Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [71]
After all, she knew so little about the Caatati, and even less about Lumas himself. She could only hope her words had made some sense to him.
Because if they hadn't, the future looked bleak indeed. But not for the Caatati-for Janeway and her crew.
Lumas picked up the matrix and hefted it in his hands. Then he turned to the captain, his expression a difficult one to read.
"You're free to go," he told her. "And ... thank you."
The captain smiled. She was about to respond to Lumas's expression of gratitude when the Borg did it for her.
"You're ... welcome," said Seven of Nine.
The Caatati looked at her. Obviously, he hadn't expected that.
Neither had Janeway. She regarded the Borg in a new and more hopeful light. Progress, she thought. And just in the nick of time.
B'Elanna sighed in the confines of her mask.
She wanted to see her father one last time. She wanted to ask him what he had been doing with his life the last twenty years or so.
She wondered if he was happy-if he was glad that he had gone his own way. If he ever missed his Little Bee.
After all, she hadn't heard from him since that day he left the colony. Not even once. He had promised her he would visit all the time, and keep in touch via subspace packet. But he hadn't.
And when B'Elanna pleaded with her mother for an explanation, her mother told her that was how humans were. Some humans, anyway.
Her father was alive and well, her mother said-she knew that for a fact. But if he didn't care enough about his daughter to stay in touch, he was to be forgotten-treated as if he were dead.
Of course, her mother was a Klingon, the offspring of a prominent house. To such a woman, pride was everything. Pride and that stiff-necked sense of honor she was famous for.
As a child, B'Elanna had always hated those qualities in her mother. She had always blamed them for driving her father away.
And maybe they had.
But looking back now, she saw that they were part of her mother-part of what made her what she was. And part of her mother's half-Klingon daughter, too, no matter how hard she tried to deny it.
What a mess I am, B'Elanna thought. On one hand, looking for love-and on the other, pushing it away
as hard as I can. On one hand, seeking approval-and on the other, resisting it.
Maybe her mother had had the right idea. Maybe she had been more courageous than ... courageous than ...
"Warning," said a voice.
B'Elanna started at the sound. It was only then that she realized she had begun to doze off.
"Oxygen level at one hundred four millibars and failing," said the computer in Tom's suit.
B'Elanna shook him. Tom's eyelids fluttered, but didn't open. Apparently, his slumber had been deeper than hers.
"Tom," she said, her voice thick and a little slurred. It was getting harder and harder to speak, much less make herself understood.
"Mmmm," was his only response.
"Tom," she said again, this time with more urgency.
"Leave me alone," he replied, like a child telling his mother he was too tired to go to school that morning.
"Come on," she insisted. "Open your eyes."
He squinted at her. "I was having a dream. A really nice dream. We were home. There were lots of people cheering and pinning medals on us." He smiled happily. "Don't be afraid, B'Elanna. It's not going to be hard. It's going to be really ... peaceful."
"Warning," said the computer in Tom's suit. "Oxygen level at eighty-seven millibars and falling."
B'Elanna believed what Tom had told her. In the end, it would be peaceful. But she couldn't face the end. Not just yet.
"Tom, there's something I have to say. .
"Me, too," he said. "I'm glad the last thing I'll see ... is you. . .
B'Elanna found herself pulling Tom closer, environmental suit and all. He was pulling her closer as well. And it wasn't just the fact that neither of them wanted to die alone.
"No," she told him. "Something else. .
"What?" Tom asked softly.
It was hard for B'Elanna to remain focused. She was so light-headed, the words seemed to dissipate and drift off into oblivion. But her determination won out.
"I've been a coward,"