Equinox Read online

  "No ... she hasn't I always agreed with you, Rudy," Burke said, then held up a hand. "I still do, I still do... but how can we make them understand? Soon enough, I mean."

  "We can't" Ransom lowered his voice more. "I know I've stepped over the line in their eyes. We don't have two years to examine the regulations and micro-manage the morality. They don't have the capability yet to understand what we've had to do. How could they? Look at this ship! Clean, strong, supplied... they haven't even come close to the edge. We landed on it!"

  "We sure did ..."

  " And I wanted to get home. I saw a way to get home. I used it"

  "Don't isolate yourself," Burke protested. "We could've resisted. We wanted to get home too. It's all for one and one for all on Equinox."

  An unexpected smile crimped Ransom's leathery face. "You know how I appreciate that. Especially here, where you're all-"

  "Comfortable? Right... things always look different in a lounge than they do from down a well, that's for sure. But we'll never forget, Rudy. We're still with you."

  "I'm glad, because we'll have to stick together. They're not going to understand. We have to forget about that. They won't get it. She'll never approve, that's for sure. She's never been to the Skeleton Coast."

  Burke shook his head and laughed sadly. "I remember the first time you told us those survival stories from the Skeleton Coast. It made us feel so... possible! If those poor shipwrecked tourists could do it, so could we ... heat, sandstorms, blindness, hundreds of miles of scorching sand and not even a snake to eat... I used to replay the scenes in my head while I was working. It kept my mind off how bad things were getting."

  "You get inspiration wherever you can." Leading the way around a corner, Ransom found he'd made a wrong turn. Now they stood in a vestibule for a turbolift that was under repair. With a red caution tape across the open doorway, the lift stood in passive gawk, half its guts exposed, tools littering its deck.

  Beside him, Burke stopped still. Together they stared at the electrical innards. Even dismantled, the lift was a hundred times more tidy than the shambled mess in any corner of Equinox. And this had no blood on it.

  There they stood, not looking at each other. Ran-

  som's voice moved as if veiled beneath the soft bleeps and whirs of the living ship.

  "When you're dropped on the Skeleton Coast, the rules of civilization don't apply. It isn't a place for higher behavior. It gets down to finding enough water. Escaping the sun. Trapping a crab. How do you walk on burned feet? How do you keep from freezing at night? What do you use for toilet paper? It gets whittled farther and farther down ... until all you're interested in is getting through the next few minutes. The lofty goals of humanity? They just don't matter. If you can't survive, then what difference does destiny make?"

  The words all but echoed. The turbolift bleeped passively, flashing its little "Under Repair" light. Yes, lots of things were under repair in the Delta Quadrant.

  Burke gazed at the red strip blocking the lift cavity. His voice was rough. "You know they'll hold us to that code."

  "Because they've never had to live without it," Ransom quietly reminded. "We were trapped on the Coast. Nowhere, with nothing ... dying... hopeless. We could never, ever get home. Nobody else welcomed us. We were completely alone."

  "I know, Rudy, I know ... if you hadn't been strong enough-"

  Brushing off the compliment, Ransom sliced his hand between them. "Then something happened to change everything. We found ourselves inside a pack of wild animals. Even though it seemed worse at the time, it was really better because we suddenly had a fighting

  chance. If you're on a life raft, starving and scorching, it's better to just get in the water and fight the sharks. You might die, but at least you die fighting! And if you win, you've got a shark to eat. I like that better-the fighting chance. I want the fighting chance. You know, Max, I was never a fighting man. I never even handled a weapon after basic training. I never took any courses in tactics or strategy... but when you have to fight, when you're faced with that... by God, there's something about it that makes a man's soul cook!"

  With an uneasy smile, Burke shook his head. "You're the something for us. You made us cook. You and your metaphors."

  "That's right, me and my metaphors. If you're trapped in a pack of wild animals who can't understand your rights, what obligation do you have to respect theirs? It's down to pure survival. The rules of civilization say you still act civilized even on the Skeleton Coast," Ransom said, and paused. He gripped Burke's arm and made his first officer meet his eyes. "But you can't. We couldn't."

