Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [13]
Finally, he was done. Looking around the cavern, he nodded. "Pretty good," he announced, "even if I do say so myself."
But the real test would come when B'Elanna arrived.
PARIS MADE SURE HE WAS WAITING OUTSIDE ENGINEERING a couple of minutes before B'Elanna's shift was over. He just couldn't wait to show her what he'd come up with.
As the doors to engineering parted and she emerged into the corridor, she was surprised to see him. Pleasantly, the flight controller hoped, though he couldn't be entirely sure. After all, B'Elanna had that enigmatic half-frown, half-smile on her face.
"Fancy meeting you here," he said.
"Yes," B'Elanna replied, "fancy that."
"You'll never guess where I've been all day."
She looked at him. "I give up."
"In my quarters," Paris told her. "And then in the holodeck. But I think you'll agree that it was worth it."
B'Elanna sighed. "Don't tell me you were working on the Day of Honor program."
"I was working on the Day of Honor program." He held up his hand before she could respond. "Sorry. You asked me not to tell you that."
But his flip remark just covered his disappointment. Paris had come to know B'Elanna pretty well, and he could tell by her expression that she was having second thoughts about the program.
After he had worked so hard on it, too. But then, maybe he was reading too much into the look on her face.
"I'm having second thoughts about the program," B'Elanna told him.
Then again, maybe not.
"Why's that?" Paris asked.
The engineer shrugged. "I don't know. In retrospect, it seems a little ... silly or something."
"Silly?" he echoed. "You wouldn't say that if you'd seen what I've done with it. There's nothing that's not downright solemn about this program-and I mean nothing."
She considered him for a moment. "Tell you what, Tom. Let me sleep on it, okay?"
It wasn't as if Paris had a choice in the matter. "Sure. Whatever you say. I mean, it's up to you."
B'Elanna smiled. "Thanks." She patted him on the shoulder. "See you tomorrow."
Once again, he found himself standing there in a corridor as she made her getaway. Someday, he told himself, I'm going to find a way to make that woman a captive audience.
Yeah, right, he added-the day targs learn how to fly.
Kim picked up the three playing cards lying face down on the table and added them to the two already in his hand. Then he fanned the c,,trds out in front of him, so he could see all five of them at a glance.
The two cards on the right were the jacks he had been dealt originally. Now, they had been joined by a deuce, a ten ... and another jack. That gave Harry three of a kind-a pretty potent poker hand.
"All right," said Bandiers, the dark-haired man sitting across from him in Voyageils echoing mess hall. He spoke without looking up from his cards. "Read 'em and weep."
Harry scanned the faces around the table. Bandiero, a lieutenant in astrophysics, was the one who had proposed the poker game in the first place. He, at least, might be a formidable opponent.
Ardan Trayl, a long-necked, green-skinned Mastikaan and a former Maquis, was new to the game. So were Neelix, the ship's Talaxian cook and unofficial morale officer, and Thvok, its Vulcan security officer.
Or so they said.
Harry didn't expect much competition from Trayl or Neelix, at least until they learned how to play. But Tuvok was another question entirely. With his mastery of Vulcan logic, he had proven himself capable of some pretty amazing intellectual feats.
Of course, Tuvok wouldn't have a whole lot to go on, considering that all the cards in this game were dealt facedown. Theoretically, the only cards the Vulcan had seen were the eight that had passed through his hand.
Still, Harry wasn't about to underestimate Tuvok. He had seen people make that mistake in other situations and live to regret it.
Neelix, who was sitting next to the Vulcan, nudged Tuvok with his elbow. "Don't go reading my mind now, Mister Vulcan."
"You need not be concerned," Tuvok assured him, his voice free of resentment. "I cannot