Equinox Page 8

  A captain without a ship.

  "The regulation stands," she said, trying to make the forceful sound gentle.

  Ransom could see, as all could, that Janeway wasn't about to budge with that clock ticking. There would be no discussion. If they were to save themselves, she had to make sharp turns.

  He opted for a strategical retreat.

  "Who am I to dispute protocol?" he began. Turning to his crew members, he added, "Give Captain Janeway your full cooperation."

  Burke stiffened. "Rudy ..."

  "That's an order, Max."

  By this, Ransom spared Janeway from having to start ordering his crew around-just yet. That would come, they both knew. There could only be one captain.

  "We'll get through this," he added.

  Burke mentally retreated, eyes still hot.

  "If that's all, Captain," Ransom said, "I'd like to go back to my quarters and collect a few mementos."

  Janeway wanted to feel relieved. Something held her back. "By all means," she accepted.

  Something was wrong with that. He had agreed too quickly.

  Not fair-could it be just barely possible that he'd had enough of that torture chamber they'd called a ship and saw the logic of taking a stand in a single fortress? No sense underestimating him until he gave her a reason. After all, captaincy hadn't ever been his dream. Command was something forced upon him by a vectoring off from his real skills. He might very well not be so sorry to see it go.

  She tried to give him the benefit of her doubt and the credit he deserved for setting his ego aside for the good of all. It took a big ego to be a captain, and the thing was heavy to move.

  They had their plans. Rudy knew what he was doing.

  So did Max Burke as he slipped into the Voyager's roomy engineering area. So big, and quiet. Equinox's long-suffering engine room was a hellhole, crackling and shorting almost constantly. The noise had nearly driven him crazy before he finally learned to tune it out. Now that he didn't have to hear it anymore, the

  lonely thrum of a healthy warp core nearly made him cry.

  Cry? Didn't have time.

  That's an order, Max.

  Crew moved about, way over there. Burke nodded to them, but said nothing. He didn't want their attention. This would go better if they just stayed busy trying to supplement the shields. They were getting ready for the transference, the abandonment of Equ inox. Problems ... how to get the Equinox ditched, let it drift out of the shield sphere, then close the shields without a rift that those aliens could slip through. There had to be some kind of break. Shield energy wasn't exactly an egg yolk.

  He poked around, pretending to be busy too, so no one would talk to him. They didn't know him, and their sympathy would keep them away. No one knew what to say. "So, abandoning your ship, huh? Tough luck. Glad it ain't mine."

  The isolated monitors on the lower deck's command station were silently prodding through the mathematics of the problems they were anticipating for the upcoming maneuver and what would be needed after that to secure the shields, perhaps eventually even throw off the siege. He stepped down to them and knelt at the access displays.

  Burke didn't even try to correct the assumption that those aliens could be thrown off. They couldn't. They weren't going away. They had to be fought. Janeway and her crew were spitting over a canyon even though they couldn't see the other side.

  Was that crewman leaving? Yes!

  And there went the other one! What luck-he was alone. All of engineering to himself, while the crews worked on deflector problems. This wouldn't last.

  The command station's force-field generator was in full operation, a direct tie-in to the systems he had to sabotage. He brought his tricorder around and secured the remote to the junction bolt. Button, button, pressure pad ... work fast.

  Searching ... searching ...

  DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS.

  Perfect. Hurry up, hurry ...

  How long would Maria's shutdown of the security alarms hold up?

  "Intruder alert."

  Burke flinched and looked up. Oh, not now.

  B'Elanna Torres. Fancy meeting her here ...

  She was just coming out from the companion-way, luckily in front of him, where the casing of the computer console blocked her view of the operating download. Burke stepped around in front of the console so B'Elanna wouldn't come around here.

  He had to distract her or get her out of here. Somehow he had to get the remote off the bolt.

  "Same old Max..." She approached with that old swagger. Still had it "Going through my things without permission. That's a command station. It's off limits without my direct authorization."

  "I didn't realize," he told her fluidly, pretending to be

  interested in something else entirely. "You going to throw me in the brig?"

