Title: Guerdon.
Part: X. Paybacks are Hell. One or two will do.
Author: D'Alaire M.
X. Paybacks are Hell
Though they had all the stats on the Liberty and had transported there for the Sygra mission, it still seemed larger onscreen. Considering how they'd known the Liberty, Tom wasn't surprised.
"This way," said the man who'd met them. Dressed to work hard, a little dirty, too, he was otherwise relaxed when he gestured to the corridor with a throw of his hand.
The spare, rust-colored cruiser was in fact barely larger than the Guerdon, only angled for maneuverability and sectioned out for wholly different purposes. Deck three boasted thin, dark corridors heading directly from the cubicle transporter room to main engineering, then navigation. The shuttle bay, situated forward, would fit only about two vehicles, three with a squeeze, and doubled as an open stock room. From there, they were taken directly to deck one. Bunk-style quarters aft housed its crew of forty or so; a meeting room and crew mess sat in the middle.
Their guide gestured forward as they passed the mess. "The bridge is that way," he said, not slowing. "Don't go there."
All along their trip through the ship en route to the "guest" quarters, B'Elanna curiously peered into every open section. Her eyes grew wide to wonder how in the world that old cruiser was still running, much less taking out innocent trade ships.
The Guerdon was not much younger, really, but the Liberty plainly was missing someone who knew what they were doing, not to mention several upgrades. The gurgling sounds from the open conduits above spoke of a pulse-generated power matrix linked into the main ODN--an incredibly inefficient configuration that hardly lasted five years in production before they ditched the design. It was solidly built, she could easily see, but the sections, so totally blocked off from one another, could not have been easy to coordinate, either. The comm system worked, though, buzzing with a steady stream of commands and suggestions and updates every few seconds for the whole trip from the transport room.
The comm systems always work in places like these, she smirked.
It all made B'Elanna appreciate the Guerdon in ways she never had before--and uneasy in ways she never wanted to repeat. Yeah, jumping into this mess was just what you needed to do, she told herself again as she caught the hard but curious eyes of the crewpeople they passed. Only a couple didn't divert their attention to her forehead. She could guess what they thought and suppressed the wave of indignation and nervousness that always met the feeling of being on display.
"You'll share this bunkroom," said their escort, who had to punch the panel a few times before the door shimmied open. "Chakotay wants to see you in the science lab when he's done inspecting some repairs. He'll call you down."
"Thanks," Tom said, stepping inside the small, cube-shaped room. "So this is what prison's like," he remarked, setting his duffel bag on the small bench by the door as soon as the door slid shut. To the right, a bunk bed nearly filled the entire side of the room. Not expecting much more, he confirmed with a glance into another door that showers on the ship were shared, too. There was only a wall latrine in there.
For her part, B'Elanna used what little space was open to pace from one corner to the other, dropping her bag on the bottom bunk on the way back. "So we're supposed to just stay here until they're ready to shoot us off in that shuttle?" she asked, pivoting for another trip across the space.
"Oh, I'm sure they'll try to use us in the mean time."
"I'm not doing anything but what we were contracted to do," she told him.
"That's fine, but don't be shocked if I have to. We're in their territory now, and I really need this to go off on a relatively even keel."
She snorted. "If you're able to--"
"No, I have to," he cut in. "And you should try too, because there's no going back now until it's done to their satisfaction. We should just try to relax and --"
"Look, you might want to make this into a positive experience," she snapped, "but all I want is to get off of this rig and back to my engine room."
"You're the one who volunteered to help," he pointed out.
"That doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy our little stay."
"Who the hell said anything about enjoying ourselves?" Tom demanded, meeting her glare as the words rose in him. "You think I enjoy being jerked around? I'm here to save our asses. That's it--and that's the only thing that makes any of this bearable, making sure what happened to Jerod doesn't happen again." Hearing the man's name made B'Elanna blink and rear back. Tom sighed and nodded to acknowledge her reaction. Saying their friend's name did nothing to comfort him, either. "Look, when we first met, I might not have been much of a captain--even less so for all my trying not to be one."
She shrugged. "I never saw you as anything less."
"I didn't feel it, B'Elanna--I didn't want to feel it, along with much of anything else. But I do now, and I want to be good at what I can in this. Part of that means that I am not losing another member of my crew like that. Not if I can prevent it. I can't handle it happening like that again. So I come here, drag you along, do what they tell me and see that we survive. It's a small price to pay, but don't ever think I don't hate every goddamned minute of it."
"Fine," B'Elanna conceded, "and I see your point, about getting along and all. But don't ask me to relax, okay?"
Tom breathed a little laugh, needing it more than he felt it. "Fair enough," he said, gazing thoughtfully at her. "Guess that was wrong of me."
Several seconds after he stopped talking, his eyes remained on her. Feeling the annoying urge to shirk him off for having had enough attention already that day, she raised her chin and asked, "What?"
His shook his head, turning to grab his bag. "Nothing. Sorry, I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"How you'd like to beat me into a blob with a pulse ratchet for being glad you volunteered to help. In spite of what we've gotten you into, I'm glad you came."
"You're right," she replied. "I would like to pummel you right now."
He snorted and snatched up his bag. "Get in line."
"The central relay needs to be on this side, so it can be hooked directly in to the geothermal generator," said the Liberty's second in command proudly. Arrow straight with a stare sharp enough to short circuit a Vulcan, the thirty-something Bajoran had barely managed to hold her tongue when the Guerdon's captain was formally introduced, but was more than happy to give the Guerdon's engineer a tour of the planned installation. "Everything will be working off the core--there--with backups in these sections."
"Make sense," B'Elanna replied, continuing to read the needed output levels. In itself, the generator, though working, might not be the easiest to handle in the way of stable output frequencies. She had fought with more than a few of those at Cabol-Five.
"It's our best attempt yet to centralize our sects operations," Seska continued, once again eyeing the half-Klingon beside her, then glancing down to the other end of the lab, where Chakotay and Paris stood in their own conversation. "It's a shame you won't see how it'll really work in the end."
B'Elanna said nothing, but moved a little so the other woman wasn't so close to her shoulder.
Meanwhile, Chakotay watched Tom study the planetary readouts. The younger man had been as serious as ever, though it was interesting to see his new resolve in person. Gone was the purposeful casualness that he had first seen in Paris; he didn't try to lighten the load with talk, but got straight to business and kept an eye on Torres--for good reason, Chakotay knew. But he also didn't try to fool himself. He knew neither the trader nor his mechanic wanted to be there, despite their diligence.
They both were worth the effort, however. Just having them there to do that install on the secret base was a great help. Chakotay could push up their settlement date by a few weeks along with their weapons shipment. They were sorely in need of both rest and defenses. The Cardassians had been stepping up their attacks, and Starfleet was beginning to make some decisive moves. Chakotay knew from experience that they were only testing the waters and setting out plants for information. The Maquis would need to step it up to counter their next move effectively.
"Maybe you're wondering why we're going through all this trouble when we could shift our base at any time," Chakotay said, breaking the long silence.
"Honestly, I don't care," Tom returned, then added, "It's not my business how you manage your whereabouts--and frankly, I'm better off not knowing."
Seska, passing nearby to pick up a PADD for B'Elanna to take with her, rolled her eyes when he heard the comment. "What a sensible and correct answer, Paris."
"I only aim to please," Tom replied sourly and looked at Chakotay again. "When can I have a look at the shuttle?"
"As soon as we pick it up," Chakotay answered and set himself off toward another section. "I'll try to get an ETA for that rendezvous."
Tom nodded, pulling up another row of numbers--recorded plasma activity patterns in that area of the Badlands. Not that there was any real pattern, but there were indicators that could warn a ship that they were about to be speared with lightning. Tom made a point to memorize the data. He was not anxious to put himself and B'Elanna in the way of those things--and that was only part of his concern.
"How common is it for the Cardassians to cross the Badlands right now?" he asked, but Chakotay was already out of the room.
"They don't cross it," Seska told him condescendingly. "They'd much rather waste time than a ship. If they sense any warp activity, they'll cross around the distal arm, then go in where they think they'll find a Maquis ship." She grinned. "But we're taking care of that problem, too."
"You're a regular brigade of efficiency," Tom smirked.
"We're getting there," Seska replied. Her eyes narrowed. "And you'd better be when you're on that planet. If I have to follow up on any shoddy work, you better believe I'll find you."
"Yeah, I know you people are capable of that much."
"What is your problem?" Seska demanded. "It's not our fault we have to defend our colonies from those monsters--and now from the Federation, too, for siding with them. If you could see --"
"I've seen plenty," Tom interjected.
"I think you refuse to look hard enough," the Bajoran responded. "The reason we had to bring you on board for this is because the people who set up what we have were killed, just for trying to get back to Bajor. They didn't even have a phaser on the ship. If you had any heart, you'd be with us all the way, instead of putting along the border in that supply scow.... Or maybe you really aren't worth any more than that, and I'm wasting my breath."
"Actually, you are," Tom drawled. "You can stop breathing any time now."
Her response was silence, though her stare boasted far more, even as she turned it away from him.
"Sixteen hours," Chakotay said, coming back into the room. Nodding to Seska, smiling briefly when she touched his arm in passing, he returned to his place beside Tom. "It's a Ligaran scout shuttle, converted to Federation standard. Its warp drive needs a little work, but I'm told it's probably a dilithium problem. I have some here--though you won't need to be at warp long."
Tom nodded. "We'll have a look at it, if you need."
"I was hoping you would. We're still stretched pretty thin here."
Tom shrugged. "It's me and Torres I'm looking after, too."
"You mind looking at the specs?" Chakotay asked. "I have them out here."
"Give me a second," Tom said and finished closing out his diagnostics. The computer was damnably slow. He forgot how frustrating that could be. It probably explained half of why the Maquis were in bad moods.
As he thumped his boot against the console base, B'Elanna managed to finish uploading her own data to the PADD Seska brought. She only frowned as she checked the indices, though. She couldn't scoot any further away from the woman without going through the bulkhead.
"Do you want something?" B'Elanna finally asked, looking at her.
"I was thinking," Seska offered, "before the shuttle comes, if you get bored, you might be able to lend me a hand."
"You think?"
"Well, when I'm not up here with Chakotay, I run the engine room."
B'Elanna thought better of expressing her condolences. "And?"
"Maybe you and I can talk sometime. I've been having trouble with the intermix ratio on this old cruiser. I'm willing to bet another set of eyes on the problem is all I need."
Tom snorted. "God," he breathed and stepped out to the outer terminals.
Seska's narrowed stare followed him. "Is he always like that?"
"Only when he doesn't like someone," B'Elanna replied, then faced the other woman. "Look, I have my own job to do. If you need a new reaction protocol, you have to tinker with it in your own time. If you're an engineer, you'll already know that it has nothing to do with the specs and it takes a lot more time than I plan on having with you people."
"It's too bad you feel like that," Seska said, trying again. "We really need people like you, Torres. It's been a hard fight, harder still without people who know what they're doing with an engine."
B'Elanna stared at her. "That's also not my problem," she stated. "We're here because your captain asked us to do a job for you, our payment being protection. All we want to do is finish the work we were contracted to do and get back to our ship."
Seska's mouth pursed. "You don't do exactly as my captain tells you," she warned, "you'll be lucky if you have a ship to go back to."
"Just what the day needed," Tom said, moving in again, "another round of threats and intimidation from someone who's not actually in charge." Peering over to the man who had followed him, he smirked. "That's quite a first officer you've got there, Captain. You could shoot her out of your torpedo tube and chip off half of Cardassia."
"It'll be more than you've bothered to do," she sneered.
"Do you need another explanation of how it's not my fight?" Tom queried.
"Or mine?" B'Elanna joined in. "If you've got so many problems in your engine room, why aren't you down there working on them?"
"I was asked to be here," she shot back.
"Are you done yet?" Tom asked. "Because aside from explaining the obvious, you've already tried to seduce my engineer and gone another round with me. Is there someone else here you need to piss around with before you go back to hell?"
Seska's hand flew up and caught Tom across the head. Her mouth curled up when he rebounded to face her again. "If I had my way about it," she seethed, "you wouldn't have made it two light years away from the Berlin."
"Seska," Chakotay interjected, grabbing her upper arm. To his relief, she stopped and let him take her away a few steps, say a few words privately. He knew she always responded better when she wasn't called out in front of others. She protested before saying a single word against it, but he remained patient, allowing her that natural urge to distrust. He understood it well, but hers had been trained from birth. His had only recently been imprinted.
"I don't trust him," she urged, glancing angrily at him. "Torres is fine, but Paris is working against us, Chakotay. He should have never been allowed to come aboard."
"We need this run completed. He and his person have the skills we need."
"His person's the one we should be working on," Seska observed.
"We can't take people against their will," Chakotay told her, "and hers is pretty nicely set on getting back to her ship."
"She could bend. She's the type who goes for problems she thinks she can solve."
The Maquis captain shook his head. "We don't have the time. A few months ago, I could recruit from the outside, but not now."
Seska moved closer to him. "Mind if I give it a shot?" she asked, a little smile pulling at her lips.
"You don't have the time, either," he told her, purposefully gentle so her smile wouldn't turn completely south. He knew it'd been hard for her lately, after they lost Liddou. She wasn't an engineer by trade--though she was necessarily turning into one--and working with people with little or no training had taken a toll on her short patience. "Let's talk to Rodrigo about getting you assistance that we don't have to work on, let Paris and Torres get back to what they're dedicated to."
She considered that, shrugged slightly. "It would be easier to take on an expatriate," she admitted, then turned her eyes back to Paris.
