Guerdon: I. Salvage
Author: D'Alaire M.
Date: September, 2007
Guerdon
With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame--
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make -a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over -I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.~~Byron
I. Salvage
"Give me that! --Hey!"
The cadet was on her way out when she heard a laugh. Starting at the sound, she only saw at first a soft gold head of hair atop a long, well-formed frame in an officer's uniform, surrounded by others as they all jostled their way through to the main path. Probably en route to the transport, she surmised.
Despite her shrugging them off, her stare was caught on them for a long moment. Their familiar jests and carefree laughter rang in her ears. When the female ensign threw a particularly pointed quip, the fair-haired man flung back one of his own without missing a beat.
When the ensign glanced over her way, however, the cadet killed her distraction. Collecting her PADDs more closely to herself, she strode away in her own right, taking the path that cut through the same field to the warp laboratory. Her crisp black uniform snapped with her pace; her heels sounded evenly beneath her small feet. Her eyes were nailed upon her destination.
She couldn't help but glance aside once more, though. The young ensign, still in possession of his friend's PADD, had shot off in a full sprint, leaving the other ensign to run after him.
"Come on, Macarden, you're faster than that!" he called back to her.
"We don't have time for this!" she protested.
The young man didn't care. He danced around on the grass as if he'd known no other life, totally free, with nothing to lose.
"You want it, you'll have to catch me!"
The cadet watched, betrayed by jealousy. She didn't want to--she tried not to, and cursed herself for being childish when she did--but she wished for a moment that she'd ever had that kind of friendship, could prance around like that, would feel so liberated. Stupid behavior, really...that she knew she'd never enjoy.
It was possible; she retreated, cursing herself again for being so pessimistic. It was only her second semester, after all, and though she'd had fallouts with her instructors and a few more other cadets and recently ousted her boyfriend, she was getting good grades, had made the track team and was starting to get herself into to the routine, if not the Starfleet culture.
She wanted it to work. It had to. She couldn't go back home.
She could still hear their laughter long after she passed.
It would work. It was possible.
The sounds of the laughter never left her.
Not three years later, she knew exactly how much was possible. Her hands ruined with grime and overwork, clenched beneath the remains of a engine drive that had finally blown and now spit coolant over the deck in spite of her efforts, she sucked a breath and prepared her explanation to the captain, that in no uncertain terms would another rebuild save them. While she knew he wouldn't listen--which was just as aggravating--she wasn't about to let it go.
Then she heard the laughter, and she saw them on that bright green lawn. She paused.
Why the memory found her then, she didn't know. She didn't try to figure it out, either. Instead, she wiped her sweat-slicked arms and straightened her back to stretch it.
It wasn't worth the work, she told herself as her stare locked upon the shambles.
She didn't bother trying to figure out how she'd gotten herself in that mess--not anymore. It wasn't worth the energy.
Not worth much at all, considering the bright future she'd thought she'd have not four years ago, when she left her homeworld, only to see all that idealism rot; to feel that crushed pride, to realize she'd screwed that up so badly, thinking she could have anything to do with Starfleet. She was too frustrated to care whose fault it was the day she left, not bothering to say goodbye. Not that anyone was expecting the sentiment.
Then, finally free of the mistake she'd gotten herself into, she soon realized she had nowhere to go. She had no plan, only knew she wanted to work, do what she knew how to do. That would give her at least some satisfaction, some experience to build on while she decided what to do with it all. She didn't need a textbook for that.
What she needed was to feel busy.
So, she wandered, not asking for much while looking for better. A few months into her travels, she got lucky and landed a position at the maintenance facility at Kabol-Five. It was often beneath her, but it was an occupation and a good chance to study different ship designs up close and continue her education in her off time. Only a year and a promotion later, the facility was dismantled due to the tensions in the area. With only two weeks' warning, the junior engineer found herself without a job again, as the Kaboli government chose not to keep on any alien workers. She left before her last scheduled day, cursing the Kaboli, her useless supervisor--who had quickly made arrangements for himself without thinking about his so-called team--and especially cursing the stupid idea that she might get somewhere with that job.
Drifting for a month or so, her money and her temper running short and finally being dropped off at the Ulinas Trade Station, she discovered a sign-in for tradeship applicants. Not seeing much other choice, she submitted herself to the degrading process of interviewing with ship captains only to end up on grime-coated salvage rejects with too little light, rotten food and no respect. One bad situation into an even worse one, and every ship she happened to get a job on couldn't prevent making her situation bitterer still.
Worst part about it, she'd asked for that, too. It didn't take long for her to learn there wasn't much for any Academy dropout without more than one real job under their belt to do but slag around on frontier tradeships for little more than living expenses, looking and feeling about as promising as any greasy warp coil, stuck with herself and her none too glorious path there...
No, it wasn't worth the trouble to ruminate on, but she couldn't quash those memories, that hope and promise, prancing and laughing on a bright green grass. That she would ever attain such an unguarded disposition was now farther away than she ever imagined it would be.
Such was her memory, so perfect, that as she strode away from her last hire at the Minjau Trade Base, her bags in her hands, she didn't place it with the dirty blond-haired man at the foot of an old freighter, casting a hard glare at the hull from bridge to stern as he tapped on a PADD. In fact, she hardly noticed him at all when he waved in a load of supplies with a lazy hand, then walked into the belly of a freighter, slapping the door control when he got inside.
Her eyes on her destination, she didn't look over again, mostly for the unremarkable qualities of the ship and the fact that it was readying for takeoff. They'd already gotten what they came for. Making her way around the drydocks, trying not to look lost on a station she'd not yet been to, she finally found a guide and followed it to the main building.
As the pigeon of a ship she'd passed floated upwards from its dock and turned slowly in the air, she moved into the registration alcove and punched her name and status, "for hire," into the visitor's log.
She didn't pay attention to the atmospheric boom behind her. Instead, she grabbed the handles of her small satchel and tool kit and moved herself into the corridor of the base. Nothing new there, she knew with just a glance. Just another crowded, stripped-down trade depot, the fifth she'd had to sign in to in six months.
After that half year of freight work, everything already looked the same, right down to the slate gray bulkheads, flimsy kiosks selling local and "exotic" wares, the smells of the various peoples combined with the easier mix of system emissions and the occasional fried circuit. Men and women alike checked out the new face, though the former often did with more than a cursory stare, maybe even a grin they were too stupid to withhold.
She disliked them all--everything there--immediately, and she knew none of those people were really worth her time. Not that she had many choices in the matter until she found an opportunity worth more than temporary status that wanted her as well. She'd formed a particular distaste for those layovers, mainly because she did have to deal with those people eventually. After finding an assignment, she found it easier to relax--alone in her work, the way she preferred it. The work would come to her soon.
Or at least she counted on that much. She'd waited for two weeks on one station and quickly learned that the worst thing that could happen to a contract-seeker was to let the station leeches get to know their schedule.
She was lucky to still have her few belongings and tool kit. They'd taken everything else, forcing her to fix replicators on that lousy station to pay her way until an opportunity came up. She came out of that experience determined to get in and out of those ports as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, Minjau looked busy, which spoke for that region of "frontier" Federation space. She'd seen the number of ships on the docking field, mentally counted how many people there looked like captains--who didn't look too busy, but walked the corridors, coolly curious. With her growing résumé, it wouldn't be too long before someone contacted her. If she managed to keep herself centered during the interview, they would be less unsure about hiring a half-Klingon--not that all of them minded. Some of them actually thought they could get something useful from that slice of genome.
She hadn't expected much different--or at least she tried not to go into anything anymore with the same idiot optimism she'd had when she went to the Academy.
So, she propelled herself beyond the busy causeway, through the central terminal and to the living spaces, where she found her assigned room within another minute. Dropping her bag inside the door, she walked across the small space and let herself fall onto the bed, turning onto her side once there.
Her eyes closed, she drew a deep breath, feeling the relief of both rest and solitude, both of which had been rare during her last assignment. It'd been a hard two-way job, three weeks stuck beneath a hissing warp chamber for most of that time, trying desperately to keep it working. The captain of that ship managed to scrape enough out of that deal to drydock his freighter--and rotate his crew.
The engine room hire had no problem with that and caught the next transport without more than a nod of goodbye. Twelve hours later, she was at square one again.
Soon enough, she'd be contacted. With any luck, it'd be a better place than the last. It was all she could hope for.
She breathed again, stretched her slim, muscular arms above her head to relieve an unusual bout of stiffness.
Her eye twitched at a light in the corner of her eye. Blinking, she glanced to a porthole window. The clouds had pulled away, revealing a clear, sunny day.
"Computer," she muttered, closing her eyes again, "close window blind."
Six months and three ship assignments later, she could at times still feel the sunshine warming her soft hair and clean clothes; hear their laughter reverberating in her ears as they jostled on the manicured lawn.
Covered with sweat and streaked with black soot, hungry and overtired, she forced a compositor alignment with her bare hands and prayed it would work long enough for her to reactivate the warp drive.
They had everything to live for; at the time, she thought she could have it, too, if only...
"We'll never make our deadline! Where is our warp drive, Torres?!"
Anger flared into her temples as she heard Mesler's whining over the comm. As she considered jumping up and beating the snot out of that stupid, sniveling Bolian, that memory insanely decided to invade her again.
"I thought you said you were an engineer!"
The lawn, so green, the air, crisp and fresh, the smell of the cool dew, and their laughter echoed as she watched her grease-stained hands pull open a relay socket and tried to breathe in that stifling hole. That mixed with Mesler's incessant screaming and a ship that was about to fall apart at the threads made her temples pound with stress.
She recalled all too clearly the mingling tinges of jealousy and hope, and actually, stupidly, trying to radiate a little of that cheer, opening up to people who ended up being worthless or not understanding her as much as they thought they did.
She tried anyway, just so she could be more disappointed than before--with that memory, too, to carry with her.
Coolant steam hissed in tune with Mesler's curses over the crackling comm, and the memory of the laughter echoed behind it all.