  She smiled. Also still had it. "Oh, I think I can overlook this infraction. Can I help you with something?"

  Offering a schoolboy shrug, Burke tried to look teas-ingly guilty. It was a great cover.

  "Just doing some homework... studying your propulsion system. If there's a chance I'm going to be stuck on Voyager, I thought I should learn my way around."

  Hoping that "stuck on" didn't come out with too much of an emphasis, he closed the space between them. Would the old sensations sizzle? Distract her? They were already distracting him from his own purpose.

  "Maybe you could tutor me... over dinner."

  What an idiotic thing to say. They were in a killing situation. Dinner? Sure, between deadly attacks and desperate defenses. Had life come to seem so leisurely here compared to on Equinox? Rudy was right- Burke was getting too comfortable. Dinner. Of all the-

  "Problem is," B'Elanna began, "you were never really interested in the work. Or the meal. Something tells me you haven't changed."

  Another step brought them too close for just friends. A flicker of hope-she didn't back away.

  "You'd be surprised," he commented. How I've changed. "I'm not the ... what did you once call me?"

  Her eyes flickered with questions, then she remembered. "P'tak."

  He grinned. "I'm not the p'tak I used to be. Let me prove it to you."

  Reverie brought an uneasy smile to her shapely mouth and guilt to her eyes. "Don't get me wrong. It's good to see you again ... but ten years ..."

  Burke let his expression tell his thoughts. 'Tom Paris?"

  She seemed relieved, but not happy. 'Tom Paris."

  Oh, well. "You could do worse."

  With B'Elanna thoroughly involved in that old triangle, Burke slipped back to the command station, knelt, and recovered his tricorder, using a little sleight of hand to also retrieve the remote off the bolt. He slipped it into his hand and clenched it, tapped the schematic, which now read, "DOWNLOAD COMPLETE." He stood up again, thanking his stars that he'd waited long enough. There wouldn't have been a second chance.

  Holstering his tricorder and hiding his deception, he turned to her. "So ... we're on for dinner? Just you and me?"

  "Get going!" she said. "Or I will throw you in the brig."

  As he left, he felt her eyes on him.

  Better there, than other places.

  The soft lights and controlled atmosphere of Voyager created a falsely reassuring environment for both crews. Although the crew members were hurrying about in preparation for a defense against the unknown, concentrating on the shields even before the problem of

  getting out of this altogether, Chakotay had expected the Equinox people to take the abandonment of their ship worse than they had. He had to give them credit. To the last, they were accepting Captain Janeway's questionable order to release a functional ship that was legally under the authority of its captain.

  "Before we abandon the Equinox," he continued, "we should try to salvage any useful components."

  Around him in the mess hall, a place that had become the clubhouse for the stressed crew and a meeting place for decisions-somehow more accommodating right now than the briefing room-Har
ry Kim, Maria Gilmore, and several others huddled around PADDs and coffee. Chakotay liked this-even in adversity, they were starting to feel like shipmates.

  "Let us start with your dilithium crystals," he suggested, looking at Gilmore.

  "What's left of them," she conditioned. "I'm afraid we're down to a few isograms."

  Kim tried to make a joke. "That's barely enough to power the sonic showers."

  It wasn't funny, or very encouraging.

  Gilmore shifted uneasily. "Can I make a suggestion?"

  Chakotay gestured. "Please."

  "Forget about primary systems. They're too badly damaged. Let's focus on supplies. We've picked up a few items that might come in handy." Showing him the information on one of the PADDs, she clarified, "We've got a dozen canisters of mercurium... and two kilotons of kemacite ore."

  Chakotay turned to Kim. 'Tell Neelix to make room in cargo bay one."

  "Right."

  "Could you use a synaptic stimulator?" Gilmore asked.

  "Depends," Chakotay said. "What is it?"

  "A neural interface you wear behind your ear. It taps into your visual cortex and shows you different alien vistas. Think of it as a poor man's holodeck."

