Title: Guerdon.
  Part:  V.  The Border.  The crew goes through with their deal.
  Author: D'Alaire M.

---

 

 

V.  The Border

 

"Thank you again, Captain Paris.  Your shipment at Andal got us back on schedule."

"Glad to be of service," Tom returned, his eyes on the two, wheeled trim cases of latinum Savan pulled onboard.  Behind her in the aft bay control block, Maryl was organizing the bilitrium transports, barking orders over the comm.  Her mewing soprano bounced down the corridors in counter time with the hazy buzz of supply crates being dropped in the bay.  Business as usual but for the man before him.

The Ligaran counselor wrung his gray-skinned hands, steady on the end of the access ramp jutting out from the bottom of the freighter.  "You heard about our own envoys, I suppose?"

Tom nodded.  "I hope they're all right?"

"They were fortunate to make it back into Federation space where they were aided, but their shipments were stolen and their ships were badly damaged."

"There's a reason we're getting paid well for this," Tom acknowledged.

"My point in telling you, Captain, is that this Maquis group now knows our business, likely, and will be looking for more of the same.  The bilitrium would be of great use to them."

"Is there any other ore that would power this station?"

"No--or at least the adjustments would take too long for our schedule."

"Well, any power source on a speed run would be prey," Tom concluded, tapping the ramp lift panel, waiting for the other man to get off.  His stare drifted back to the corridor as a new set o some thumps and grinds told him they had finished with another hold.  Like the first time, they were taking more than bilitrium, but also a good deal of equipment, some medical supplies and rations.

More stuff to steal, he thought, frowning.

The Ligaran finally stepped away, a little unnerved by the sudden lack of conversation.  "I hope to see you again soon, Captain."

"Twenty-eight days," he replied and slapped the button for the lift.  It grinded into its bearings and snapped shut without grace or subtlety.  Tom backed off from the door as soon as the seals sucked together.  He turned immediately for the loading bay and ducked under an old brace support to look at Maryl's monitor.  "How long?"

"Fifteen minutes," she answered, resisting the urge to swat him away.  "I've got it."

He grabbed a peek from her other shoulder.  "Just checking the time."

"Savan has our payment?"

"Yeah.  We'll share it out over dinner.  Eighteen hundred."

Maryl smiled.  "It'll be nice to see--much as I can't spend it.  But the Ligarans do know how to make a deal I can warm to.  --Chishat! I said to deck three, A-one-two! Are you not hearing me?"

Tom backed out of the control block.  "Let me know when you're done."

She glanced at him.  "You're going up?"

"With a swing through the engine room."

"Okay."

Tom got down and breezed through the bay with a nod to Jerod, who was likely on his way to deflector control again to reinitialize the long-range sensors.  They'd all been there once already, so the preparation was going a lot better this time.  For his own part, Tom could honestly say his mood had been pretty good.  Though the crew hated them--in part, he did, too--speed runs did have a certain amount of excitement.  True, he only had to fly a straight line and deal with the Cardassian checkpoints on the way through, but the suspense was...fun.

It'd been a long time since he'd been anxious to get out of bed--or at least curious enough to get himself going with something positive on his mind.  Naturally, he wondered how long that was going to last.

For their part, the crew was starting to click again, and that in better fashion than before.  B'Elanna had turned out well already.  Able to pull her own strings and be completely in charge, she relaxed into her position as if she'd been there all along, not just two and a half months.  She had Ridge, Jerod and Nadrev reorganized and reassigned so that they all could check each other but no longer overlapped.  She also took full control of the inventory and soon could tell him the number of socket bolts they had in the stores at any given hour.  Tom still believed she was wasting her time on the Guerdon, but he was happy enough to have her doing just that for the meanwhile.

Tom was anxious to have that deal done, so she could start attacking the other horrors that lurked deep within the Guerdon's systems, incompatibilities and worn parts just waiting to give out.  When they did, they usually took out a primary system.  It was a constant source of frustration to Livich--who'd been the one to plug in many of those wrong parts.  One more leg after that one and they'd be back on their regular circuit--two months.  Once they were back in the shuffle, there'd be plenty of time for them to start getting some real upgrades underway.

Stepping up onto deck two, Tom moved around the towering power assemblies to see his engineer going about her checklist.  Prowling from one station to another, tapping into a PADD and talking to the comm all the while, she was just as he'd come to expect.  Tom decided not to disturb her, but rather watch as he slipped across to the deck one access stairway.

"Did you need something, Tom?"  she asked as he started up.

"No," he replied, only glancing back.  "We'll be divvying out shares at eighteen hundred in the lounge."

"I have a couple power issues to bring up," she told him.

Tom stopped and looked at her.  She stood in the middle of the bay, planted on both her feet, her PADD at her side, her face bright with purpose.  "Can you send me a quick summary when you get a minute?"

"I can."

"Thanks."  That done, he moved to continue up the flight.  Behind him, the engineer returned to the comm and patched in to Jerod.  She began relaying stats to him as he tuned the sensors.  Tom crossed the access deck to the center corridor.

With a quick stop in the lounge, he reached the bridge in a few more minutes.  Settling into his seat, he drew a deep sigh, closed his eyes for a few moments then opened them again to tap on his monitor.  The starchart drew into focus.  Their two-point-two sector path appeared in the black and gray grid, with projected speed and course corrections at various points in the liners. 

Casual travelers--in the day when people became bored at Betazed and decided to wander through the "frontier"--were apt to comment on how different space looked when they finally were able to pass through it.  It was almost as though they expected the region to be the same color as the handy blobs used in civilian maps to denote territory.  Perhaps they thought there would be signs in space, a la ancient cartoons:  "Entering Beloti--Watch for Mines."  It sometimes seemed so, though the Federation space they had journeyed through was no more crowded.  Rather, it was better known.  Past the frontier, there was even less.  The planets were, well, just planets, not many stations or venues were appropriate to travelers outside the Federation, and in-between those seedy locales, there weren't even nebulae to look at.

While Tom's expertise made him able to pick up the nuances of that open space, he held no illusions.  He knew quite well that it was black, cold, unforgiving and definitely not for tourists.

Thinking on that and the Ligaran's warning, Tom started reprogramming the numbers.  He knew, of course, that warp generation and deflector output had to constantly compensate for each other:  To bring one to its full capacity, the other must work around the changed frequencies.  Nothing was unusual in that, only more complex in their situation and the Guerdon's tenuous consumption efficiency.  If they had to raise defensive shields, they'd have a tough time sticking to full impulse, much less maintaining a warp bubble.  As it was, power had been a little dicey on the first leg as B'Elanna tried to find a workable balance with the navigational deflector output.  She'd been working on it all the way back to Ligara, too.  He hoped what she'd be bringing up later involved a solution. Looking at the chart again, he found the DMZ border and upped the projected speed.  Thinking again about the borders, he turned the display on his console to graphical and the new numbers began to scroll out for him.  The plain grid chart morphed into a field of bluish black; at its center lay a magenta arm surrounded by a thick, black snake.

For the first time when looking at it, he felt his chest tighten.
 

---

 

"Nadrev already up?"  Jerod queried as he jogged into the main engine room.

B'Elanna nodded and tapped a few last commands into the tricorder.  "He had to finish the sensor loop replacements on the bridge." 

"Good work for those little fingers, a little schoolwork in the bargain."

B'Elanna snorted.  Jerod enjoyed teasing the young Bajoran when he took over busywork the comm tech didn't quite enjoy.  "Good to cross train him," she corrected.  "And at least he doesn't waste everyone's time complaining about it."

"Hey, I don't go on about how many parts and how many--" Jerod cut off when the engineer glanced a wry smile his way.  He rolled his eyes.  "Great.  We got another one."

B'Elanna continued with the data input, briefly wondering whom else he was referring to.  Knowing he was waiting for her, though, she quickly got the rest of it done and gave up the tricorder for the time being.  Holding at warp eight along the edge of the Kalandra Sector, they had all week to prepare for the tough part of the leg, their journey through two ends of the DMZ with five days in Cardassian territory between them. 

She did like getting her thoughts down, however, before moving on, particularly when moving on could mean one of a hundred things on that ship.  Thankfully, for all his nervous energy, Jerod was a relatively laid-back guy.  He did not so much as tap a foot.  Finally setting the tricorder into its appropriate slot at her main station, she fell beside him to continue through the bay and up the stairs.

"Have you heard anything about Tom hiring Nadrev yet?"  she asked.

He shook his head.  "Nope, not yet.  Tom's probably still tossing the pros and cons."

"I don't see any cons," B'Elanna told him as they rounded their flight and crossed to the center corridor.  "He's a really good tech, a part of the team, and he really works hard."

"Yeah."

"I'm more than willing to give up a little share if our works gets done better."

"Tell that to Maryl," Jerod grinned.  Looking over and seeing her arms cross and her mouth press together, he grinned and gave her a playful nudge.  "Don't worry, B'Elanna, we all want to be able to hire him.  Tom'll decide when the deal's done.  He's got to think about the weather day-to-day.  But I think it's looking good."

B'Elanna relaxed a little and nodded, dropping her arms as they continued forward.  She almost wished she'd brought the tricorder up with her.  It had the actual data she was working with on it and she found herself fumbling for something to occupy her hands.  Thankfully, they got to the lounge within a minute.

Jerod stepped aside a pace to grab Tom's shoulder.  As always, he was already there with his usual place setting.  "You drink too damned much, Paris."

He pushed the second glass across the table.  "More the merrier."

Jerod snorted and slipped ahead of B'Elanna for the replicator.  "Hmm, tuna sandwich, or tuna sandwich?" 

Their food replicator had finally blown out only days into the first leg.  Restricted by time, compatibility and location, they were unable to get another one.  Their equally incompatible parts replicator in the engine room would spit out nothing but ration bars.  Thankfully, the engineer was able to make a repair, but due to data instability and her patchwork parts, she had been forced to curtail their choices to only twelve simple items and ration bars.  None was her fault, of course, but the crew hadn't missed the chance to bug her about it.

"Ridge was suggesting just this morning that I make a switch and try the tuna sandwich."  Jerod snickered at her wearied expression.  "Sorry, but you know I'm just kidding you.  Computer:  Tuna sandwich."

She rolled her eyes.  "Shut up and get your dinner."

"You'll fall madly in love with me soon enough," he smiled.  "They all do."

"Nice to know you're able to entertain yourself so easily."  But a moment later, she laughed a little, letting it go and moving up to get her own tray.  Unfortunately, she'd planned on tuna, too.  She decided to eat later.  "Computer:  Coffee, black."

Jerod was already in his seat, accepting his drink as Tom halved a cracker.  The captain's stare drifted over to the engineer, examining her for a moment as she turned with her mug in both hands.  Holding her in his eyes for a few seconds, he motioned to the other seat there.  B'Elanna shrugged, shook her head as she ghosted a smile and took the nearest table to her.  Silently letting her off the hook, Tom popped the cracker into his mouth and chased it down with scotch.

She hardly looked up as she methodically sipped at her mug.

The others filed in soon after.  First came Nadrev, carrying a small stack of PADDs.  Spotting Torres, he asked with his eyes, got her nod and brought the work to the table.  Ridge and Hana entered soon after and went straight for their seats.  When the others all had settled into their separate conversations, Savan arrived.  She rolled behind her the case of latinum that hadn't been split off for the ship's pot.  Setting it beside her usual table, she walked to the replicator, ordered water, then returned to take her seat.

Savan then opened the case.  Within were evenly divided rows of latinum bars, bound and stamped so each could be easily carried.  It had been a matter of much consideration to Savan, in fact.  She had never had to dole out such large shares before.  Tapping the PADD within the case so it would record the session, she began.  "Guerdon payment session, stardate 47295.7, Ligaran contract, leg one."  She then looked out to the first person on the payment list.

"Jerod," she stated, "forty-seven bars, twelve strips."

The comm tech immediately got up and went to the case.  His eyes widened and he looked to her again for confirmation.  She nodded once.  "Wow," he said.  "Okay.  Cameron Jerod, forty-seven bars, twelve strips."  He choked a little laugh as he pulled his share out of the case.  "Holy crap."

Several months after taking over the Guerdon, Tom had made payments a public event, so there were no questions and no misunderstandings--or if there were, they'd be handled on the spot and with an audience.  Savan handled all moneys earned; she also recorded the share session and carefully filed it.  The former captain's doings and Livich's tendency towards suspicion had made the procedure necessary.  After the shares were dealt out, everyone was invited to raise an issue or make an announcement.  Sometimes it went on longer than anyone wanted.  Sometimes they took the money and left.  Either way, it was as close to a business meeting as the Guerdon got and had worked out for everyone in the end.

"Torres, forty-seven bars, twelve strips."

B'Elanna got up and did as everyone else had by then and regarded the sum with some surprise before nodding and picking it up.  "B'Elanna Torres, forty-seven bars, twelve strips."  With a little breath, she brought her payment back to where she was sitting and set it on the chair beside her.  Having been raised on a Federation colony and working within the Federation until only a couple years ago, the concept of currency was still somewhat odd to her.  Glancing over at the captain as he accepted his share, then Savan, she wondered how they had adjusted to the change. 

She knew painfully well how she had--or hadn't at first.  She overpaid often, mixed up the difference between strips and bars in a quote and finally gave up the credit system for its ridiculous lack of logic.  There was no standard with credit outside the Federation, and vendors seemed to make up their own rules for each transaction.  Little wonder the Ferengi had the corner on that market.

Savan set the recorder on her table and closed the case.  Giving Tom a nod, he leaned forward in his seat, leaning on his elbows as he perused the room.  "Is everyone okay?"  No one answered.  "Guess that's a yes.  B'Elanna has some issues, but we'll save it for last.  Any other business?"

Jerod answered first.  "I couldn't get the newsfeed this week--well, no, I got it, but I couldn't unscramble it.  I'll try again tonight, but the bluebook's going to be late."