Something's got to stop this, she thought, cringing to try and push the laughing, happy images away. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this...
She never forgot wanting it; recalling it again made the lack of having it all too plain, again and again. She'd wanted it. Really wanted it.
You do this to yourself. You bring this on...
"More speed, Torres! What are you doing down there?!"
Throwing down her tools, she spun to find and shut off the most annoying noise up first.
As she strode across the bay to disconnect the comm control, she could not have known that her captain's curses over the comm were probably his last.
Nor could she have known the reason Mesler was screaming at her to get the ship moving faster, even as an approaching Cardassian ship shot a clean phaser stream from its forward banks into the ship's belly, knocking her forward. Hitting her knees, she whipped her head back and saw the ricocheting charge begin to sizzle through the engine's useless core. Then, the impulse generator she'd been fighting with throughout her assignment groaned and shorted, popping off a housing cover in the death throe. A low hiss followed, and an entirely different and insidious sort of steam began to crawl from its grave.
Without the briefest thought to try to avert what was happening at that point, she scrambled to the automatic firewall. The doors slammed shut behind her as she skidded into the manual control panels there. Staring wildly at the greasy display and her two choices there--shutdown or self-destruct--she glanced through the grate at the drive plasma, quickly filling the deck. With a few taps, she shut off the plasma injectors and antimatter chamber.
To her surprise, the engines did exactly as she asked. "First time for everything," she smirked, shutting down a few more systems before giving up the panel. She knew there was another one in the forward hold that would give her more information, like any possibility of getting to a supply station without help.
Before she could turn for the access corridor, she saw the light in the corner of her eye--streams...a transporter, nothing like anything powered by that wreck, she knew in a glance. It took only a couple quick heartbeats to figure out what was going on that time, and to remember she didn't have a weapon.
Then she heard the voices.
"Check the cargo. Scan for weapons materials. Look for any surviving crew and dispose of them."
"Yes, sir."
She'd never heard those dialects before. Ducking into an open hold behind a stack of empty canisters, she did manage, however, to peek around and get a glimpse of the forms that had come with that light--and she did recognize that, what they carried in their gray, ridged hands, and where they were now heading.
"Shit."
"Got it. Yeah, that's Mesler's cruddy warp signature, all right. --Time to pay up, ol' buddy. We got you."
"Can you put the barge onscreen? Mesler wouldn't have stopped without a reason."
"I might if I reconnect...Hold on a sec. Yeah, that should do-- Crap! They're not alone! Get us--"
"Have the Cardassians spotted us yet?"
"Screw the Cardies! There's another ship on approach!"
"I see it....This is turning out to be a interesting game of tag. They're locals."
"Are you trying to make me feel better?"
"No. --Let's hold up a bit, see what they're up to first before we give up...That was an interesting move. I didn't know people pulled Kresjii maneuvers anymore."
"I hate you sometimes, you know."
"I know the feeling. Easy, now."
She groaned when she moved, but sucked back the sound when she heard new echoes forming in the hold. It was like water in a pipe at first, and then coupled with voices. The steady hiss of steam masked the words at first. But she knew they were voices.
She wondered who the hell it was this time.
Not that she would have been able to prevent a second set of visitors. Obviously, no one had stopped the first ones--the Cardassian ship that had effortlessly disabled Mesler's barge, killed Mesler and the others, then came for her.
Blood trickled from her mouth and over her brow ridge and temple. Her arms shook as she tried futilely to push herself up, but her torso and everything past it felt like a ton of duranium. Her body, already caked with soot from that horrible engine Mesler probably never did intend to fix, bore a cold layer of sweat, more weight still upon her as she heard, barely, the movements in the hold just ahead.
The Cardassian had left her to bleed merely for lack of time. She wondered bitterly what she was thinking when she actually thought she could escape, hide just long enough for them to deal with Mesler and go away. Even if she'd had the bridge to herself, any decent shuttle could have blown that crummy little freighter to dust. She tried to crawl around the intruders anyway; after being found, she was stupid enough to try to fight him, and so the man twice her size struck her to the floor with a single swat--and didn't stop there.
Indeed, she had been stupid enough to piss him off when she knew she didn't have any way out, learned with painful accuracy that sparring at the Academy was very different to being beaten to the ground by someone who didn't care about his victim's survival. Oddly, the pain wasn't as troubling to her as the inability to push herself up.
Gratefully, in her last bits of consciousness, she'd seen the shimmer of a transporter take them away as a crack and rattle shook the bulkheads. Another attacker.
Just what this piece of crap needs, she'd thought as her head fell to the deck.
Minutes later, still trying to force herself to stay awake, she knew what she heard ahead wasn't anything Cardassian. She'd memorized their inflection and would never, never forget the sounds they made and the officer's snide smile.
Still, she wasn't so naive to think that just because the Cardassians were gone everything was okay. There were several varieties of scum in the quadrant, of equal and varying degrees and all wanting something. Unfortunately, she had already run across more of those sorts than not. There were several humans she'd prefer not to meet again.
She heard a familiar systems whirr, then, "Hey, come take a look at this."
"That's some of it at least," was the response a moment later. "Good thing, too. We're really needing it."
As if she hadn't already thought it was as bad as it could get, but to be at the so-called mercy of whoever won the day there. She didn't even have stinking Mesler to back her up--as if he would have in the first place.
Hell, he'd have probably sold me off, too--or tried to.
She took a couple breaths, stuffing down the heat that came with those thoughts, which really weren't worth thinking.
What was worth thinking about was trying to figure out how to get out of it--again. Protecting herself and what was left of the ship--even if what she was in it wasn't hers and was apparently illegal--somehow became a priority within the very little she had left.
She didn't bother to wonder why.
Rather, she tried again to peel herself from the ground, blinking away the stinging blood from her eye, and ignoring the pain, the anger, the fear...
"Damned Mesler," came another voice, a thin growl around the corner--maybe human. The accent was strange, so she couldn't be certain if it was a human dialect or translation. "Should have known he couldn't keep this jug strung well enough to finish the job."
"Pays to be cheap," said another man, likely human, more cautious, appraising...nearing. His heels were like wood pipes, a hollow pang with each step upon the grate floor, slow and rhythmic. Then they stopped, scraped slightly, then silenced again. "Something's held it together long enough to get it this far, though."
Yeah, me.
Her arms buckled, sending her down to the deck again. She grunted with frustration, but stifled any further noise. They knew Mesler--which wasn't exactly something that earned her trust right off.
"Well, there's nothing we can do for him now. Might as well get what's ours."
"The Cardassians take much?"
"Not that I can see. These crates are still packed in. I don't think our heavy parts were here in the first place, though...No, I think those other visitors distracted them in time."
"Think we should grab it all, then, before that other ship comes back?"
"I'm not about to make any enemies. But we can finish Mesler's job--if that other ship isn't already looking for their share. I don't want any more trouble than we've got already."
"Gotcha."
*Another* ship? She blew her breath against the deck. "Damn, damn, damn you, Mesler."
"Let's get to work. --And get Savan down here to look at these holds, tell us where they're from. You get on the circuits back there, get the computer up before either one of those ships come back. Upload the crew records and dump us from the mainframe. Use what you need to do it--quick and dirty if you have to."
"Will do."
A couple moments passed, with a shuffling away and then several seconds of silence. She waited, trying futilely in the dark to spot something to grab hold of--if she could even reach that far.
The steps came closer, and she felt her heart pounding again, half with anxiety and half with the pain, steadily increasing. Bruises had formed where she'd been kicked and struck. She was starting to get a good mental image of what they'd done to her.
Better than what they *could* have done, she reminded herself.
Unfortunately, her lousy day wasn't over yet.
She saw the light, a glimmer of yellowish white in the dark amber emergency lights. It stilled for a moment, then flickered around, searching, then pointed ahead again. With an effort, she pulled her sprawling leg closer in; out of the path of the light was apparently following. At the same time, she wondered why they hadn't detected her lifesign yet.
Tricobalt signatures, she answered herself. The idiot Mesler hadn't bothered, but the Cardassian was more than happy to inform her that her dead captain had been carrying weapons. Not that it surprised her. She hadn't taken the job for his virtuous reputation.
The light danced around the corridor, finding nothing much on that end but some spare stores and sooty bulkheads, products of an owner who didn't care much about the holds as much as what he'd get out of them, which was at least part of his undoing. The light showed that keeping a good ship was more important than the prize that could come from it. The ship was what kept a body alive in that unforgiving space. The light bounced, but slowed for a moment for an odd shadow at the side, an unusual curve on the angular ship, perhaps only a shadow that shouldn't have been...
Her eyes fluttered; her head spun anew. The stress and the pain were starting to get to her despite her natural resistance. Her heart flickered weakly, too drained to do much more.
But everything else in her mind told her not to...not to...
The light came, turned...
"We have a survivor!"
The sudden noise startled her eyes open again, and she blearily looked past the light to the figure looming above her, a steady form silhouetted in the dim light, then quickly crouching down beside her. He looked human. He smelled of something vaguely stale.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Eh...Engineer," she gasped.
"Got a name, Engineer?"
"B'Elanna...Torres."
A pause, then a quick nod. "My people are on board. You're safe now."
She didn't say anything--couldn't, really--but squinted to try to focus on the man. He was still only a shadow in that corner, though he checked her over briefly, laid a steady hand on her arm.
"We've got some medicines in stock and someone who knows how to use them," he told her. "If necessary, we can find a doctor. You'll be okay."
"Thanks," she coughed.
Without warning, he ducked around to peer out of the hold. "You have the medkit?"
There was no answer, though a lighter patter echoed down the corridor. Quick yet perfectly timed, it seemed as though the person approaching had calculated an appropriate pace and obeyed it.
The steps halted at the entrance to the hold.
"Jerod asked me to inform you that the Cardassians have left the area, and that the 'tag team' has returned--alone," a female stated.
Just great, B'Elanna thought, growling as a new slice of pain ran up her leg.