  Kim smiled. "So that's how you kept yourself entertained."

  "Beats checkers ... the Ponea gave it to us."

  "Never heard of them," Chakotay encouraged.

  She smiled, this time more genuinely. "We called them 'the life of the Delta Quadrant.' They see every first contact as an excuse to throw a party."

  Another clue about life aboard Equinox. Every first contact was an excuse to throw a party. At least it was to everyone else. Chakotay divined from this that life aboard the other ship had been no party when new life forms and civilizations were discovered. It must've taken a horrible lot of bad encounters to drive a Starfleet crew to shun first contacts.

  Gilmore gazed at the table. "I wish we'd encountered more species like that..."

  Neither Chakotay nor Kim said anything, though they glanced at each other.

  "You're the first friendly faces we've seen in months," Gilmore unburdened. "I'm glad we found you."

  "The feeling's mutual," Chakotay said right away,

  then determined to change the subject. "Those modified plasma injectors look elaborate. What were you trying to do?"

  Her hands lost some of their color. "Oh... we were experimenting with ways to enhance our warp drive. But it didn't work."

  Of course it didn't. They were a shipload of scientists with maintenance engineers on board. There was nothing innovative, not mechanically, about Equinox or her crew. Gilmore wasn't up to the task of modifying the warp drive. Chakotay doubted they'd have had the power to increase by more than one step in speed, and that wouldn't do much good this far out. He also knew she must understand that. Perhaps this was another result of utter desperation. Of course it was.

  "Maybe we should let B'Elanna take a look," Kim suggested, not thinking of the facts the way Chakotay did.

  "It won't work," Gilmore admitted. "We tried for months."

  They paused as Naomi Wildman marched in through the port-side door and stalked right up to the table with the clarity of a six-year-old's determination. She offered a rehearsed stage smile and came to a mockery of attention, looking at Maria Gilmore.

  "Hello there!" Gilmore greeted, obviously taken aback at the sudden appearance of a child.

  "Commander, permission to interrupt?" the little girl asked Chakotay.

  "Granted."

  "Ensign Gilmore?"

  Gilmore grinned. "That's right."

  The child held out her hand. "Naomi Wildman. Captain's assistant."

  "Is that so?"

  "I wanted to officially welcome you aboard the Starship Voyager."

  "Glad to be here."

  "If you need anything," the little girl pressed on, "replicator rations, a tour of the lower decks, I'm your man!"

  Gilmore smiled, and Chakotay tolerated the aberration of adult behavior, wondering if it wouldn't be nicer to see a child acting like a child instead of training to ape adult ways as if that were normal or even healthy for her. A kid should be a kid, not a crewman.

  "Thank you, Miss Wildman," Gilmore accommodated. "I'll keep that in mind."

  "As you were!" Naomi beamed into that stage smile again, about-faced, and left.

  Gilmore watched her go, both touched and confused. "I didn't realize you had children on board," she said, without commenting on the weirdness.

  "Only one," Kim said. "She was born here."

  "I have a nephew," the unfortunate woman said, giving in a little. "Back on Earth .. . about the same age. Well, not anymore ... I guess he's a teenager by now. I probably wouldn't even recognize him."

  Chakotay regretted that he hadn't managed to stave off the emotion even by cloaking it in engineering prattle. "You'll see him again," was all he could think to say.

  It rang hollow and inadequate.

  Before the moment could sour further, Gilmore's combadge buzzed with Captain Ransom's voice. "Ransom to Gilmore."

  She touched the badge. "Yes, Captain?"

  "Report to the Equinox bridge."

  "On my way. Duty calls." She seemed relieved to get out of this.

  Chakotay nodded his permission, even though she didn't need it when her captain was calling.

  How much longer was he officially her captain? Chakotay had never been in this particular situation before. Would the shiftover take place when Equinox was cast adrift? That would be a hard moment for all of them, and it would create problems he didn't want to explore yet.

  He would have to talk to Captain Janeway. Things would come up that they would have to iron out.