"It's probably interference," B'Elanna told him.  "The new shields and increased warp output are probably messing with the SRN.  I'll clean it up."

"I can do it if you tell me where to go," Jerod offered.

"I'd rather do it myself," she replied.  "I don't want the other systems to be compromised by any adjustments--we're on a fine line as it is."

"Do you mind if I watch?"  Nadrev asked.

"Actually, I want you to.  It'll be useful next time we have to do it."  She looked at Jerod.  "You too?"

He grinned.  "Yeah, sure."  He gave Tom another nod.

"Anyone else?"  Tom asked.  After an appropriate pause, he leaned back in his seat again and ghosted a grin B'Elanna's way.  "Your turn."

B'Elanna wasted no time.  "I'm still having issues with the PTC and ODN--"

"Real words," Maryl cut in.

"The power transfer conduits and optical data network," B'Elanna clarified, then continued.  "Systems aren't...turning over as they should.  We constantly have to trade system power because they're not working well together."

"There's nothing new about that," Jerod smirked.

"True, but on this run, I'd prefer not to have to choose between breathing and deflector control again."  She looked around.  "I'd like to start shutting down a number of non-essential systems, try to cut consumption down as much as possible while we're in the DMZ and Cardassian space, so I can divert all that power to life support and communications and separate them from warp and deflector power."

"What do you want to shut down?"  Maryl asked.

"All reclamators but main engineering's, all refreshers, unmanned panels and access tables, the bio-holds on deck three, the deck lift, cargo transporters--since we won't need them until we're at Andal--and use emergency lighting only in all areas but deck one forward, among a few other things.  It's all written out.  In the bargain, for a little inconvenience, we won't have the same problems we did on the first leg."

"Considering the Maquis have sniffed out the Ligaran deal," Tom told them, "I'm willing to be inconvenienced."  He looked at the Vulcan.  "Will you be able to store your samples in the lab for the time being?"

Savan paused, blinked.  "I believe it will be manageable."

"But I thought you'd upgraded all those systems," Maryl told B'Elanna.  "You got a slew of new equipment and we're loaded up with deuterium.  What's the problem?"

"The upgrades are installed in a twenty year-old freighter with a part from every planet in half the Federation," B'Elanna returned.  "You were right about the Guerdon's power consumption problems.  Now it's handling new parts on top of increased shield capacity.  I didn't have the time or the funds to completely rework the core or ODN.  That has to come later, and that's the first thing I have to do.  So for now, we have to shut down as much down as we can and get the job done."  She shrugged.  "It's only a week each way.  Make sure you have changes before."

"But I sleep next to the man who goes through a lot more changes than me," Maryl complained.

"Aww, I'm as fresh as a flower," Ridge grinned.

"A Carputhian cabbage flower."

"B'Elanna," Tom asked, "you think this'll make us able to handle a shield generation upshift at warp eight?" 

"Barring no other issues, yes," was her answer.

He nodded.  "Okay.  Savan, let me know if that's going to be a problem and we'll work something out.  For the mean time, I opened up the replicator, hooked in an external core and programmed in the Federation menu.  There are Bajoran dishes in there, too.  I'm in the mood for shrimp fettuccine.  Don't know why.  Anyway, no limits tonight--and if it blows, you can all give me hell over rations from engineering for a few weeks, which you'd probably enjoy just as much."  He turned his gaze back to the engineer.  "That all right with you, B'Elanna?"

She couldn't help her grin.  The captain was hard to know sometimes, but there was something endearing about his ingenuousness.  She understood why he and Jerod were such good friends.  That he was able to get into the machine and work it out, albeit temporarily, also impressed her.  She didn't know he had programming experience.  "I happen to like shrimp fettuccine."

Jerod stared at his friend.  "You watched me eat that whole sandwich and didn't say a word."

Tom's lips turned up.  "You were having so much fun ordering it, I didn't have the heart to stop you."

Ridge popped out of his seat.  "Fried oysters for me!"  he announced, ignoring his wife's groan of disgust and sliding over to the replicator in two strides.

"So what's up, Tom?"  Jerod asked, pushing himself to stand.  "You dying or something?"

"No.  Just in the mood to eat a meal."

Looking over again, he caught B'Elanna's little smile as she waited for Maryl to get her tray, leaning against the bulkhead with her arms crossed.  He stared at her for several long seconds, until Jerod and Nadrev filed in behind her and started talking about the SRN adjustment.  Tom returned his attention to the glass in front of him, patient for his own meal.  Though craving a dish, he wasn't actually hungry.
 

---

 

"Savan, do another long-range scan of the Hugora Nebula and surrounding space."

"Would you like different parameters?"

"Try concentrating on the distal edge and run a line out to Ronara."

The next thing he heard was the Vulcan's fingers tapping expertly on her panel.  "Also," she said as she worked, "Jerod has finished the transceiver adjustments.  The distortions should not reoccur."

Waiting to re-plot their course after Savan's latest scans rolled in, Tom allowed himself a grin.  Savan's mentioning the comm tech reminded him of the latest potential biohazard on the ship:  Jerod's nickname for their engineer, "Tuna Torres."  As Jerod could still breathe, B'Elanna obviously had not yet discovered the moniker, though it was dangerously close to sticking.  Ridge had wisely not let her in on it, either.

For his part, Tom hoped it'd fade naturally away, much as it would provide plenty of entertainment during the run.

Thankfully, it looked at last like that would happen in good time.  B'Elanna's conservation was working.  They hadn't had one issue throughout the first part of the DMZ, nor through Cardassian territory.  They'd been at warp seven-point-eight for over seven days with shields at ready and they hadn't even blown a relay that time.  Only the comm system had suffered from an unrelated issue.  Moreover, squeezing every microjoule into the other systems had provided them with a better sensor spread, of which Tom was taking full advantage.  They would be a day early getting to Andal, giving him time to find a new replicator for the lounge before they took off again.  They just had to get over two more borders and they'd have that leg under their belt.

Five days to go.

Tapping on his monitor, Tom nodded at the telemetry.  True to his suspicions, there was activity around Ronara that wasn't Cardassian and a couple ships popping in and out of the Hugora Nebula, through which area they needed to pass.  They had Federation signatures, but that said nothing to him.  Tom adjusted their course accordingly, even if he knew he'd have to a few more times.  Feeling his foot begin to tap as he thought of what else needed to be done, he decided to test the newly repaired comm.

"Hey Maryl, feel like coming out of your hole, give Savan a break?"

"*I'd love to, but I'm still trying to unravel this end-of-term contract.*"

Savan blinked.  "Would you like me to review it again?"

"*You're going to have to.  I can't make sense of this legalese.  We've worked with Ligara before, but the congressional regulatory section is making me blind.  I'm going to kill Dejin for giving me this without warning me.*"

"Maryl," Tom grinned, "we need her alive in order to finish the deal."

"*Well, seriously injure should do it, then.  And I thought the Ligarans were a simple brand of people.*"

"You think we'd be shipping bilitrium on a speed run to the other side of Cardassian space if that were the case?"

The woman over the comm growled.  "*Shut up.  --Why are you bothering me, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be flying this crate--or whatever it is you do with yourself up there?*"

Tom leaned down to examine a blip on his monitor.  "I decided giving you hell was more satisfying," he replied.  "Just come forward when you can.  Savan needs a break before we leave Gul City."

"*I'll be there in a few minutes.*"

"I do not require rest," Savan told him when the line was cut.

"You'd might as well take it now," Tom said.  "We'll get to the DMZ in a couple hours.  I'd rather you be up here as long as possible once we're across the border."

Savan returned to complete her work.  "Perhaps you are correct."  A pause.  "Will you be taking a break, as well?"

"No.  I've only been here an hour and I need to go over these coordinates again."

She aimed a sidelong look at him, even though he wasn't looking at her.  "You seem...nervous."

He shook his head.  "Doctor Etakar got to me, I guess."

"I understand.  However, the scans are as precise as we can make them."

Tom glanced back and gave her a nod.  "Thanks, Savan."

She blinked her acceptance and looked towards the entrance.

Maryl arrived, still grumbling and placing a PADD on Savan's station as she passed.  "Please explain this to me when we're clear for Andal.  I give up."  Tying her light curls back in a band, she slid into her station, leaned back on the seat and linked up with Savan's panel.  "Bell scans?"

"Actually, now that we're approaching," Tom told her, "I want them every fifteen minutes."

"What's it going to matter right now?"  she asked.

"I want to see where everyone's headed," he answered.

Maryl scowled at her screen, but decided not to venture further.  She knew he'd get over his quirk soon enough--or at least they wouldn't need the extraneous sweeps much longer.  For that matter, when she saw her husband enter with a couple mugs in his hands, she set aside the inconvenience and motioned him over.  "What are you doing here in mid-shift?"

"Just had my dinner break," he told her, bringing her a mug.  "Sorry it's plain."

"Better than your brew," she returned lightly.  "Thanks, Ridge.  I was needing this."

He nodded and watched her take a couple sips.  Her smile in response to the taste satisfied him, so he finally asked, "You get through that big, scary contract?"

She waved a hand at him.  "Let's not talk about it now."

"So, no," he chuckled and rubbed her shoulders encouragingly.

Quickly making sure he didn't go back to the topic, Maryl looked over at the comm tech, who leaned against the comm panel, sipping from his mug as though he were outside a café.  "You don't have Ridge's excuse," she charged.

"Nope," Jerod smiled.  "I just followed him from the lounge.  Thought I'd gas up before joining the little admiral on her warpath."

"Take it easy on her, Jerod," Tom said, furrowing his brow at some spatial distortions.  He tapped in a request for analysis.  "One nickname's enough."

The other man laughed.  "Come on, you know I like her a lot, but when she gets going on a job, she's hell on heels."

Tom turned a stare back his way.  "Maybe you should help her get it done sooner, then," he told him, not a question.  "Ridge, you too."

Seeing the unusually pointed look on his friend's face, Jerod's grin faded, and he understood.  "Yeah, I guess we could."

Nodding at Jerod's glance, Ridge gave his wife a peck on the cheek, then trundled himself out behind the younger man.  Tom finally turned forward again, checking his screen again.

Savan eyed him.  "You are nervous."

"Third time's the charm," he replied, "and we've been lucky so far."

She gave up her station without further comment.
 

---

 

"We appreciate the safe passage, Gul Mekar," Tom said politely.  He knew well how far it went--nowhere really, but it at least helped to keep up the façade of geniality as they sat on the edge of the Almatha Sector, waiting to be let go.

"I look forward to greeting you again, Captain Paris," came the gul's easy reply.  Seemingly alone, Tom had no doubt half the crew was watching their captain.  He snorted to himself to know that the same was true on the Guerdon.  "We never take for granted your honest and efficient business through our space."  He glanced down.  "Ah, your clearance is in perfect order.  Your Vulcan is to be complimented on her contracts skill."

"Glad we could make it easy on you," Tom acknowledged, knowing full well they were more pleased with the levies the Guerdon had to choke out to each regional guard, on top of the license renewal, which Savan indeed had worked long hours on to get right.

"Good luck on the remainder of your journey," finished Gul Mekar with a courteous nod.

"Thanks.  See you soon." 

When the comm was cut, Tom heard Jerod snort behind him.

"Oh, I think it's love," he intoned.  "Stock up on the fish juice while you have the chance."

"He's just a tease," Tom smirked.

Turning the ship around, Tom checked their output ratios and with Torres' approval, brought the field generator to ready status and shot them into warp five-point-five, where they would stay until B'Elanna gave him the go-ahead to speed up.  It usually took her a half-hour to make sure everything was running properly and nothing was interfering with the sensors.  In a ship with parts from one source, this was not so much of a problem.  Once again, the Guerdon was skidding over its hodge-podge.

They soon passed into the official DMZ, however, and started into the daylong journey with a clear sensor map.  All the activity he had been monitoring over the last couple of days had moved into Federation or Cardassian space, or away towards Ronara.  The slip between the outpost and the Hugora Nebula was entirely clear on their map.  The nebula already had a reputation for hiding ships well, though, starting with a coup the Federation newsfeed continued to disseminate.  For that reason, Tom was not as nervous about being near it.  Starfleet had their eye on that gas ball and were probably lurking somewhere inside it.  Tom planned to swerve wide around Saltok, however, so not to be randomly scanned by any apparatuses there, and then cross into Federation space.  It was an easy jump, really.

"*Tom,*" came B'Elanna's voice over the comm, right on time, "*everything's clear down here.  We can handle seven-point-six through the DMZ.*"

"Not up to eight?"

"*The long-range sensors aren't responding to the new frequencies as I'd thought they would, and I know you're using them a lot this time.  I'd rather not lose them.*"

"Yeah.  Seven-point-six is plenty if we're still able to see."

"*I'll keep working on it.*"

"Good."

Leaning back into his seat, his stare drifted back down to his console monitor, which he'd switched to forward view.  One of Torres' power saving measures was to turn off unnecessary stations.  This included the main viewscreen on the bridge.  At warp, she insisted, "it's good for nothing but stargazing."  Tom grudgingly agreed, though he did like seeing out the front window while driving, as it were.

He sighed a little to himself as his mind surfed that thought.  The last time he drove his car, so lovingly preserved and tuned, he'd taken his mom for a spin out on the old Audubon outside Delémont.  She laughed and screamed, holding on for dear life as he gunned the engine the way it liked, reveling in the g-forces as he pulled the turns.  He was in his senior year at the Academy.  He couldn't wait to get off Earth.  He probably would never please his father, but the rest he could do--including get away.  He knew he'd miss his mother, though.

He wondered if his parents had gotten rid of it.  His father never did like that garage, or the stench of the artificial petroleum.  He wondered how his mother was doing.  It'd been over six months since he put together a bland little travelogue for her and sent it back to Earth.  Eighty light years away, and if something happened to her, he would never know.  He made a mental note to write once they were done with the Ligarans.  When he let himself, he did miss her. 