"I'll handle it," the man replied, easing his hand off her arm to stand. "Take care of her."
"Our transporters are still offline," the woman told him as she knelt with the kit.
"Not that they were much to begin with."
"My point remains: She will be unable to climb out of the hold."
"I guess it was too much to hope Mesler's were any more useful. I'll send Ridge to carry her up."
As quickly as he'd lowered himself by her, he was gone again, moving off towards the main cargo bay, where several other voices had started up.
"Look, we're not here to take anything that's yours," came a lean voice down the corridor. "We came to get what's ours, and that's all."
"That was convenient," was the suspicious reply.
"What, you don't believe us?"
"I think you're too interested in this storeroom for someone who's already found their part of the cargo."
"We didn't know this was yours," the first man insisted. "We came because Mesler was late and we were nearby--just like you, I guess."
"Or you could have been tracking Mesler."
"You think we're stupid enough to take on the Cardassians, you've got to fix more than your--"
"Jerod." It was the man who had left--calm, but with an edge that spoke of having the last word. "I'll take care of this. Do me a favor and trade off with Ridge. I need his hands for a minute. Savan needs help."
"You got it," Jerod responded sourly. "I was already sick of this, anyway."
Though it was painful, B'Elanna tried to turn her head, perhaps to get a glimpse of what was going on. Several more people had come into the storeroom and sounded busy. Just as she began to get a good look inside the hold, though, the woman who had already opened a medkit and a tricorder easily pressed the engineer back to the deck.
"Do not attempt to move," Savan said, her tone as even and impassive as the rest of the ship was excited. "The captain will take care of the situation. You are safe with us."
Another instrument came out and was activated. It was aimed at B'Elanna's bloody brow a moment later.
"Anything bad?" Torres asked, still trying to look around.
"You have a concussion, several lacerations, two broken ribs and a fractured knee," was the answer. "You have lost a notable amount of blood. You will require more than I can treat here, but will on our ship. Please remain still."
"What's going on in there?" she asked. She could hear a couple people coming close again. "Who's collecting the cargo besides your people?"
"If you remain quiet, perhaps we will find out," Savan answered. "And I would recommend silence. Allow our captain to deal with the other crew as he is best able. More, not exerting yourself further will assist in your recovery."
"Sorry, not my specialty," Torres returned.
The other woman didn't acknowledge the sarcasm. "This does not surprise me. However, it would be the wiser thing for you to do."
The nearing steps, heavy and deliberate, stopped. For several seconds, the commotion in the main bay took precedence, many voices in several dialects, mostly roughened and tired, cursing and even laughing, too. People who knew each other and yet the conversations were not too casual as they opened cases and moved them around.
Torres hardly breathed in those seconds; more curious than she wanted to admit, and also realizing how tired she was once she'd stopped trying to move. Still, she listened, waited and then saw...
The men released each other's hands after a firm but quick handshake--as much respect as could be had between strangers with competing interests.
Their appraising stares did not break for as long as they had stopped in the dim, musty corridor, too. One saw a man around forty, with salt and pepper hair and a dark tattoo on his forehead. Wide-shouldered and dressed in earthy browns and leather, his eyes were like a turtle's, solid and unblinking. He stood evenly on his feet. From what she could see of him, the other man had rumpled dark blond hair, was a little taller, leaner, and had his weight shifted, which added a certain swagger to his well-postured frame. Torres watched his head tilt as he briefly scanned the room.
The other man remained hard and solemn. The men's eyes met again, less challenging that time, but still cautious.
"You're the captain?" the fairer man asked.
"Yes." He paused a moment then said, "I get the feeling we're sharing space for our purchases."
"Actually, the cargo is mostly yours. Ours are barely here, from what I can see. I'd like to see if there's anything else, though."
"You might already know why that could make my people uncomfortable."
"That's the way of the world out here."
"And what way do you want it to be?"
"The easiest one. You get yours, we'll get ours--and the salvage of the ship, if you don't mind, and we'll be on our way. Good enough?"
"The salvage?"
"Mesler didn't only owe us a few supplies," the fair man said. "He owed a portion of a profit we helped him to last time we came through here. It's why we decided to catch up with him. But I think we can make up for some of it with some key parts from the ship--granted any of it works."
B'Elanna sniffed for want of a laugh.
"I'd like it if we could discuss some of those systems," the older captain said, cautious again. "I happen to be in need of a memory core."
"Yeah, I'm sure you could use it--and keep it out of anyone else's hands. I'm not going to want it, so we don't even have to make that deal. The last thing I need is a point inspection to turn up anything in a spare memory core that'd implicate my crew. The Federation is getting paranoid enough that they'd look for it."
This interested the darker man. "You think?"
"I take it you haven't been around zero-zero-one in a while. Well, I'll admit I haven't either, but certain...factions are making themselves pretty well-known, and making Starfleet nervous--as you've probably noticed. Word is they might start doing something about it."
"It's what I've expected," the captain said, still appraising the man before him. Finally, he gave another nod. "Thank you."
"Let me know if my crew can help you in any way while we're all here," the fair man said graciously. "My ship doesn't deal in the sort of cargo the Mesler was willing to, but we're not blind to what's going on, either. We're careful, but we get by all right."
"I don't want to insult you, Captain, but judging by the look of your ship, you're just doing that." The tattooed captain turned his gaze. "You could do more."
The fair man showed no reaction, even as he said, "We could also land ourselves in a Federation penal resort according to the new treaty--which is the last thing I'll let happen to myself or my crew. There're plenty of other traders in this area willing to make deals inside the region. I think you should assess the conditions of their ships before looking at mine, much as it might want for better."
"I understand."
"I'm glad you do. So, why don't we check our stores and see how much Mesler cheated us?"
"Good idea." The Maquis extended his hand once more. The other man shook it. "Hope you don't mind we don't introduce ourselves."
"You know the look of my ship well enough and you've probably scanned it to dust already. And I'll know you in a crowd. That's more than enough for me."
With a pat on the Maquis' shoulder, the younger captain led them away and back to the main cargo hold. On the way, he waved to his technician, a dark, husky man who had to duck to miss the coolant pipes after he leapt down from the docking ladder.
"Where do you need me?" he asked.
"In the forward hold," the fair captain told him, pointing. "Help them out, will you?"
"Will do, Tom."
He rolled his eyes, but let it go with a shake of his head as he leaned against a ladder and contacted his bridge.
The Maquis captain had likewise not missed the name, but said as much about it as he continued into the next hold to ask about their progress.
Meanwhile, the burly technician made his way through the darkened corridor of Mesler's ship, ducking under another cross of pipes and hoisting his toolbox sling more comfortably onto his shoulder. Looking around, he snorted. "Never thought this old barge could get any worse."
But he forgot that long standing joke as soon as he saw the skirt of Savan's tunic, just visible inside the next juncture--and forgot about his tools, too, when he saw what his captain really needed him to do. His burden was lying below Savan's typically plain stare.
The kid was just that--barely old enough to be out of college; small-built and sort of pretty, for what he could see of her past the mop of short, dark curls that were half-crushed against her face. Despite her disarray, she looked totally out of place--at least to him--on Mesler's barge. She wasn't all Klingon, either, he could tell, not only by her appearance, but also in her expression. Bruised and ripped, covered with engine slag, the young woman still had an oddly peaceful look on her face as she slept.
"Use caution with her leg," Savan told him, tucking away the hypospray she had utilized moments before Ridge's arrival. "Her knee is broken."
"Damned Cardassians," Ridge muttered as he knelt down beside his Vulcan crewmate. Easing the patient into his powerful arms, he lifted her effortlessly from the deck. "Wish they'd find someone their own size to pick on--leave us alone."
"Unfortunately, that is not the case," Savan replied, rising to her feet and slipping around the bulky man to lead the way out to the main hold.
He turned the limp form onto his shoulder and followed without another word. Thankfully, the Maquis there all but ignored them. They had their own business to deal with. Catching Tom's glance, he blinked a reassuring nod as he approached. Tom had a thing about injured people--normal, of course, but he tended to take it too much to heart. Ridge understood why well enough, so as came to the ladder, he told the captain, "We'll take care of her."
"See if she's got any personal belongings, a bunk or anything," Tom ordered quietly. "She won't be staying here."
"I'll send Maryl," Ridge said, reaching up for the highest rung of the ladder to pull himself and his burden up.
After the technician disappeared into the docking hold, Tom Paris remained near the ladder. His arms crossed as he watched the other captain's crew quickly assemble their cargo and beam it out of the bay, bit by bit. Their banter both rough and good-natured but not distracting from their business for an instant, they were like army ants on a watermelon.
It was a bad business, Tom knew, and the Maquis were increasingly a bad sort to mix with. A few of them had already stared him down, thinking who-knew-what about why he was there and waiting as he was, though a couple of them gave him some ideas.
"Don't forget to scrub the floor when we leave," a Bajoran woman smirked at him as she turned an assembly on its side. "Cardassians like to train their servants on squeaky tile."
"Guess you'd know," Tom replied coldly, turning his stare askance when her eyes narrowed. "Tell me, you like it doggie style or with your wrists tied to the girders?"
She snarled and jerked her attention back to the remaining inventory. "You'd better watch yourself," she muttered.
"Just do your work," Tom told her. "Your fight's not with me."
"It could be," she warned.
"Much as you seem to enjoy Cardassian booty, I don't think you or your captain would appreciate the Federation crawling up your ass for knocking off a registered tradeship in what should have been neutral territory when you're supposedly defending some colonies no one seems to agree on. Do your job and take your fight back where it belongs."
A few of the others mumbled some choice words his way for that one.
Tom didn't care. He hadn't come there for the congeniality prize, and tradesmen in general weren't usually respected, even when they were honest. Rather, a straight tradesman was more a liability to the Maquis, who depended on silence and underhanded deals to get by. So, he didn't try to convince them otherwise. He just wanted his materials and what parts could make up for Mesler's ineptitude in actually finishing a bargain honestly, and he wanted to get the hell out of the DMZ. Were he very lucky, he wouldn't have to bring the ship back to that part of space.
