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"You can't be serious."
"I think that was under the assumption that you weren't going to try and talk me into flying that deathtrap! You almost died!"
"I know, I know. But B'elanna and I have been looking over the sensor logs and I think we can make it work this time."
He eagerly hands Harry a PADD with their work.
"Let me see that."
"Okay, but if- oh I guess you could do that, but..."
"Hmm."
Much to his annoyance, this does look like it could work.
"Okay, Tom. If you're so confident, why are you trying to get me to fly this thing? We both know you're the better pilot."
"The doctor won't let me after last time, and the Captain wasn't willing to order anybody to do it. I don't think anybody else is going to be up for it, buddy, it's got to be you."
"Torres to Cochrane, you're clear to go to transwarp."
She really had not expected to be saying that again.
Tom had said "For a moment, I was everywhere". Harry hadn't actually understood what that was supposed to mean, but he gets it now.
He sees the Borg, spread across most of the gamma quadrant. Terrifyingly, they seem to see him too, but he's gone in a blink of an eye. He sees... a federation station fighting the Klingons? That's really bad, when did that start happening! He sees... a giant egg?
And then he sees Earth, and just like it was supposed to, the shuttle drops out of warp.
The cockpit is immediately filled with a shrieking klaxon and a flashing red light. Between the klaxons, the computer intones "Warning! Warp core breach in 15 seconds!"
With that little warning, with a warp core modified in ways he barely understands, there's no hope to salvage this. Harry ejects the core, which violently shakes the shuttle as it shoots off into the void. 15 seconds later, presumably, the shuttle is caught in the shockwave and knocked tumbling.
A few seconds after that, the shuttle loses power, leaving Harry tumbling in the dark.
Okay, this actually isn't that bad. He survived the warp core breach, and the shuttle may be dead but he's in one of the most heavily trafficked sectors in the galaxy.
Oh, actually, traffic control is going to be furious with him. So this is somewhat bad. He starts rehearsing his explanation while he waits to get tractored into some ship's shuttle bay. He thinks he has a pretty good excuse here.
An hour later, he hasn't been tractored anywhere, and he hasn't been beamed out, either. The next time Earth spins though his field of view, he looks closely and he's pretty sure it's a fair bit bigger than it was when he arrived.
They... can't actually let him just crash into Earth, right?
He starts working on getting thusters back online in case they can, though.
Another hour later, as he plunges towards the Pacific ocean, he's glad he did. He steers towards some tiny island: if he survives the crash he doesn't want to drown. While he can't actually stop the fall, he's able to pull into a shallow glide. The shuttle skips off the water once, twice, three times, then slams into a rocky outcrop on the beach.
As he falls, he's able to see that he was lucky-- he managed to hit a very small island chain, not even just a single island.
The beach stretches off to both sides with beautiful white sand. There is a jungle behind it, and the slope of a small forested mountain rises behind that.
A few birds fly up with startled cries when he crashes.
The crash itself happens so quickly he can't really perceive it aside from it being very loud and very painful.
But in a few minutes, when the shock has worn off a bit, Harry is pleasantly surprised to discover that he's more or less intact.
The shuttle is physically in one piece. That's about all he's willing to commit to right now. Oh, and it's missing a warp core. He's pretty confident about that too.
After carefully verifying that he's able to stand, Harry hobbles over to the door. The automatic switch is dead, but with a (very painful) hard yank he's able to get it open with the manual override.