  "Assemble a salvage team," Chakotay told Kim, trying to angle back to hard work rather than this haunting anguish that cloyed the decks.

  "Aye, sir. She's nervous," Kim observed sadly as he watched Gilmore slip through the port door. "I think she's worried about letting their ship go. I guess it'd be hard to abandon a ship you'd fought so hard to save."

  "Must've been like that for Shackleton," Chakotay mused.

  Kim's boyish face crumpled. "Who?"

  "Oh... a terrible tragedy on Earth. I forget the year. Nineteen twenties, I think. Exploration vessel, sailing

  ship, got caught in the Antarctic ice floes. Its crew tried to survive there, tried to save the ship, but the hull was screwed into place as the ice closed tighter and tighter. You know glacial ice is different from water ice, don't you?"

  "Never really gave it a thought, sir."

  "Packed snow is harder and denser than frozen water. It inexorably crushed the ship while the crew watched. The Endurance."

  "Did they live?"

  "I think most of them did. It's been a long time since I read the account... they certainly were survivors in the most heroic sense. They made a transantarctic trek. On foot."

  "On foot-whew."

  "But they had to watch their perfectly functional ship be slowly crushed. They just couldn't get her out of there." This must be something like that for the Equinox crew. Their ship is still functional, but it was time for the icy trek.

  "Seems a shame," Kim went on, "to cut loose a whole Starfleet ship when we're so alone ourselves. I don't think our crew likes it any better than their crew does."

  "Mmm," Chakotay uttered distractedly. "I wonder if we could fool the aliens into thinking the Equinox is still their target. Get them to follow the derelict while Voyager gets away."

  Kim looked up. "Sir, we're still not sure what makes them attack us at all, never mind whether or not they'll follow Equinox instead of us."

  "I know. But there's a certain logic in their attack, that's what bothers me. They didn't come after us when we first veered in. They didn't split up and come to meet us as we approached. They stayed with Equinox. I can't imagine why they would... as ships go, two Starfleet ships are basically similar. The same emissions, the same construction materials, the same pulsations
..."

  "Are you saying they're intelligent?"

  Chakotay shrugged, unwilling to go that far. "No evidence of that yet. If we had time, we could explore it. We've only got a few hours, barely enough to support our shield network, never mind try to communicate with something on another astral plane. There's obviously some higher evolution going on, after all, because they have heads and tails and some kind of hand. But so does a lizard."

  Kim leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Do you agree with the captain? Is it right to order another captain to ditch his ship even though it's still under power? If it were derelict, that'd be different. What do you think?"

  Hoping the rest of the crew would just opt not to think about this, Chakotay found himself caught, as first officers often do, between his captain and those who were looking up to him as the senior officer who represented the crew when he wasn't on command watch. There were subtle shifts of consultation in a ship's complement. The captain was on duty now; that made Chakotay the voice of the crew for a few hours. Kim felt able to bring a serious and troubling question to his first officer.

  The fact that Chakotay didn't answer right away betrayed his doubts.

  "It's complex, Harry," he began inadequately. "We haven't been faced with anything like this. The captain's winging it."

  "But can she do this?"

  "She's doing it. Captain Ransom is going along without protest."

  "Would you do it?"

  The question, so innocently and honestly posed, raised the hairs on the back of Chakotay's neck. Back up the captain? He would. Do the same thing?

  "I don't know," he said. "There's a certain damnable flexibility built into Starfleet. There had to be. Look at us, after all. The regulations and laws were developed for a fleet that could contact each other in a dependable network all the way back to Starfleet Command. Nobody ever anticipated Voyager and Equinox. Would I do what Captain Janeway's doing? I can tell you that everything looks different when you change chairs. Captains aren't cut from the same mold. Ransom's got his own methods, his own tricks that got them this far. He's got his own timing, his own judgments, his own criteria for deciding what's more important-the crew, the mission, the ship.... That's why some regulations are confound-ingly vague, or even contradict each other. And as a Starfleet captain, Ransom is privileged with a certain latitude in interpreting regulations. Especially so far out here, without anyone to consult."