With that thought in mind, he tapped his shoulder to activate his communicator. "Maryl, you have our docking at Podala worked out yet?"
"I haven't been able to patch in again since we got in this mess," was her clipped reply, "and I haven't gotten a reply yet. You'll know when I do."
"Okay." Pushing himself from the wall, he moved aft to see how Jerod was coming with accessing the optical data network. The technician was hidden behind the main computer core, doing just that. Grabbing a demagnifyer, Tom moved in to start on the sensor grid and prioritize what else they might salvage from engineering. Having already breezed through there, he knew it was a mess, but it wasn't a total waste.
He knew it again when he returned to the organized chaos still steaming and sparking but otherwise dead. Looking around at the many attempts to string together that battered rig, Tom knew that Mesler had somehow picked up a good engineer.
Tom grinned to himself as he tapped a dim monitor to life. Maybe the young woman now lying in the lab on his ship was crazy enough to take the job he had open. She'd worked for Mesler, after all.
He shrugged about it a moment later. Whatever she might be, she wasn't in any shape to do much there and then.
He tapped his shoulder again. "Ridge. --Care to come down to share the grease in Mesler's bucket?"
"Just put the cricket down, actually," the man answered. "I'll be there in two minutes. --Though, I'll still wish it were the grease at the bottom of a bowl of fried oysters. Have I told you recently how delicious they were?"
Tom managed an uneasy grin at that, shaking his head as he turned to the impulse housing--the first thing he decided should come out. "Asshole."
"And cute as hell to boot. Be down in a bit."
The comm was cut, but Tom was already elbow-deep in the bulkhead, staring in awe of the work he saw there. It was almost a shame to take it out.
A moment later, however, the disengaged grid housing was in a crate to take back to his ship and he was working on the next one. The juncture would come next; the manifold itself would follow. It was usually an easy extraction.
The thought playing in his mind, and looking around to see that he was indeed alone, he walked around to the hold to find Jerod. Crouching down, he saw two boots and a set of hands stuck up into the ODN's main access panel. "How's it coming along?" he asked.
"Almost done," the technician replied, not looking away from his work.
He nodded to himself, said quietly, "I need you to do something else--now, if you can."
"I'm in right now. What is it?"
"Your tea okay?" Tom asked as he motioned to the teapot he'd snagged from Jerod's quarters on his way up to the lounge.
The effort was a sort of thanks, even if Tom had been ticked off when the Maquis asked for more than was originally requested--first the memory core, then the primary power nodes, and then the central isolinear matrix. Meanwhile, the way his crew stuck so closely to him, he'd half expected the Maquis captain to hold their meeting in public, too.
It seemed the tan and tattooed man was wiser than that, however, and carried his carefulness over to his dealings. Simple and direct without giving anything away but what he wanted, he also had a talent for extracting information without asking for it. None from his surly group had accompanied him; he chose to let his singular presence do the work.
Tom likewise asked his crew to leave that meeting to him. They were more than happy to.
"I'm fine, thank you." Captain Chakotay leaned back in the chair he'd chosen, a wide, spare rack with a back on it, facing the door. He watched the other man nod, more to himself as he warmed his hands on the sides of his mug.
The young captain wasn't a bad dealer, Chakotay surmised. He was deceivingly casual, easy-going, subtle in the negative, generous in the positive. He knew where to draw the line, and that in a pleasantly tenacious way that was slightly annoying--a part of his method, Chakotay understood.
"I hope you don't mind my taking the hull for scrap," Tom said, finally leaning back in his seat to drink the cup he'd made for himself, as Irish a coffee as he could manage so far away from anyone who knew what a good whiskey might be.
Chakotay shook his head. "Saves us the time and trouble," he answered. "For that matter, you still have some latinum coming to you."
"Thank you," Tom said, simple yet sincere. He really did want to make up for what he could. They'd lost two weeks when Livich cut out on them, not to mention forty bars of latinum for Mesler's double-playing them. Worse, Tom felt like an idiot for allowing Mesler to convince him he'd follow through.
"You're welcome," Chakotay replied. "To be honest, I'm glad we were able to work out our mutual problem. I think we're all getting as much as we can with this arrangement. It's good to know we can be reasonable, in spite of our different priorities."
Nine out of ten says he was Starfleet somewhere along the line, Tom smirked to himself. "Nice to know we agree."
They'd finally agreed to split both the power nodes and the parts from the central computer. The Maquis would have the main unit and the memory core. The trader claimed to be satisfied with the distribution matrix, comm relay and sensor manifolds.
It wasn't a bad deal, Chakotay knew, considering how much Mesler had cheated the tradeship. He had become unused to dealing with traders who wanted equal outcomes--or maybe the younger man just wanted to be on his way without earning a grudge. Not a bad idea. Cargo vessels like that one didn't need enemies, though many of them had made quite a few for their necessarily underhanded dealings. Those sorts did whatever they could to get by.
The Maquis employed quite a few of them.
Still, Chakotay honestly didn't suspect that this was the case, even if the other captain hadn't yet mentioned the casualty from Mesler's ship that hadn't been "buried."
"I was told your technician carried a body out of one of the holds."
Tom finished his sip and swallowed with a nod. "One of my people was injured while investigating the forward compartments." It wasn't a complete lie: Jerod cut his finger on a casing while working on the central subprocessor. Either way, just for that the Maquis captain thought to ask after something that shouldn't have concerned him, Tom wasn't about to confess it.
"I hope she's recovering," Chakotay ventured, his eyes hunting over the other man's reactions. "They said she was bad off, dirty compared to the rest of your crew."
"Can't expect much different from a determined engineer--especially on this ship," Tom said lightly, adding a chuckle for effect. "Just got too far into a dark hold, knocked over some containers and hurt her knee, bumped her head. I haven't heard the whole story yet. Luckily, my science analyst did some time in medical school. I'm lucky to have her."
"You are." Chakotay finished off his tea. It wasn't very good, but it was better than he'd had in weeks. He could tell the man had diverted his question nicely, but he was content to drop his curiosity there. Maybe the captain was telling the truth about the crewperson--and if he wasn't, it didn't mean she knew anything about the Liberty. If necessary, however, he could find them again. The trader was quite correct in that the Liberty had scanned the little freighter down to the screws, thanks to Seska, her tenacity and her fast-acting hatred for the young captain.
In fact, the ship and its crew might make such an effort worthwhile. They had a few well-sealed cargo bays, a decent staff and a workable leader, all things Chakotay knew were worth their weight in latinum. Indeed, he would remember them.
"I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a medic," he continued, setting the cup on the table.
"I'll bet," Tom said, meaning it. "The colonies see a lot of action these days. You've got lots of reasons to need one." He held Chakotay's stare. "I hope you find someone soon."
"Thank you." A pause, then a press on his knees, and Chakotay stood. Regarding the younger captain anew, he offered his hand. "It was good doing business with you, Captain. I hope we have the chance to deal with each other again."
"Let's hope we stick around that long," Tom grinned, rising from his seat to shake the man's hand. "Thanks for making this as easy as it was. I wasn't expecting it."
"I wasn't, either. It's a nice surprise."
"Good luck to you, Captain."
Chakotay gave a nod of thanks and moved a step back. Tapping his commlink, he said, "Seska, has our salvage been transferred?"
"*Yes,*" came the reply, sounding none too happy with it. "*I noticed there wasn't much of it. How much did you give them?*"
"I gave them what was fair." Chakotay didn't address it further--wouldn't address it there, anyway. "One to transport."
"*Just a second. I have to reset the targeting frequency.*"
Chakotay furrowed his brow. "Is something wrong with the transporter?"
"*No,*" the woman replied. "*I'd just finished a decontamination analysis. I'm diverting power back to the transporters.*"
"I thought we irradiated the supplies already."
"*It's nothing you need to worry about,*" she insisted, then confirmed, "*It's ready now. Prepare for transport.*"
About ten seconds later, the Maquis captain dematerialized in a river of light, leaving the other captain alone in the lounge, his glass and an empty cup on the table at his side. A beat of silence filled the hollow room; the thrum of the engines followed it.
"About time," Tom muttered.
Glancing out the viewport to see the Maquis ship begin to turn off, he backed off to the door and strode the short distance forward to the small, worn bridge that had mostly been his home for the past two years. Some days, it felt like decades. That day was one of them.
Peeking over to a monitor to check their preset coordinates, he nodded and shot a glance to the ops station on his way to his seat.
"Maryl, get us the hell out of here, warp whatever you want."
"Gladly," she replied and tapped the initiator.
"We're about a light year clear of the DMZ," said a man, "so I think we're safe. We'll be at the Kimoa station in nine hours to drop off Mesler's bucket. I'll be getting a short rest, if nobody minds."
"This would be good for all involved," a calm female voice replied. "I cannot see any objection."
She breathed as she realized the voices were real and vaguely familiar. Quiet, ordinary, they were also moving around her. Sounds of metal objects being placed on surfaces echoed in the warm, slightly thick air. She thought for a moment she smelled moss.
"They were asking about her condition. They'd seen you and Ridge. The captain probably wanted to see if she had any information on him or his ship."
"It is unlikely she did. The records from the database Jerod uploaded suggests she was relatively new and not in Mesler's circle."
"Yeah, well I didn't think she looked like the type. --I know, appearances and all. But she didn't strike me as anything more than a hire."
She could feel a hand, warm and barely touching, rest upon her hair briefly. Then the touch was gone.
"She looks better." His voice was farther away that time, and the tings of small items being picked up and set down could be heard soon after.
"Indeed. Her Klingon physiology was helpful, as was her relatively good health."
"Relatively?"
"She has had prolonged exposure to dichromide gas, likely from Mesler's ship, where we found notable leaks and traces of the raw element in their holds. I have treated the cellular damage successfully."
"Good."