Tom tried his best not to return the attention. The woman's glare made him feel like steak in a lion's den.
"Nice way to keep things on an even keel, Tom," B'Elanna said aside as the other two talked.
"She has it in for me," Tom whispered, rubbing his head. He could be certain the woman's handprint would be firmly embedded in his skin for the rest of the day. "Forget the Badlands. Call it pilot's instinct, but she'll have me dead if Chakotay blinks in the right direction."
B'Elanna's stare turned down, remembering the accuracy of his instincts, indeed. "He promised our protection, I thought."
"I've a feeling Seska has a way of taking initiative," Tom muttered, feeling her attention sear him yet again.
"We'll talk about this more later," Chakotay told Seska at last, softly enough that she understood his meaning. Pointing with his chin to the exit, he held her attention until she passed through it and disappeared in the foggy corridor. Chakotay turned quietly to the two. "I apologize for her behavior, Captain Paris. Seska is not usually so harsh to my guests."
Tom blew a breath. "Look, Captain Chakotay--"
"Just Chakotay is fine," he said politely.
"Yeah. Chakotay, I frankly couldn't give a damn what your second in command is or isn't. Just let us do the job and get back to the living we can barely make, thanks to you and your bands of merry men. Keep her off our case."
Chakotay stared at the other man for several seconds, examining the anger, determination and his unmoved posture. Seska had undoubtedly managed to raise his resentment to another level. He sighed to himself. She had a talent at that--and had actually sensed Chakotay's initial desire all too well. Those two were ones he wanted to be shifted the his way. Now both were good only for specific hires, if that. Seska's feelings for Paris would make any further dealings complicated. Then again, some of it might be salvaged, if he worked the problem a little...
"It's been rough for your people," Chakotay noted.
"You know it has been," Tom told him.
"It's going to get worse."
"Any idiot knows that."
"But you want to keep dealing on the border, anyway."
"There's nowhere left for me." Tom shrugged. "But you knew that, too."
A pause, then Chakotay nodded. "Yes."
"Looking for another gravity check?"
"Are you offering one?" Tom returned with a smirk as he neared the small shuttle bay.
As the woman turned sharply away, Tom felt his shoulder yanked back. A second later, his back hit the bulkhead and he was faced with a glowering, dark-haired man. "Are you?" he demanded and smacked the trader against the grated metal again.
Tom swung his arms into the grip, shrugging off the pin and stepping off the bulkhead, even if it meant getting up into the man's face. Somehow, he kept his mouth shut. The slam still stuck on his spine.
"Ayala, back off." Chakotay's firm, calm voice managed a blink in the man. Then, the captain neared. "Back off now. Get back to work."
Ayala stared hard into Tom's eyes a few seconds longer before obeying.
Tom blinked his thanks to Chakotay, who barely acknowledged it as he turned back to where he needed to go. Tom wasn't surprised. That morning, when he and B'Elanna left the tiny quarters they'd hardly slept in for all the noise, they learned that the Liberty and a few other Maquis ships were off to raid a Cardassian supply cruiser they'd been tracking since taking on their passengers. "All the food and equipment we doled out at Ovar," B'Elanna frowned, "might as well be taken away. That's what it'll be for the Cardassians waiting for it."
"Except that their government is still supporting them," Tom pointed out.
No one else was talking politics, though, as the morning progressed. Rather, their diversion, when they could get it, seemed to be taking shots at Tom, who simply shrugged it away where he could. They'd be off the Liberty soon enough. Playing it smart and letting it roll off his back was his only option...even if that back really hurt from the blow against that wall.
Shaking it off and turning for the shuttle bay, Tom came face-to-face with another dark-haired man about his age--and twice as pissed off. Before Tom could think to move around him, the man's expression melted into a snarl as he drove a fist directly into Tom's jaw, snapping him around like a spring.
"Damn!" Tom hissed, grabbing the bulkhead he'd just pushed away from. Yeah, that one's going to leave a mark, he thought with a swallow or two of blood.
"Just finishing the job, Paris," said the man.
He'd barely finished his sentence when the unmistakable thud of a heavy punch bounced down the corridor. Tom looked just in time to see the man spin down to the grated floor and land like a block of wood. Stepping forward, Chakotay stood above him. "You attack another guest on my ship without my direct order," he said, firm but simple, "and I'll beam you into open space." Grabbing the man by the collar, he yanked him up and threw him down the corridor.
"Nice ship you've got, Chakotay," Tom choked, falling behind the other captain, who walked him the rest of the way to the bay.
His face still pounding, his eye beginning to swell, Tom breathed through the pain as he regarded again the shuttlecraft they'd been assigned. Surprisingly, it was a decent model, long and graceful in comparison to most Starfleet shuttles, not too old, with adequate storage and facilities aft. It was Ligaran, so it wouldn't be seen as too unusual in that region. The Ligarans had some ongoing projects in the Rolor Nebula, which sat ten light years past the distal arm of the Badlands. A shuttle would seem away from its ship, but not immediately suspicious. Their entry point would have them heading towards Rolor, so they would be less suspicious still.
Even so, the more he learned about what the Maquis had their fingers in, the more Tom wanted to be on the other end of the quadrant. Considering how his day was going so far and seeing the Liberty's small crew begin to move faster, Tom thought the other side of the galaxy seemed kind of nice, too.
He did like the look of that shuttle, though. He was curious to know how it would handle in the Badlands. He figured he'd need to pull a few turns en route to get the feel down before going in. He had never flown a Ligaran craft before. By the specs, it looked like they'd borrowed a lot from the Trill, whose ships Tom knew quite well. In the end, it really didn't matter, though. He'd get the feel for it well before the sensors would shoot out its first plasma activity warning.
As he crossed his arms and closed his eyes for a moment, B'Elanna came out of the back hatch. "I have those numbers," she told him, holding out a PADD. Her eyes widened at the sight of his pulpy cheek and reddened eye, but she said nothing. It'd have been a stupid question.
Tom reached out and took the PADD. "How does it look?"
"Everything checks out," she said quietly. "Even the extra things you asked me to look for. No problems that I can see."
"Good to know," he said and looked down at the diagnostics. B'Elanna had run every kind imaginable and they were all spotless. Tom drew a deep breath and moved around to enter through the side.
"Guess we can all pack for our JAG date," sneered a Maquis as he passed on the other side, "now that Captain Paris is on the job."
"Shove it," B'Elanna snapped before she could think to stop herself. Glaring at the man who'd spoken, though, she knew she wasn't sorry for it. She was already sick of their looks, and the self-righteousness was incredibly annoying. "You've got problems with Paris being in charge of this job, bring it up with your captain. We don't need to listen to your crap when you have plenty of other people you're signed on to kill."
Against his will, Tom snorted and had to turn away to hide it.
"Just remember you'll have to fly back with us whether or not you screw it up," the man replied.
"In which case it won't be your problem to handle then, either."
"Don't be so sure, Torres." Holding her hot stare for a few moments longer, the Maquis offered an assured grin as he grabbed another man's arm in greeting. They both disappeared into the next section.
Tom finally looked back at B'Elanna. "I know I've been a bad influence on you now."
She rolled her eyes and smacked a datachip into the starboard access socket. "It's not like I came out of a cloister, Tom."
He laughed quietly, nodding. "Yeah, that's good to know, too. Thanks." As she pulled the chip out again, he cocked his head toward the hatch. "I'll start the pre-flight."
"Fine. I'm going back to analyze these data. Comm me when you're ready for me."
"Will do."
Seconds later, he was sliding into the bridge's command seat. He looked around, memorizing the layout. Not just to fly it, but in just a few seconds he knew he wanted to remember that configuration for the junker shuttle he and B'Elanna were still poking at. Hell, if I could redesign the Guerdon's bridge... flew into his mind, but drifted away unfinished, as it should have. He definitely could not afford the luxury of daydreams just then.
"How does it look?" came Chakotay's voice from behind him.
Tom glanced back, wincing when his eye muscles screamed back at him. "It's good--very good. And the warp problem's fixed. Just took some dilithium realigning, some tweaking of the output levels. Though, if you're keeping this shuttle, you'll need to replace the crystal soon."
Chakotay nodded. "Thanks."
"Just doing the job," Tom replied, turning back to the console.
The Maquis captain paused, regarding the younger man for several seconds. "You really are," he observed, "just doing the job."
He really is determined to pick my brain about this, Tom sighed to himself as he looked at Captain Chakotay's curious expression. "Should I be doing anything else?"
"I was hoping to make you more willing to work for me full time."
Tom snorted. "Yeah, I know. I wouldn't call you opaque this past month or so."
Chakotay admitted to it with a small grin. It didn't last long, as his next question formed. "Was there ever any chance you might have?"
"Eight months ago, I swore I wouldn't get mixed up with this mess, but I think the Hugora Nebula took care of any miniscule chance I'd have been wheedled over to the good fight."
Chakotay's eyes narrowed. "Where you lost your man."
"Him, a great job and my ship's mechanical stability, among other things, yes."
"To a Maquis ship," Chakotay continued.
Looking back again, Tom stared at him for several seconds, trying to understand what angle the man was trying for that time. Does he think we didn't get their warp signature? Hell, we could almost see the whites of their eyes.
"In any case, Captain," Chakotay finished before Tom could complete his thought, "I don't have to have you. I have other independents on my roster, now."
"Yeah, you've mentioned that," Tom returned, his swollen eyes narrowing. "Did they get the same gentle touch, or are they there out of the goodness of their empty dockets?"
Chakotay frowned. Bitter as Cardassian aggression and Federation policy had made him, cynicism always managed to annoy him. "They're there in the interest of our mutual benefit."
"Keeping their asses in one piece while helping the equally unlucky. Just like us, I guess."
"For now," Seska said, light in tone as she leaned into the little space left on that bridge and smirked at Paris' swollen face. Ignoring him from there on, she turned a bright smile to her lover. "We're on. The Cardassian freighter is within two light years; its stocks are full."
"Defenses?"
"Two small cruisers. The sect is collecting. We'll get it this time."
"We will," Chakotay returned, a brutal little grin finding his lips.
She squeezed his arm affectionately. "I'm going forward."
"I'm right behind you," he nodded, glad to see her mood improved. He'd put her with Rodrigo about getting some new people. They must have found someone already. He hadn't seen her so happy in weeks.
Tom looked over only as she moved away, only to see her smile mutate into a snarl as she took her own last look at him. Tom returned his attention to the panels at his fingertips. "Guess we'll be off soon, then."
"Within the hour," Chakotay promised.
Tom coughed and slapped his comm bar. "B'Elanna, we're out of here in an hour. Finish the analysis and help me beam the supplies onboard, okay?"
Her response was entirely predictable.
Forty-five minutes later, they were done packing the shuttle and rechecking the stores. Just about everything needed to build a base's power control, sensors and communications center, plus enough food, water and living supplies for a week, somehow fit into every cubic centimeter behind the flight control seats.
"Good thing there's no gravity in space," Tom quipped, hardly feeling it but needing to say something despite the now-familiar throb in his skull.
"There is in the atmosphere, though," B'Elanna told him. She was reading the base planet's information. "The gravity is one-point-two."
"Like we'd get a break," Tom muttered, then sighed. "Damnit, this is really starting to hurt."
"Maybe I can find the med-kit back there," she offered.
"No. It can wait until we're off. Besides, you'd never find it in all that--"
A sudden jolt stopped him. Straightening, he looked around at the sensor map.
B'Elanna looked, too, her eyes narrowing on the local grid. "What in the hell?" she breathed.
"*Cardassian warship is attacking off our port!*" Chakotay yelled over the open comm. "*Everyone to stations! --Paris! Get ready to jump on my order!*"
"Isn't that what I've been doing all along?" Tom said under his breath. Settling himself back in the pilot's couch, he reached around and tapped the shuttle to life. A sharp whine and a rush of air, followed by another whine as the thrusters activated, made Tom straighten and blink. "God, it sounds like an airplane."
"What?"
He shook his head, then peered over at her. "You ready, B'Elanna?"
"As I'll ever be," she replied, leaning back in the generous seat as systems powered to full.
The ship rocked again as the two watched the proximity screen grow ominously crowded. Not that they hadn't felt such blasts or shimmies in their recent past. But they at least had the "comfort" of knowing their fight was one-on-one. "I wonder what Captain Chakotay's been up to that they'd send half a fleet," Tom commented, rechecking the controls he'd been using first. He had a feeling he wouldn't get two chances to learn them.
"I really don't want to know," B'Elanna said tersely, checking their defensive shields one last time before Tom threw on the navigational deflector. "But we've probably been helping him do it." She'd already had her experience with Cardassians. She certainly did not want to repeat the experience. Looking over at Tom's display, she made a few adjustments to her operations board. "When can we get out of here?"
Tom shook his head. "Not sure. Looks like they're trying to get up near that--" A crash sounded around them and the shuttle literally jumped. Tom's hands whipped out to the panel for support, but B'Elanna was forced to jump to her feet to keep from being tossed. "They're heading toward the Gytad Asteroid Belt."
"I hope so!" B'Elanna shot back and pulled herself back into her seat.
"*Paris! You're up!*" Chakotay yelled. A spray of sparks sounded over the comm, too, as well as a few choice curses.
"We see where you're heading."
"*I'll get us in as long as I can. Jump when you're ready.*"
"Sounds like a plan," Tom replied.
