In the mirror to his left, Laurence can see a large group of Kazon stop at the intersection.

"So which way to the bridge?"

"Forward and up, I think, but we're locked out of the elevators."

"There have to be ladders somewhere... you four go look for them.The rest of you come with me. We'll go check on Loran: he hasn't reported in since he got to engineering."

About 5 of them start making their way towards engineering, brandishing swords.

"Enemies approaching," he calls in a low voice.

"Do you need help with them?"

He flicks his eyes over at Seska consideringly-- she's still doing something with consoles-- then says "No, sir."

He positions himself just out of sight as the Kazon approach.

The lead kazon sees B'elanna and Seska, but not Laurence. He rushes in.

Tries to rush in, rather. Laurence cuts him down before he can cross the threshold.

The remaining Kazon are a bit more cautious and coordinated, but it's pretty hard for 4 people to rush through the hole they've cut in the doors: it's just not big enough. They try climbing through one at a time while the others jab threateningly through the hole in Laurence's direction.

Laurence has fought better men than this in harsher conditions with worse weaponry. It takes some finesse to get them all as they dodge in and out of the hole, but it's finesse he has.

The last one flees after the failure of his compatriots.

Well. He can't do anything about that at the moment.

He glances over to see how Torres and her colleague are doing.

"...right, but I don't see how we can do that without a sample baseline of at least 3 hours-"

"No, no, you just need to- actually here, let me show you..."

There's no particular indication of how well things are going.

About 10 minutes later, the Jeffries tube hatch rattles, opening slightly before catching on the bar holding it shut.

Laurence hears the rattling and creeps over, carefully angles his saber, and stabs hard through the crack at the Kazon inside the hatch.

There's a yelp, footsteps, then silence.

About 5 minutes later, the hatch is cracked open again, and an bluish-white flame about 6 inches long shoots out, eating away at the bar holding the hatch closed.

After about a minute of this, the bar gives way.

Three kazon push their way in, more or less at once.

Laurence shoves back at them with his sabre, but he can't stop the press of that many bodies.

"They're here!" he shouts to the others, slashing at the first Kazon to get past him, hoping that at least one of the other officers can be spared to help hold them off.

"Seska, go!"

She spares a glance over her shoulder.

"I need about 30 more seconds..."

Seska is not really trained for this!

She runs over and vaguely menaces the Kazon with her knife.

Having successfully shoved their way in, the three Kazon prioritize. Two see if they can kill Laurence. The other one to (easily, presumably?) kill Seska.

Laurence stabs the first Kazon attacking him and leaps past the second one to cut down the Kazon attacking Seska. He manages to get that one as well, but--

Actually, upon reflection, maybe "I need about 30 more seconds" indicates something important.

While Laurence is distracted, the last Kazon rushes B'elanna. She's entirely focused on her console and has not obviously even noticed this.

As soon as he notices, Laurence catapults himself over a console and grabs the one going for Torres, trying to grapple him and force him to the ground.

Nope, not so easily grappled. He stumbles but wiggles out of it, and lunges at B'elanna with his sword.