  Stepping forward, troubled, Burke gripped the simple red strip between them and the torn-apart interior of the turbolift. Another barrier, pretending it could hold them. It couldn't.

  The ship's circulation system came on in a vent over their heads, blowing adjusted cool air into the area where warm air had built up because of the open turbolift. The sound made Burke flinch.

  "We swore an oath that even among savages we would be civilized," he said.

  Ransom nodded. "We tried. It didn't work."

  "What do we do?" Burke asked, not arguing because he knew that was true. They had tried, and failed. "What about the rest of the crew? They deserve a rest and it doesn't look like we're going to get one. Janeway and her crew are in for a miserable surprise."

  "Then we'll fight again," Ransom told him stalwart-ly. "We've come too far to buckle now. We've got the fight in us. We're strong, we know that Everybody thinks a science crew is just a bunch of geeks. We proved otherwise. I'll never quit. Our mission is to get home before we all really do turn to skeletons. That's my focus. It always will be. I'll never have kids of my own. I want to see your kids someday. Yours and Noah's, Mike's, and Maria's... I want two hundred grandkids. I mean to get 'em."

  Burke laughed again, his black eyes more alive than they'd been in months. "Rudy, you're a work of art."

  Ransom shrugged. "Since the first week," he went on, "I was determined that the rest of you would survive. I didn't care about the rules of civilization anymore. I still don't. No shower or full belly will ever make me forget again. When Voyager peeled out of space to save us, I swore a new oath to myself that I wouldn't slip. I'll destroy every savage I come upon, if necessary, to get all of you home. Once among civilized people, I'll gladly obey the rules of civilization again. But we're still among savages here. There are no laws."

  Burke looked as if his dinner were coming back on him. Though there was doubt in his posture, there real-

  ly was none in his gaze. They knew what they had to do. Unfortunately, that meant coming to grapples with the Voyager crew, who would not understand soon enough. It meant compromising friends before the friendship even had a chance in hell.

  Ransom studied him silently for a few seconds. When he spoke, the words galvanized both of them.

  "Do you want to be out here for the rest of your life?"

  CHAPTER

  6

  NOAH LESSING STRODE AROUND ON HIS NEWLY FUSED femurs, appreciating as never before the minor miracle of possessing a pelvis. His wounds were gone. His uniform was clean. All by itself, just the clean uniform was something remarkable. No chafing! No smear of lubricant against his buttocks. No jagged rips with seared fibrous edges that had turned sharp. Add to that, fresh air and light...

  "How's my Angel of Mercy?" he cheered as he strode into the astrometrics lab.

  He knew she'd be here.

  "Crewman Lessing," Seven of Nine greeted. "I did not expect you to recover so quickly."

  "You've got an outstanding EMH," Lessing offered, not explaining that he'd been recovering fast by necessity for years now. On Equinox even the injured had to

  fight Being able to actually rest-well, that was gravy. "Ours can barely hold a laser scalpel," he added, trying to be funny.

  She didn't seem to get it. "The doctor is efficient," was her only comment.

  Like trying to get a rise out of a sculpture.r />
  Still hopeful, he moved closer. "I've been assigned to help you sort through the biodata. You saved my life... the least I can do is save you a little time."

  He didn't tell her that his real motive was to stall her progress by a few hours. Rudy needed time. Max was right-these Voyager people, they didn't need to know everything too soon.

  Seven looked at him, then turned down to her work again. No matter how he smiled, she didn't change. Same delivery, same response, low disinterested tone, faint curiosity, no real flame. Too bad all those looks were locked up in there. Apparently he'd misread those big pretty eyes. Lying trapped, half-dead, numb, and starved could do that to you.

  Still, couldn't blame a fella for persistence.

  He started to say something, some line he came up with that probably wouldn't work, when he was interrupted by a grisly familiar shriek. The alien tone!

  He drew his phaser instantly, a reflex, without thinking. An instant later Seven drew hers. Braced for attack, they pointed at two different areas.