"What do you have ready?"  he asked Maryl, focusing on his readouts again.

"The USS Draden passed Ronara and is headed towards Starbase 129...."
 

---

 

"So what's with the continuous sensor sweep? --Computer:  Coffee, black."

When Tom looked back from the lounge viewport, B'Elanna had her hand out for the coffee when it decided to materialize, but her dark eyes were upon him and expecting an answer.  Her jumpsuit was a good indicator of where she'd been all day--or, better, what she'd been under--though her face and hands had been freshly scrubbed.  She was a damned attractive woman.  Little wonder Jerod was working on her. 

"I want to see where everyone's going," he finally said.

She turned her stare askance.  "You don't need a sweep every fifteen minutes for that."

"Maybe not."

"Don't get me wrong," B'Elanna told him, "I have no problem with it.  They're not burning up any systems, but you're doing a lot of it."

Tom released his breath and leaned back on the plain steel table, looking out the viewport again.  "Yeah, it's probably just paranoia," he shrugged.  His own coffee wasn't quite doing it for him, nor was stretching his legs after six hours at the conn.  He knew what he really needed, but he was trying not to be sauced when he had to focus on numbers.  Just enough to stave off the headaches would have to do.  Unfortunately, the absence of his sedative was distracting him in very different ways.

B'Elanna moved across and leaned against the bulkhead to look at him.  His eyes were tired, his shirt and trousers rumpled but clean from sitting all day; his expression was almost in awe of what he saw streaming outside the window.  "Just paranoia?"

He shook his head.  "It's a pilot thing, when you feel like you've got a ghost riding your shoulder."

"A sixth sense?"  she queried, her pursed mouth breaking into a grin.  Pilots always were a strange sort, so it shouldn't have surprised her to see even the captain taking some stock in superstitions.

He noted her expression.  "Something like that."  But he shrugged it off a moment later.  "Or maybe I really have been drinking too much.  Can't say for sure."  He sniffed at his plain coffee, then set it down.  "Going into this defenseless isn't helping.  We have a deflector beam and a couple pulse thrusters, but the best firepower on board is a old phaser I have stashed under the conn--and it doesn't work."

"I still have the tachyon spread," she told him.  "It'll kill a warp bubble pretty efficiently, brown out systems for a while."

"How do I initiate that?"  Tom asked.

"I have to do it.  It takes only a few seconds.  Just let me know."

"Okay.  Thanks."  He looked at her.  "For everything, B'Elanna.  This wouldn't have been possible without the work you've done.  We're all still a little in awe of how you've thrown yourself into things here."

B'Elanna's stare darted down briefly to consider her mug, then pulled back up to regain his unwavering regard, so unusually intent just then, it almost made her move out of his line of sight.  Her heels remained planted with a conscious effort.  "Just doing what you hired me to do."

"You're doing it well."  Pushing himself off the table, he stretched his arms over his head, then reached down to grab his coffee and down the rest of it.  It was cold, but he could hardly taste it, anyway.  "I have to get back," he told her and walked out, dropping his mug in the bin on the way out.

She watched him go and turned to gaze out at the same view he had been taking in.  It was nothing new to her.  Perhaps he could see something else in the streams of light.  Then, blinking to replay their conversation in her mind, she snorted softly to realize it was the first time he'd announced his departure to her.
 

---

 

When he got back into his seat, Tom immediately looked over at Maryl.  "Anything?"

"Just finishing up."  She smiled.  "Two minutes and we're clear."

"We'll be clear when we get to Andal," he returned, then added, "but it'll be nice to have the DMZ behind us."

"Your positive spirit is so infectious," Maryl smirked.  "Long range scans look clear, but I'm seeing some interference, probably from the nebula."

He looked down to his monitor.  Running through the EM lines, he spotted a few irregular dips followed by a slight spike, then the same again, just lightly off the last:  A signature realignment.  "Yeah, I'm seeing subspace distortions," Tom confirmed.

"They weren't there five minutes ago," she informed him.

"Check it out?"

Maryl nodded and went to it again.

"We have entered Federation space," Savan announced.

He ignored that but to slow the Guerdon down to warp six-point-one.  B'Elanna's engine work, inspired by some research she'd downloaded when they passed Starbase 310 during the preparation for their job had helped them clear the warp field effect a little higher than before.  Excited by that success, she had promised to upgrade the nacelles and get them cleared up to warp seven.  Tom grinned to himself to recall their conversation.  She'd called it "just a angular adjustment and a few reroutes."  The Guerdon's older configuration actually would be a benefit in that respect, which no doubt was a surprise to everyone.  A drydock on Minjau for three days would do it if she had all the parts.  They'd easily have the funds for that after the third run.

But that was later.  Damning conservation for the moment, he activated the main viewscreen.  He needed his windshield that time.  The ghost was running its tendrils down his neck.  "What do you see, Maryl?"

She scowled at the results of her scan.  "Tom, we're receiving an incoming message from Gul Mekar."

He looked over at her.  "Here?"

"Just what I said, it's...Oh, never mind.  Bounced signal."  She breathed a little laugh.  "You ass.  You're making me jumpy, now."

Tom wasn't relieved.  Rather the opposite, in fact.  Turning the viewscreen towards the source of the signal, his eyes narrowed on a flickering star.  His fingers started tapping on his control panel.  "I don't like this," he said, then jerked his stare down and started working. 

Maryl frowned at his sudden course changes.  He was taking them closer to the nebula.  "Tom, really, it was a subspace echo.  Maybe you should take another break."

"Changing course."  Glancing up, he saw the star had grown in the field.  "They got us.  Damnit, they've got us." 

"Who?"  Maryl demanded.  "I don't see anything on the sensors."

He punched the comm.  "B'Elanna, get back below.  We have company.  Computer:  Shields to full.  --Maryl, forget the sensors.  Find that Starfleet ship."

"Tom, really, there's nothing on any of the--"

The flickering star on the main viewscreen exploded into a hawkish ship that all but landed in their cargo bay.

Cursing, her fingers landed on both her panels.  "Savan, take the sensors and stats.  I'll find the Draden."

"I have the controls," the Vulcan replied.

"You're still to blame for this, Tom," Maryl spat.

"Glad to know something's like it should be," he returned, "because the rest just went to hell."  With that, he swung the Guerdon onto a new trajectory.

The boxy ship turned in warp, bending the ship a little for a moment but catching up a split-second later.  Where Tom had thought to give them a little room between the nebula and free space, Tom got them right on the skirt--as close as he could without letting the gas streams interfere with their systems.  The energy emitted from that nebula could be unkind to warp bubbles.

Looking back on his sensors, he could clearly see the little ochre scout cruiser back on his tail.  They were lining up with him--already.

"Tom, they're powering up weapons!"  Maryl shouted.

"They don't waste time," he growled and changed course again.  He glanced back at his contract liaison.  Her face was tight and angry and scared all in the same moment.  She'd been around the block, but it'd been a while, and he could tell in a glance that she really hadn't needed to go back.  As for himself, he was gratefully alert and at least felt steady.  It'd been too long since his last smack of real excitement to be certain if he was.  "Maryl, just tell me when they do that and I'll try to move in time, okay? Just keep your eyes on those sensors.  Watch their power levels, tell us when they're shooting and keep calling Starfleet.  That's all you need to worry about.  Okay?"

"They want the bilitrium," Savan added.  "They will not want to destroy us."

"Think we can go there later?"  Tom asked and swung them off the Maquis' line again.  The little ship on their tail easily made the correction and got them in their sights again.

"They're activating weapons," Maryl announced.

Tom blew a breath and tried to maneuver them out of the other ship's sights again.  "Two more tables and I'd have had that nav array," he muttered as he checked their stats.  "B'Elanna, are you down there yet? The Maquis ship is...  --Everyone, hold on!"
 

With the first hit, B'Elanna was knocked down the last several steps into engineering.  Ignoring the shot of pain in her knee, she stumbled across to her main console and slapped the comm to active. 

"I'm here! --Ridge, lock down all the bays and get to deflector control!"

"I got it!"  came his response.

She whipped her head around to the sound of steam flowing somewhere behind the engine manifold struts.  No klaxons accompanied it and containment was steady, so it'd have to come later.  "Jerod, where are you?"

"Deck four main."

"Get to a control panel and keep an eye on the shields while I bring impulse back to full power."

"No problem.  I'm there."

Another blast knocked her against her station, but she shook it off and kept working, cursing their attacker more with every tap.  "Tom, warp drive's fine and shields are holding."

"*They won't let that last.  We're going to need more speed, B'Elanna--and now.*"

She checked the EPS.  "I can pull a little power for you, but it's not going to get us past seven-point-eight.  If we get hit again, we won't have any cushion."

"*Drop the forcefields around the bays, then,*" he ordered.  "*They know what we've got.  We don't need to hide anything.*"

"Shutting down now!" 
 

"Tom," said Savan from her station, "the Maquis ship is positioning itself to our side."

He scowled at his readings and saw she was right.  "They're trying to pull ahead of us."  They were up to warp seven-point-six and the Maquis ship, while obviously more maneuverable, wasn't catching up quickly.  They probably topped out at warp eight as well.  "They're after our deflector," he deduced and threw down another evasion pattern.  The Maquis ship kept up without missing a beat.  He cursed under his breath and adjusted their course again.  "They're going for a shortcut, through our shields."

"They're powering up weapons again," Maryl announced.

As he plotted in a few more maneuvers, he errantly wished he'd broken the law and gotten hold of a line of weapons--just one phaser array.  "Who would have cared if I'd gotten one?"  he muttered aloud.  "Who the hell would have cared?"

Knowing his luck, a great many people.

"Firing!"

Tom braced his feet on the floor and steadied himself as the Guerdon took the hit, that time with more force and response.  He heard Maryl grunt and curse behind him, but couldn't look at that point.  His eyes were glued to his wildly scrolling numbers. 

"Shields are reduced by fifty percent," Savan reported.

"B'Elanna..."

"*I'm diverting power!*" she answered instantly.

"Firing again!"

That time, they all held on as the blast caused a rupture that sent an array of sparks flying over the forward section of the bridge.
 

Below, B'Elanna had given up the main station to sprint back towards deflector control, where Ridge was losing his battle to keep everything online.  The thirty second run was consumed with her plans to rewire another station so she wouldn't have to do that again.  Once there, her eyes darted over the readings even as she worked the panel.  "Tom, shields aren't going to take another hard hit right away."

"*I'll try to make them wait, but I think they're ready for the main course.*"

"*That wouldn't be tuna salad, would it?*" quipped Jerod from somewhere aft.

Ridge snorted.

"I've got this," B'Elanna told him.  "Go forward and keep your eye on containment."

He was gone before she finished her sentence.
 

"Our position is steadily turning towards the Demilitarized Zone," Savan pointed out.

"I can't help it," he responded.  "We were already skimming the border; now they're pushing us."

Every time he tried to nudge back towards their original heading, the smaller craft would nudge them back like a herding dog.  Tom continued to parry, though, hoping eventually he'd angle them in a way the Maquis ship wasn't ready for, then manage to get some distance.  Just as long as B'Elanna could keep them running, they'd get far enough out.... 

An unwelcome realization hit him, then, that he'd never really been in a situation like that before, flying out from an attack totally unsupported.  Sure, he'd flown a starship in scrapes along the Federation border at Caldik and teased a few cruisers while patrolling, but never anything like being completely on the defense and running like hell.

Why could the first time for everything been another damned time? he complained to himself as he tugged his ship around starboard.

The Maquis ship caught up with them again, firing as soon as they came close enough.  "Sideswipe," Tom told them.  "Yeah, they're driving us.  I'll bet they're driving us straight to Saltok."

"You're not going to let them take us there, are you?"  Maryl demanded.

"I haven't had time to negotiate that with them," he responded and changed course again. 

Blowing a breath to see no break in the Maquis' pursuit, he punched his controls.  "Switching to manual! No way I'll shake them with this standard navigation."

"Are you nuts?!" 

Another lazy phaser miss crackled to their side.

"Great time to ask me, Maryl!"  Guiding the Guerdon around against the Maquis ship's angle, he could see they were right inside a triangle of choices.  Drawing a cool breath, Tom banked, slowed to warp two, turned around, then popped back up to warp seven and drove his ship straight toward the nebula.  Ten blissful seconds passed over the bridge before they saw the Maquis ship upon them again.  He grunted in frustration.  "Why'd they have to be good?"  he muttered.

"They're firing again!"

Tom popped them out of the way of the first fire line, but could not move quickly enough to miss the second, longer shot.  The first had been another tease, he realized, and he'd been too hooked in to think ahead.  "Damn!"  he spat.  A long groan and a pull in his chest followed as they literally skidded to a stop.

"*We've lost warp engines!*"  B'Elanna announced.  "*Reinitializing.*"

"I recommend you concentrate on the field generator first," Savan said.

A pause, then, "*Diverting more power to the shields.*"

"Going to impulse," Tom nodded, switching gears mentally as quickly as he had choices of engine.  "At least this is a field I can play on."  With that, he reeled the Guerdon around an arm of plasma.  "Hold on!"

The slick little Maquis ship easily sailed around and caught up with the freighter, teasing its shield bubble by bobbing up, around, then back again.  Tom grunted.  "Cat swatting at a mouse."

"I've found the Draden!"  Maryl announced.

"Put an urgent SOS on repeat until we get an answer," Tom ordered and drove another arc just outside the DMZ border, heading back out again.  "And transmit the Maquis' warp signature while you're at it."

"Sent--and they're getting ready to fire again."

Tom's fingers flew over his board, plotting a spin to get out of their way.  He didn't know if the Guerdon could actually do that, but he knew it was the best chance.  The phaser fire aimed down, under their deflector grid.  Gritting his teeth, Tom hit the command and swirled out of the way of three shots.  Bracing himself, he switched them over in the opposite direction.  Turning a wobbly spiral into a thick arm of gas, he coughed a laugh, impressed with that ugly, old crate for the first time in two years.

