Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [38]
Tyla nodded. "I'll be at the controls. Yell if you need my help."
"Will do," B'Elanna said, sounding distracted. Apparently she had already shifted her focus to the task that faced her.
Tyla crawled out of the engine room and back into the plush furnishing of the main cabin. After a moment she was back in the pilot's chair, isolated in the small area off the front of the main cabin. The seat felt comfortable to her.
The thought made her shudder.
That flight from the Qavok system was the longest she ever remembered. And she had spent practically every minute of it in this chair. And she had been prepared to die in this chair.
Her fingers danced over the familiar control board, and after a moment she had diagnostic programs running on the warp core, thrusters, and shields. It would take a few minutes for the runs to finish.
She sat back and let her mind drift. She had sat like this during those hours of flight. Alone in here, with Dr. Maalot pacing in the main cabin, not knowing if she would be blown out of space at any moment.
Waiting.
Fearing.
The small pilot area suddenly felt smaller and smaller, as if the walls were closing in around her.
She had to escape, to push the craft harder and harder.
She had no choice.
The walls closed in even more.
"Relax," she said aloud, her words echoing in the cabin. Through the port she could see the interior of the Voyager bay.
"You're safe," she said aloud, just to hear her own voice and force the images away. "Breathe." She forced herself to take a deep breath.
That helped. The walls stopped closing in.
She took another deep breath and the panic slowly ebbed, leaving only the nagging fear that something was wrong.
But nothing was at the moment.
If was going to be very nice to watch this yacht explode in a neutron star.
She'd never have to see it again, sit in this seat again, remember those hours of panicked flight again.
She just might cheer.
Dr. Maalot glanced over at the half-Borg, half-human named Seven. She stood over a panel, working intently. The woman was a wonder. Logical, extremely smart, and cold as the outside of an interstellar freighter. He'd met many aliens in his time, but never one like her.
He moved over beside her and glanced at the board. She seemed to be running a diagnostic on a storage container. Some sort of energy-storage unit. Gravitational in nature. But before he could see any more she shut the program down and turned to him.
"Have you completed your calculations?"
"I have," he said. "They agree with yours to the tenth decimal point of a second."
"Good," she said. "You will help me."
She turned back to her board and keyed in another program.
"With what?" he asked.
"We must determine exactly how long the yacht will remain intact descending into the tidal forces of the neutron star binary."
He glanced at the board where she'd been running the diagnostic. "Do you mind telling me what you were running the diagnostic on?" he asked.
"I mind," Seven said, her voice flat and without emotion. "We must complete our calculations."
"You are quite the slave master," he said, shaking his head.
"I do not consider you a slave," she said. "Nor am I your master. We have our orders. Nothing more."
Dr. Maalot held up his hand for her to stop. "Tell me what you want me to do."
Seven nodded and pulled up the numbers they would start with, including the basic structural integrity and shield strengths of the yacht. He watched, wondering how anyone on Voyager ever managed to talk to Seven. Or if she even had a friend. From his experience with her, he'd guess she didn't.
And he doubted if she missed it.
"Four hours and twenty minutes remaining," the computer said as Janeway dropped down into her command chair. On the main screen the binary had become a blur of the two neutron stars chasing around each other. Wisps of plasma seemed to be escaping the intense gravitational fields