  'Take cover!" Lessing rasped. "Get down! They always come from above!"

  "What comes?" Seven asked, fielding her phaser toward the ceiling.

  "The attacks! Contact your bridge! Tell them they have to fortify the shields! Tell them!"

  "What kind of life form?"

  "Nucleogenic! On a separate spatial plane! We don't know much about them! If a fissure opens, fire into it! Don't wait! Call them, call them!"

  "Seven to bridge! We're under attack!"

  "Chakotay here. We see it, lab, stand by. Tuvok, what's happening to us?"

  "Checking," the Vulcan responded. Suddenly the question seemed silly-he'd tell as soon as he knew. Asking didn't hurry things up any.

  Deafened by the ear-splitting screech of the alien invasion tone, Chakotay braced for action and waited. He held a phaser, as did every single member of the bridge crew. That was such a strange sight! This place was the brain center for attacks from outside, not inside.

  "Lateral shields are off-line," Tuvok called over the noise.

  "How's that possible?" Chakotay demanded.

  Before he got an answer, Harry Kim shouted, "Fissures are opening on decks one, eight, and eleven!"

  That accounted for the astrometrics lab. Unfortunately, it also accounted for sickbay, with injured and helpless crew still lying down there. Chakotay made a mental note to statio n security guards in sickbay. He'd never thought of such a thing before.

  "Reroute power!" he called.

  Too late-he should've reacted sooner. Tuvok need-

  ed authorization to do that. Though technically simple, rerouting a major power source was a command prerogative only.

  Tuvok now worked freely and within five seconds the alien sound pinched to silence.

  Squinting with leftover pain in his ears, Tom Paris asked, "What happened?"

  Tuvok continued working with uncharacteristic ferocity to shore up the shield power. "Apparently," he explained, "the aliens began to focus their attacks on a single shield vector. It collapsed before the auxiliary emitters could respond."

  A dim hopelessness gripped the bridge. They all knew what that meant.

  Chakotay smoldered. "It looks like they've changed then" tactics. We may have less time than we thought. Yellow Alert."

  "Yellow Alert, aye," Paris responded. He looked glad to have something to do beside run from something they couldn't see and apparently couldn't outpace.

  "Janeway to bridge. Report on that last incident."

  Due to happen.

  Chakotay glanced at Paris, then tapped the command chair comm. "Captain, Chakotay here. We think the aliens have learned to focus on weakened shield vectors. We closed the gap before they broke through, but I'm wondering how long we can keep that up."

  "If they can learn one thing, they can learn another. They'll figure out what we do to stop them and they'll

  either work faster or they'll just outguess us. It shortens our time limit. Is everyone all right?"

  "Everyone here is. We don't have any reports from the rest of the ship."

  "Have security check on all personnel. Order the crew to work in teams of two or more. I don't want anyone left alone."

  "Aye, Captain."

  "Chakotay, meet me in the briefing room. Round up everybody who's been working on this. Have them get their data ready but tell them to keep the processing power levels low. We've got to start conserving now, before things get worse. If we don't get answers soon, we 're going to start paying a price. And I don't like toll roads. Go to Red Alert."

  "We've examined the schematics of your multiphasic chamber. It can be adapted."

  Kathryn Janeway examined the cutaway as Seven of Nine described her analysis. She felt comfortable, but uneasy. Odd, the differentiation. She knew the comfort came from the presence of Chakotay, Tuvok, and Seven.

  The unease-was that from Ransom, Burke, and Gilmore? Was she so unused to having strangers aboard, human strangers, that she couldn't relax about it?

  The cutaway graphics of Voyager and Equinox showed every deck and section of the ships, highlighted with a complex grid of force fields, under attack in what seemed a random pattern but apparently was not.

  Tuvok picked up when Seven finished, to explain, "We intend to create an autoinitiating security grid. The moment an alien invades either ship, a force field will surround it."

  Seven tapped another control while Janeway resisted asking obvious technical questions that they'd handle anyway.