"We have lost two plasma conduits.  The remaining three are undamaged."

Well, maybe not too impressed.

"*I hope you don't need to do that twice!*" cried B'Elanna from below. 

"Yeah, me, too!"  he returned.

"Firing again, Tom!"

Tom yanked them up and around into the Maquis' trail, but the cruiser hadn't yet revealed that it had rear phasers--until then.  The shot drove into the Guerdon's underbelly.

Over the comm, the engineer's curse could easily be heard as the lights on the bridge flickered.  "*They've knocked a hole in our deflector pylon grid and we've suffered damage to the deck four hull.  Forcefields are in place, but we can't take another hit down there.*"

"Our field generator is failing," Savan added.

"B'Elanna, get that tachyon spread ready!"  Tom responded.  Immediately, he saw his operations panel light up with the new data.

"*Let them get close,*" B'Elanna told him.  He obeyed, dipping them just barely under full impulse.  "*Hold them there.  --Maryl, tell me when they're about to fire their weapons*."

"They are now.  --I mean it! NOW!"

A whiz echoed through the compartment as the tachyons were released into the space behind them.  Looking up to the viewscreen, Tom saw the greenish particles shoot out of their dorsal field deflector and envelop the Maquis ship.  At first, it brightened and glowed, then darkened and shimmied, lit only by the particles for a moment.  Then the power returned.  Finally, with a lurch, the ship quickly disappeared behind them as the Guerdon continued at impulse directly into the meat of the nebula.

"*Yes!*" came Ridge's voice over the COMM.  Jerod and Nadrev's laughter followed.

"They are disabled," Savan noted for the record.  "Readings show they have activated secondary power systems."

"Well, that was easy," Tom smirked.  Locking his stare on his readouts, he scanned for a place to duck into.  Anywhere as soon as possible, though it couldn't be too hot.  The Guerdon's shields were all but gone and probably wouldn't take too much more abuse.  That little cruiser knew just where to hit them and made the most of the Guerdon's weakness.  Cat and mouse, saving their dorsal phaser array for the kill...for what? he thought as he turned them within one of the nebular arms and rotated what was left of their energy output to try to bury their tracks a little.  Why not just take us down and have it done?

"Maryl," he said, "run a few new encryption patterns for when we get back out of here."

"Got it.  Also, I'm compiling the information on that ship.  Maybe we can find some weaknesses in..."

Tom glanced back to see Maryl purse her lips in disgust.  "What's up?"  he asked.

"You're not going to like this."

"You think I'm going to like anything right now?"  After targeting a particularly thick ball of plasma to slip around, he looked back again.  "What?"

"It's the same Maquis ship we met over Mesler's barge."

Holding her stare a moment, letting that sink in, he then turned forward in his seat again.  "Well, we're screwed no matter who's after us."
 

---

 

"Do you need more time?"

Tom snorted and pushed himself off the back wall of the lounge.  "To forget this Ligaran deal never happened?"  he replied.  "Yeah, that'll take me a while longer."

Predictably, she offered no response.  Not that he wanted one.

Having found a comfortable hole in a thick of gas with impressive spectral instability, Tom finally stopped, shut down engines and stared numbly at the damage list Maryl had sent as his adrenaline petered off into a haze, allowing the slow recognition that what had just happened to them was real.  Their bruises were everything he expected and some. 

Because of the Guerdon's long history of borrowed parts and slipshod engineers, the ship was notoriously interconnected in odd ways--half the reason Torres had been having so much trouble controlling their power usage.  Worse, when one system failed, something totally unrelated tended to follow.  When warp drive had failed, so did environmental control on deck three-forward.  When the plasma regulators had subsequently been shunted to secondary control, the ship's transceiver flickered and briefly failed, leaving the universal translator offline for several minutes until B'Elanna was able to run back and manually reset the main computer--cursing in perfect, standard English all the while.

Just as he began to digest and prioritize the repair list, however, Savan had reported a failure of non-essential isolinear junctions on deck two aft.  For a moment, they all paused to see what would follow.  As soon as they nodded to themselves and returned to their work, the guidance and navigation system crashed.  The bright yellow blink on his board where his x-y function was supposed to be sent Tom to his feet and walking swiftly away.  "I'll be in engineering in five minutes," he muttered back to Savan and Maryl.

"I will follow you momentarily," Savan told him, still working on her diagnostics.

"Meet me in the lounge."

He found himself there in less than a minute and slugged down a few shots of scotch by the time his science tech caught up with him.  He joined her in the corridor without comment.  His head and hands were already feeling a twinge of relief from the little break and he didn't want to break that right away.  His mood was no lightened in the process, however.  He didn't want to lighten up.  His ship was torn to hell and he'd gotten them into it.

And you'd enjoyed yourself out there in spite of it all, he grumbled to himself.  Indeed, the rush had been a long time coming; piloting that ship a little more like he used to fly was as satisfying as he'd expected and left him insanely curious to see what he'd have to do to get them out of there.  The challenge was fun, he knew--and knew equally well what that addiction had cost him.  And now it'll cost me my ship if I don't keep it together and stay straight.

"We have four days overlay," Savan noted.  "We should be able to complete repairs within a day, perhaps two.  We have adequate supplies."

He nodded dismissively.  "Yeah.  I was hoping not to have to use our cushion, though."

"We will need to.  There is no alternative."

Tom peered over at her.  Though her face was straight, there was an undeniable mark of displeasure in her tone.  "Nothing like stating the obvious to get us looking at the bright side."  He shrugged at her return expression.

The smell of the engine room preceded it by ten meters.  Coolant steam laced with grease and the distinctive odor of boronite residue permeated the space and made Tom rub his nose when they got to the access stairway.  Below, prowling her lair, Torres was on task, assigning her team their duties with every bit of efficiency she could muster as she tapped away at her PADD.

She moved across to a long panel she'd recently reworked.  Tom reminded himself it was a full propulsion display.  Before, thrusters, impulse and warp reported on three frustratingly distant panels.  "Get back to me when you've replaced the primary port and I'll re-check the output levels," she told Nadrev.  The young Bajoran moved without question and disappeared within the coolant mist.

"What else do you need?"  Tom asked as they came onto the deck, thinking directness would be better appreciated.

Her response was hardly grateful.  "You don't need to be here," she told them brusquely.  "We can handle this."

"No, B'Elanna," Tom returned, his jaw tight as he glared back at her.  "This what a crew does when they're in deep shit--they help out.  Savan's worthy of this pit and I've got nothing to do until we can steer again.  Now, where did you hide those fancy new tricorders? I need to get below before the whole GNS fizzles out for good."

She blew a sigh, assented with a shrug.  She knew he was a competent technician and she didn't have time to get into the mess in navigation control.  Savan's able hands wouldn't slow them down, either.  "Take Ridge's.  He won't need his."

"Thanks."  Tom held up his hand when Ridge tossed his tricorder across the bay.  It met Tom's hand with a smack.  He regarded his catch.  "Nice to know I still have that much."

"You won't have it for long if you do that again," Torres warned.

"It's just a little fun, B'Elanna," Ridge coaxed.

"Have fun with something we have a good supply of," she returned and strode into a row of steaming pipes.

Tom shrugged when the tech looked his way again.  "You're the one who wanted her."
 

---

 

B'Elanna crawled into the port access hatch and immediately began yanking out burnt isolinear nodes she'd just installed the month before.  Withholding a sigh over the useless, she adjusted her hyperspanner and started cleaning out the ports.  Nadrev could easily have done the job, but she needed a break, and that was better than sitting in the lounge knowing there was more to do. 

The warp drive had finally cooperated and kicked up after she spent eight hours literally underneath it.  Much of the damage was preexisting problems she'd been working on and some was the result of the blows on their warp bubble.  The energy feedback had fed into the conduits and nozzles.  The phaser frequency the other ship had used was particularly "sharp."  It had even affected the thermal coating around the assembly. 

That they'd stocked up for the possibility they were experiencing was the only reason she'd brought it back online in good time.  No rerouting, no refurbishing burnt out parts, just pull, clean, install and test.  She could and would refurbish many of those pulled parts later.  It would make good work after it all was done with. 

The repair still took time, though, and warp power was merely one big chunk on a list, so B'Elanna had grabbed a ration bar and sorted through their supplies for the parts she needed below.

Ridge, who'd already had a few hours rest, had tried to goad her into checking out for a while.  "I won't sleep," she'd declined, "not yet.  Maybe a little later, I'll be able to relax."

"You can't run on fumes, kid," he'd returned.

"Yes I can."  Stuffing her tool belt as she glanced up to him again, she had moved to the port ladder and climbed down to deck three.  It was not far to find the access hatch. 

He'd said they'd known hard times, but I'll bet they'd never had to cower.

She inched on her elbows underneath the deck grate until she reached the portal to the ship's computer.  Opening it, she slid in and sat down to address the blackened section.  Willfully putting aside the question of how grime so thick managed its way into the ship's secondary computer core, she made a mental note of its layout as she began.  She would need to return to that core to reprogram the mainframe--a project she'd planned to take care of after the Ligaran run.  She still hoped she wouldn't have to delay it again.  She'd been able to fix the cheery responses and the voice, but it was still a system mired in redundant functions.

At least the challenge of keeping that ship together in a crisis hadn't gone badly.  It rather had gone just as she wanted.  But then, she had a team working under her who wanted to keep them going, didn't talk back and seemed to actually like her...particularly Jerod.  She grinned to herself.  The communications technician was proving to be an amusement...and a nice guy, fun to be around and talk to.  It'd been a long while since anyone had paid her that kind of attention.  Much as she was there to work and didn't want any complications, it felt good to play.  Then again, she would probably have to talk to him and ask him to stop.  She didn't want him to get any real ideas.

Finished with the cleaning, she checked the sockets and began to reorganize the replacements she'd brought.

She wondered how they were going to get out of there.  She hadn't had time to check the charts and see exactly where they were in relation to the borders, so she couldn't begin to guess which way they'd go, but then, it wasn't her job to guess at that.  The captain was understandably upset about what'd happened, much as he'd predicted it.  He was determined to get them going and get to Andal within their window, though.  She believed him.

So much for refuting superstition. Her mouth pursed as she remembered the ghostly intensity on his face when he first mentioned his feeling, then tried to deflect his apprehension in the same breath.  But he knew what he felt, knew he was right.  Tom's instincts were rather sharp for someone who spent a good deal of time drowning them.  She couldn't imagine what they'd been like before he was like that. 

Either way, for more than the obvious reasons, she hoped those senses would stay on the upside as they traversed the nebula and sneaked back into Federation space.

Checking their labels once again, B'Elanna began to install the new nodes, nodding as each came to life inside that old, overused core.  The hum of systems around her was soothing.  She felt her shoulders relax as she continued the job with an easier hand.  A small smile crawled to her lips.
 

---

 

Which way to go, which way to go... Tom's eyes scanned the star chart he'd put up on the viewscreen so he could get the full view.

Drifting along an arm of plasma near the edge of the nebula, shields at full, the Guerdon's sensors continuously pinged in every direction.  They were creeping in fear and didn't care about showing it, moving outwards so that they would be further from the DMZ when they left those protective gases.  Tom had considered taking them back into Cardassian territory and circling around backwards, but there was too much instability near the core of the phenomenon.  It would take too long to get around it.  So, he played the chess with the board he had and waited for the slightest blip to ward him in another direction.

"Don't worry," Tom said, hearing his engineer exhale behind him.  "I'll turn the screen off when we get out of here.  How are we?"

B'Elanna came forward.  "Everything's online, but the warp drive's not going to take much abuse.  The phasers that ship used did a lot of damage in a hurry."

"I'm not surprised, considering their line of work."  He didn't break his attention away from the viewscreen.  "Can you work on the rear deflector to repel that effect?"

"I've been working on figuring out the frequency pattern they're using.  I'm going to have Ridge stay back there until we're clear and manually rotate our shield harmonics.  Jerod's going back, too, to keep on the main board and divert power to the deflector when necessary.  If we're attacked again, we'll lose warp power before we lose shields."

"Okay."

"Nadrev's staying here and coordinating.  I'll handle the other systems, warp and impulse."

"Sounds good."  Tom finally glanced over.  The engineer wasn't in the habit of broadcasting details and almost never came to the bridge.  His eyes narrowed at her appearance.  "Have you gotten any sleep, B'Elanna?"

"I wasn't tired," she responded.

Tom nodded slowly.  "Yeah, me too."  With that, he turned forward again.  "Thanks."

B'Elanna took that correctly as a release.  She immediately moved back.  Checking Nadrev's panel and giving him a few words, she left to return to her main console in the engine room. 

A quarter light year one way or the other, he thought, makes all the difference.  It's just a coin toss...a dabo spin. He snorted to himself and opened the comm.  "B'Elanna," he said, "I forgot to ask:  How fast can we go?"

Maryl snickered.  "You're tired, all right."

"*We can manage warp five,*" the engineer answered.  "*I'm working on six.  The diagnostics should be done in a few minutes.*"

"Send me what we can do when we're ready to leave."

"Okay."

The triangle of space within the Hugora Nebula, the DMZ and Federation space was some of the most watched territory of late.  The USS Enterprise, according to the newsfeeds and a few leaks, had seen some action there, much to their embarrassment, and the Saltok colony was quickly establishing itself as the worst kept secret in the region.  They could find anything waiting for them there, so Tom finally decided to pull their trajectory outward, more into Federation territory.  Through the gases and occasional instability, he rode the waves, letting himself enjoy the calm--essentially taking a break.  It would give his engine crew a while longer to organize, too.