"*See you in four days. Good luck!*"
Tom coughed a little laugh. "Yeah, you too, Chakotay," he returned, cut off the comm, then finished for B'Elanna, "for our sakes as well as theirs." The engineer did not reply, so Tom tapped on the main controls and lifted the shuttle into the air within the bay, and then waited. The Gytad Belt steadily neared, would be there in fifteen seconds...then eight...
The bay door ground open in the midst of a firefight. Shards of phaser fire flew all around the little Liberty as it banked and parried and struck when it could. A massive Cardassian cruiser wasn't the only one on the other team, too. Four large scout fighters zoomed around it like bees defending a nest. Tom and B'Elanna watched with an ironic dispassion, almost like watching a file or a holodeck program. B'Elanna blinked first, though, looked up and pointed at her viewscreen. "Five other Maquis ships are heading in," she told him.
"The Cardassians were planning on that."
"They'd have to know they'd be prey to a raid."
"Cardassians are arrogant as hell about their ability to ship a full freighter across hot zones to their outer bases," Tom said. "Maryl's been tracking them for months now so we'd stay clear of any possible deployments. Some of them go without any escort, but this one has it and some, so I'm guessing it's an arms shipment or they got some intelligence."
"And if the Maquis can't steal what's in there, they'll at least try to destroy it," B'Elanna continued.
"So it's not fired at them. No doubt, the Cardassians thought about that. --I think we're... Yeah, we're off. Hold on."
Suddenly, the Liberty swung around a large, oblong rock, then banked into a rocky slope. Tom glanced up and saw the larger ships were indeed waiting on the other side. Without further warning, he punched the thrusters, spit them out of the bay, then hurled the shuttle down in a sharp pass along the Liberty's underbelly
"Goddamn, that's some gravity!" he coughed, fighting to keep them from plunging further from their inertia. Between the Liberty's shields and the asteroid's magnetic pull, he had to wrestle the controls to keep them from diving right back into the ship's hull.
B'Elanna looked over as her stomach pulled at the sudden g-forces. He didn't look like he was complaining--rather, she'd never seem Tom so focused. His stare was bright and his movements were fluid as he swung them out of the Liberty's shield bubble and full speed at the asteroid, grazing the side of its highest outcropping then hugging its corners more tightly than she'd have personally liked. But he seemed to be making no effort at that point, so she forced herself to sit back and let him do his job.
"Tom used to be a crack pilot, you see..." Maryl had said that about him when she first came on the Guerdon. B'Elanna had almost forgotten about that until just then. They'd been in a couple shuttles together and she knew all about his short career now, but only as they pulled around another ridge and ducked into a gully to avoid a sensor sweep from a ship above did B'Elanna understand...
"Computer, graph," Tom ordered. A topographical navigator's map replaced their view. "God, that's beautiful," he breathed as he steered them back down and into a gorge per the map's moving guidance. "It's almost like Atari."
"Like what?"
"Ancient game device. I'll show you sometime."
"I don't know whether to be curious or frightened."
"That's right, I forgot," Tom grinned. "You don't like games."
She rolled her eyes. "Let's not go there again." Leaning up, B'Elanna looked at her own console. "You're planning to wait them out?"
"We'll never make it to the Badlands if we don't," he nodded. "It'll be over soon and Chakotay will lead them away."
"There's a crater at point two-four-zero that's out of the scan range."
"I see it." Letting his fingers play over the controls, he managed to turn them down and around until the crater was before them. Checking the position of the firefight around them, Tom lowered them into a nook, settled them into the dust, switched the viewscreen back to normal then cut the engines. Silence quickly fell over the shuttle, save the random beeps and buzzes of the computer, one moment in the thick of escape, then next, at rest. A sheen of dust settled over them.
B'Elanna almost shivered at the shift, and she suddenly understood why people on the bridge liked having their viewscreen on all the time. With theirs blocked and so much happening above, the sensor map suddenly didn't seem like enough.
Not seeming to notice, Tom leaned back in the seat with a long sigh. "It's scary sometimes," he said quietly, "when I remember that I miss being a pilot."
She looked at him again. Now his face was dreamy, gazing out at the view through puffy, purplish eyes. His mouth was straight. His breath had not quickened in their short escapade. "I guess you would, if that's what you really wanted to do."
The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. "It was the one thing I never had to question."
"Well, you got us here without a bump in an alien shuttle you never flew before," B'Elanna said lightly, "so I'm inclined to believe you're still passable."
Tom chuckled. "And I wanted to do a few turns to get to know this shuttle. Guess I got that over with efficiently."
She grinned, too. "What do you think?"
"I think I'm in love," he answered. No joy was in his voice, however, and his smile faded away as soon as he said it.
Standing up, B'Elanna paused, then touched his shoulder supportively. "I'll try to find that med kit," she told him.
He glanced up as she moved away. "Thanks."
"Viewshield?"
"And the inputs."
"And we have the RCS. The fusion reactors, too?"
"Definitely. And the seats."
"God, yes. I almost forgot about those."
"You're probably just tired."
B'Elanna laughed, leaning back into her very comfortable seat as she tapped the last of their "shuttle-inspired wish list" into her PADD. Indeed, over the long day trip to the border of the Badlands, those seats had helped keep her from cramping up and even reclined for sleeping, which is exactly what she and Tom had done for lack of anywhere else to go. Quiet and deep while the other remained respectful during their "bridge shift," it was the best sleep either had enjoyed since leaving the Guerdon. "I probably am, if I'm finding you that amusing right now."
"Hell, you're exhausted if I'm that," Tom replied jauntily, pulling up another plasma flare analysis. "Now, roguish and irresistible..." He cut off, pushing a few more queries into the results.
"I'd take that," B'Elanna said without thinking and felt her face flush treacherously. I am tired she grumbled at herself. She grabbed the carafe at her side and her mug. "Want more coffee?" she asked.
"Sure," Tom said, glancing her way. He hadn't missed the slip, but couldn't guess what it was about, except that she'd embarrassed herself...and was staring determinedly into his eyes, not daring to turn her eyes down. Handing her his mug, he had to repress a smile. He wondered if her slip implied what he thought.
Then the sensors beeped and he was back to work. "Coming up on the Badlands," he told her.
"According to the records in here, it's at high activity."
"Only the best for us," Tom grinned.
"We are gifted," B'Elanna agreed, pursing her lips. "I think I can start plotting out the map."
"Mind if I double check it?" Tom asked. "Not that I doubt you, B'Elanna, but we don't have many alternatives here."
"Mind if I argue with you over them?" she returned, eyeing him askance. "I won't give you anything I'm not certain about, Tom."
"I know. I just want to see it if I'm going to fly it. For that matter, nothing's going to be stable in there."
"I guess that's only fair," she shrugged, knowing she'd be the same if not worse were she behind the controls. "I'm picking up no ship activity in the vicinity. We're clear to enter."
"Here we go, then." Tom kicked the shuttle down to full impulse at the edge of the phenomenon and waited for B'Elanna's figures.
"Oh-five-three, mark eleven," she said.
Tom checked the readouts as they came onto his board, quickly translated it against his mental map, then nodded. "Oh five-three, mark eleven," he confirmed and soon swung them around an active flare. "One down, fifteen thousand to go," Tom said glibly.
B'Elanna rolled her eyes and tapped into the guidance system. "Oh-two-nine, mark thirty-two."
Again, he confirmed it, then doubled back when a flare began to activate. "Woah!" he exclaimed as the stream of plasma shot up before the shuttle's viewscreen.
"That was fast," B'Elanna remarked. Pressing back into her seat a little, she looked over to make sure the mapping system was transmitting their coordinates properly. Everything she recorded was being collected by a transmitter at Nivoch. Captain Chakotay would use that information to pick them up later. They'd definitely get a zigzag of a map at first glance, B'Elanna knew as she watched Tom continue to whirl them around the sprays of fire, then resume their pace once they hit another pocket. "One-two-six, mark eight." Her final job in the shuttle, in fact, was to clean up the map and transmit that as well before they landed at the base.
She gritted her teeth, still not enjoying the idea of assisting those people. Throughout their stay on the Liberty, she felt like Seska would gnaw her arm off for wanting her in the engine room so badly. Everyone else on board watched her curiously, probably wondering if Seska was recruiting her after all. They wanted nothing to do with Tom. He was shouldered and shoved every time they left the bunkroom. B'Elanna breathed a bitter little laugh to herself. Captain Chakotay probably chose him for that mission just so they might get to her...like they tried to on Mesler's ship.
She shivered, but dug her heels into the deck to get back on task. "Oh-eight-five, mark twenty-one."
"Oh-eight-five, mark twenty-one." Tom glanced over at B'Elanna. Her arms were tense at her side and her face was pressed into a steady frown; he'd heard her shudder a breath just then. "Is it too cold in here?"
"No. Just thinking."
He cut the thrusters to half-impulse and turned them around in the wake of an eddy. "About what?"
She shook her head. "You're trying to concentrate."
"It actually helps to talk a little," he told her. "It keeps me from daydreaming. Something besides the obvious wrong?"
"I was just thinking about what Maryl said, when she first interviewed me, that the Maquis would have taken me from Mesler's ship and gotten me into their fight if they could."
Tom grinned. "Now that was good timing. I remember Captain Chakotay was pretty interested."
"And you covered for me," B'Elanna recalled. "Three-oh-two, mark eight-five." She looked at him as he checked his board and followed through with a smoothness that a less knowledgeable eye might have thought was casual. "I wonder if he knows that."
"I'll bet he's done the math by now." Tom chuckled quietly. "Well, he still can't have you."
"I'm glad that's all decided," B'Elanna returned, pursing her lips as some new data flowed in. "I'm reading some instability ahead."
"I've got it," Tom nodded and punched them back up to full impulse. A burst of blue-white plasma shot up starboard, sizzling and spiraling like a sword through a violet sky. Tom watched it shimmy as he passed around it. "I dunno, B'Elanna," he said quietly. "I think about how Jerod felt about the Maquis. He knew they were doing all they could to help, helping his family, mainly; but he didn't like the way they'd started branching into sects and making moves that invited retaliation. He didn't like their recruitment tactics, either. I knew the day I read about it on the blue PADD that this would turn into something we couldn't get around."
"Two-eight-seven, mark nine." She looked at him. "So what do you think we can do?"
He shrugged. "Keep following our noses. --Easier said than done, but we've gotten by. All we need is to scrounge up some actual deals outside Hidirin."
"Maryl will get something," B'Elanna said. "One-oh-two, mark forty-four."
Tom chuckled. "If anyone can squeeze blood from a stone... --Slowing to quarter impulse." Pulling the shuttle up, he all but skidded to turn around a gurgling flare that almost formed, but shrank back into its own creation. "I hope she manages to dredge up something, soon. We've had tough cycles, but this isn't looking good."
"Oh-oh-nine, mark one sixty-four."
B'Elanna consciously straightened her back. She already knew what those tough times were about; she wasn't looking forward to seeing how much worse it could get. Scraping the scrap yards for parts to rebuild was about as close to bottom feeding as she thought she would get as an engineer. Still, the Guerdon was her ship and its many problems were like affronts she was obliged to rectify. Though, sometimes she did wonder why she bothered; she sometimes wanted to beam the entire ODN into a minefield. She did feel responsible, however, and she counted its crew as her friends...just as Tom had come to.
She shook her head as she heard him curse quietly to himself; then she watched him maneuver around a trio of flares. He didn't bother with position announcements. Instead, his long, fair fingers slid over the Ligaran controls as though he'd been specially trained on them, while his face showed intentness she remembered from past conversations with him. Sometimes, he would give her a look that made her almost believe he was trying to see straight through her. He was seeing straight through those flares now, not looking down anymore at the controls, watching out the viewscreen as they glided around another pattern of plasma flares without much more than a little rumble.
Only when the flares were past did she notice that he'd been a little on the edge with that maneuver. His breath released, he leaned back again and his movements slowed. It wasn't much of a reaction, but B'Elanna filed it into her memory. When they make it look easy... she mused.
More softly, still half in her own thoughts, she called out another trajectory.
Several hours later, B'Elanna yawned before voicing another.
"Need some more coffee?" Tom asked.
"Probably," she answered, "but we're almost there."
He punched his board. "Yeah. Ten more minutes at full impulse until we're supposed to hit the system."
Continuing forward, Tom easily knew why Chakotay didn't want to be bothered with the same journey. It'd been a stop and go ride, warp five at best in the holes where there was no plasma activity, and maneuvering around at full impulse elsewhere. In all, it wasn't far inside the Badlands. Certainly, it would be neither convenient nor safe for any Maquis base to be located much deeper within that unstable area.
B'Elanna stood up for a moment to stretch, roll her shoulders. Leaning over her panel, she tapped in another round or calculations and prepared to turn them again. Luckily, their path had taken them along a long, calm zone, allowing her a few breaks like that. There's good and bad in that, though, she told herself in afterthought, looking at a new reading on the sensors.
"Tom, I see something out there."
He looked down at the board she spied. "Run a scan?"
Lowering herself into her seat, she did just that. "I'm reading a polyduranium shell and a warp signature."
"A starship in here?" Tom wondered aloud.
She nodded. The readings were getting stronger, confirming a vehicle of some kind. "The question is: whose?"
Tom spun them around as another flare threatened, frowning when he looked again at the sensor board. The bleep had changed course and was now heading in their direction. "Looks like we're going to find out," he replied. "Whoever they are, I'll bet they've been waiting for someone to show up. They're heading through pretty confidently."
B'Elanna drew a slow breath, her eyes nailing another console. "Should I activate the weapons system?"
"Hell, yes." He snorted. "For what it's worth, anyway. You know how our luck's been."