  "Once we modify our field generator," Seven said, "to emit multiphasic frequencies, it will power the security grids on both ships."

  "How long will it take?" Janeway brass-tacked.

  Tuvok shrugged with just his eyebrows. "Approximately fourteen hours."

  Engineer Gilmore from the Equinox flitted her gaze nervously between Janeway and her own captain. "We don't know when they'll break through again. We may not last that long."

  Chakotay, who had apparently become friends with Gilmore, came up with an option. "We could cut that time in half if we evacuate all personnel from the Equinox. . . focus our efforts here on Voyager."

  Was it just a suggestion? Or had he already posed the unsavory idea to his new friend?

  Janeway watched-no, they all looked surprised, taken aback by the idea of abandoning a ship they had so long fought to keep flying. Another feeling she found hauntingly familiar.

  Max Burke looked at Rudy Ransom. In fact, everybody was now looking at Ransom. Conflict began to brew softly beneath the surface of cooperation.

  "I don't mean to force the issue," Ransom slowly began, "but I am prepared to return to the Equinox with my crew."

  The next moment passed awkwardly. Suddenly they had a big problem on their hands.

  Janeway stewed as she waited. She really shouldn't order another captain to abandon his own ship. Regulations might back her up, but there was a tacit understanding, generations old, that the captain himself would have to make that decision-and it usually involved a ship that couldn't limp another inch. Equinox wasn't to that point yet. She was still salvageable and moving under her own power.

  But the time ... there wasn't time ...

  Lose one ship and perhaps prevail, or keep both ships and weaken the shields irrecoverably?

  She had her own ship to protect. Standing poised on the brink of sacrificing another captain's ship for her own, she hated her command.

  "What's the protocol for this situation, anyway?" Ransom asked. 'Two ships, two captains ... who gets the last word?"

  As a scientist rushed to command, it wasn't unusual that he didn't know. Troubling, though. Janeway held her breath at the idea of having to tell him.

  "Starfleet Regulation One Hundred Ninety-one, Article Fourteen," she said, rather mournfully. " 'In a combat situation involving more than one ship, command falls to the vessel of tactical superiority.' "

  Horrible-that seemed to take away all judgment in a situation that desperately needed humanizi
ng. She

  wasn't quoting the whole regulation, the part about a captain's autonomy and how 'tactical superiority' didn't include ordering another captain to abandon his own functional ship. Someday he would find out, and he would hate her almost as much as she hated herself right now.

  She hoped he didn't know. What was that look in his eyes?

  "I looked it up this morning," she added, softening the idea that even the straitlaced Janeway didn't lie around in the late of night memorizing regulations.

  "Good thinking," was all Ransom said.

  Max Burke glared with undisguised bitterness at Janeway, though he didn't speak up.

  While she could, she played her last card. "In this case, protocol recognizes my authority."

  She held her breath again. They could just as easily look it up, find the fine line between tactical authority and ordering another captain to sacrifice his command Later, though. For now, she needed an edge.

  Ransom eyed her, suddenly cold. "Are you ordering me to abandon my ship?"

  He was going to make her say it. She couldn't blame him.

  Trying to ease the bad feelings quickly rising, she gave him the only offer she could under the circumstances. "I'd rather not have to."

  Give the order yourself. Take the last step.

  His crew watched him. Her crew watched him too. All their immediate futures were in Ransom's hand.

  This, though, was nothing new for him and he was still up to it.

  "That protocol was written in the Alpha Quadrant," he told her. "I'm not sure it makes much sense here."

  He said he wasn't sure, but that was his way of putting it nicely. By that, Janeway could tell he was absolutely sure and had been acting upon that certainty. How could she blame him? At a maximum of warp eight, Equinox was in the Delta Quadrant for the rest of their lives and then some. How could she condemn him for not letting go?

  The moments were ticking away. The shields weakened even as she entertained her sympathy for him while also playing this unfriendly game of poker, whit-fling him down with half a regulation to nobody and nothing, the worse thing that could happen to his land of person, and her.