Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [65]
"I'm afraid you're wrong," the captain told him. "We've given you everything we can spare. Return the core and we'll be on our way."
The Caatati's expression hardened. "We don't really care if you can 'spare' it or not. Prepare to hand over your food, your weapons, and your thorium
supply."
"And if we don't?" Janeway asked.
"One of our ships might not seem threatening to you," Lumas noted. "But I assure you, twenty-seven can inflict real damage. And as you've seen, we are desperate. We have very little to lose."
The Caatati let his threat soak in for a moment. The captain didn't take it lightly, either.
"One thing more," he said. "That Borg you're protecting-we want her, too. There are many of us
who'd enjoy a chance to repay one of them for what they did to us."
Janeway glanced at Seven of Nine. On the surface, the Borg seemed unmoved. But deep down, where a human still existed in her, she had to be more than a little concerned.
Certainly, the captain was.
B'ELANNA KNEW HOW BAD THE SITUATION WAS. After all, it didn't take an engineer to figure it out.
Half an hour's worth of oxygen had sounded bad. Now she and Tom had even less. Soon, they would have less than that.
Then nothing.
Silence. Fade to black. End of story.
Tom knew what was going on, too. That's why he had been so quiet the last few minutes. Knowing him, he wanted to encourage her, wanted to give her hope-but, obviously, he couldn't find anything to say.
B'Elanna was quiet, too. But then, she had a lot to think about. A lot to deal with. After a while, it seemed like a maze.
Abruptly, Tom pressed the controls on his sleeve.
"I'm cutting the oxygen ratio," he said. "That should give us a few more minutes."
B'Elanna realized she was dozing off. "I'm feeling kind of groggy," she told Tom.
He nodded knowingly. "Oxygen deprivation."
"And you're lowering it?" she asked him.
Tom smiled wanly at her. "Have to try to make it last as long as possible, you know?"
Normally, she would have argued with him. But by then, all the fight had gone out of her.
More silence. They drifted through space, tethered neck-to-neck by B'Elanna's oxygen hose. She ran through the maze some more.
Then something occurred to her, something she felt compelled to share. "It's ironic, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"Today," she said. "The Day of Honor ... is the day I'm going to die. If only my mother knew."
Tom shook his head emphatically. "We're not going to die, B'Elanna. Stop talking like that."
She grunted. "Just what do you think is going to happen?"
He shrugged. "Anything can happen. Anything at all. And stop arguing-it wastes oxygen."
B'Elanna shot Tom a look, but did as he asked. After all, arguing would be a drain on their oxygen supply.
But she couldn't keep silent. Not anymore. "We have to face up to it, Tom. We're going to die."
He frowned. "I don't want to talk about that."
Then he glanced in her direction. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you."
"I guess now would be the time."
"When we first met," Tom recalled, "you didn't have a very high opinion of me. Right?"
B'Elanna chuckled. "That's putting it mildly. I thought you were an arrogant, self-absorbed pig."
He smiled. "Flattery won't get you any more oxygen. So ... now what do you think? Have I changed?"
"A lot," she told him. "Now you're a stubborn, domineering pig."
Tom looked at her, surprised.
"Just kidding," B'Elanna assured him.
Then she realized what she had done. It hit her with the impact of a phaser blast in the stomach.
"There I go again," B'Elanna said, her annoyance evident in her voice. "I'm pushing you away, any way I can. You're right about me, Tom. That's what I doI push people away."
"Well," he replied, "I'll give you one thing-it's a surefire way of not getting hurt."
She nodded. "You're right." And then, "I'm such a coward."
"No, you're not."
"I am," she insisted.
Tom wrapped his arm around her. "Shhh. Save your air."
But she couldn't stop talking, couldn't stop facing things she hadn't wanted to face before. "Funny. Now I wish I'd finished