There was a shift of some objects behind her, and then a soft touch on her leg...a pained leg.
B'Elanna's eyes fluttered open. They first found a Vulcan woman who in human years looked in her thirties. Her age was likely twice that if not more. She had typically almond-shaped eyes, dark olive skin and a full mouth that was set as straight as her back; her hair was longer than most Vulcans wore it. Average in stature but small-framed, her hands were likewise slim and careful as she realigned the device at work on her knee.
Glancing around the brightly lit room, B'Elanna knew it wasn't a sickbay or clinic. Plants burrowed in casings partially hid the drab, gray-green walls and rickety equipment on small bays sat in seemingly unplanned locations throughout the rest of the space. She was on a table across from an open passageway, where there seemed to be a corridor. It could have been any ship, but it sure wasn't Mesler's.
Then she remembered...
She remembered the voices, trying to pull herself up from the deck without success, the silhouette of the man, apparently the captain. She remembered the firm and quiet voice of the woman who had begun to treat her...then pressed something against her neck.
Her half-focused eyes narrowed to remember that. The Vulcan had sedated her. She didn't exactly recall fighting it, but even so...
"Do not attempt to sit yet," said the Vulcan. "Your globulin treatment is nearly completed, but your knee still undergoes regeneration."
"What did you do to me?" B'Elanna growled--or tried to. Her voice wasn't nearly as strong as she'd have had it. Not that it seemed to affect the woman either way.
The answer was simple. "I have treated your wounds."
"What happened to the ship?"
"It has been permanently disabled," she told her, examining the regenerator's power level for a moment. "We are taking it for salvage."
"Salvage?" Her brow drew down. "It wasn't yours to do anything with."
"Its captain and crew, aside from yourself, have been killed with none other but my crew and the Maquis crew holding interest in recovering their losses--Captain Mesler's debts to us."
"Strip the corpse," the engineer concluded darkly.
"A corpse has little use of its encasings," Savan replied. "The only logical course of action is to take the hull to those who might make use of it."
"If that's at all possible."
Savan acknowledged the sour edge of the young woman's statement with a bow of her head. "Your personal belongings have been collected, as has much of the work you put into your assignment." She met the woman's returned attention. "You have been given lodging in a former colleague's quarters for the duration of your stay."
B'Elanna hadn't expected that, or the sincerity in the Vulcan woman's voice. Nor had she thought about the few things she had managed to hang onto. "Thank you," she said. With another breath, she then asked, "Can you also tell me where I've ended up this time?"
Savan looked to a point behind B'Elanna's head. "Would you prefer to inform her, Tom?"
"You're on the Guerdon," he complied from where he was, still apparently moving items in the room.
B'Elanna blinked and tried to look around. The work stopped. Whatever the man had been doing behind her was given up to move into her field of vision.
She tried not to be surprised at his appearance. From his smooth tenor and her foggy memories from Mesler's dim cargo bay, she'd expected someone less intense--or at least his stare was that, surrounded by chiseled features that would have been handsome had it not been for his haggard facade. Darting her eyes over the rest of him, she quickly cataloged his rugged brown coat, hanging open and smudged with a long day's work and a greenish gray shirt that had likewise seen better days. The body they covered was a little lean, his skin slightly colorless. Still, his posture was straight, his slight turn on his mouth seemed friendly enough, and she sensed nothing in his presence that put her off right away.
"Sorry you're out of a job and a ship," he added.
B'Elanna nodded a brief acknowledgment. Being sorry wasn't much use to her. "So what's your plan?"
His brow flicked up with her question. "With Mesler's old barge? We've gotten everything we could from it--this divided with the Maquis group. Like Savan said, it's no good to anyone anymore, and Mesler did owe us our cargo, which wasn't there. He let his license go null a few years ago, but we did have formal agreement. So, Bolarus gave us permission to scrap it--which we would have, anyway. It's barely a repayment, but it'll have to do. We're on our way to Podala, with a stop at the Kimoa Range to drop the rig off."
His explanation was plainly put. He had no questions about what they were doing.
"Convenient enough." Still, it seemed right, the engineer mused, thinking again on the shrill curses about her former captain's cheating them and their relief in finding at least a few spare parts of their deal. Mesler had likely sold the supplies the Guerdon's crew had needed and used the latinum in his trust to buy the weapons that almost got her killed--and sent him most certainly to his grave.
She'd felt sorry for the annoying little man for a while, but now she had little problem knowing he'd earned it.
"You'll get your share when we get the sale," the captain assured her. "It won't be much, but--"
"My share?" B'Elanna asked.
"It only seems fair, since you're the one out of a job and not getting your pay from Mesler any time soon." He waved a hand behind him. "This ship works like a cooperative. Our licenses and the ship's registry are maintained on Bolarus, but our actual business and route is unaffiliated with any organizations or federations, so we control how the moneys are distributed. We split all earnings evenly among the crew, with a double share put into the pot for parts and supplies. But Mesler owed you, too, and so you get one share, like everyone else."
The engineer found herself in another pause. She hadn't expected that, either.
"In the mean time," he went on, "you're our guest, so make yourself at home while you're here." Hearing someone else come in, he looked back and gave a nod. "This is Maryl, our contract liaison."
B'Elanna glanced over and saw a blonde Bajoran woman standing in the entry. She was not much shorter than the captain.
Maryl gave her a blink of greeting. "I put your belongings in our old engineer's quarters," she told her.
Tom rolled his eyes, but quickly looked to B'Elanna again. "They're yours for as long as you need them to be. I know you're out of a job pretty suddenly and I'd like to help, if maybe there's a station you want to be dropped off at, or whatever."
B'Elanna snorted, picking up the hint that the Bajoran had so solidly dropped. "Well, I'm out of a job. Can you help with that?"
Tom immediately held a finger out towards Maryl, though his stare was still on the younger woman. At that angle, the shadows beneath his eyes were deeper than they had appeared before, ominous below his steady stare. Then he turned back to her. "As a matter of fact, we could use another set of hands in the engine room. --But I don't want you to jump right into that idea and I'll be the last to sell you to it. Be the guest for now, check things out, see how you feel about it."
"I can do the job," B'Elanna told him, irked with his caution and also with the Vulcan woman, who began to wave a tricorder around her head. She resisted the urge to swat at it. "Just because I was working on that piece of crap doesn't mean I couldn't have gotten anything else."
"Hell, the fact that it was still moving tells me that much." Ducking back to grab a box of loose parts, he caught her gaze once more, then gave her a single nod. "Fine. Have Ridge take you down to the engine room when you're up to it. But don't feel obligated to anything. There's plenty of time for making decisions."
With that, he turned and started out, looking at Maryl for a moment. "Let her get some rest, Maryl, when she's ready to go to quarters. I'll be doing the same soon after I drop this off."
Maryl's eyes grew as narrow as her grin. "Yes, Captain."
"Don't call me that," he said, heading out. "Just give her some time, okay?"
"Why wouldn't I?" the Bajoran replied archly, followed by a smirk once he was gone. Turning her attention to the engineer again, she shrugged and approached the table. "Don't mind Tom. He's just being polite."
"Oh?" B'Elanna asked, glancing to the door, then back to Maryl. "He seemed pretty straightforward to me."
Maryl snorted. "He's lying--badly, as usual. We're desperate for an engineer. He just won't go so far as to beg, or grab the first person available. He also wants to know you're not just talk, in spite of what we found in Mesler's engine room. Could've been the person before you that did all that work, for all we know."
B'Elanna had no response for that at first, but rather kept that curse to herself. She did need a job, after all, and she couldn't say she wouldn't want proof of a new person's talent before hiring them, too. "Those were my repairs," she said, "and I wouldn't mind proving it if it meant I could pick up another job without passing through the station system."
"I don't doubt that," Maryl returned. "If you'd take a contract on Mesler's barge, it's no question you're in it for the work." Seeing the twitch in the young woman's eye, though, she smiled understandingly. "Since he's the owner of this ship--and the official captain, like the title or not--Tom is the final say on who gets hired here and who doesn't. So you're going to have to play it by his suggestion."
"That's nice to know," the engineer said dully.
"It's just his style," Maryl dismissed. "If you stay, you'll learn pretty quickly that he's the most indirect when he really wants something. Hard lesson learned when he first came on board--which we all paid for dearly. Since he managed to scrape us out of that mess, he doesn't give away his hand until he's ready to, even if you're screaming in his face--which actually makes him worse. That said, I don't think he'd have told you anything if he wasn't interested."
B'Elanna turned her stare. "You say you're desperate for an engineer, but you seem willing to share the dirt on the captain. What's the deal?"
"The deal," Maryl told her, "is that if you're thinking about taking a position on this ship, you need to know what you're dealing with. As for dirt, I can tell you he's fair to a fault, flies the ship well and he's usually not an asshole. But he's got his share of problems, and he does his best to drown them with whatever's available on the open market. He's a highly functional drunk, though, so if you just accept it for what it is, he won't bother you."
"I'd be here to work," B'Elanna stated. "I'm not bothered by other people's problems."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But the last thing we need is to lose another person because they can't handle it--and need to drive everyone else crazy in the meantime."
B'Elanna frowned as she finally managed to sit up with the help of Savan, who wisely did not involve herself in the conversation. "I don't give up on my contracts just because things get dicey, whether it's because of a person or whatever piece of crap I have to work on. When I make an agreement, I stick to it."
Maryl laughed. "Anyone that could deal with Mesler for more than a two-way mission is honorable to the core."
At that, she cracked a grin. "Well, the plus side was that they usually left me alone otherwise," she admitted. "Just let me do my job, leave me alone when I ask and I won't have any issues that anyone else has to deal with. If that's all right with everyone here, I'll fit."
"I think you and I will get along just fine," Maryl said, visibly pleased with the engineer's crisp statements. "Welcome aboard... ?"
"B'Elanna Torres," she supplied, realizing that she hadn't even bothered to introduce herself before then. Even more proof she'd been in a dank engine room too long. Then again, the captain hadn't asked her, either.