"*What* luck?" she acknowledged and powered on the shuttle's phaser banks. "So now what?"
He looked at her. "We wait."
"I meant, what do I do with the phasers? I've rebuilt a couple arrays, but I've never used them before."
Tom blinked in a moment's surprise, but then he thought about that. "Yeah, I guess you wouldn't have," he said, then activated the board for her. "You use the command processor to help line up the shot on the main board--right there. It'll vector in for you within a second, so keep your finger on the initiator. I'll say something, but you'll probably know better where to fire if we're up close on someone."
B'Elanna started tapping into the controls. True to his words, the systems lined up quickly on her command and she was able to adjust the vector with a simple stroke. Aiming at a moving target anywhere within their bubble would probably not be as easy.
"Or maybe it's not worth thinking about after all," Tom added.
B'Elanna looked over and coughed with disgust. The ship on fast approach was a small cruiser--and Cardassian. They knew exactly what they were looking for. "They got the people who set up the base and decided to hang around to see who'd come back," she deduced.
"That's a hell of a wait. They must have left a net to signal when someone came this way again."
"That's a hell of a net," B'Elanna returned. "The sweeps I ran should have picked them up."
"Should have, yeah." Beside her, she heard Tom draw a long, calming breath. A moment later, the beeps and hums of the systems took over the small space. She looked at him again. His eyes were set on the horizon.
"Hold on, B'Elanna," he quietly told her. "We're going to take a little ride."
She set herself back into her seat and reset her console for the trip.
With a sweep of his fingers along the board, Tom dug the little shuttle in on the line of a plasma flare and followed it around to another, just as the Cardassian cruiser made its final approach and tried to open a channel with them. "You'll have to catch me," he muttered and swung the little shuttle around again. The cruiser followed, easily making the turns and evading the flares.
Tom confirmed, In essence, he was up against another pilot who knew the territory.
"Okay then, let's see what you've got." Tom punched them up to full impulse again, turning around and under a flare, all the while keeping his eyes on their proximity to the base. He wondered if it was still there, considering the Cardassians had been hanging around, or of they'd even bothered. Cardassians often liked having things come to them, because they so often did. --Not that he needed to worry about that just then. But he didn't want to get too far off course, either. That in mind, he straightened their path and began a new series of maneuvers through the field.
B'Elanna watched both the view and her boards in amazement as Tom drove them around forming streams and around their bases, easily leading the Cardassian cruiser around. By his inputs, she could tell he was both flying their shuttle around the flares and testing their response times and methods of pursuit. His flight patterns became more complex with every turn. Unfortunately, the cruiser was already proving to be less patient than he was.
"Tom, they're powering up their torpedoes." "They're trying to poke at us," he said. "They have good transporters. They'll take us for questioning before killing us off...probably."
She snorted. "Great!"
"Let's see what else they'll do." He glanced her way. "You don't mind having nothing to lose, do you?"
"As long as I'm not throwing it away, no," she answered. Indeed there weren't many options just then and no way to play it safe. "Do what you need to do, Tom."
He did just that. Slinging the shuttle around and reversing their trajectory, Tom shot them back straight at the cruiser at full impulse. "Knock on their door, B'Elanna," he told her. "Pop a little phaser shot on their bridge dome."
She stared at him for a moment, but then complied, waiting for him to angle them above the ship. He did so smoothly, practically lining up the shot for her. She vectored in and punched the button. A narrow beam of phaser fire tore out of little emitters and bounced into the cruiser's shield bubble. "That probably only rattled them a little."
"Doesn't matter," Tom replied. He drove straight past and into the path of a forming plasma flare. Sailing into it, he grinned to see the cruiser following fast behind them. "They'll be annoyed either way." He set into the flare pattern, skirting the energy waves as closely as he could without burning through their shields, then banked off to swirl around another.
"They're following."
"Good."
B'Elanna braced her boots to the floor as she diverted a little more power to the inertial dampers. Tom was putting those to the test, too, as he rounded an errant rock in the middle of a sustained plasma eddy. Looking out as he turned the shuttle around in mid-maneuver, sailed back and ducked around the Cardassian cruiser again, forcing them to slow and turn and set after them again, B'Elanna felt her heart beating harder. For his part, Tom had settled into a new level of intensity, flying them straight to every flare he could ride, then teasing the cruiser just enough to make them follow with greater speed each time.
A swirling blue-white sword shot up in front of the shuttle. He coughed a little laugh and banked straight up it then around even as it turned and shimmied and grew.
B'Elanna caught her breath as he broke them off that one, too, commenting to himself about the cruiser's persistence as he wrapped them around another surge and took a backwards trip down. She was finally confirmed: What had been holding Tom in that shell was captaining a ship that was painfully unworthy of his skills, and also him knowing--or believing--he couldn't have anything more to his expertise. He knew what he could do; he knew how good he was and how he wasn't doing it.
No wonder he kept that wish list. No wonder he still pestered her about the Guerdon being beneath her. No wonder he threw them into every plasma stream like there was no tomorrow--
"Still hanging on!"
--Because he knew there would be a tomorrow if he could just keep the other guy from shooting him down. The accident in his past hadn't crushed his confidence in his skill, only in his judgment and the system that'd exiled him. As they sailed toward another bed of activity, she stared at him again, understanding Tom Paris all over again in but those few seconds.
Catch me, she could hear him say, soft but absolutely assured, in her dream....
B'Elanna braced her breath and swung her attention back to her boards.
He raced around another flare, zipping and swerving back and forth between them, seemingly without care that any of them could bounce and strike their shield bubble. Very few deflectors could withstand that much energy--but he knew that. Letting the cruiser catch up a little, his mouth turned up to see them indeed move in. The Cardassians wanted to capture them. They hadn't found the base yet. They'd been wandering around looking and still wanted information.
Glancing over to see B'Elanna still hard on her consoles, Tom tapped in a few more maneuvers and let loose on another set of forming streams. "We'll be cutting this close," he announced. "Time too see if I can shake them off."
She stared at him. "Please don't tell me you were playing around just now."
Tom snorted. "I wish I were."
"They've sped to full impulse. How close do you want them?"
"Too close," he responded and flipped on the graph view. The grids instantly lit up before them on the viewscreen, scrolling and shifting with dizzying precision. His eyes narrowed as a tiny smile pressed the corners of his mouth. "There's the eddy forming. Keep your eyes on those phasers. We might need a couple more shots. --And come to think of it, can you add a mix of tachyon particles to the banks?"
"It'll take some--no, I have it here. Yes." With a few commands and a rerouting of the power inputs, she reactivated the phasers and nodded briskly. "They're ready."
"You ready, too?"
B'Elanna's mouth pursed into a grin. "Let's go."
Slowing them to half impulse, Tom dove into the murky blue of the plasma bed, skimming the rippling waves of energy, each potentially ready to burst into a stream. The Cardassian cruiser stayed close behind, projecting shots, lining up to take out the little shuttle's rear deflector. "They can't shoot until we're in a clear zone," Tom explained.
"That's right," B'Elanna said, impressed yet again that he'd thought of it. "The shockwave will cripple them, too."
"They'll be patient and try to run us out," Tom concluded, his smile reaching his eyes. "They already know they can keep on our tail, which is just what I want."
B'Elanna decided to stop looking at him when he was like that.
Tom continued along the plasma bed, scanning the graph, checking every heat emission, every bubble of growth. Further starboard, a flare erupted, but he ignored it. He wanted something--
"Zero-oh-one, mark zero!" he announced and kicked them back up to full impulse. The cruiser sped to match a moment later. Cranking their elevation straight up, Tom spiraled the shuttle straight up the plasma flare as it formed, almost atop its fiery head. The cruiser, moving as quickly but not quite as maneuverable, skidded back down to half impulse and then followed them along the flare. Tom nodded and banked, then flew a corkscrew pattern back down the flare, passing the cruiser on the other side, then beneath.
"B'Elanna, fire--anywhere on them!"
She punched the controls and threw a random shot, which bounced off the cruiser's shields before they passed to the other side again.
The cruiser shifted and turned to follow yet again.
"Throw another shot into the flare in the cruiser's direction, then rotate our shields!"
Again, she fired, igniting the plasma flare with a dose of their own plus the tachyon particles, which streaked the entire flare with crimson, shooting out the other side at the Cardassian cruiser in mid-turn. The flare expanded and wrapped around the cruiser's shield bubble. Like a bug in a web, the ship tried to propel itself out of the discharge, but it was smoothly sucked back in.
Tom banked hard away, smacking off their phaser banks and spinning them back towards their original coordinates. Turning the viewscreen back to standard view, he gave them both a look back at the cruiser as it crackled and crumbled into the tube of plasma, still glowing red and violet.
Slowing catching his breath, he stared in wonder of it with a moment's sadness. "Sorry, guys," he whispered.
"Not that they would have shown us any mercy," B'Elanna said.
"No," he quietly agreed and turned their view forward as they moved through a clear zone. With one final deep breath, he said, "So, where were we?"
He was suddenly quite calm, but B'Elanna's heart still pounded and her nerves remained alert. She even stared over at him, a little insulted by his repose. How pilots could go through something like that and not want to get up and run, jump up, do something to burn off the adrenaline, suddenly bothered her, too. But then she understood a little more why pilots were considered wild on base, with all that stored up energy and thrill. Bouncing her heel against the deck and forcing her breath to slow to normal, B'Elanna did not take for granted her ability to prowl the deck as an engineer. "We're not far off course."
"Yeah, I tried to stay close. There it is."
Ramping them up to warp three, he drove them directly back to the base's system. As B'Elanna cleaned up and retransmitted the map the Liberty would need to come in, Tom dropped to impulse and activated their landing procedure. It was the first and last thing he'd reviewed when he checked out the shuttle, so there were no questions when the programmed responses began to play out. He still double-checked to make certain the reverse thrusters were pointed at the correct angle, though. It'd make their descent smoother when he popped those on, too.
"You have the landing site?" he asked B'Elanna.
"It's in." She made a few calculations. "We can move around thirty-four degrees if you want to go in on a straight path."
"Sounds good."
He followed her direction and angled the ship up for their entry, preparing for the tug of gravity on the presently back-heavy shuttle. The predictable atmospheric warning beeped beside him and he flipped it off. Settling back in his seat, he watched his board and took them down.
"It's a hot entry," B'Elanna commented.
"Yeah," Tom nodded, his eyes still on the board. The upper ionosphere was affected by the plasma activity around the system. Electrical energy on the planet was abundant. They were wearing grounding pads in their boots and inside their coats for having expected that. "Coming into planetary gravity," Tom said and flipped on the reverse thrusters.
Suddenly, a loud crack sounded below them, and the engines began to whine.
Tom looked over at B'Elanna, who had all but jumped on her console to see what caused it. "Can I ask the dumb question now?"
"No dumb questions here," she responded, her fingers flying over the diagnostics as the shuttle began to fall. "The reverse thrusters are shot."
"Shot? How?"
"I don't know how! They checked out!"
The shuttle passed into the stratosphere and Tom felt the unmistakable pull of a spin. "Goddamnit!" Seeing B'Elanna grab her console bar, he started into the engines again. "I'm not doing this again!"
*Warning: At current speed, atmospheric g-forces will exceed recommended-*"
Tom slapped off the warnings. "I know!" he snapped and turned on the forward thrusters. Struggling to regain control, he turned into the spin and rode it a few more turns before pulling them out of it. Blowing a breath with that achievement, Tom then furiously tried to figure out how the hell they'd *land* that shuttle. If the transporters were bio-safe and they had a mobile unit, he'd just stick them into orbit and send everything and themselves down.
But now it was too late for that, too. They were in full descent and heading straight for the field the Maquis had cleared. It would be over in a minute or so--no time was left to second guess. Playing about a hundred scenarios through his mind in but a few seconds, Tom finally grabbed one. "Shields up! --They'll bounce off the atmosphere and slow us down a little--and cushion us until they fail.
"I'll try to keep them on as long as possible."
"Yeah, good... I'm aiming us at the site. ...I have to cut the engines, everything but the planetary RCS. I need you to tell me when to do that, soon as we're through the lower ionosphere."
"It's going to be soon!" B'Elanna told him and punched in the numbers. "Eight seconds!"
"Figures!" Tom's hand flew to engine control.
"Five...four...three...two... --Shut down engines!"
Tom flipped off the thrusters and immediately ignored the loud groan of complaint from the reactor. He flew them in, pulling the nose of the shuttle up as the tail dragged--then dragged more the closer they came. It was windy there, he then discovered, and compensated for that, too.
"Prepare for impact!" he yelled, cursing under his breath directly afterwards.
He'd never, never wanted to say those words again in his life.
The Ligaran shuttle plowed through the atmosphere and straight toward the southern continent, over hills and a long forest. Aimed at a long clearing between lakes, it shimmied and whined and came in far faster than any vehicle had a right to. Birds scattered as the trees and ground rattled and a scream of sheared air invaded the alien world.
"Hold on! We're going to skid around!" he told B'Elanna, then threw the shuttle down and into a spin just as they hit the dirt. Round--round--round, they both were flung from their seats as the weakened shields plucked the unforgiving surface, bouncing the shuttle gently into the air before sizzling away. The unprotected shuttle then slammed against the surface and skimmed like a stone: Round--round--round--then they flipped.
"Shit!" he cursed, grabbing his seat from the side. Another flip and he was hurled across the small bridge like a stick in a tornado. His side smacked the ceiling controls before he was thrown back-first down to the deck.