A few hours passed as he watched the streams pass by, hypnotized by their glow and pattern, but interested enough in them and his sensor sweeps not to sleep.  Finally reaching their exit point, Tom looked back.  He first saw Nadrev working the engineering panel, his eyes solidly on his work.  The younger man had been very quiet since the first attack, but Torres obviously knew how to settle him down and put him in a place best for his skill level.  He was, in fact, very quick in handling the upper level engineering matters and had become adept in maneuvering the ship's twisted command chain.  If they got out of this with their funds half in tact, Tom mused, he'd gladly write up Nadrev's contract.

A couple meters to his side and directly behind Tom, Savan was likewise preparing, though her quietness was standard.  To his right and behind, Maryl was also in her usual mode--talking mostly to herself and fussing over her readings.  Tom nodded.  They were ready to go.  For that matter, he needed to get it done.  If they got out of there in a clean shot, they'd still make their deadline with a little time to spare.  They could grab the parts they needed to make repairs on the ways back to Ligara.

His fingers bounced off his panel as he brought the Guerdon out of the nebula and into the clear, black space.  They were one and a half light years from the DMZ, cleanly in Federation territory.  He positioned the ship, checked his board for a green light from Torres, then nodded. 

"We're off," he said and popped his ship into warp.  A whine, a whirr and a slight pull later, the stars streamed around them and all that lay ahead was more of the same vacuum.

Empty space never felt so good, he knew, almost managing a smile as his sensor grid went black and the DMZ clicked gradually off his map.  One way or another, I'm getting that replicator for us, he promised himself, and he made a note for himself to contact Dejin ahead of their meeting at Andal.  Knowing her, she probably had a few in her storeroom, waiting for someone as desperate he was becoming.

The business behind him picked up, too, as they started looking ahead again at last.  Andal was still six light years away--nine days at their present speed.  He could only hope B'Elanna could get them up to six as promised soon.  That would nearly cut the time in half and keep them on schedule.  Looking at the chronometer, he decided to give it another couple of hours before taking a real break.  He would go down and bug her on the way to his quarters.

For the time being, he let himself lean back in his seat and cross his legs, relax a little as the stars streamed by.  His hand fell to his pocket, where a handily refilled flask sat, cool against his work-worn fingers.  He'd bought some excellent Devaran whiskey on their last stop before starting the Ligaran job, though cheap gin would have done just as well for him those last couple days.  He certainly hadn't felt picky, anyway.

Giving the flask a little shake, he drew it into his hand...

"Damn," Maryl hissed through her teeth.  "Tom, they've found us.  I'm showing them catching up fast, too.  Warp seven-point-eight."

Tom visibly slumped as he let go of the flask.  Why do I keep bothering to think we'll get a break? he sighed to himself.  Checking to see what Maryl did, he reopened the comm.  "They're back," he announced and tapped in the first series of evasion patterns he's programmed in during their downtime.  "Everyone get ready."

"How far into Federation space do you think they'll follow us?"  Maryl asked incredulously.

"They've come this far," Tom told her.  "I don't think they'll run unless they see Starfleet coming.  How long until they catch us?"

"Thirty seconds."

"B'Elanna, is everyone set up?"

"*We're almost there!*" she answered.  "*I'll try to give you more speed, but it'll take me a few minutes.*"

"I hope we have warp power in three minutes!"  he returned.
 

B'Elanna waved Jerod off even as she typed in a set of command overrides.  "Get to deflector control with Ridge," she ordered.

"I'll swing through the forward holds and make sure they're locked down."

She blew a breath.  Internal sensor data in two sections of the deck three forward holds were one of the things they had to shortcut in getting the ship going.  "Let me know when you're done."  Looking at her board, she could see what Savan was looking at, a Maquis ship making a quick approach.  "Ridge, are you ready?"

"I've got my fingers on the buttons," he answered with his usual zest.

She nodded.  "Start pushing them now.  I'll keep working on giving us a little more spe--"

"*Maquis ship firing!*" came Maryl's voice over the comm.

B'Elanna grabbed her console a moment before she smacked against it.  She pushed herself upright as a shot of steam rushed out of the engines.  She checked her board and started typing madly into it. 
 

"*Tom, they've knocked out our auxiliary plasma injectors.  I've compensated, but--*"

"Give me the full story later!"  Tom interrupted as he pulled the Guerdon up into another heading, and then shook off the spin in his head.  He was too tired to handle the inverse forces as he usually did.

"*Try to keep them off our starboard,*" B'Elanna clarified.

"Got it! --Savan, how are our shields?"

"They have recovered.  They stand at ninety-five percent."

"Maryl, where's the Draden?"

"I don't know.  I can't see past this idiot ship.  They're scrambling our comm."

"You sent the SOS again?"

"Yes, but I don't know if it's been blocked or not."

Tom changed their heading again.  Like before, the little Maquis ship was trying to push them back to the DMZ.  Unfortunately, protecting their starboard made that an easy game for them this time.  Why'd they hit us there first? Tom wondered, not for the first time.  We're carrying everything forward...

"They're powering up weapons, Tom!"

In a series of five jerky turns, the Guerdon switched directions again, that time, back towards the nebula; then it shot towards free space.  The Maquis ship required only a half-minute to find catch up with them again.  That time, their weapons were ready the moment they got close.

"Firing!"

Tom hugged his console as their aft shield bubble took a direct hit.  "Damn, that hurt," he said to himself.

"Shields are compromised by fifteen percent," reported Savan.

Another shot flew out of the other ship, and Maryl cried out when she hit the floor.  "So much for needing a recharge!"  she spat, pulling herself up as the lights flickered and dimmed to half power.

"They never needed one," Tom told her, pursing his mouth.  "They've been playing with us."

"Why the hell would they do that?"

He snorted.  "Do you really care?"

"Shields are at fifty percent efficiency."

His eyes narrowed as he watched the Maquis ship veer and swerve behind them--playing their moves, seeing what they'd do.  "Try this," he smirked and tapped a few controls.

Without warning, the Guerdon dropped out of warp and came to a full stop.  Changing their heading, he popped them back up to warp five on a different heading.

"*What the hell kind of move was that?!*" B'Elanna yelled from below.

"Shaking them for a few seconds so you can work on the shields," Tom responded. 

"*Try warning me next time you jolt the engine!*"

Seeing the Maquis ship come back on their tail, Tom blew a breath through his nostrils.  "I don't have time to write you a report.  Get ready for another--"

He popped them up only a little too late to avoid the shot to their starboard shields.  He wildly tapped into his controls as the ship began to lose alignment.

"Starboard shields are recovered to only ten percent efficiency.  Our starboard nacelle has been compromised."

"I can tell!"  Tom retorted and he dug in with another series of attempts to stabilize their heading, lest they smack into a rock--which wouldn't be beyond their luck at present, he knew.  Finally pulling them back together and shifting their bearing again, he soon saw the same buzzard back on their tail.  Indeed, the little ship had quickly learned their moves, probably knew their every weakness by then.  They weren't swatting this time, either.  They meant to do some serious damage.  Still, they seemed to be dragging out the kill...driving them.  "What are you trying to do?"  he breathed, then shot a glance down at their power levels.  "B'Elanna! What's going on?"
 

B'Elanna reached over to the adjacent panel to tap more reroutes into their starboard power conduit.  It was dying fast and without it, they weren't going anywhere.  "Jerod, I need you in deflector control now!""

"*I'm almost done!*" came his response over a crackling comm.  "*I need to lock down four through seven and then I'm back!*"

"Forget the lockdown!"  she retorted.  "There's nothing to protect when our rear deflector's gone! --Ridge, I'm reading a surge in our graviton emitters."

"*I've got them, kid!*" was Ridge's reply, almost cheerful as the levels re-stabilized.  "*I could use some help back here, though!"*

"Jerod! Aft--now!"

"*On my way!*" Jerod called.
 

Tom nodded jerkily as it came over the comm, and he glanced down to see the starboard shields finally responding.  Their warp drive was not enjoying the same fortune.  B'Elanna was dumping everything she could into it and trying to keep their nacelles from an alignment breakdown.  One more good hit and...

"Firing!" The shot hit them cleanly in the stern, slapping a row of klaxons on.  They screamed out all over the ship, bouncing echoes up and down the corridors.  Coolant spewed from every vent as the lighting fell to emergency levels, making the corresponding sparks look like fireflies on a misty night.

"Secondary coolant assembly is now online," Savan told them, working steadily across her board.

"*Warp drive's not going to take another hit!*" B'Elanna reported loudly.  "*The field is already buckling!*"

Tom rolled them around again, thinking hard and fast as his heart beat in his chest and sweat coated his sticky skin as the room temperature rose.  They want us back in the DMZ...and we sent our signal from near the triangle border... "Changing course!"  He banked the ship around and started setting up a new series of maneuvers.

Maryl immediately saw their course.  "We're going back?!"

"I want to get as close as I can to where we sent out initial distress call," Tom told her.  "If Starfleet's received our message, they'll start looking there."

"But you're also going where they want us!"

"We're going to get shot to hell no matter what direction we're flying in!"  Tom snapped.  "The rest isn't up for a vote!"

"You're right about one thing! They're lining up again!"

"Guess they have a deadline, too."

His sarcasm was short-lived.  The Maquis ship suddenly ducked to the right.
 

She was in between panels when Maryl's cry sounded over the comm again, and she actually heard the phaser line as it cracked up against their weakened shields.  It was too much to hold back.  When it tore through the starboard shields, then into the hull, B'Elanna's grip on her panel rail wasn't nearly secure enough to ward off the inertia.

The engineer flew across the deck in line with a spray of sparks and the screams of alarms.  Hitting the grate, she skidded and swung around headfirst.  Instinct alone made her tuck her head down just as she slammed into the lower pylon control bulkhead.  Her shoulder snapped and her ears popped hard as she coughed a sharp grunt.  Before she could catch her breath, the air was almost blown from her lungs before a flicker of lights and a rush of air restored the deck's pressure.

The hull...

Then a far more familiar groan filled the deck, its pitch low and strangled as it fitted its way to a shutdown.

Pushing herself from the grate, B'Elanna dropped, rolled and inhaled sharply, tears stinging her eyes.  The pain shot up into her ear and all the way down to her fingertips.  She grimaced, trying to will down the pain with her usual skill with no success.  Worse, her knee had taken yet another hit.

"*Warp drive is offline!*"

The unmistakable groan of the impulse engine whirring to life echoed across the deck as she tried to get to her feet.  She'd messed up her shoulder in a similar fashion on a survival-training hike in her first year at the Academy.  B'Elanna remembered how the third-year leader taught her to take care of it, but she knew it'd be no more pleasant than the first time.... 

"*B'Elanna! Are you down there?!*"  It was Maryl.  Tom had obviously given up on communicating.  "*Are you okay? B'Elanna!*"

"I'm here," she managed, dragging herself up with one arm, eyeing the bulkhead that'd done the damage in the first place.  "I was thrown."

"*Do you require my assistance?*" Savan asked.

B'Elanna briefly wondered where Nadrev was before answering, "I'll be okay in a minute."

"*We'll be lucky if we have a minute!*" Tom yelled.  "*Get back to your station or let Savan help! I need someone on the engines!*"

She coughed an angry laugh.  "You've had me on the engines!"

"*That didn't change when we got a can opener to the starboard!*"

B'Elanna growled, sucked a deep breath and forced herself to relax as she as she grabbed the edge of the bulkhead.  Pulling sharply with all her strength, she jumped towards it and whacked her shoulder against the frame. 

"Aaagh!" she cried out and nearly fell to her knees for the lance of pain that followed the pop of the joint resetting.  But holding on, breathing into it, the pain started to dissipate between throbs that time.  One more breath and she stumbled back across the deck to her main console.  Throwing a series of requests into the main control board with her better hand, her eyes grew wide.

Tom was pissed for good reason.  The last blast meant business.  The Guerdon was dying fast.

"*Impulse engines online! Switching to manual.  Everyone hold on!*"

"*They're firing*!"

B'Elanna locked her arm around the rail that time.
 

"Port shields are down twenty percent; they are not rebounding."  Savan tapped her console.  "They are holding, however."

"Until they decide they want those, too," Tom scoffed and spun them away from another shot.  The comm rattled with the commands and updates from the engine room; the room continued to hiss with blown circuits and coolant steam.  Blocking it all out, he glared at his trajectory and set in a new set of evasions.  In most other situations, flying at impulse would put him in his element.  Instead, he watched the Maquis ship take to buzzing around the Guerdon's aft shield bubble like a bee, looking for a soft place to poke another stinger--likely right into their aft deflector grid.

"Just for playing with us," Tom said between his teeth, "I'm not letting you get it.  No way."

He wished he could back that up.  Built like an overlong brick with pill-shaped nacelle wings, the Guerdon was the least maneuverable ship he had ever flown.  Every turn dragged the stern in an afterthought, forcing him to compensate when his natural instinct didn't know such a necessity.  He'd try his damnedest, though.  He was not about to let that Maquis captain walk on his bridge if there was any way he could help it.

"No way in hell," he muttered.

Directing the Guerdon into a downturn, he flew into in an inverse loop and up again.  To his surprise, the Maquis ship spun nicely around in the resulting wake and required a moment to recover.

"*Watch our plasma wake!*" B'Elanna warned from below.

"Does it affect the shields?"

"*Not yet--but it's destabilizing our impulse reactors.*"

"It's the lesser of two evils right now," Tom returned and whipped them around again.  Straightening their path immediately after, Tom saw they were still a full light year from their point of initial contact with the Draden.  Cursing under his breath, he kept them on their path; when the Maquis ship returned, he flew them around that line again.

"They're firing!"  Maryl announced.

They took the hit directly in the stern, throwing them forward again.  Ridge yelped over the comm.

"Ridge!"  Maryl cried.  "Are you okay?!"

"*Yeah!*" he gasped.  "*Yeah, Hana! --Yeah, I'm here! Just a...a hard bump.*"

"Maryl, what's on your board?"  Tom asked tightly, getting her back in the room.