"Maryl Hana. You've already met Savan, I suppose."
"Yes." B'Elanna looked at the Vulcan woman. "When can I leave?"
Savan blinked slowly, seeming to think in that second. "If the pain is manageable, you may leave now. As your blood loss was extensive and you are yet anemic from this and other chemical imbalances caused by your former environment, I suggest you rest, allow my treatments time to complete. Keep the regenerator on your leg. I will examine you again tomorrow to assure your recovery is continuing well."
B'Elanna hadn't even needed that much. She slid her legs off the table, sucking a breath for the sharp twinge in her ribs and knee, but wanting to get going more than it hurt. For that matter, she had a few things to think about, such as that "decision."
With a nod of thanks to Savan, she looked up at Maryl. "Where now?"
After checking in with Ridge and looking over the full stock they'd extracted from Mesler's barge, Tom arrived on the bridge and stepped down to the captain's chair. He found a blue-cased PADD sitting in the center of the seat. Looking across, he saw their Bajoran part-time hire typing quickly into Jerod's panel. In the systems closet outside the main bridge, he could hear Jerod cursing at his own rigging.
"How's it coming along, Nadrev?" Jerod asked over the comm.
"Good. We're almost there," the man answered. "The flux sensor is reading at full power."
"Keep an eye on it while I reroute the aft lateral array. Make sure the output doesn't drop below...let's go with seventy percent."
"I'm watching it now."
Tom didn't disturb them, but their dialog reminded him that they'd be dropping Nadrev off in only two more stops, at Deep Space Nine. He hoped they'd be able to afford to pick him up again, if he was available. They could live with their six specialized crew on the small ship, but the extra hands were usually worth their reserve funds.
Maybe get one or two cheap hires looking for training, he mused, picking up the blue-cased PADD so he could sit. Pulling up the console, he checked the Guerdon's coordinates and patched out a message to the Kimoa Salvage Range. They had already transmitted their request and list of sale, but the Kimoan manager always liked being contacted a few times before choosing to respond.
The message sent, Tom leaned back in his seat and considered what had been left for him. The PADD contained the Federation newsfeed, which Jerod regularly grabbed from the nearest station and uploaded it to the innards of that unmistakable shell. Drawing out a hand to pick it up again, he knew it had already been passed around to and digested by the rest of the crew. He never minded being the last one to see it, though. If there was anything the Guerdon needed to worry about, Maryl, usually the first to read the newsfeed in full, always felt free to tell him. If she happened to miss something, Savan would not.
With a click, his eyes darted over the headlines. It was nothing new: Just the Federation-Cardassian treaty going another round in the public eye, that time highlighting the colonists' negative reaction to the evacuation orders and the newly established Demilitarized Zone and some more information about the reaction from a "fringe group" who lately had given themselves a name for Starfleet and everyone else to remember: The Maquis. The allusion was not lost on Tom; his dabbles in Earth history and France made him well aware of its meaning--for the rebels and for the Federation.
About time Starfleet caught on, he thought, having known about those pockets of colonists for months. The discontent and insecurity on the border had long been news on the stations outside the so-called DMZ, and about six months ago, trades of basic supplies and rations became increasingly common--and larger. At first, of course, the traders didn't see it as anything except good preparedness on the colonists' part. Then came the requests for heavier inventories, such as defense materials, alloys and particular chemicals. Most recently, weapons and power supplies were the trade of choice for those willing to make those deals with customers bold enough to ask for what they needed outright.
Even so, only in the last few weeks had the Maquis found certain definition and recognition outside that region, since the treaty was signed. More, Starfleet officers were resigning and crossing over, as well as Bajorans not quite ready to sign anything with the Cardassian Union--for good reason. The "confidential" and failed mission of the USS Enterprise, where one of their best-trained crewmembers, also a Bajoran, crossed over right under their noses, had been the best piece of gossip to hit the stations in years. Even Tom had been surprised to hear about it when they passed through Ibaten.
The Maquis were up for a fight, ready and willing to defend the colonies against the blatant attacks by the Cardassians. Word had it that they'd fight the Federation with as much vigor if they had to.
Little wonder the media's going crazy, Tom smirked to himself as he scrolled through the outdated maps the article had supplied for its readers. The Federation hadn't much anarchy in a long while, especially among colonists, who preferred to live well out of the Federation's attention span.
Not that it made his job any easier, but he hadn't lied to the Maquis captain when he wished him well. Now that the Federation was in it legally, and personally, things were going to get dicey for the people out there. For his part, Tom was just glad that he and the crew weren't involved on either side of the issue, but affected only by the tighter trading of late. It'd probably get worse, he knew, but they'd survive. No one would waste a torpedo on the Guerdon.
Clicking through the usual statements and analyses, not looking for anything, really, he noted some of the quotes and the people who'd made them. He knew all the names.
Maybe we should wait a few more stops and get a new part-timer at Velir, he considered. Velir-Prime was as far away from the DMZ as the Guerdon's route went. We can hold off that long if we get those parts installed right.
A beep sounded on a panel nearby, and in the corner of his eye, he saw Nadrev move to the next console to look at it. "Captain--"
"Tom," he corrected, putting down the PADD.
"Tom, we're getting a transmission from the Kimoa Salvage Station."
"Open the channel on my monitor." Pulling his console closer, he activated the personal console. A moment later, the Kimoan manager appeared. "Hello, Sila," he said, merely polite. He'd learned well when to summon up a note of charm. Sila was among those he considered not worth much effort.
"Captain Paris," she acknowledged with a thin smile. "What can I do for you and the Guerdon?"
Tom checked his first reaction to the woman's desire to have him ask a fourth time. He really did want to unload Mesler's ship. She, of course, knew this. "We're towing the salvage of a medium barge in to you for trade. The hull is complete except for disruptor damage on the mid-below deck and is still has half its original components, including the nacelles and warp matrices."
"A nice find," Sila hummed.
"A former debtor."
Her thick brow twitched. "I see."
Tom managed a meaningless grin. "We're five hours away. Would you like me to transmit the parts and suggested price list to you?"
"Thank you."
With a click, Tom resent the transmission once again. "You're welcome."
"Contact me again when you enter the range," Sila told him. "I will review your request."
"Will do."
Slapping down the console, Tom heard Jerod's unmistakable chuckle echo to his right. Several strings of wiring hanging over his arm, the lanky technician was standing next to Nadrev, wiping soot off his hands.
"Tom, to this day, I don't know how you do that straight-faced."
"Nothing my father couldn't teach me," he muttered and pulled himself to his feet. "I'm getting some dinner. I'll be in engineering with Ridge after that, working on those shield matrices."
"You mean they're good?"
"Ridge says they check out. We'll be installing the housings tomorrow if we get them refitted all right." With that, Tom started towards the corridor. "Call me when we're a half-hour out."
"I'll be here," Jerod said with a nod. "Save some for me."
"I still have two cases left," he said over his shoulder. He was already in the corridor.
Her eyes opened with a shot in a dark room.
"Computer: Lights."
With a slight delay, they rolled on, one set at a time around the sleeping area and in the adjacent living space. B'Elanna blinked to remember where she was at first, focusing on the items around her.
Dull like the rest of the ship but clean, her quarters were nestled on the front wing of the craft, as displayed through two trapezoid windows. There was the corner-set console bed she was in, a table, a small bench to sit on and the bathroom behind. Past the half-wall, in the "living" area, there were a few boxy chairs, a table and a corner terminal and desk by the entrance. Everything there made the most of the space. The flat carpet was dark blue.
It reminded her of her quarters at the Academy without the sunny window. However, it suited her few needs and was more than she'd had before.
Careful for her sore knee, beeping with the regenerator, she slid out of the small bed and tapped on the closet door. It slid into the wall slot, revealing the little she had. True to Maryl's words, her belongings had been dutifully taken from Mesler's barge, decontaminated, cleaned and set in its present place. Her small duffel bag was folded on the floor. With some relief, she noticed again that her tool case was beside it. It had been wiped off on the outside, but they hadn't tried to open it. She made sure of it by doing just that and making sure all her equipment was in there.
Satisfied with what she saw, B'Elanna pulled out an outfit, laid it on the unmade bed, and then turned towards the tiny bathroom. The sink was just outside it, set in the back corner of the sleeping area. Looking at her reflection in the mirror above the sink, she decided that washing her face wasn't going to do it. She stepped into the bathroom, which was equipped only with a retracting toilet on one side and a box shower on the other.
"Computer, what time is it?"
"*Specify time standard,*" came a deep male voice.
B'Elanna then realized that she didn't even remember when she came to those quarters. "Cancel and tell me how long it's been in Federation standard since I last deactivated the lights."
"*Seventeen hours, seventeen minutes, forty-three seconds.*"
"I couldn't have slept that long!"
"*The time is Federation standard,*" the computer replied. "*Would you like me to compute the duration in another mode?*"
B'Elanna sighed to herself. Great. Bolian mainframe. "No. Computer, disengage."
A beep was the welcome response.
Shaking her head, she moved to have a look at the shower. It was an old, low-power kind, twice as loud and long to be effective. But at least it was there. One of the ships she'd worked on only had public cubicles for support crew. Pulling off her pajamas, she moved herself in.
"Activate shower."
With a high whine, the contraption drug itself to life. The engineer within it felt her shoulders tighten. It was louder than she'd expected--not exactly how she wanted to start the day.
Turning to lean against the wall as she felt the pulses begin to work on her dull skin, she put the shower repair at the top of her list, with adjusting the ship's mainframe directly behind it.
"Ridge, you got it yet?"
"Working on it."
Tom flexed his hand, feeling several muscles begin to burn with the effort of holding a shield generator housing in place a few minutes too long. "What I wouldn't give for an automated defuser wrench right now."
"Good for the soul, doing it yourself," Ridge huffed as he heaved the assembly into place. Glancing up, he saw his scarlet-faced captain holding the long manual wrench through the grate. At that angle, he didn't spot the petite form that had entered through the main deck of engineering and stopped to watch what the men were doing.