Round-round...and a bump before it finally began to slow, skidding--a hard bump--
"Oof!" Tom grunted and grabbed desperately at the open grate.
--then a loud smack as something in front of them finally stopped them.
With another groan from the engine, a whish of coolant steam, the bridge became eerily peaceful. Sunshine poured into the nearby viewscreen, showing leafy, fir-like trees on a breezy day. The klaxons and advisories turned off; only quiet beeps echoed in the little space, dinging in time with the thrums of the on-hold reactor. The engines were still offline.
That silence was quickly broken. Still on his back, Tom held the grate for dear life, sucking for every short breath he could manage as soon as he remembered that he indeed should breathe. He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut a hundred times. He was sure he'd broken a rib. He knew exactly what that felt like. Then he blinked.
"B'Elanna?" No answer. He coughed, grabbed another breath so he could silence the space again. Hearing her jerky breaths across the cabin, he craned his head to try to see her, his gut dropping to think the worst first. The worst, that it would happen again to him, that he'd have to go through such a loss again... "B'Elanna!"
A bleep...and a gasp of air...
"I'm here!" she choked. "I'm...I'm stuck under the...damned tactical console. Are you all right?"
"I will be," he said, "when I...ah, God. When I figure out what's cracked, I'll... I can move, though. You?"
"Yeah." Unpinning herself at last, she got her free hand out to the seat support bar and heaved. She finally pulled herself out of the little space their final crash had smacked her into and hissed to feel her shoulder scream with pain. It had come out of joint again; the rest of her arm was not much better off. "I think my arm's broken," she muttered tersely. It was the last thing she needed, considering what they needed to do there. Then she knew she was damned lucky that was all of what was wrong after a landing like that.
"Is the tissue knitter in the med kit still active?" Tom asked her. His voice was rough with effort, and his short breaths resumed as soon as he was done speaking.
"It can be recharged," she confirmed.
"It'll help, but you'll need a better job later."
Getting to her feet, she stumbled back to the rear of the bridge and lowered herself to the floor by him.
She was disheveled and scraped up, and her face was dark with seriousness and bruises yet to color, but she was the best thing he'd seen in years. "I just don't have good luck with shuttlecraft," he grimaced apologetically.
"We're still here, aren't we?" B'Elanna returned, holding her arm steady as she scooted on her knees close to his side. "We're still here, Tom."
"Yeah," he whispered. He choked a painful laugh then, holding onto her dark, assured gaze. "Here we are."
"You're all right there?"
"I have been so far. Can you get those last pieces from that replicator?"
"We'll see."
With one more look Tom's way, B'Elanna trudged out of the main base shelter, into the hot, muggy air and across the long tarmac to the shuttle for the next round of components they needed to replicate. She pressed her scraped hand firmly around her ribs, her eyes set solidly on her destination. She tried to clear her mind...then she tried diverting herself. "Phase lock plates, emitter pins, grid circuit lines..."
She was done with the basic installations, having decided to integrate the systems into the mobile converter as she went along, so in case something didn't work, she'd know where it wasn't working.
They neither, after all, needed anything else to go wrong.
A day and a half ago, they finally extricated themselves from the shuttle after two hours of patching each other up. Tom needed more time than even he had expected to merely get off the floor. Each time he tried, he lost his breath again. He cursed every time he got it back. "Why always the ribs?" he grunted as he fell into the pilot's seat. With his help, B'Elanna was able to reset the tissue regenerator to take down the swelling in his torso, mend the bruises.
"They'll come back, though," he grimaced as she pulled him one-armed to his feet. "I'll need more treatments. This little unit's not nearly strong enough to do the whole job." Taking the little tricorder and regenerator, he was able to relieve the pain in B'Elanna's arm, knit her up enough that she could use her fingers. Then he took care of her other bruises and lacerations. Then he told her to replicate a sling, as her arm would be very weak until a proper bone knitter could be used on it.
When she brought the requested item, he helped it on her--"No, really, B'Elanna, let me get this on straight so you don't have to readjust it later"--and secured it snugly against her slim but sturdy frame. Checking the give in the back with a couple gentle tugs, seeing her not flinch, he nodded. "Now if we can keep me moving, we'll be all right."
She looked at him askance, but asked something else: "So what now?"
He looked back at the main space of the packed shuttle. "I guess we figure out what we can do." He sighed. "I won't be able to do much, but if we can get the transporters online, I can set up the smaller items when everything's there. Are you up to seeing how far off we are in case we can't?"
"Maybe we should try to get the transporters back online before deciding anything," B'Elanna suggested. "But I'll take a look." At his gesture, she moved to get to the hatch, thanking herself silently for making certain all the equipment has been secured properly. Very little had come loose, even after the shuttle's flips and spins.
The landing had taken them to the other side of the base-in-progress, they immediately saw when they opened the hatch and greeted but a warm, sunny morning. They had essentially come in going the wrong way. That turned out to be a good thing, however, as the only stopper on the other end was the main building, and B'Elanna was certain she wasn't up to rebuilding that.
Tom looked back at the banged up shuttle with a sigh. Too bad about that, he thought. It's a damn good little craft. The thought was pure pilot's sensitivity. It wasn't his ship, after all, and even without the accident, he wouldn't have flown it again. He still couldn't help his appreciation of a fine vehicle, though. Hiking his tool bag up on his shoulder, Tom pointed with his chin toward the stubby main building.
"You want to get on those transporters and I'll go see if it squares with the specs we were given?"
She eyed him, wondering if she should let him go alone, but finally shrugged. Tom wasn't the stiff upper lip sort. If he couldn't do something, he usually admitted to it. "Do you still have your comm bar?"
He checked his pocket. "Yeah. I won't be long."
The walk was longer than he thought it'd be, though. The sun wasn't very forgiving, either, only adding to his fatigue. Before their unfortunate landing, he'd been flying the shuttle for nearly nine straight hours, nor had he eaten lunch.
Coming into the long, spartan structure, he had to get down to his hands and knees. His side around the broken rib was swelling again, making it hard to breathe and the pain miserable. There, he snorted to himself. "How easily I forget," he muttered, remembering his liver problems of only a few months ago. That was pain--that was pure agony. All he had now was a couple cracked ribs...and a base to set up, and no idea if they'd actually be let back to their ship once that job was completed. He hadn't talked too much to B'Elanna about it, but he knew he didn't trust them to their word. Chakotay put up a solid front, but even he had been as slippery to deal with as Tom had expected.
Which made him wonder again why the reverse thrusters checked out when they inspected the shuttle, but decided to fail as soon as he activated them. In any other situation, he'd think he was just being paranoid.
He caught his breath and pulled himself to his feet. Moving across, he opened his tricorder and checked the layout and all the connections. They matched up well...maybe too easily. For the time being, however, he wasn't complaining.
B'Elanna didn't, either. "*Good,*" she told him over the comm. "*I actually worked correcting their layout into our schedule.*"
Tom coughed a laugh. "Good idea," he said, pulling another breath as he leaned against the wall. "You might need to, yet. I'm just eyeballing this."
"*Okay.*" A pause. "*Are you all right? You don't sound good.*"
"Yeah, the pain's pretty annoying."
"*I'll have the transporters online in about ten more minutes. Why don't you stay there and I'll start beaming everything over?*"
"Send the med kit first."
Four hours later, the low-res transporter had beamed the last of the equipment from the bay of the shuttle. Soon after, Tom was kneeling next to a supply case as B'Elanna finally walked in and looked around for herself.
"Hungry?" he asked when she came back into the main room, generally unimpressed.
She smiled. She knew she was filthy and a little bruised, but to his credit, his gaze said nothing of it. Rather, his friendly grin was a welcome sight. His voice over the comm had been concerning to her. "Actually, yes. What's on?"
"Looks like chicken stew with toasts and baked apple something," he said, examining the label. "What it really is, I don't want to know."
"Protein meal," she nodded. "I really am hungry, though. I probably don't care."
He nodded then broke the seals on their packs. Handing B'Elanna her portion, he scooted against the wall to get into his.
B'Elanna watched him as she waited for her meal to fully expand. Working under a relatively miniature transporter array to reroute the external beam conduits one-handed was not something she wanted to do ever again, but he really looked drained by his comparatively simple job of receive and inventory. His paleness and dark-circled eyes recalled his recent illness, too, which did nothing to ease B'Elanna's mind. "How's the pain?" she asked.
"It's okay," he shrugged. "I've been using the knitter on it about every hour to take down the swelling. It's recharging now. Your arm?"
"I've had worse."
"Yeah, you have," he replied with a wistful smile. Taking the spoon from the side of the ration pack, Tom peeled off the cover and stirred up the stew. The throbbing had essentially erased any hunger he should have felt by then, but he knew he needed to eat something, keep up his strength. Thankfully, the reconstituted food wasn't half bad.
"Latch rod connectors?"
Tom's hand swam through the crate and pulled out a half-tray. Crawling into the access port and through to where B'Elanna was working, he slid the requested items under the extended casing. They disappeared completely a moment later.
"Thanks," she said from beneath the assembly.
"What's next?" he asked in a breath, leaning his head against the opposite wall. Closing his eyes, he knew he'd need another treatment soon. Eating had made the pain worse...or at least the pain had increased after their meal. He wasn't sure which. At that point, he didn't care.
"I'll need the tie-arms next," she said, then added pointedly, "but not for about five or ten minutes."
Tom didn't catch the hint. "I'll set them up, then, and give myself another swipe."
She tried the direct approach that time. "Maybe you need a break."
"Don't worry about it," he dismissed and crawled back through the tube.
An hour later, he slid a transceiver section towards her waiting hand. "Can you lift that into place all right?"
"I have a magnetoscope here," she answered. "I'll let you know in a few second if is doesn't... No, it's fine. Thanks."
"Are the power conduits meshing?"
"Better than I thought they would," B'Elanna said. "They knew what they were doing when they stole this core unit. It's really flexible. I'd like to build one for the Guerdon."
"You could recreate it yourself?" Tom asked, genuinely interested.
"If I got the right parts, I could, especially now that I've copied the design specs. Half of what makes it so good is that its design is simple. There's nothing unnecessary in its overall structure."
Tom sighed a laugh, then. "I say this a lot, I know, but you really belong somewhere better."
"Probably. But I'm here now and I'd still like to build one if we can afford to sometime."
"Well, you'll never hear me say no to it."
With that, Tom crawled back to the main room. When he got out of the tube, he got down on the floor and got his breath. It was becoming a routine now, though more and more difficult to do. He was physically exhausted; he felt cold, though it was very summer-like inside. The pain was changing, as well. The throbbing was starting to alternate with sharp twinges deep within his gut, a slight tearing sensation.
It slowly dawned on him that it was more than the ribs, now. Something else was going wrong.
B'Elanna took the news as soberly as ever, though her eyes darkened with concern. She knew as well as Tom did that Chakotay likely would not arrive on time--and even if they did, it'd be another full day and some before that happened. Worse, they didn't have a full sickbay, either. Meanwhile, Tom's movements had weakened and his voice had become softer. His stare was set with some certain determination, though, especially when he implied how it would affect her.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"Keep setting up the converter," he told her. "Hand me small parts to work on, but I need to stay still. I'll work on this knitter, too, see if I can ramp up its beam."
"Maybe I should work on it."
"I've worked on them before," he assured her, his lips turning up with amusement. She never seemed to believe he had any technical ability on first pass. She was an engineer through and through.
"When?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"At the academy. I took a physiology course and a little medic training. We fooled around with the regenerators in our spare time."
"Along with replicators, I guess." Torres shook her head. "What else don't I know about you?"
"My birthday?"
"It's in November," she replied and returned to the last crate they had opened. "Ridge told me." Standing over the neatly arranged parts, she let her eyes close for a moment as she allowed herself a sigh. Stuck on a wastrel planet into the middle of a plasma-charged anomaly, setting up a base that might never actually be occupied for people she wished she'd never known, and Tom's injuries were getting worse.
Tom was getting worse, and he couldn't say how or what. Something in the impact had damaged something internally and he'd need a real doctor to fix it--preferably sooner rather than later. He was handing it calmly, so she thought she should relax. She knew herself well enough to know that wasn't going to happen.
Growling at herself, forcing her residual worries aside, she opened her eyes and breathed again. Reaching into the crate, she pulled out a node and junction box and its corresponding isolinear connections. Setting them all on a mobile cart, she pushed the parts over to Tom's side and proceeded to tell him what to do with them.
When the sun began to sink into the woodsy horizon, they finally decided to try for some rest. After nearly a day and a half awake, stressed and injured, they both were beyond tired. She had stopped thinking straight with the isolinear chips and finally set them down for easier work; his eyes were closing of their own volition as he pieced together tray after tray to pass on to her. He finally told her he had to get some sleep and she might like to as well. Silently, they gave up all the parts and pieces and opened the bunks in the adjoining room.
B'Elanna took herself back to the makeshift lavatory to wash. Deciding to give her some privacy, Tom chose to relieve himself one last time before hitting the bunk. Slipping out the back door, he at least found some sardonic satisfaction in being able to piss on that world. He wished he could have on that whole situation.
How he resented Chakotay for pushing his buttons so effectively, making him know that any of his crew were vulnerable, his ship was at risk, his own reputation, bad enough already, could get a nice, fat "traitor" mark stuck beside it, too, for capitulating to protect his crew and his ship. He hated being a captain all over again for once again being forced to experience that old, all-too-familiar feeling of entrapment...and giving in to higher powers at work. Though, this time it wasn't for him. Had it only been him involved, he'd likely have ticked Chakotay off just for fun and let the dice fly. Now, he had a crew to consider and, more immediately, B'Elanna, whom he'd stupidly not worked harder to prevent from coming. Now her arm was broken and she wasn't complaining as much as she had the right to, and they still had another week with a thirsty resistance who all but drooled to look at her. For someone he liked a lot, he sure was putting her under a lot of guns.
