Caretaker - L. A. Graf [20]
Janeway glanced up from the tactical station at the whoosh of the opening doors, her face the same mask of welded neutrality it had been since Paris first laid eyes on her in Auckland. He had to give her credit for that--it was pretty clear she didn't like him, but at least she didn't feel the need to broadcast her opinion to the rest of the crew. Unlike Cavit, who moved only grudgingly away from the captain's shoulder to give Paris access to the console when Janeway waved him over.
And good morning to you, too, Mr. Cavit, Paris thought at him with what he knew was an annoying cordial grin. The first officer must be setting some kind of personal record today for making a pest of himself on someone else's time.
"The Cardassians gave us the last known heading of the Maquis ship."
Janeway gathered Paris's attention by reaching over the security officer's shoulder to tap at one of his tactical displays. Whether she was oblivious of Cavit's silent harassment or simply choosing to ignore it, Paris couldn't tell "And we have charts of the plasma-storm activity the day it disappeared. With a little help, we might be able to approximate its course."
Following her lead--whatever it was--Paris turned his shoulder to Cavit and bent over the tactical console for a better view of the readout.
Plasma discharge blinked and retreated in random blossoms all over the screen, with the glowing, jagged line of the Maquis's course dancing back and forth throughout it. The Cardassians had inserted a black marker at the point where they'd been forced to break pursuit, and a dotted line showing how far their sensors had tracked the Maquis after that. "I'd guess they were trying to get to one of the M-class planetoids in the Terikof Belt."
"That would take them here," Cavit explained to the security officer without having to be asked, leaning just a little uncomfortably beyond Paris to point at one corner of the officer's screen.
The security lieutenant nodded, and the image on his display flickered and rebuilt itself, flickered and regrew again. "The plasma storms would have forced them in this direction."
Janeway nodded. "Adjust our course to match," she told Cavit.
"Aye, Captain."
The first officer seemed perfectly happy to disengage himself from the knot around the tactical panel, trotting almost all the way around the upper deck before stepping down to confer with Stadi at the helm. Ah, Stadi. She'd been half-friendly on the trip out. Now, she didn't even spare him a glance as she set about executing the instructions she got from Cavit. Oh, well.
Paris bid her farewell with a tiny sigh as he followed Janeway down toward her captain's chair.
"The Cardassians claim they forced the Maquis ship into a plasma storm, where it was destroyed." Janeway settled into her chair with a frown.
"But our probes haven't picked up any debris."
"A plasma storm might not leave any debris," Paris pointed out.
Janeway shook her head, glancing up at him. "We'd still be able to pick up a resonance trace from their warp core." Which was true, so Paris didn't offer any further suggestions.
"Captain..." Kim turned halfway in his seat, as though afraid to lift his hands from the controls. "I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us."
Janeway sat forward again. "Origin, Mr. Kim?"
He swung back toward his instruments. "I'm not sure," he admitted.
Then he blinked suddenly, and hesitated for a moment before his hands flashed over his console again. "There's also a displacement wave moving toward us. ..."
The captain rose to her feet. "Onscreen."
Energy as white and coherent as Paris had ever seen exploded across the viewscreen when Kim brought up the image. Even knowing there must be hundreds of thousands of kilometers between the ship and