Rather, Ridge focused on getting the assembly snapped back into place, and he did so as carefully as he could. Tom didn't look like he'd be happy with a second attempt. "Savan, get ready to magnetize the grid. --Just about there, Tom. Just another few seconds."
Tom rolled his head to relieve the crimp in his shoulder, nodding tersely after that. "Just tell me when to let--"
At that, he noticed B'Elanna Torres at the entrance--looking a lot better than she did the day before. Her lips parted when her eyes met his...
"Tom!"
"Damnit!" The pilot flexed his arm again with a groan, pulling the housing back for another few seconds. He knew he wouldn't manage much more than that.
"All right...a little...more. --Got it!"
"Savan--now!"
A welcome hum filled the section: The sound of the salvaged shield generator coming on line. For his business connections, Mesler's were superior--and a lot newer. It was the only thing Tom had really bargained for with the Maquis captain. He got one of three.
"The generator is operating; shields are at one hundred percent," Savan informed them, as pleased as she could be for their accomplishment.
"For now," Ridge added as he sealed the last frame bolt. "Okay, Tom, you're clear!"
"Aaagh!" Tom rolled away from the assembly, clutching his arm and turning his gaze again to the engineer that had entered. In a brown and sage outfit with dark ankle boots, her bobbed hair brushed neatly to a side, Torres proved she could clean up well and look the part. Though her stare was as warm as a black hole, she seemed alert and interested as she inspected the engine room for the first time.
"Good morning," he puffed, pulling himself off the grate floor. "Sorry you caught us in the middle of this."
B'Elanna took another step in, noting with some satisfaction that the captain had recently shaved and his clothes were relatively clean compared to the day before. Yesterday had been the end of a long day for him, she surmised. She felt safer. "Sorry to have distracted you," she said.
Tom shook his head. "Not a problem. I was expecting you'd find your way down eventually." He waved a hand around. "Welcome to hell. And since you're checking the place out, let me introduce you to Ridge, our lead technician."
B'Elanna nodded and followed the young captain, doubling a step to catch up with him. His walk was relaxed but quick, probably for his long legs. "Do you always install your shield assemblies manually?" she asked, looking around at their half-completed job.
"We don't have an anti-grav right now," Tom told her. "We had to trade it off a couple months ago for some deuterium. I'll get a hold of another soon enough. For now, we've got the next best thing."
He led them around to a man at least a head taller than he was and twice the width--enormous to B'Elanna. She didn't even know a Klingon that could have matched the man's brawn.
Tom bowed his head slightly to present him. "Ridge McCauley, this is B'Elanna Torres."
"The cricket in the hold," Ridge grinned with crinkling eyes. "It's good to see you up and around--and good to meet you, B'Elanna." Extending his hand, he was careful not to grip hers when she returned the gesture, though the little lady did have strength worth remembering.
"Ridge," she replied with a nod.
"Why don't you show her around?" Tom offered, already backing off. "I'm going to go start us up again."
"Sure, Tom."
A moment later, the captain strode away, still rubbing his hand.
B'Elanna's brow furrowed slightly; she blinked when he glanced back before disappearing.
Ridge watched her stare hang onto that exit well after the captain was gone. "We've all had a long week, him especially," he explained with a wave of his hand. The young woman's eyes did not avert. "Really. You don't need to worry about Tom. He's an all right guy."
She shook her head, turned back to the technician. "It's not that. I just thought I remembered him from somewhere."
"Well, we've all been around the circuit for a while. You probably crossed paths at one of the stations."
"Probably."
"All I know is that he doesn't know you, since he'd have said so by now--at least to me."
B'Elanna grinned despite herself. Such a large man might rather have been foreboding, but Ridge was more like a happy Buddha in an oversized jumpsuit.
"So, let's get you acquainted with what we affectionately call an engine room," Ridge said.
"I'd like that."
Gesturing towards the main row of the bay, Ridge let the young woman go before him. "My wife tells me you're looking at the job we have open."
"I'm considering it," B'Elanna replied, mentally inventorying the hodgepodge of systems the Guerdon had on hand. Bolian by design, they had Federation, Bajoran, Aldebaren, Barolian, even a little Klingon technology melded into it. She could be certain there was more.
Now, a few more Bolian parts had been put back in the shield array...by hand.
The engineering area itself was two open decks of clutter shoved into the back quarter of the overused, twenty year-old hull. Most of the system casings were clunky blocks settled unceremoniously around the space; the access walks seemed to be second thoughts arranged on a false level above them. Every now and again, Ridge had to duck under the junction supports. He seemed perfectly used to it. In all, there seemed to be no sensible order; things had just been put where there was room.
A mess made to work, she surmised. It wasn't a total waste, though. Some of the systems didn't look too bad, only sloppy and old. It was workable, and she did like work.
"I wouldn't mind investigating it, anyway." Reaching out absently, her hand slid over the side of the warp reaction chamber's outer frame, where she heard a slight buzzing. "It's running rough," she noted.
"Always been like that," Ridge acknowledged. "It doesn't like the intermix ratio we use to manage warp eight." He nodded proudly to her reaction. "Yeah, believe that? Tops at warp eight--outside the border, of course. One of Tom's personal buys, that reactor. Frankly, I think he had something on Captain Coliras, 'cause he never did admit what he paid in the end, and I happen to know how much he spends for his personal supplies. In any case, we got it. Unfortunately, we only got the reactor, which means the Bolian injectors are constantly trying to merge with Vulcan initiators, funny as that sounds."
"No, it doesn't." B'Elanna thought for a second, examining the design of the chamber bearings. "Give me a laser wrench. I didn't bring my tools with me this time."
Ridge turned his gaze askance. "B'Elanna, you don't have--"
"Yes I do," she replied and rolled up her sleeves. "You said you'd give me a tour. This is it. Get me a laser wrench."
The technician turned to open a nearby tool case, chuckling to himself. "I love it when my wife is right."
"How are the sensor inputs coming?"
"Another day," Jerod said from underneath his panel. "Maybe--ugh! ...Maybe two."
Tom leaned back in his seat, clicking off the usual inspection list the Podala Station had sent to them. "Okay. Now that we're clear of the DMZ and have Mesler's barge dropped off, we won't need them right away."
"Would've been nice to have the long-range sensors in the DMZ, though. We'd have seen that Cardassian ship before we almost knocked on their door."
"Guess the timing was on our side for once," Tom replied, closing his eyes. Fifteen hours after waking with a headache he was starting to get sick of, he was about ready for another try at sleeping. He knew that wasn't going to happen soon, though. He and Jerod had finally given up the forward hold, where the dorsal assembly was housed, tight within a protective bulkhead. As soon as he finished the contracts Maryl left for him to put his approval on, he'd be right back under the consoles with Jerod, finishing up those juncture replacements. Then they could install the new grid.
Tom turned his head to glance at the chronometer. It was nearly sixteen hundred hours. "One of these days, I have to get back on a clock," he said to himself. It'd been months since he was aware of the relative night and day, an easy enough thing to do with his itinerant schedule on that ship. It still disoriented him, though.
"When Nadrev gets up, this'll go quicker," Jerod said. He reached up and felt around for a juncture casing, then pulled it down to where he was.
"I'll take the deck two relay when he does," Tom replied, his eyes shut again.
"Too bad we can't keep him. He's quick. Good guy."
"Yeah. Maybe next round, we'll look him up."
"Let's hope he's available."
"Yeah."
Tom heard a series of beeps sound from the console Jerod was working on--the EM scanners coming on line. It was good to hear.
His temples pounded; his tongue felt sticky. He drew a deep breath to try to ward it off. He knew he should stop. He knew it wasn't helping him kill what he knew would never go away. Not that much else he was doing was all that great, either, aside from keeping a job well away from the public eye. Even his family didn't know what he was doing, which was fine with him.
He had sent a few letters home, but just to let his family know he was alive and all right. He was traveling, he'd told them, detailing his explanation for staying "abroad" just enough to keep his mother from worrying any more than she naturally would and to ensure his father would be less angry than if he'd avoided all contact. If he ever returned to Earth, there'd be less to make up for there. A little less, anyway.
Somehow, he couldn't see himself going there again. It seemed so far away from him now.
He drew another breath, flexed his still sore hand and rolled his shoulder. His heart was still thrumming. His head hurt. He wanted a drink.
He opened his eyes and picked up the tray of PADDs Maryl had left for him. He had to get it done sooner or later...
Then, he heard it--or didn't hear it, as it were.
Since assuming his place on that pile of parts, there had always been a particular rumble, and the nozzles Livich installed at Velir-Prime had added a counter to that melody. Each ship had its own sounds. The Guerdon's were certainly as distinctive, though not necessarily in a good way.
Now, both were gone. In fact, the ship was all but silent.
Glancing down, he confirmed that they were still at warp.
Tom looked around and saw that even Jerod had poked his thin head out from his work to better hear the smooth hum that had replaced the grumbling. Getting up, he moved off the bridge and into the corridor. Peeking into the lab, he didn't see Savan. The lounge across from there was empty, too.
Another thirty meters down the corridor was the entrance to the upper engineering level, but he heard them well before he got there.
"We'll need a phase compensator," came a distinctly assured female voice, "and some fresh deuterium to help stabilize the input ratio." The woman came around a corner, clicking on her PADD, still limping but each step as purposeful as any engineer's could be. "As for the rest, I can tune it, but with that force-fed dilithium, it'll never be right."
"Not that easy to get," Ridge said, following behind and punching at his PADD. He looked like a clumsy giant in her shadow. "Costs a lot to get a hand on the good stuff these days out here."
"I'm telling you what you need, Ridge." She came to a grid ladder and pulled herself up it, favoring her left leg but otherwise unstopped.
"But I'm telling you what we'll need to get it--latinum, which we're short on for a few more runs."