She snapped her attention back to it.  "They're lining up again."

Tom spun them out of the way only to be rewarded with another shot to the port, which nearly knocked him out of his seat.

"Port shields down to fifty percent."

He braced his feet against the floor and turned the ship in another loop--doubled that time and inverted, forcing the Maquis ship to shimmy through their vented plasma.  He could see on his lower board that the Maquis ship was feeling it and having to step back left they lose containment.  Their engine was thankfully as susceptible as the Guerdon's.

"*Tom, you can't keep riding our impulse wake!*" B'Elanna insisted.  "*We're losing--*"

Suddenly, the comm hissed and all the noise from engineering disappeared.

Tom couldn't help his smirk at the convenience.  He plotted another loop.
 

Below, B'Elanna growled and set into the comm anew.  "The one time I want the damned thing on..."  she grumbled.

"*I'm having trouble getting the deflector stabilized,*" Ridge reported, puffing for breath.  "*They're changing their phaser frequency.  We're not going to take much more.*"

"Keep trying!"  B'Elanna ordered.  "We have to give them time for--"

She cut off as another alert warned them of a possible plasma backflow.  Hissing through her teeth, she fought the temptation to go up the bridge personally, but continued to reroute the comm's command protocols in the main computer so they could reconnect with deck one.  Another blast struck the aft shields, shoving her away from her station.  She held on, pulled herself back.  "Still there, Ridge?"

"*Alive and kicking, Cricket!*" he answered.
 

"They're going back for our starboard!"  Maryl said, wiping her brow with her arm and continuing to drive out their SOS.  "Tom, we can't--"

"I know!"  he snapped and turned the Guerdon around yet again.  His fingers were too busy to wipe the sweat from his eyes, so he jerked his head to get rid of what he could.  The heat of the room would only get worse, he knew.  Their secondary coolant systems were lousy.  He didn't want to know what else was going wrong beneath his chair.  Worse, he didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to do that before their pursuer would call their hand and simply blow them straight to hell.  They really seem to be enjoying their work, he smirked to himself.  It might be a while yet..

"They're centering on...  --No!"  Maryl cried out, "Aft! Aft! They're going for the deflector again!"

"Evading again!"

"They're firing!"

Tom drove the Guerdon into an inverse semi-spin, punching off the impulse engine for a moment then restarting at full impulse as he pulled them up.  The shot came out as hit their lower shield bubble, shaking them hard, but otherwise missing.  Behind him, he heard Maryl blow out her breath.  She was tired and more frightened than he'd ever known her to be.  Hell, none of them started here with this in mind.

A crackle and a hiss, and the comm came back up again just as B'Elanna announced another line of power diversions.  She was dumping everything but impulse, life support, the comm and sensors into the shields.  It was all she had left.

"Firing again! --Tom, starboard!"

"Damnit!"  His fingers racketed over his panel, trying to dip them out of the way--or at least take the hit somewhere else that time.  Just a little more...

Suddenly, the Maquis ship flew ahead of them and powered up their rear phaser bank.  Tom's eyes shot open.  "Forward starboard hit!"  he called out.  "Hold on!"

There was no way to avoid it:  The phasers activated just a moment after Tom announced it, tore out of the Maquis ship and seared into their forward starboard hull.  Tom's head hit the back of his chair as a billow of sparks and black smoke thrust itself up from the breach.  Two seconds later, a second explosion popped them up in their seats.

"What the hell what that?!" Maryl screamed.

"Something exploded inside the cargo holds!"  Tom yelled back, his eyes stinging as he tried to see his panel. 

"*Breach on deck three forward, bays eight to eleven, one and the forward cross corridor!*" B'Elanna told them all.  "*Fields are in place, but we're dead if they hit us there again!"

"You think?!"  Tom coughed.  "Savan! Cycle the air, damnit!"

"I attempt to do so now," she said, only loud enough to be heard.

While furiously trying to think of what they could be carrying that would detonate like that, Tom resumed his evasions, if only to give that ship no satisfaction of surrender.  He knew by that point that, for whatever reason he couldn't guess, that ship wanted the crew dead.  They'd take the salvage and dump the dead, just like with Mesler's barge.

"*Shields aren't responding!*" B'Elanna announced.

"Port shields remain at fifteen percent efficiency."

"Just a little more, damnit," Tom whispered as he tried desperately to angle them into another spin.  The starboard shields gone and the aft dragging like an anchor, it was a clumsy roll if anything, but nothing else seemed to bother their attacker.  It hardly did that time.  The Maquis ship simply pulled back and waited for him to complete the move before pushing forward again. 

"*Ridge! I'm shutting down the primary lines! Get ready!*"

"*I'm on it, kid! Go to it!*"

Behind him, Maryl slapped her panel.  "We're half blind! Long-range sensors are gone.  Damnit!"

"*It wasn't anything here!*" B'Elanna yelled as her deck came alive with more alarms.  "*All the systems in front deflector except for inertial dampers and the field deflector in that section's damaged!*"

"I can see that much!"  Maryl shot back.

The air began to clear a little, and Tom saw the explosion had taken out their new lateral sensor grid.  The whole assembly had fried.  Everything teetered but impulse and life support. 

The Maquis ship passed beside them, then held on the Guerdon's starboard, waiting.

Tom blew a breath.  "Glad you're enjoying yourself, asshole," he spat and turned them up and over the Maquis ship.

Maryl choked a breath for want to cry.  "Damn them, they're lining up, again."

"So much for a goodbye."  Tom dove the Guerdon around, letting the Maquis ship follow--as though he had a choice.  "Ridge, take cover--they're right behind us!"

"*Already off the section, Tom!*" came his reply.

"Firing!"

They held on through the hit, grunting at the force and closing their eyes to the next series of klaxons and bellows from below.  B'Elanna was literally throwing systems together even as they failed.

"Firing again!"

Another line of fire whacked them in the port shields again.  "Shields are at ten percent, Tom," Savan grimly informed him.  "We may want to consider surrender at this point."

He blew a breath and continued to turn his ship as much as it would go.  "They'd have hailed us by now if they wanted that, Savan."

"Why the hell do they want us dead?"  Maryl finally demanded.

"Watch your board!"  Tom yelled.

"There's nothing left to see!"

He shot a glare back at her.  Her eyes were red and swollen, for the smoke and grit as much as tears.  They'd lost.  There was nothing left.  They both knew it.  He didn't care.  "Keep your eyes on your board!"

"Why?!"

"Because I'm not giving them the satisfaction if I can help it, Goddamnit!"  he bellowed.

"*Ridge! Take down that power shunt! Now!*"

"*Got it!*"

"Get back on your board!"  Tom repeated, not looking back again as he fishtailed the Guerdon, so the next hit grazed the port.  It was hardly diverted.

"*Hull fracture on deck four!*" B'Elanna told them.  "*Section is sealed! --Tom, we don't have any more--*"

"I know!"  he barked.  "Maryl!"

Shaking her head, cursing him under her breath, Maryl finally gave in and did as he ordered.  Looking down, she squinted at her sooty screen, then coughed...then gasped.  "Tom! Prophets find me! --Look!"

"What?!"

"Look!"  Her tired fingers bounced across her board again.  "I'm...I'm getting it! --There!"

Suddenly in the viewscreen, a familiar form popped out of warp and landed in their bloody field.  The Nebula Class ship rose over them, bluing the bridge with its hull lights.  With crisp efficiency and perfect protocol, they opened up a channel to the players there.

"This the Federation Starship Draden.  Maquis ship, disengage immediately."

Starfleet.

Tom threw his arms on his panel as he slumped forward and emptied his crushed lungs.  Had he any nerve endings left, he'd have cried outright.  Dragging a few long breaths instead, he stared blearily up at the viewscreen again through the smoke and flickering lights.  The Maquis ship had already vacated the area, as though they'd just been passing through.

Three shuttles dropped from the Draden's lower bay.  Then, the starship rose, made some distance and popped to warp.  Its light zeroed out in the black a moment later.

Tom sat and stared for a full minute at the point in space.  His heart and temples thrummed, his hands were numb and his skin was slick with sweat growing cold as the environmental controls rebounded.  For that minute, he couldn't move but to breathe, and barely so.  He didn't hear the alarms still whining or the frenzied buzz over the comm.  Nothing but that welcome view registered.

The lead shuttle's pilot finally broke him away.  "Cargo Freighter Guerdon, are you in need of immediate assistance?"

A derisive laugh died in his throat.  "We're pretty beat up over here," Tom croaked instead, "but we're still breathing."

"Please come to all stop, Guerdon.  We will defend you until the Draden returns."

Glad to comply, he flipped their whining impulse engines off and leaned back in his seat.

Drawing his stare up again as shuttles took their positions, Tom pulled the flask from his pocket and popped the top.  Tipping it up to his mouth, he let the cool, bitter liquid wash into him, and then he breathed into the numb that followed.  Another breath and he drank again, four long swallows.

"I might need some of that, too," Maryl told him, "when I'm done compiling this damage list."

"Just give me the summary when you get it, okay? I know they tore the living hell out of us."  Turning, he saw Nadrev, ashen before his panel, drawing slow but steady breaths.  "You okay, Nadrev?"

The young man jerked a nod.  "Yes.  I just...I've just never been through anything like that before."

"Yeah, me either.  It's okay."  Tom pointed with his chin to the corridor.  "Mind going below and helping B'Elanna?"

"Good idea."  Nadrev made his escape immediately.

Tom wished he could, too.  Listening to the steady stream of orders and prioritizing on the comm, he could tell B'Elanna was still in her element, busy and efficient--able to deal with their situation because she had something to do and now could start working the repairs.  Maryl and Savan were already coordinating with her.  Meanwhile, he had to be the lousy captain and sit on his ass while he waited for an update from the Starfleet shuttles and Maryl's list of doom, soon to come. 

He drank again.

Despite the relief, he doubted he'd be able to handle the stillness much longer, especially after he heard Nadrev arriving in the engine room.  B'Elanna immediately began assigning him repairs and he jumped off to do it.  He needed to get busy--do something with his hands....

Furrowing his brow on that thought, Tom re-ran the events and the passing sounds on the comm through his head--which still worked to digest the last fifteen minutes of his life--before he thought to ask:  "B'Elanna, where's Jerod?"

She silenced, then answered abruptly, "*I don't know.*"

He looked back.  "Savan?"

She abandoned her work immediately to run a scan with what little power was left.  "The internal sensors are badly damaged and there is a great deal of interference in the forward holds," she told them, "but a faint signature had been detected outside A-four-three--the first bilitrium hold."

"*That's not possible,*" B'Elanna argued.  "*We sealed that whole section off before we started out of the nebula.*"

"As I said, there is a great deal of interference."

Tom was already out of his seat.  He nodded at Maryl when he saw her abandon her station as well.  "B'Elanna, we're on our way down.  We'll handle it."

They were off the bridge a second later.  Walking quickly down the main corridor, they shared a few looks, asking, wondering, piecing together the spotty communications.  Coming down to deck two, they passed by B'Elanna without a word, though she looked curiously at them.  Ducking into the storage to seize a tricorder, Tom jogged a few paces to catch up with Maryl, who had already climbed down to deck three.

Descending the access ladder, he puffed a few breaths at the gush of heat.  So that's where the plasma's been venting instead. Tossing his jacket on the rung, he opened the tricorder and followed Maryl into the dim recesses of their main hold facility.

"He'd said he was on his way right before the starboard blast," Maryl told Tom as they came around to the first corridor.  Nodding, he led them toward holds one and two, where Jerod had been securing the atmospheric controls and hatch locks.  They couldn't get but a few meters past hold two.

Tom pointed the tricorder and tapped in several adjustments to compensate for the triple forcefield blocking their way.  He shook his head a moment later.  "Nothing here," he told Maryl.

She nodded and turned around with him.  "Let's see if the cross corridor three is open to hold seven."

He frowned.  "Why would he want to go down there? There's nothing vacuum-sensitive in six and seven."

"I heard him say he was going to when B'Elanna said to forget it."

Tom shrugged and went along with it.  "There are only so many places he can be," he conceded, wiping his face with his hand.

Crossing behind section three, they came forward to the far end of hold four, where that access corridor was blocked entirely.  Their starboard hull had been grievously crushed in that section and forward; a line of the damage and the resulting structural integrity field could be seen even from there.  Securing himself, Tom pointed the tricorder down that way, and then released his breath when nothing was detected.

He nodded and led them through an engine access tunnel to the middle of cross-corridor two, which ended near to where the internal explosion had originated.  The sooty bulkheads boasted lines of dripping condensation at every coolant junction behind the shell.  The chemicals from the explosion and resulting damage stung his eyes and throat as they came closer to it.  A corner light was on at full power, and he blinked a few times at the sudden glare before heading past the bio-holds and back into the dusk.

"Bio-holds--medkit," Maryl blurted as they passed a supply cabinet.  She doubled back to it as Tom went ahead.

"In the first locker," Tom called behind as he started scanning again.  "Triceron signatures everywhere," he breathed, scowling.  "What the hell...?"

Pressing the release, Maryl saw the familiar case.  She'd secured thirty of the basic usage kits at Deep Space Nine the year before.  The price had been nominal, and Tom and Savan both were keen on not having to run to deck one every time they got their fingers caught on a wire.  She hadn't been glad to get them, though, until just then.

Turning with the case in hand, she heard Tom's footsteps moving around the corner to the starboard corridor, sloshing in the condensation that'd apparently streamed down to the deck and had helped baste her in a sticky film of ash and sweat--that on top of what she'd earned on the bridge.  Worst part about it was knowing a shower was likely a long time away yet.  But then she shook her head at herself.  None of it was important until they found Jerod.

Tom's footsteps stopped and she sped herself to catch up.  "I have the kit," she told him as she neared.

"You won't need it."