"Agh," he grunted when he finally was able to relax enough to make his bladder release. He leaned his shoulder against the edge of the building. He had to go more than he knew. It occurred to him that he'd not gone since well before lunch, but he probably would have avoided it for the trouble he was having at it now. His side suddenly felt like it was on fire.
Looking down, he understood why. In the building's exterior light, he squinted, then stared. His urine was a decided shade of reddish orange.
"Yeah, it could get worse," he muttered bitterly as he finished, breathing hard to try to muster enough strength to move back inside. His bladder empty, there seemed to be all the more room for swelling.
Best part about it, he knew, was he or B'Elanna could do little but wait and repeat the superficial treatments with that weak equipment. He chose for the mean time not to tell B'Elanna about the blood. She already looked anxious about him, in that way of hers. She needed sleep and had enough on her plate even then.
Staggering into the bunkroom, Tom noticed B'Elanna already in the wall bed across from his, lying on her side and looking most determined in her effort to slumber. Tom eased himself down into his, pulling his blanket over his body with a weak sweep of his hand. "Goodnight," he whispered.
When he released a long, shaky breath, she looked over. Lying on his back, his eyes were already closed, his hands resting at his sides. "Computer, dim lights eighty percent."
Tom groaned as he barely awakened, rolling out of the bunk and hitting the floor with a cough. B'Elanna, nearby and tucked up against the side on her bunk, looked to have fallen asleep watching him, but didn't stir at his noise. He reached up to pull himself back up, but his arm dropped back down. Feeling a wave of dizziness pass over him, a shudder close behind, Tom gave up and fell asleep on the floor.
"Tom! ...Tom!" Patting his flaccid arm, B'Elanna didn't know of she should roll him over. A quick check told her he was alive, but past that... "Tom! Wake up!"
Getting to her feet with a wince at the sharp pain in her shoulder, she stumbled out into the main room and to the table where the tricorder and now recharged regenerator lay. Now if she could remember how to use them... Looking down at the display, she suddenly remembered that Tom had fiddled with the controls to strengthen the beam. He didn't share the new settings with her...because she'd still been busy when he was giving himself those last few treatments. Either way, she wasn't sure what the setting should be that time.
The tricorder she could figure out, though, so she took both pieces into the other room just as Tom had begun to cough and groan, turning over as his knees and chest shrank toward each other.
"Ah, God," he breathed, aborting the move half-completed. "What the hell's going on?"
She stood there dumbly at first, wondering if he'd forgotten yesterday. Then his bloodshot stare crept across the floor to her bare feet, up her body, finally catching her eyes. B'Elanna instantly moved to kneel by him. Setting the machinery on the floor by her knees, she brushed his tangled hair from his eyes with her hand. His skin was hot.
Her gesture and the sight of her sling seemed to bring him up to speed. "You have the regenerator?" he croaked.
"Yes," she answered.
He pulled a couple breaths, then nodded. "Let me see it. I'll reset it."
She waited as his shaky fingers bounced off the LEDs. Belatedly, he glanced up at her and relayed the figures. "It's an easy pattern on the main control panel. Four-seven-three-three-eight."
"Four-seven-three-three-eight," B'Elanna repeated, then took the equipment when he handed it to her. Looking down at the grid on the controls, he did have the beam regulators set to that numerical pattern. As she passed extended bar over his belly, it lit up with alert areas. B'Elanna furrowed her brow. "Tom, there are five separate lesions--damaged areas."
"Just work one at a time," he managed. "Run the bar slowly...over it. It'll tell you how...how it's coming along." He drew a fuller breath that time as she started the procedure. "You won't be able to finish the job. It automatically stops at eighty percent and recommends surgery."
"Thanks for the warning," she said, still wondering about the severity of the damage. He was handling the whole thing as though he already knew about it and it wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately, that little tissue knitter was telling her something else. Eyeing him, she looked away to reset the frequency then waved the bar again.
"Guess this is my payback," Tom whispered, laughing weakly behind it as he stared into B'Elanna's eyes. "It's been a long time coming, but I finally got it."
"Be quiet," she told him, kindly though she meant it. "Accidents are just that."
"Don't you believe in fate, B'Elanna?"
She moved her concentration to his side, watching the response bar alert her to what it was targeting. "Pilots. All luck and instinct."
"And everything's got to have an answer engineer," Tom returned. "I don't think we're that bad, though, much as we are what we are."
"No, we're not," she relented. "Now be quiet for a second."
"Second's up."
She smiled without wanting to. "Be quiet, Tom." She worked the little wand over and over his midsection until the levels came close to normal again, then deactivated the beam before it completely wore down. "Besides," she said offhand, "if it really was a payback, you wouldn't be here right now."
"I can't shake the feeling," he breathed, his eyelids growing heavy. "I can't stop thinking that maybe I needed this to happen." He watched her face, dirty around her dark, striking eyes, watched her glance up from the readouts, cool and as professional as she could be just then. Indeed, it was a pleasant diversion for that moment, wondering what she was thinking past that well-kept façade. "I didn't used to be superstitious, believe it or not. Not really. Not until I got the Guerdon..." Sharply inhaling, he shut his eyes and breathed through it. "I wanted you to get some sleep, B'Elanna... We both needed it, but I knew you've ended up having to take care of this mess."
Her eyes jumped to his again and stayed there as the regenerator bleeped a new warning. "Don't do that again," she told him.
"Okay. Sor--agh. Sorry! Maybe this is the revenge."
"I thought I told you to be quiet."
He coughed a laugh as he caught her wry smirk. "Yes, ma'am." He hardly groaned the words as the pain radiated again, almost as though it battled the healing rays the engineer was so determinedly administering.
B'Elanna meanwhile went back to feeling all but useless as she watched the man bear it, knowing that what she was doing would have to be repeated numerous times before Captain Chakotay and his crew could get there and wondering how much Tom was bearing. Being half-Klingon, she could feel pain like humans, but usually responded to it differently. While comforting at the time, it often was detrimental to her overall health, as her largely human frame needed to acknowledge pain to alert her to do something about it. But even in childhood, B'Elanna was caught with infected cuts or broken toes, convinced they were simple annoyances when they required care.
It carried itself elsewhere, that mindset, she knew.
Savan must have quickly deduced her tolerance levels, B'Elanna realized, as the Vulcan came to her with the regenerator more than she did to anyone else. In fact, to her knowledge, she never came after the other crew, even when Tom was sick.
She stared at the man before her once again. Was sick, got better, really started taking of himself and moving ahead with things. Now this.
"No one needs this to happen," B'Elanna finally replied, feeling that much as keenly for herself as for him. We get here well enough without requirement, she silently added as he slowly lost consciousness again.
Tom's eyes opened, he couldn't tell when. It was quite warm and the sun shone brightly through frosted windows. He hurt like hell, but he was able to move. He didn't want to do much of that just yet, though. He suddenly recognized that he was in the cot, propped to sit reclined at a forty-five degree angle, and he was in the main room. There was a ration pack and water on the table beside him.
B'Elanna left him food.
By the clinking and whizzing nearby, he knew she was back in the geothermal power assembly, probably connecting the last of the sensor nets to it. Remote stations planted over the last couple months could relay activity between Nivoch Bajor, Dorvan and Amleth. Though B'Elanna appreciated the good planning, she had wondered what use it would be in the middle of a giant plasma storm. Tom suggested they could pass information on to other Maquis ships.
"Not that I actually care," B'Elanna had stated, "but can't they do that from where they are?"
"Not without getting tagged," Tom had pointed out.
She'd merely shrugged and started the installation.
By the look of the crate carrying those parts, Tom guessed B'Elanna was probably almost done with it, leaving her with the shield array and general subsystems. Reaching down, he grabbed a shunt processor unit and popped the casing open. The move nearly wore him out, so instead of digging into the relatively simple work of connecting the rod sockets and cross checking them against the frequencies B'Elanna was setting the units at, he set the piece down onto his knees. Sighing, he looked at the tray, took the water and drank it. It rolled into his stomach unimpeded, circling around before settling. He did not try for the rations.
He should have hurt worse than he did. She must have treated him again recently.
He closed his eyes, leaned back onto the cushion she'd set behind him. Even one-armed, she was able to drag him and the cot out there and get his dead weight repositioned. That said a lot to him, more than he felt like thinking about just then, but probably would again sometime, if he survived. If he survived.
Damn, I hate this, he thought, more than once as he realized all over again what crap condition he was in. He missed his ship, wished he were back on that clunky, old waste of time and money. What he would give just then to lean back in the captain's couch and poke through a nice, long leg, bored to death and living on coffee, dealing around like they used to, not scraping and compromising themselves to stay alive. Running the table on base for parts. Putting off paperwork until Maryl was screaming at him. Sharing the table with Jerod... Hell, I'd take a dinner meeting with Gil over any of this.
Tom breathed a little laugh as he picked up the node again. How things had changed since the last time he'd deftly escaped Gil's office. How much had changed since Jerod was killed. Not for the first time, Tom hoped he hadn't given away his soul to those people, to the Maquis. He'd told B'Elanna that he was trying to keep them alive; without question, that was his intention. He hoped to hell that the price for the Guerdon's survival wouldn't be too high in the end.
Maybe it would be after all.
But then he blew a breath at that thinking. He was awake and alert. The pain was heinous, but survivable. If he could work overtime with his liver about to explode, he could certainly sit on his ass and suffer kidney damage.
He still wished he could get up.
She wiped at her moist, dirty arms as she came back into the center section, ready for another uncharacteristic "break" to check in on Tom. To her surprise and relief, she found him halfway into the sensor node she'd left for him, poking out the STA to get to the receiver circuit. He was pale and looked drawn, but he was well enough to work. That was more than she could have asked for. He wasn't nearly so hopeful looking when she finally dragged him and the cot out of the chamber.
His lips turned up when she came in at last. "Hey," he said quietly, finishing the extraction before setting the part down.
"You're up," she acknowledged, walking over to the water bottle she'd left out for herself.
"Been in the sensor net unit?"
"All morning," she nodded. Taking a few large swallows of water, she leaned against the table and added, "It's almost ready to go. I have only those few nodes to install and I can finally move on to the enviro-shield."
"How's it been?"
"I had some trouble with this one, actually," she admitted with a snort, "but it's originally a Ferengi system, so I should have been expecting that."
He shared the small laugh for what it was worth. His stare turned regretful a moment later. "I'm sorry I can't do more."
B'Elanna shook her head. "It's nothing you can help. Besides, I've been getting used to working with one hand. It's...interesting."
He breathed a laugh. "I'll bet it is."
"I honestly didn't think I would be able to do as much as I have." She watched him take that in for a few seconds. "How are you feeling?"
"Pretty rough, but these odd jobs help." He watched her nod, then move around the table to the toolbox she'd assembled the day before. Her loose, two-piece jumpsuit was smeared with grime from crawling around in unsealed access tubes. She'd cleaned her face since yesterday, but obviously gave up on her hair after brushing it with her fingers. He pursed his lips at the stab of odd jealousy at her mobility despite her broken arm, still strapped firmly against her torso. The work did help, but he knew it was nothing to moving around and literally getting into the work. He was probably better off unconscious for the combination of boredom and pain that faced him. In truth, he didn't know which was worse. "Where are you going next?"
"I'll be on the other side of the geothermal assembly. Comm me when it gets to the point that you need another treatment."
"How many have you done today?"
"Four."
Tom blew a breath. "Guess you're managing to keep busy, too.... Thanks."
She watched him lean his head back, probably trying to hide his chagrin--or dread? He'd tried to make a joke of it, more for himself than for her, it seemed. But then he pulled himself back up and picked up the node, as though he'd not taken that break. B'Elanna finished the water and pushed herself to her feet. "Is there anything I should watch out for?" she asked. "With the regenerator?"
"You should first poke me with a phase inducer to make sure I'm still alive," he deadpanned.
She gave him a look.
He shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. A lot of bleeding, I guess. It's already doing that. We're just corking it a while, so a rupture would probably be bad news."
"You think so?" she said, playing along with his understatement.
"Definitely make me lose my appetite for reprocessed apple brown betty," he returned. "But it'll certainly save you a lot of work later on."
She snorted. "Just what I need." Heading out, she gestured at the box of parts on his other side. "So can you manage to put a few more boxes together before deserting me on this mudball, Captain?" she said, trying for a little playful sarcasm. Its effect was what she'd wanted: He chuckled and shook his head. Satisfied, she disappeared down the corridor.
Tom looked after her, his fingers still resting on each side of the node, his mind playing back her smile, her clever eyes pinned to his, her full mouth curled up into a grin, her light tone playing over and over, sinking nicely into his heart and warming him there. He'd have to be dead not to feel any response to that.
If anything, he knew he was decidedly not dead--far from it in at least one department.
He suddenly heard her laughing, when they were out on that sailboat. He never imagined she'd laugh aloud like that, but she had a few times, when the buffeting wind nearly tore her over and she dove for the mast to hang on while she somehow kept the sail from knocking him cleanly off the back. Her eyes were alive and her laugh was clear and real. How didn't he fall for her right there and then? He could see her sneaking looks at him over their breakfast on Deep Space Nine. He didn't connect the dots there, either.