"Well, then, we'll just have to find another way around it in the interim," she replied. "You also shouldn't be running an engine on that little drive plasma. You'll never get the pressure up to spec."
"This is one heck of a list, B'Elanna."
"I'm just getting started," she returned and turned at the top of the access walk.
Tom watched from the door as Ridge caught up and as their guest continued to sort out their engine room from front to back. He couldn't help his grin. Only a day on his ship and she was already laying out her grand scheme of resurrecting it. --Not that he hadn't wanted the same, hadn't been trying to set aside funds and make his own deals, but only hadn't majored in engineering, or had a good enough engineer to make up for that. Now, it looked like he was in for one.
He couldn't have gotten luckier.
She couldn't have been unluckier.
"What the hell are you doing here, Torres?" he breathed, his grin gone, his eyes growing heavy.
"You need to keep the compression levels between eight-point-four and nine-point-three to get any kind of efficiency out of this kind of impulse generator," B'Elanna told Ridge, reading the actual measurements off a flickering tricorder. "We can shape this up without new parts, just some tuning--even if a replacement here and there wouldn't hurt. --And speaking of replacements, how does the crew feel about that Bolian mainframe?"
"Please tell me you have reprogramming skills?" Ridge answered gamely.
"I won't have to tell you once I find the central core, if that's okay with everyone."
With her skill set, there could be only one reason why she was on the Guerdon--why she'd been on Mesler's barge, too, among others of similar quality.
She had nowhere else to go.
He blinked.
She'd hopped down again, landing on her good leg, still verbally inventorying what she and Ridge were already planning with the salvage and with what Ridge said the ship's share could afford. Torres, crisp and quick in every assessment and wanting to work on those parts herself, seemed perfectly content in the business, energized to see that there was so much business there.
She was in a place where she could feel at home. Keep busy. Be on the move.
Tom's eyes drew down before he turned to return to the bridge.
He poured his wine. Finally.
Also finally, she'd come out of engineering long enough to have a meal, he noticed when he glanced towards the figure that'd entered the lounge. Warmly colored against the stark metal tables and chairs and gray walls, her dark eyes scanned the interior in a single sweep, her steps slowing appropriately in that unfamiliar room, meeting his eyes shortly before glancing back at the entrance. Ridge and Maryl followed, arm and arm, explaining what cuisine the replicator doled out. For power conservation purposes, there were not many choices at a time.
"I can fix that," B'Elanna told them.
"You can fix that when we can afford to commit extra power to something that does its job well enough already," Maryl corrected then shrugged at B'Elanna's sharpened glance. "We save the good food for stationside. Let the ship systems use the power instead. Trust me, they burn it up easily enough."
B'Elanna frowned. "Not that I'm a picky eater," she muttered.
"Just don't let Ridge fix you any fried oysters."
Tom's stomach churned and he killed it with a gulp of the Talarian wine he'd picked up at Ulinas.
B'Elanna chose a sandwich and a mug of coffee, and with Ridge's encouragement, she joined him and Maryl at the table by the window. Wordlessly, she took her seat and let the other two talk, taking her knife and fork to cut her sandwich into quarters. She gripped both utensils and sawed them through the layers, scraping the knife hard against the plate with but two strokes. Ridge shivered at the sound, but continued to dig into his pasta as he nodded at his wife.
Seeming to feel attention aimed at the corner of her eye, B'Elanna darted a glare across to Paris, her knife in mid-cut of the second half. "Is there a problem, Captain?" she asked, slightly clipped.
"Not if you don't plan to eat the plate, too," he replied, but didn't add anything to it. He'd already guessed that his overstuffed engine technician had coaxed the young half-Klingon away from her desired mainstay. She didn't seem the type who'd be happy about it.
With another glance, he saw her put down the knife and start eating. He relaxed again, picked up his PADD. Reaching out with his other hand, he wrapped his fingers around the decanter and refilled his glass. He hadn't finished filling it before he felt a firm, thin hand squeeze his shoulder. It was Jerod, who came around with his tray and took the seat opposite.
Jerod took one look at the decanter and sighed to heave himself to his feet again. "You drink too damned much," he said, moving to grab another bottle.
"I'm buying," Tom smirked, trying some bread to mix with it. Talarian wine was smooth, but didn't settle too well.
"You'd better be. You'd drive a Tursk widow to the poorhouse if she was half as generous as you're thirsty."
"That's an idea I haven't considered." Leaning back in his seat, he pulled a long sip and a breath in afterthought, his eyes following the blueshift outside the viewport.
"So how long now to Podala?" Jerod asked as he dug through the crate.
"Four and a half days," Tom answered. "Six if we stop at Dirud on the way."
"Let's not bother," Maryl said over her shoulder, annoyed by the mere mention. "We never get strip for strip there--and the quality doesn't show for it."
Tom turned an eye at Ridge and then Jerod to check for any differing opinions. There were none. He peered over to Savan, silent beyond her PADD. She barely looked up. "Four days to Podala, then," he shrugged. He didn't much like stopping at Dirud, either.
Jerod reclaimed his seat, notably pleased. "It'll be nice to dock for a few days," he said as he poured himself a glass. "Relax--maybe with someone."
Tom breathed a little laugh. "Shouldn't be a problem there. Watch those Ferengi this time, though. No Dabo girls."
"Yeah, yeah," Jerod responded, digging in to his meal. "What about you? Savan and Maryl already have our deal contracted, so you only need to press your thumb to the PADDs. Have any plans yet?"
"Actually, I was thinking about checking out those upgraded holosuites. They sound like something I could work with."
Jerod aimed a wolfish grin at him for that. "Fed up with the real thing?"
"Something like that," Tom returned, fiddling with his bread. "That and I have to check up with some contacts, see about some supplies, maybe hunt some more for a navigational relay assembly."
"You might as well give it up," Maryl grinned, leaning back to eye the captain. "It's not going to happen."
"I got a warp reactor," he reminded her.
"Pure luck. Besides, you'll never find a navigational node good enough for you--and even if you did, you'd never get it to work the way you want it to. Accept it."
His lips turned up slightly. "I've had to accept a lot with the Guerdon, but there are some things I won't. I'll upgrade that system one of these days if it kills me."
"Kills you from old age," Maryl smirked and looked at B'Elanna, who had glanced up at the mention of the upgrade. "Tom used to be a crack pilot, you see," she told her, "and ever since he got the Guerdon, he's wanted to make it do things it'll never do--like go warp nine-point-five and maneuver like a squadron fighter."
B'Elanna shrugged, turning her eyes back down to her meal. "Nothing wrong with trying to improve things," she said.
Tom was the one to look up that time, but he quickly reverted his attention to the bottle in front of him. Considering her statement and his glass for a moment, he topped the latter off.
"True," Maryl conceded, "but he'd have to knock off the best of Starfleet to get it--and that's definitely not going to happen."
B'Elanna did not reply, though with another small glance, she noticed the captain taking another large swig from his glass. Not ten minutes in the lounge and she'd already seen him polish off a bottle. His eyes were heavier because of it, and he certainly wasn't reacting to Maryl's bait, which, if he was as good as she'd suggested, was probably a little cruel. He was either wise to her or numb to the fact by then. Probably it was both.
Even so, she had to wonder what a pilot of reputed talent and seeming intelligence would be doing on a ship like that, pulling a trade route on the Federation border. Though he looked a little young for such a captain, he fit with the Guerdon well enough, rough for the wear and comfortable with his people. Apparently, it hadn't always been that way...
She shook her head and speared another piece of her sandwich. It didn't matter. What landed him there was probably what landed her there: Rotten luck and a system that wouldn't budge. B'Elanna tasted her coffee. It was good.
Far more to her interest, anyway, was Ridge and Maryl's talk about Jerod's refitting and installing a new sensor network--more salvage from Mesler's ship--which Jerod nodded in response to and said it'd be done before they got to Podala. They were already working on installing the comm systems, which Maryl agreed would be an improvement.
B'Elanna couldn't help but snort. "Yeah, Mesler's comm system worked perfectly."
"You want to have a look at that?" Ridge asked.
"Sure," she said, purposefully offhand. More than before she started her day, she did not intend to be just a guest. "I'd also like to check out the RCS before you get to Podala," B'Elanna continued a minute later. "From what I could see, they're better than I expected, considering how the rest of the impulse drive is tied together."
"Blame that one on Tom, too," Ridge grinned, "and an all-night poker game a couple months ago. But then, we had to get new thrusters or go straight to warp from the station. They were shot."
"Can we go back after dinner?" B'Elanna asked.
"Aren't you tired yet?" Maryl scowled.
"This is all the break I need. I don't tire easily."
Ridge considered it for a moment, obviously wanting to oblige her, but knowing how long he'd been working that day. Then his glance bounced across the room. "Hana and I need some rest, but Savan can show you. --Can't you, Savan?"
"This evening is my watch," the Vulcan replied, not looking up from her reading. "I will take you after I have reassessed your recovery."
"Thanks," B'Elanna said and stuck her fork in the last piece of her sandwich.
"While you're at it, Savan," Tom said, pulling himself up from his chair, "be sure to give B'Elanna her share for the barge sale."
B'Elanna looked up in mid-bite. She'd almost forgotten about that.
"I will, Tom," Savan answered, still otherwise undisturbed.
With nothing more, the captain left the lounge as though no one else was in there, turning towards the bridge. More, nobody missed a goodbye, not even Jerod, who continued to eat as though he'd been alone the whole time.
B'Elanna continued to chew, feeling the side of her mug to see if it was still warm. She didn't mind that at all, the fact that everyone there was comfortable enough with each other that they didn't expect much in the way of manners, could talk and plan and still leave each other alone. Meanwhile, they worked hard and tried to keep their riffraff of a ship in some kind of working order while making what deals they could to keep going, maybe make a profit here and there.
Her heart fluttered slightly and she breathed to ward it away. The realization remained: It was just what she was looking for, ready for her to take.
It was about time she found it.
© D'Alaire M, 2007