Maryl stopped, too, when she came around the bend.

A meter away from Tom's shoes was an unmistakable blue tweed cloth--Jerod's coat.  His arm was still inside of it.  The hand at the end was eerily in tact, stiff, reaching and white.  Tom's own hand hung flaccid at his side, nearly as pale as the tricorder that still bleeped and whined at its find.  Two meters before him, the forcefield hummed and crackled, taunting them for all it hid.  The rest of Jerod wasn't anywhere to be seen.  There was no power past the forcefield, and the dim light barely made it that far.  But they both knew in a glance what lie just beyond, in the dark.  Tom was standing in blood.

He didn't look back for a moment, but then slowly turned, breathing in small puffs.

"There's nothing we can do," she told him abruptly.  "Not until the area's secure; then we'll recover him." He bent his head, tried to look away.  "Yeah."

"They'll be contacting us, soon," she added and waved her hand, gesturing him out--getting him out of there.  "I'll take care of it."

He shook his head.  "I should--"

"I'll take care of it," she repeated sharply.  "Go."

She closed her eyes in prayer as his breeze hit her a few seconds later.

A few minutes later, he strode by B'Elanna as well, stiff-jawed and with as many words.  He eyes shot up from the deck as he passed, holding hers in a heavy glare for a moment before he broke it to jump up the access stairway.  He disappeared on deck one seconds later.

B'Elanna felt the blood drain from her face.  Standing in the middle of her wrecked engine room with fifty systems bleeping for attention, she froze to know what he meant--everything he meant in his look.  Seeing Maryl's tears when she likewise emerged from the starboard ladder to find her husband, B'Elanna was certain of it.  Jerod hadn't gotten out of the holds in time.  Jerod was dead.

She looked out at Maryl again.

The Bajoran didn't bother looking her way when she ducked to move back to deflector control.  She needed Ridge, wasn't going to cry for anyone but him.  B'Elanna decided to give them a few minutes and cut off the comm.  They deserved it, she supposed.  They'd known Jerod a lot longer than she had, had started him out there, had taught him and helped him grow into a fine and confident technician...who was now gone.

Gnashing her teeth, B'Elanna turned back to her station and continued trying to get their power conduits realigned.

She could go it alone.  She'd done it before.

Her shoulders fell as she closed her eyes.  She took a breath, straightened, opened her eyes and got back to work.
 

---

 

"I knew you got hit hard, but...Oh damn, I'm so sorry."

No response met Dejin's sympathy, nor did she expect any, for what she saw in the lounge over subspace.  Exhausted, dirty and hard-eyed, the six there were an opposite picture to the last time she'd seen them.  All the optimism that followed their first trip to Andal had vanished, leaving behind a crew as battered as the ship had been.  They all flinched a little at her apology, too.  Likely, they had spent the past several days pushing themselves in part so they could set their friend's death in the back of their mind.  Now, sitting at mostly separate tables not eating their rations in the darkened lounge, they had welcomed the seeming numbness in their fatigue, or perhaps resignation.

"Have you contacted his family yet?"  Dejin continued.

"I sent a subspace message yesterday," Tom answered.  He'd brought an extra glass to the table out of habit.  He pushed it around in small circles with his index finger.  "He left no directions.  Guess he thought it'd be safer here."

Dejin dropped it at that.  "Look, I contacted you because the Ligarans are cutting their losses.  The investors are pulling out and they're packing up.  It's too hot and the timing's all wrong, not to mention they've lost four shipments already.  I have your payment for this leg--this shipment gives them enough power to dismantle and get home.  But the contract's null and void upon payment."

"And I was so ready to pummel you for it," Maryl smirked.  It came and went unfelt.

"Have you anything lined up?"  Dejin asked her.

"Actually, I've already contacted Ygrad," Maryl told her.  "We'll get back on our regular route starting at Hidirin."

"You've confirmed it?"

"This morning, yes.  I just sent back the contract.  They were glad to get us back sooner."

The Betazoid blinked her approval.  "They should be.  Things are already getting rough along the border," she explained.  "The Maquis are starting to gain a lot of sympathy--and business."

"Not on this ship," B'Elanna interjected, finally pulling her glare off the table.  "Or there'd better not be.  We're just trying to do a job and they picked off almost every one of our systems like it was a game, then beamed a bomb on our ship to finish us off."  Stopping as soon as she started, she looked away again, obviously having said more than she'd wanted.

Dejin's eyes widened instantly at the admission, however.  "A bomb?"

Ridge nodded.  "They got it through our shields during some part of the chase and detonated it before they broke off.  There were triceron signatures all over deck three starboard."

"Which makes no sense," Maryl joined.  "If they're after the cargo, why try to take out our holds? And if they're not after the cargo, then why bother at all?"

"What I want to know," B'Elanna added, "is how they got triceron out here and managed to work with it."

"None of that really matters now," Tom said, "does it?"

The engineer's lips pressed together again as she pushed herself back in her seat.

"What is your ETA, Tom?"  Dejin asked, keen to get back to business. "B'Elanna pulled out the rubber bands and got us going again," Tom said.  "If nothing else blows, we'll be there in four days."  He'd meant the nod to B'Elanna as an apology for his remark, but when he glanced over, her stare was still nailed to some point on the floor.  He shrugged to himself.  He didn't have time for that.

"You'll be pegged in for a while?"

"At least a week if we get everything we need there.  Can you arrange for a gross drydock?"  Tom asked.

"As soon as I close this channel," she assured him. 
 

---

 

Starships are made to live and die in space.

Many are built within giant pylons in the clean and weightless vacuum in planetary orbit.  They are repaired in space, often while still moving, and they are decommissioned--or in unfortunate cases, destroyed--in the same vacuum.  Even when a ship regularly flies into planetary stations, there is a great relief to be back out among the stars again after that stop.  Despite the regularity of passage through them to planetary bases, atmospheres are wisely considered unsafe.

The oncoming entrapment of gross drydock feels far worse.  After plunging through the atmospheric window as best it can, the damaged ship must fly--or be flown--into a massive hangar.  For safety, security and gravimetric purposes, it is usually located on one of the planet's poles.  The weather coming in is often extreme, making the crawl downwards a noisy, if not unsteady, experience.  An encompassing shell surrounds the ship as it lowers, ever so gradually, into the docking clamps. 

Once there, the hangar forcefield zaps on above, and the lateral clamping assembly is extended around the hull like tendrils, automatically making connections at selected power junctions.  The suctioning sounds echo through the access tubes, one after another, until the docking unit finally shunts with the main computer access port.  The crew is silent as they wait for that final insult to be done with, tenser still as the metallic hum rises from the guts of the ship to the bridge, then finally locks on topside.

Tom closed his eyes at the final clang, then pushed himself to stand.

He didn't speak as he left the bridge for the deck four hatch.  But then, no one else was talking much lately, except when they needed to.  This suited him just fine.  Besides, they all knew what he had to go do and that he would do it as efficiently as possible.  The dock was also expensive.

With a sigh through her teeth, Maryl finished the last of her license transmittals and moved to follow, leaving Savan to coordinate with the engine room.  The Vulcan barely glanced as each of them exited.  Several minutes later, seeing the repair approvals begin to scroll up on her screen, she opened the comm to engineering.

"I am able to accept the new sequences when you are prepared," she told B'Elanna.

"*I'm not nearly ready yet!*" the engineer responded, following her outburst with a heavy clash.  "*Nadrev, get me the spectrometer.  Yes, that one! --Savan, I told you it wouldn't happen before fifteen hundred.  I'm just opening up the starboard field generator and it looks like someone dragged the whole grid through acidic sludge, so I'm not ready to start anything else.*"

"I have not forgotten your priorities.  I simply wanted you to know you may begin at your convenience.  I will continue with the deck three venting as our cargo is unloaded."

A pause, then, "*Thanks.*"

The comm was cut immediately afterwards.  Savan did not mourn the silence, considering the opposite.  Instead, she began to run through the procedure to transfer their cargo to Dejin, who was ready and waiting to take it.  She did not open a channel to the Casiat, however.  Indeed, she too was not anxious to speak with people.  The quietude had provided her with time to settle her own well-tended Vulcan nerves.
 

---

 

You wanted that speed run, you craved the challenge and got it.  Had you been in a better ship, you'd have probably cracked a goddamned joke while they were blowing us to hell.

Tom stood with his arms crossed, watching the latest load of bulkhead flats materialize in the back bay.  Like ants on chunks of watermelon, three groups of Andalan workers activated the anti-grav dollies and set off for the forward sections.

"Another fifteen bars, right there," he mumbled as they disappeared into the corridor.  They were set to repair the demolished bulkheads around holds four, five and six...where the rest of Jerod was found.

He hadn't been there.  Savan, as science technician and the ship's medic, had insisted on the duty.  Pressing her for details to save his excellent imagination, he soon learned that Jerod had not been killed in the initial starboard hit, but when the bomb detonated inside the forward hold five, near the end of the attack.  There were no remains for suitable viewing, she added quietly, but they were indeed contaminated with triceron and should not be kept long on the ship.

He'd heard enough at that.

Maybe I should start a kill list, Tom mused sardonically as the workers disappeared.  Eventually, I'm sure I'll lose count, otherwise. But he shook his head in the same sigh.  He knew damn well he hadn't killed Jerod.  He wondered why he always went there, anyway.

Because you're the captain, he answered himself, grinding his teeth as he spun away for the rear lift.  There was no use staying down there and watching the ship's pot fly out of the hatch.  Ridge would be calling him soon enough to help him with the isolinear bundle replacements.  His chair topside was probably full of PADDs, too.  Maryl had been her usual efficient self about getting their paperwork cycled as quickly as they could requisition supplies.

The response from the Jerod family was properly discomforting.  Text only and in carefully controlled sentences, they thanked Captain Paris for his efforts and his friendship with their son, who had spoken often and well of him.  They were sorry, too.  They had no spiritual requirements for burial, so the Guerdon's crew could do as they saw fit with Jerod's remains.  They added that the remaining family, in light of recent events, had finally decided to vacate Umoth and relocate to Varessi, an inner Federation colony where some cousins had moved the year before.

So it took him getting killed by the very people you swore were protecting you to do what he'd been asking you to do all along. He deleted the message with two clicks and told Savan to prepare a capsule.

Tom polished off what was left in his flask by the time he climbed into the middle of deflector control.  The assembly sat in pieces around the deck, waiting on replacement parts being sent from Megra.  Ridge must have been up all night, cleaning the components and reorganizing the pieces.  The corrosion and blast soot was gone, leaving the duranium slightly blackened but otherwise ready.  Just the day before, Tom had needed to sign off on a biohazard transport from the same section.

Ridge had been the only one to say anything at the funeral.  No one else was up to so much.  They weren't a Starfleet ship--they weren't even a Federation tradeship--so there wasn't really a set procedure in place.  They had to get rid of the remains, but felt they should at least show a little respect for their friend.  They were hardly poetic, though, and they showed even less emotion.  Not that anyone expected much.  They were, after all, just a freighter crew who knew they should say something, but couldn't collect words worth the air they used.  They all seemed to figure their own thoughts were good enough.  So instead, they stood around the small capsule in a long, awkward silence before Ridge muttered to himself a little, then spoke.

"We'll miss you, buddy," he managed, shrugging as he tried for more.  "I'll miss you.  You're...you were a great guy and, well, you're gone too soon.  Sorry."

He put his arm around his wife when her hand rubbed his back.

Collecting a breath, Tom peered around for anyone else's offering and, not seeing one, walked over to the release button.  Pressing it, the outloader creaked and cranked its small burden into place, aligned, then spit the capsule through the forcefield and into empty space.

He left the bay the moment the porthole slid shut.

A week later, Tom strode down the deck one corridor to the bridge.  It was empty, but he knew where everyone was.  Pushing the PADDs on his chair off to the console table, he sat and released a breath through his nostrils.  Then he stopped. 

What the hell am I doing? Why am I bothering to make any of this work?

That time, he had no answer for himself.

He had a pile of work to get done before heading off to help with repairs, he hadn't eaten all day and his to-do list wasn't getting shorter any time soon.

Why do I think anything's going to change?

He sat and stared at the black viewscreen for nearly a minute before shaking himself out of his pause.  Even if he had a single answer for the uselessness his life had become, it wouldn't make any difference if he couldn't find someone stupid enough to replace him.  On that route as it'd become in the past months, even fools were in short supply.  And now a registered Maquis target, Tom knew better than to torture himself with impossibilities...though he knew he would, anyway.

Reaching over, he picked up the PADD nearest to him and settled himself into his work.  Immediately, he snorted.  He'd started on a positive note:  A thirty strip credit for an overcharge on isolinear chips was the first thing for him to sign off on.

His lips turned down when he pressed his thumb to the ID field.  It could only go downhill from there.  Not a minute later, his assurance was confirmed.

"I have the list for sign off."

Tom glanced back and found his engineer in the jamb of the entryway, her angular features hard in the light above her, her mouth and dark eyes shadowed.  "I can take them now."  He held out his hand when she came down.  "They start on the hull plating?"

"Just a few minutes ago," she confirmed.

"Thought that's what I heard."  Wrapping his fingers around the PADD when it met his hand, he quietly pulled it in, clicked it on and let his eyes fall over the list.  He could feel the engineer's eyes drilling into him as he clicked for detail on one, checked off another.  Her arms crossed and she began to breathe slowly through her nostrils, an obvious attempt at patience.

Tom didn't care.  The list was everything he dreaded--and more they couldn't afford--so he took his time picking through it.  It made Maryl's initial list look cheerful.  Starfleet had helped where they could, of course, but they couldn't replicate but the basic parts or refit what they had in stock to fit the Guerdon's various specifications.  They did enough to help B'Elanna get them moving to Andal.  It was still a lot, considering.

Looking at the primary items again, he shuffled them to the top and marked off one.  "We can't afford the initiators this time out," he told her.  "They'll have to wait."

