officer. Gestures at them, then the Kazon on the right hand side. Then he gestures at himself, and the Kazon on the left.

Then, still gripping his sabre tightly, he creeps through the fiery doorway.

The enemy on the left is close to the door; it doesn't take long for Laurence to get to him. The Kazon manages to turn around and spot Laurence before the sabre flashes out and drops him to the ground, but nothing else, not even a cry.

He flicks his eyes over to the others.

B'elanna runs up to the other Kazon. Maybe her footsteps are louder, or maybe the other Kazon is more attentive, but he spins around with a yell and draws a sword of his own.

Her technique is awful. She telegraphs her bat'leth swing seconds out, and the Kazon is easily able to get into position to block it. This doesn't actually matter, though: B'elanna smashes right through the block with sheer force and kills him anyway.

Seska follows them into engineering, looking for (and failing to find) any more boarders.

... Huh. Klingons are scary, aren't they.

Laurence stands up from his kill and peers around the room, scanning for the side rooms and for anyone upstairs. His search also turns up nothing. He turns to the lieutenant, still on guard and watching the door they came through. "Are there other points of egress?"

B'elanna is furiously operating various consoles. It takes her about 2 seconds to process Laurence's question.

"The two doors adjacent to where we came in are the turbolift and the Jeffries tube access. Both are theoretically access points. Jeffries tube seems more likely than them hacking a turbolift."

"Seska, I need you to try and lock down the dampening field frequency modulation pattern. If we can get one step ahead of them we can maybe get our systems back."

Laurence glances around at the entrance to the Jefferies tube, and at the rest of engineering -- sadly bereft of convenient planks or crowbars. He has the impulse to ask more questions, quickly quashed with the urgency of the moment. He thinks for a moment, examines the entrance to the Jeffries tube further, glances around, finds a replicator.

"One tritanium rod," he names his guess at some dimensions. "... And a circular mirror. Three inches in diameter."

He jams the tritanium rod in the door to the Jefferies tube, then takes up station by the gaping hole in the door they came through, using his mirror to scan the hallways.