He'd tried to dismiss it before, but now there was no denying it. Everything was connecting and he knew it. Naturally, the timing was lousy.
More than for the obvious, he wished their situation were different. He wished he could woo her with the abandon he enjoyed so well in his past, and he wondered why he didn't just go for it and let the pieces lie as they may. But then, he knew why: She was his friend and he just wasn't interested in disposable feelings anymore. She wasn't the sort who'd fall right in with a flirt and enjoy herself just because. Moreover, they were constantly busy, angry, injured and tired--and save injury, their daily lives were always like that.
But sure as hell, he wasn't dead.
"Better luck next time," he whispered. Drawing a deep breath, he set his eyes on the node once again.
Soon enough, she'd run out of work.
Whoever planned those systems and stole those parts had planned too well in the end--too well for her, at least. Despite her thinking it would be otherwise, the units had mostly installed without issue, thanks to the Starfleet technology bringing it all together. Even the sensor array was coming on line, bit by bit, now that the final network nodes had been corrected and installed. The environmental shield was the only thing giving her trouble and would at least require a trip out to the shuttle's replicator for parts she couldn't find in the crates; connecting the general subsystems to the geothermal generator and ODN would happen within a couple hours. If she and Tom hadn't been injured, they would have finished already.
Then again, she'd been working since they got there, largely one-handed but doubly determined to keep busy. She almost wished she had more problems to deal with.
Of course, she did have problems to deal with, just that she didn't know how.
Pulling herself out of the access hatch and moving around to the sensor console, B'Elanna punched in a new scan and waited a few minutes for the system to initialize. Were everything connected properly, it would soon shoot back Cardassian ship positions in the Bajor sector.
It did just that. Examining the readings, the little console tracked a number of Cardassian ships around and over their border. With another few taps, B'Elanna could see Starfleet's deployments, too. A few adjustments and both factions' sensor nets popped into view.
Her chest sank. That system was working perfectly. The Maquis could easily see where their enemies were and let their friends know about it. Thanks to her and Tom, the Maquis would have an upper hand for a while, until Starfleet and Cardassia could update their protocols. Whoever designed the relay knew what he or she was doing. Moreover, when they pitched this mission to Tom, they made it seem much more complex than it actually was. She and Tom had both realized that yesterday, but it was stupidly obvious now. B'Elanna frowned. Though it might have taken him longer to figure out the few problems she had encountered, Ridge could have made the trip after all. But they wouldn't have been interested in Ridge. They needed engineers more than techs.
If she wasn't so busy and so sure of herself, there, she might have been afraid.
"B'Elanna? You've got it in?" came Tom's ragged voice down the main corridor.
Finished with the nodes and lacking anything else to do, he periodically "checked in" with her when she moved into earshot. In any other situation, it'd have annoyed the hell out of her.... Well, maybe it still is annoying, she admitted to herself. But in his position, she'd have probably gone insane by then--or driven him nuts. She sure as hell wouldn't have cracked a joke.
"I'm on my way back in a minute," she said, closing out the station for the time being.
"How's it working?"
"Probably better than we'd like it to, actually," she answered. Wiping her hand on her pocket, she shoved her tools into her waist sack and headed back to him. "They can pick up everything, Tom--Cardassian, Starfleet, Breen, whoever they want. The person who planned this system was really good."
"They probably got their hands on a security expert," Tom said. "Or maybe an ex-officer. No one else could pin down all the codes, otherwise, especially Starfleet's right now."
"And we're putting it in their hands."
"We knew we would," he said resignedly. "But if it hadn't been us, someone else would have had the honor."
Coming into the center section, she found Tom in the same place, but markedly inactive. With nothing else to assemble and not being up for eating, his hands rested limply at his sides, slightly swollen. His skin was a shade of sallow she remembered all too well and his face didn't try to pull up in greeting. He was probably too drained for any of that. They knew without his saying so that he was getting worse. She also knew by his expression that he was sorry for it. She blinked a nod of acknowledgement and went to check the regenerator.
"It's still charging," she told him, not looking back.
"I'll survive for now."
She nodded, checking the components in the regenerator before giving it up for the time being. They'd been using it far longer and for far more than it'd been designed to handle. If it burnt out at any time, she wouldn't be shocked--though she certainly didn't want that to happen. In spite of it, as she turned it in her hand, it slipped and fell to the table.
"Damn!" she hissed and grabbed it up again. Giving it another good look, she made sure she hadn't broken it. She sighed to see its diagnostic still running uninterrupted. "It's okay," she said, more for herself but aimed at Tom.
He watched her fumble a little longer with it and finally set it down again. "Go ahead and get those parts, B'Elanna. You could probably use a walk."
Looking back, she found him gazing understandingly at her. She felt her chest quiver at it. It seemed like ages ago when he first gave her a look like that. Her mindset at the time and the coolness he also projected in his constant state of intoxication made her instantly distrust any outreach on his part. As the months went by, as he came to know her better, too, she had come to like getting that look. It suited him, even when he was displeased. Even when she was angry with him and thinking about leaving when her contract was up, there was something about the captain catching her with "that look," that always gave her a little pause. To see that expression above so much pain now, however, prevented any of the pleasure she'd have gotten from it, though it made her admire him even more. He was fighting hard, in his own way, as usual.
"You're all right there?" she asked him.
"I have been so far," he replied. "Can you get those last pieces from that replicator?"
"We'll see."
With one more look Tom's way, B'Elanna trudged out of the main base shelter. The hot muggy air hit her in all the wrong ways, working like glue for the soot and sweat she couldn't wait to blast off. Sonic shower power inputs were among the subsystems she needed to install--and she had no problem moving that to the top of the list. She knew she'd happily bunk in one of the shower stalls if she didn't have to remain with Tom.
Tucking her good arm against her chest, she watched the sleek, Ligaran shuttle come closer and closer. If she had been able to procure the parts for it, she'd have repaired the engine, hull and reverse thrusters and planned for a speedy departure once the systems were in, and to hell with the Maquis, the Liberty, Captain Chakotay and his crew of vultures. She'd have gotten them out of there and gotten Tom the help he needed instead of waiting there for him to slowly bleed to death.
Bleed to death. Paybacks. B'Elanna's stomach churned to realize exactly what Tom had been talking about that morning.
"Phase lock plates, emitter pins, grid circuit lines," she muttered, trying to keep off the track of things she couldn't do anything about.
Slamming open the shuttle hatch, B'Elanna stomped through the now empty bay to the little replicator at mid-ship. With a glance, she could tell it was offline again. Growling, she fell to her knees and popped off the bulkhead cover. A little rigging after they first landed had rerouted enough power to it. Getting into the power network again and seeing the impulse reactor surprisingly still in good shape, she rerouted again and soon heard the system whirring to life. Sighing, she pulled herself back to her feet and began replicating her list.
It was a numb process, and she thought between items that she was more tired than she wanted to admit. Standing still was making her realize it. Realizing it did her no favors, either. She knew she was more stressed than she'd ever tell Tom at that point, though he probably didn't need to be told. The idiot vendor at Velir station probably wouldn't need to be told at that point.
She growled again and punched at the panel.
"Thirty-two lines for grid section alpha-gamma-nine," she commanded.
"*Specify junction.*"
"Four-six-one upper."
The items materialized. She continued to repeat the process until the tray was nearly full, her voice becoming almost as mechanical as the system that confirmed each order. Examining the tray once again, she replayed her list in her head. It came up with surprising ease, scrolling mentally through junctions as her eyes drifted across the inventory. Her shoulders were relaxed, her mind perfectly focused. She blinked when she saw a hole in her process.
"Computer, three core shunts, same unit and section."
The brackets appeared and she took them, one by one, and laid them on the tray.
"Isolinear units four-one-beta through."
"Straight pin or--"
"*Transverse,*" she ordered and waited as the machine lit up yet again.
"*B'Elanna?*"
"Isolinear units four-two-beta outer. Transverse pin."
"*B'Elanna?*"
Pulling the pieces off the replicator pad, she almost didn't recognize it, but then felt an alert buzzer in her pocket. Tapping the piece through the sticky cloth, she said, "I'm here."
"*You need to come back,*" Tom whispered.
"Is it bad?" she asked, still visually inventorying.
"*I couldn't get...to the regenerator myself. I...need you back here.*"
"Okay, I'm almost done here," B'Elanna told him, looking at the replicator panel again. "I have--"
"*Are you--*" The sound of something overturning and a loud grunt followed his last word before the comm died.
The crash snapped up her attention and she suddenly realized what was happening on the other end.
Without looking at her work again, she turned around and ran out of the shuttle.
His eyes opened very slowly, unwillingly as the light stung. Everything stung and throbbed and ached.
Not that I could expect the break of my choosing, he smirked to himself, even as he hated himself for indulging in another round of self-pity. It came so naturally to him sometimes, he wondered if he'd ever break that habit. Today's not that day, I guess, he concluded for himself and ground his teeth together to ride out the waves of nausea that accompanied the rest. He might have verbalized his many complaints if he could, but only a pitiful moan escaped him.
Looking over, he immediately caught the dark, bloodshot eyes of B'Elanna Torres. She was sitting on the floor, resting her chin on her arm, knees pulled up to her chest, staring steadily at him. She looked like he felt: hurt, dirty and well past exhausted. He couldn't tell by the look on her face what she might be thinking, but she sure as hell wasn't happy, even as she blinked to see him awaken. Rising, she drew a long breath, then let it out. Her eyes didn't waver from his.
"You've been out the rest of yesterday and all night," she informed him softly. "It's about midday now." She paused, then added, "I've been controlling the bleeding, but it's not going to last much longer."
Tom nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but he still couldn't form words yet--a unique condition for him, without a doubt. Releasing his breath, he glanced at the water flask on the table.
B'Elanna immediately went to get another one. "I replicated a mineral drink," she said, retrieving a spouted bottle. "You probably need nutrition, right?"
Tom didn't argue. A few vitamins wouldn't be what killed him in the end. Letting her gently tip the nozzle to his lips, he tentatively sipped the water. The last thing he wanted to do, he knew, was choke on the water and hack. That would be the end of him, he was sure. The taste was slightly acidic, but it cleared his palette, wet his throat and soon gave him a little energy--enough, at least, to manage a breath of, "Thanks."
She nodded briskly, a cool nurse, standing at the ready to give him another dose when he could take more but not offering much else.
He understood it. She'd been going around the clock with him, twice now. "What...what's Maquis...ETA?" he asked.
She frowned. "They should have arrived this morning. --I know. We expected them to be late."
Had he the strength, he'd have shrugged. Instead, he looked at the water bottle and opened his lips for another sip. "Setup?" he asked.
"It's mostly done," she answered, her face unchanged. "The environmental shield still isn't cooperating with the converter and I really don't care. One of their people said they moved bases a lot, so they probably won't be here long enough for it to matter."
Tom took that with a blink. He was in no position to say otherwise. "So...now what?"
"We wait, I suppose." She set the water bottle on her lap. "Too bad we don't have your... What was it? Atari?"
He breathed a little laugh. "I wish. But...have an idea."
"Now," he whispered slowly, gesturing to the stack, "you draw one, slip it into your hand...now decide, whether or not it matches up with anything you've got--or anything you think I've got, or might want. If not, discard it."
"And you decide whether or not you want it or draw from the stack," B'Elanna concluded with a nod. "Easy enough."
Tom grinned. "Pretty much."
She looked at her hand, clumsily clutched in her bad hand, halfway against her chest. According to the rules he defined, she could lay down two sets already. "And you actually wager on this game?"
"Poker more often...but every now and again, I meet a rummy player. I always miss rummy. Played it a lot, when I was a kid.... Now, here's the twist to the game. You see...see how we're spreading out the discard pile?"
B'Elanna smiled as Tom proceeded to explain another strategy of the game to her. Resigned to whispering, almost too weak to set the cards down correctly, probably dying as they wasted their time there, he was somehow keeping his spirits up with as little as a card game. It amazed her in a way, how such a simple thing could inspire him so well.
Her smile melted, however, when he set his hand aside and groaned. "Where?"
Tom tried for breath for nearly a minute. It came on and spread like flame on a pool of oil. Scuttling the cards, he pressed against the back of his chair, trying to get the words, trying, if anything, to look at B'Elanna again. When he did, he felt for her. She really didn't know what the hell to do but what he told her--which couldn't be fun. "Right side, under my ribs, deep," he finally managed between his teeth.
B'Elanna activated the tricorder and checked the regenerator. "We'll need to recharge them both again. The signal's not strong in this tricorder."
"Yeah. I'll show you...the regenerator beam will be the same. Put those...put them down a second." Tom opened his tunic and took her hand. Pressing her fingers to his torso, he clenched his teeth and let out his breath so she could feel where the swelling was. She took over a moment later, slipping her sensitive fingertips down around the muscle there. He coughed a soft laugh. "You know, this'd be exciting if it didn't hurt so damned much."
"Maybe next time," she dryly replied and activated the tissue regenerator.
"The one time I can excuse a relapse and there's not a drop around." B'Elanna glanced up at him from the rations she knew she had to eat rather than wanted to. Night had fallen, quiet save the warm, rustling breeze. The cards were set aside for good. They'd lasted a good few hours, but Tom couldn't hold a hand, and his head was hurting too much to focus. He was fully reclined, trying to keep his breathing steady and failing more often than not. His voice was ragged, but keeping it low helped. B'Elanna had been trying for a while to keep him going. Thankfully, he seemed to need to talk.
"You still want it," she said, only half a question.
"Hmm. No. Not really." He blinked, remembering... "It's not the taste anymore, but escaping, yeah...I can't help that sometimes. The numb...was good."