"They can't wait," B'Elanna responded.  "They're fried."

"They got us here," Tom noted.  "What happened between drydock and now?"

"We were literally holding them together with glue.  Once we shut down the engines, they cracked through the plating."

"The Draden's engineer didn't offer to repair them?"

"It's not something they could replicate--and even if they could, the shafts didn't crack until after the Draden was gone."

"You'll have to paste them together again.  When we get some funds in the ship's pot again, we'll be able to deal for them." Blowing a breath, B'Elanna took a step closer.  "You're not hearing me.  The initiators are dead.  We need new ones."

Tom looked at the PADD again.  "I've just dumped the entire pot into our hull, deflector and starboard nacelle.  This list takes us over my earnings.  The Andalans don't work with credit.  We're flying to Hidirin on an empty purse.  What else can we give up on this list?"

"This isn't the wish list," she replied.  "We need everything here if we're getting to Hidirin at all."

He shook his head, still not looking at her.  In the corner of his eye, her frown and forward stance said enough.  He didn't feel like dealing with that.  "Really, B'Elanna, you'll have to patch them for now.  It doesn't have to be pretty.  Just enough to get us going."

"It can't be done."

"You did it before."

"We were lucky," she insisted.  "The stresses on the engines nearly blew out the whole warp assembly as it is."

"Amongst a few other blows."  He scrolled down the list again.  "If you think we need them that much--"

"I don't 'think'--I know they're not coming back online."

"And I know we can't afford a new set until we have some fresh funds in the pot.  Make your own deal for them and we'll work out the difference later."

"I can't throw this together like a flight plan," she instantly snapped back.  "We're not going anywhere without a full replacement."

Finally, she gained his full attention.  He peered up at her askance.  "Excuse me?"

"I said we can't go any--"

"Flight plan?"

She tilted her head.  She had nothing to retract.  "Those initiators wouldn't have burned out without the stress you put on them pulling those Academy tricks."

His eyes narrowed.  "As I recall, I was trying to get a fully armed Maquis ship off our backs."

"And you did a great job," she returned flatly.

"If you have a problem with how I fly this ship," he retorted, "I'll be happy to let you have the chair.  I'll call the Maquis and you can shake them next time."

"I don't want your seat!"

"Then what do you want?"

"This list fulfilled."

"I can't afford it right now.  Patch the initiators until we get to Minjau."

"I told you, I can't!"

"Be creative."

B'Elanna snorted.  "I think we've had enough creativity on this ship."

"On that, I'd have to agree," Tom rejoined.  "What the hell was he doing there when he was supposed to be back with Ridge working in deflector control?"

"I comm'd him three times!"

"And still couldn't keep your team in check! He'd been here long before you.  It's not like he didn't know his way around."

"I knew what I was doing--and so did he! He was on the way back but obviously stopped to resecure the last forward holds.  It's not my fault he didn't listen!"

"And it's not my fault the Maquis were somehow able to beam a bomb through our shields and blow our hull to hell both ways.  But I'm starting to regret I got us out of there alive."

"Not all of us." 

Tom drew a breath, leaving a hard silence on the bridge for several seconds as they held each other's glare.  The hammering starboard resumed, its tinny echo bouncing around them like a gnat.  He held out the PADD, waiting patiently for her to take it and back off a step.  Finally, she did.

"Let's get something straight," he said, forcing a measure of calm into his tone.  "I'm not your emotional trash can.  You need to get it out? Go stationside and get laid or beat someone up--or whatever the hell you do to cool off.  Don't ever bring it up here again.  You buy the initiators with your own share and I'll pay you back.  You have Savan write that up, I'll sign it.  Outside of that, do your job.  Get off what's left of my bridge and crawl back into your hole so I can start counting the days until your contract's up."

B'Elanna held his glare without blinking for several more seconds before finally pivoting on a heel and striding out to the corridor.  Turning at the arch, she shouldered past Maryl with a growl.  Soon after, a smack against a bulkhead echoed on the bleeping bridge.  Tom's mouth tightened in his steady frown.

"What was that all about?"  Maryl asked as she moved to her console.

"The reincarnation of Livich," Tom muttered and pushed himself to stand.  "Give me a yell when Kokrit bothers to patch in.  I need a break."

"Go," said the Bajoran immediately, not wanting a piece of it.  She tapped in a message to her husband to make sure he didn't take one, either.
 

---

 

Savan reached up into the cabinet and extracted one vial from a set she'd begun to store more conveniently.  Loading it calmly into the hypospray, she turned, checked that the level was set to full, then set the nozzle against the young captain's neck.  Pressing the release, she patiently waited for the drugs to take effect.  Eventually, it did:  He breathed then gagged a little on his bile.  Turning his head to the side, he unconsciously spit the offending mucus onto his shoulder and reached up groggily to wipe his mouth.

From this, Savan tactfully looked away and waited until Tom had rolled completely over to face her again.  His appearance was no more pleasing than two hours ago, however.  His bloodshot eyes were shadowed heavily against his pale skin; his mouth was slightly flaccid.  He was rumpled from being out binging in clothes he'd worn since the day before.  As for his particular odor, Savan had already rubbed a numbing agent in her nose after Ridge had transported him to her lab.

She opened her tricorder to confirm his recovery.  She frowned at what she saw and diverted her stare to meet his.  "I think it is time for me to lecture you, Tom," she started.

He groaned as he pushed himself to sit.  "Look, I appreciate what you do, but--"

"You will appreciate far less when you are permanently debilitated by your addiction."

"Can't I have my vice and eat it, too?"  he complained, trying to divert her even while he knew its futility.

"You have a number of vices less detrimental to your health."  She set down the tricorder.  "Your liver is not responding to my treatments as readily as in the past, and your episodes are increasing in frequency."

He watched her steady gaze for a moment longer, then nodded.  "I'll go to the clinic on Minjau," he promised as he slid off the bed.

"You require a specialist in Human medicine."

"I'll run it by them.  --Where's my coat?"

"On the table," she replied, pointing.

"Okay.  Thanks."  Collecting his coat over an arm and stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets, he started out.

"We will require a final sign-off before they begin the final plating installation," Savan said, stopping him.  "Where may I find you, Tom?"

"The comm's still down?"

"Yes," Savan answered, her eyes following him as she added, "B'Elanna will have that cluster up again when she completes the initiator installation.  This will not be until tomorrow."

Tom nodded, frowning at the reminder.  He knew he'd come down on his engineer like a load of bricks.  His engineer definitely knew how to cut, but pissed off was he was, he knew she'd been venting, needed to as much as he had.  Still, she did exactly as he'd suggested:  She bought the initiators herself, had Savan write up a debit to the ship's share, and he hadn't seen her since.  It should have been more comforting than it was. 

"Yeah, okay.  Deck two aft."

Savan let him go that time.
 

---

 

On either side of the Guerdon sat a pill-shaped nacelle, which, through the power created in the warp coils, generate the fields necessary to go to warp.  Within those coils, twelve plasma injectors sat at the end of the power transfer conduits, which extended from the plasma flow initiators.  These were located at the hub between the conduits and the warp drive.  The configuration was outdated, but the process was the same:  The initiators got the plasma from the drive to the conduits.  They were loud and clumsy, but when they were working, they did what that freighter needed:  Generated bursts of power at the right levels to get the ship going.

When they weren't working, nothing moved.

B'Elanna personally whacked the lid off the first ringset.  The initiators sat clean and shining black in the casing, ready for installation.  The engineer only felt angrier to see them.  For all her insult, she went out and bought the sets with, indeed, her own share from the Ligaran deal--and without Maryl's assistance.  Rather, B'Elanna didn't want to deal with anybody at that point.  She paid the price for it, too.  Learning that she needed them, the supplier charged her exactly what he'd initially quoted.  Three quarters of her earnings disappeared in a case with the supplier attached not an hour later.

Damn right, I'll get paid back, she growled to herself as she grabbed her tools and slipped through an access hatch to the ladder that ended on the warp core catwalk above deck three.  The casing between the engine and the primary EPS had been disassembled the night before, thanks to Ridge.  The initiators themselves were not too bulky, so she told him to keep going on with the deflector, then get some rest.  She could handle that unit alone.

She distinctly remembered the look of concern he gave her before nodding and leaving.  He wanted to say something, but didn't...like everyone else.  No one was touching the issue.

The worst of it is knowing everything I installed to prepare for this deal got smashed, she finally admitted.  She could handle stress without her pulse speeding a few beats, but discouragement blackened her mood without fail.

Activating her demagnitizer, B'Elanna started taking down the outer control rods they had drop-welded to keep together on their trip to Andal.  They and the plates they were connected to came easily apart, clanging on the grate beside her boots.  She sighed at what lay behind, rings half-rotted away and dripping with plasma residue.  Pulling on a pair of protective gloves, she peered in to see if the notch housings were still in tact.  They weren't.  Instead, a series of laser scars marked where the rings had been re-ground and reset five times at least.  Jerod's "queen of patch and go," echoed in her memory.

It'd been a full breakdown waiting to happen.  Moreover, she'd had that assembly on her replacement list before the Ligaran deal even came up.  Their ultimate failure wasn't Tom's fault.  He did stress out the power distributors and nearly cracked their impulse driver coils with the jump-and-go and ducking tricks, but in the end, nothing he did caused any real problems.

She knew that, too, and attacked him, anyway.  For his part, he'd seen through her all too readily:  She'd used him as an outlet and she got just what she wanted when he railed back at her with equal force.  Now he wanted her gone. 

You just can't have a good thing and keep it that way, can you?

She still couldn't bring herself to apologize, however.  The captain simply hadn't listened to her--refused to hear what she was saying.  He just stared at the PADD like some officiating asshole shrugging her off because he could...  But then, he'd given her the opportunity to take over the engine room in her own way and made time for her when she requested it; he'd made sure she had what she needed to improve his ship when he could get it.  She should have backed off.  She shouldn't have blamed him.  She shouldn't have secured an escape route when she didn't want one.

Not that that matters now, she snorted bitterly.

Just as she finished shaking her head at herself, the usual long tunic suit of the science technician appeared in her peripheral vision, approaching from the other catwalk access ladder.  B'Elanna groaned to herself.  As if her mood wasn't bad enough, she wasn't at all up for a visit.  If she sent any such signals out, however, Savan did not pick them up.  Instead, she drew near and stood next to the engineer, who studiously made herself careful in extracting the next chunk of wasted duranium.  The Vulcan waited without so much as a breath.  The woman knew her target was aware of her presence.

Finally, B'Elanna pulled her head out of the initiator core and looked up.  "Yes?"

Savan wasted no time.  "You have been favoring your left leg again."

"I banged it a couple times," she explained and shook her head.  "It's nothing serious.  Just a bruise."

"May I treat it while I have the time? I am en route to the bio-holds and have the equipment I need.  This will not take long."

"You don't have to bother."

Savan kneeled beside her, then.  "Please let me treat your injury, B'Elanna, before it is exacerbated.  Your activity will not improve it."

Considering the other woman's steady gaze again, B'Elanna finally turned and offered her leg.  Dipping her head a little, she offered a shrug of apology and said, "Thanks."

Savan set herself to work.  A minute passed as she examined the renewed injury and activated the regenerator to heal it.  With great care, she waved the wand over the engineer's knee, letting the beams' hum fill the area for a full minute before she spoke again.  "I did not recommend you to be hired," she stated quietly, almost gently.

B'Elanna grinned despite herself, remembering.  "I didn't think you had."

Another minute passed as the hums echoed around them and over her leg again.

"It is at times good to be wrong," Savan finally finished, taking up the tricorder again to see the result.  She nodded at it.  Then, the women's eyes met, one patiently searching, the other coming to understand.  Satisfied with what she saw, the Vulcan blinked.  "I am done."

The engineer got up and shook out the remaining sensation from the regeneration beam.  "It feels better," she told her.

Savan bowed her head.  "Good."

With that, she left. 
 

---

 

She stretched her arms wide as she finally left her main station and started forward towards the crew quarters.  She had another hour before Ridge would hunt her down for the final waste dump sign off.  She could use a shower--and now that the ODN was doing what it was supposed to again, she could do so without worrying about a malfunction elsewhere--for the most part, anyway.  She was more than due for a break, in any case.

A ping aft made her turn before she got to the forward entry, however.  Though it was late and she was looking forward to getting clean, she knew better than to ignore any noise on the Guerdon, especially lately.

She and Nadrev had finally patched the comm together again--a little later than she had projected, but no one could have predicted the internal sensors would go down, either.  Still, it was fixed, and the initiators were tucked neatly into their new housings and responding to her diagnostics just as she would like.  The warp drive was unsteady, but operating well enough to check out for their run.  The shields would handle the usual stresses.  She would have time between there and Hidirin to keep working on those.

Continuing to follow the irregular pings and scrapes down the starboard corridor, then coming around to the supply section, she finally recognized the sounds:  Tools on the deck.  Quietly turning into the aft corridor, she continued through to the lit scrap room and stopped at the entry.

He was sitting at the other end, with his back to the entrance and a half-emptied flask at his knee.  An empty bottle had already rolled away to the nearby wall.  Bending over a control grid, he inserted new isolinear strands, tapped the unit to life, then shut it down and set it aside.  Then he picked up another one.  One by one, set by set, he rewired the small grids, tested them and stacked them up on his other side.  She could barely see him breathing. 

Before him sat the hull of a small, half-charred shuttle.  The room was full of neatly organized pieces.  She could tell in but a glance that the disassembly had been Jerod's work. 

She'd almost forgotten about Jerod's junk pile.

The pings and beeps and hisses of connections finding homes echoed softly in her ears.  He worked with an easy hand, but his process was mechanical.

Staring at the scene for a few minutes as he finished the stack, she turned and walked away.

     

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Main Page | Part VI

(c) D'Alaire M, 2007