"I remember you saying so." B'Elanna thought about that for a moment.
"Don't even know...why I went along with the doc's advice. Not at first. I walked out of his sickbay not thinking I cared. But it was done...and when I saw where I'd been, I couldn't go back again."
"Maybe you have less to run from now, too," she suggested.
Tom's lips turned up. "Yeah, maybe. Or I'm just done...with running."
"It does get old," she softly rejoined.
He eyed her, there, but didn't say anything. "I have all the same impulses...but it's different. It's just hard to know...where to put them."
Finished with eating, B'Elanna set aside her tray and leaned back in her seat. "Have any hobbies?" she asked.
"Too many," he smiled, his bloodshot eyes closing for a long moment. They opened slowly, all but lost when he focused again. "If I hadn't loved being a pilot so much...I think I could have been a historian."
B'Elanna smiled, too. "I would never have guessed that."
"I love antiques," he confirmed, "and anything else...around the twentieth century. Great century, so much fun, so much to know."
"It was war torn then, wasn't it?"
"Violent, screwed up, politically insane...materialistic and totally oblivious; but there was a lot of change that...came on quickly, a lot of development, progress despite it all.... Anyway, a lot of it's been a hobby for me, especially combustion engines. Had a car at home I used to work on. God, I loved that thing...and my old movie collection. You can't build a life around that stuff...though you couldn't have told me that five, six years ago."
B'Elanna laughed a little at that. "I guess not."
"But lately, what I'm thinking about...want to look at more, is holo-technology--structured programs, all that. I like to write programs, when I can. I always wanted to look at...writing holonovels."
B'Elanna nodded. "They are the latest thing, and you have good programming skills. You should download some information when we're at DS-Nine next time--or I can for you. I'm in their databanks every time we're close enough to ask permission."
Tom nodded his thanks with a blink. "If we get out of this."
"Your optimism is really catchy."
"Well...I'm not up for dying just yet," he softly assured her. "I joke around, but...I'm not quite ready yet. And...aside from not wanting to give Seska whatshername the satisfaction, I don't want you to...have to deal with those people, alone."
Leaning down close to him, she told him, "You're not going anywhere if I can help it."
He held her eyes in his for several long seconds as his grin replayed itself upon his lips. To his pleasant surprise, he was almost certain he saw her blush. "That's good to know," he whispered. Watching her nod and pull safely away, he let them both off the hook and continued, "In any case, if I'd been sober and sane enough, at the time...I would have gone right back in and retrained after the court martial, started writing full time."
"You couldn't have been able to handle that then, though, considering."
"I couldn't handle anything," he breathed, almost in wonder to remember it--not that those days had ever left, even with sobriety and a certain amount of letting go. Or so he thought. It felt so far away from his present life, though still undoubtedly a part of him. He'd never thought about it so much until just then. "I lost...everything, B'Elanna. Everything that mattered...everything that didn't but I used, anyway. I lost my home...or at least my sense of it...and I left soon enough that...I couldn't go back... My career, my best friend, my...innocence. --It sounds corny, putting it like that, but there's no other word...I can think of. I was no saint, but I was, well...blissfully unaware of what could happen. I had it all. I couldn't have imagined...what I ended up with. Not in a million years."
"You still made a lot of it," B'Elanna offered.
"No way it compared to what I had...or thought I had. But I did do okay, yeah." He paused, tilting his head in a shrug. "The programming...that's a creative outlet I can...I can live with. I could be good at it if I got the time...to learn the tech. So, I have options. Just haven't dug in yet." He watched her nod. "You're doing what you want."
She grinned a little. "I always had my mind set on engineering, from the first day I took apart an old replicator at Oscar's lot."
"How old were you?"
"About nine."
Tom smiled again. "You must have been cute as hell."
"I was shy," B'Elanna told him, not catching the compliment for the unearthed memories. Thankfully, the sting of it was not nearly what it had been before their Ulinas stop. Much against her expectation, seeing and then writing her father, having his reassurance and perhaps even friendship, really made a difference, in quiet ways. Sometimes, she believed she might actually be able to try again with her mother, too. Her father had recently brought up the idea, stopping short of actually recommending it. "I had a better time in high school, when I felt like I could do more," she continued. "I was always into things, seeing how they worked, and keeping moving. I was always busy with sports or projects. I couldn't stand being bored."
"That hasn't changed," Tom noted, still amused.
"Neither did my concentration," she said.
"That's a good thing. You could really run the table...anywhere you went."
"Yes, I know," she snapped. "I already promised twice I'd tell you if I found something better and I will, if only to get you off my back about it."
Tom sighed. "I'm sorry, B'Elanna. I just can't help it...seeing your gift. I like to think...we're friends. As a friend, I want you to have...all you deserve, all you can get."
She gazed at him. His words came between breaths, now, all of them apologetic, but honest and warm with regard for her, even as weak as he was becoming. He wasn't trying to push her off. He simply had an intimate understanding of what it was like to go untested, and he happened to give a damn about her being in the same situation. Why do I keep doing that? she wondered. More forces of habit at work, she answered herself. Shaking her head, she shrugged. "Forget about it."
"I am sorry."
"I know."
"You...You there...B'Elanna?"
"I'm right here," she assured him, forcing something close to normal into her tone. His eyes were closed, after all. She didn't have to try to look it, too. "Don't worry. I'll take the watch. I'm right here."
He dragged a fitful breath; his hand twitched. "I'm sick," he muttered.
"They'll be here soon. I'll get you taken care of. We've been up all night. Get some sleep. They'll probably be here before you wake up."
"Yeah." He pulled a shorter breath. "Okay...thanks."
Finally, he gave it up. He'd fought all day through the pain and weakness, but finally had to let go.
B'Elanna was stuck between relief and concern to watch his body finally relax. Despite all she said, she had to wonder if those could be his last words. She wondered if he thought they could be.
Slowly sighing out her breath, she touched his hair, stared at his face. Handsome, expressive, but drawn and pale, there seemed to be no peace in that sleep, either. Idly, she wondered if he was the only one getting their just reward. Maybe there was something to be said about that odd superstition of his.
But then she shook her head of such thinking and moved to get something to drink. Perhaps she could find something to do while she waited for that damned regenerator to charge again, besides reconsider how the shuttle really malfunctioned. She'd run three full diagnostics on the shuttle's reverse thrusters knowing they would need them to land. There was no way they had a hidden defect. The thought hadn't struck her in a couple days for being busy and tending after Tom, but now she had plenty of time for conspiracy theories. She wished she could reexamine those thrusters.
Perhaps her hatred would keep her occupied, instead. It certainly was keeping her warm.
"Ten, eight, two, one, queen..."
B'Elanna looked up from the stack when she saw some movement, but it was the same move as he'd been making all day--a spasm, followed by a jerky breath. No matter what she did, he was still in pain. His vital signs remained steady thanks to her work on him every ninety minutes or so, but he could rupture at any minute. They were into the fourth day. She wouldn't need to keep mending him much longer.
Again, she looked down and resumed her sorting. "Ten, king, three, jack..."
She'd been sorting for over an hour.
She hadn't slept. She couldn't--wouldn't.
There was nothing more she could do with the base units--and nothing more she wanted to do besides completely disassemble them and transport them piece by piece into a swirl of plasma. So, she dealt out the cards, one by one, looking at the face cards, the stony impassion, two-dimensional below name value. When she was done, she'd collect them all and start again.
Tom hadn't gotten around to teaching her solitaire. She had learned it when she was very young, but had forgotten the rules. She could go to the shuttle and look it up, but it wasn't nearly tempting enough to get her away from Tom's side. With her luck, the Maquis would come, beam her to their ship and leave Tom there to die. --Or not, but the image had passed through her mind, effectively keeping her where she was. For that matter, she was determined to have him teach her sometime. Though, if they got back to the Guerdon, she knew they'd soon get back to their schedule of deals (such as they were lately) and constant repairs and maintenance. She'd never get around to asking him how to play a card game. She probably would never ask the computer.
In her weak moments, she hoped until her chest hurt that she would be able to forget about asking him.
Against her will, she remembered how he looked on Ulinas, so bright and alive that day he teased her about going sailing. His hair tossed in the breeze, his eyes shone above that quirky smile...how it fell into her, made her indeed want to run along and skid dangerously along the water, though she of course would never have thrown off work that day. She was so glad she'd thought to waste their time with it later, when they needed it...and still wanted it. It was the best afternoon she'd had in years, not an hour after it was one of the worst.
He twitched again.
"Seven, queen, nine, nine..."
The breeze picked up outside, a herald to the oncoming dusk. "Computer, seal room." Forcefields rose over the windows and doors.
She could see his fingers flying across the control panels of the Ligaran shuttle, his eyes set intently on their path. He pulled out several incredibly complex maneuvers as if they were nothing, and that in a craft he'd only flown that once. At the Hugora Nebula, during both attacks, she hadn't been on the bridge, but she knew that he'd flown the hell out of his bulky freighter and kept them alive, and did the same during the other attacks, too. B'Elanna flipped another card. So much talent, intelligence, instinct, all gone because the forces around him wouldn't leave him the hell alone and get on with his life. She remembered the look on his face when she asked about his father. He was wise to her roundabout method, but let it go--and even opened up about his family...let her in, let her know him.
She knew he didn't talk so candidly about himself anywhere else. Even Ridge didn't know many details about Tom's family, aside from his having a couple of sisters and that his parents lived in San Francisco. Maryl told B'Elanna that Tom had never brought the topic up with any of the crew because his father was so high profile and he didn't want the attention. None of them talked much about their families, really.
Tom had opened up to her, though...and now it was over.
This isn't worth the pain, she growled to herself. Why do I let myself get like this?
She looked down again.
The deck was finished.
She gathered all the cards together, packed them into a stack once again and split that stack into two. Then she shuffled, several times. She was getting better at it with each round, and she felt a sort of soothing effect with the melding of those cards between her hands. Pausing with the split stack in her ready fingers, she stared at him again, not for any reason anymore. Without looking down, she shuffled some more, then again...and again.
Her heart began to thrum as her mind replayed the look on his face when the thrusters failed. He'd handled it well--better than she probably would have. He saved their lives with his skill and resolve, and now he was dying thinking it was a balance.
Dying because of...
She almost didn't believe her eyes when she saw that very reason stroll around the corner, looking curiously around at the installation as though he were on vacation. A dark, barrel-chested man with a little height, same leather vest, same tattoo, healthy and wide awake. Even a smile had found his small mouth. He was impressed. He was pleased.
Her heart thrummed in a wash of rage.
Captain Chakotay finally found what he was looking for, one of whom already found her feet, dropping what looked like playing cards on the dirt-smeared floor. "Torres," he acknowledged with a polite nod.
"You son of a bitch!" she snarled and lunged out at him.
Surprised at her attack, Chakotay still didn't need to do much to stop her, holding her good arm with both of his hands. "It couldn't be avoided," he assured her firmly, holding her wide-open glare in his steady one.
Twisting out of his grip, B'Elanna stepped back again so that her calves were pressed against the edge of Tom's cot. "Where the hell have you been?!" she demanded.
"Trying to get here. Again, the delay couldn't be avoided."
"Oh, I'm sure you took every pain to live up to your plans!"
Choosing not to respond at that time then looking around to the captain lying unconscious behind the livid engineer, Chakotay calmly tapped his comm badge. "This is Chakotay. I have them. Have you found the shuttle?"
"*The shuttle is in the bay now,*" answered an easy-voiced man.
"Good. Transport three--one with the bunk he's on."
Within seconds, they were facing an empty cargo bay. B'Elanna looked around to see only a few people there to greet them.
Chakotay tapped his badge again. "Get us back on the map route--get us out of here," he immediately ordered, trying to see Paris' face. What little he did see didn't look good.
B'Elanna's brow furrowed as she lowered herself next to Tom. "Not even going to inspect my work?" she asked derisively.
"There's been a change of plans," he replied and motioned to someone across the bay. "It's too hot here. This base's location was leaked to the Cardassians, or they hunted it out. Either way, we can't stay."
"So?"
"So we're vacating."
B'Elanna glared at him. "You mean Tom and I went though all of this for nothing?!"
"We'll come back later," he told her simply. "For now, though, we have a couple agents who'll pack everything up for safe keeping."
Breathing through her fury at that spectacular waste of time and energy--and quite possibly a life, too--B'Elanna kept a firm grip on Tom's jacket shoulder as a dark-skinned Vulcan approached and knelt next to him. His straight, impassive stare was only slightly less pleasant than Savan's, but his motions were markedly rigid. "He stays with me," B'Elanna warned him.
"I do not intend to separate you," said the man. "I will rather require assistance to take him to the quarters you were assigned."
"We need a doctor," B'Elanna told him, then looked up at Chakotay. "And for now, whatever medical equipment you have. He has internal injuries from when we crashed in that shuttle you assigned us."
"I'll try to contact one in our network," the captain told her, "and I'll like to know eventually what happened."
"What happened?!" B'Elanna spat, but reined it back for the more immediate. The Vulcan had already signaled another Maquis to help him pick up the other side of the bunk and seconds later was ready to go. "You find some time. I'll tell you what happened." Going out with the others, she added under her breath, "You treacherous bastard," and ignored the fact that the two Maquis there could hear her perfectly well.
As they turned the corner and entered an open lift, she heard Chakotay announce his return to the bridge. Drawing a deep breath through her nostrils, she planted her feet and waited.
The lift gate shut with a slam.
(c) D'Alaire M, 2007