Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [26]
She lowered herself the rest of the way to the floor, closed her eyes, and groaned.
Kes pressed a button on her hover suit and plummeted toward the floor and the ball. She was able to scoop it up with one hand, but then pressed the hover control too hard and shot upward, banging her head on the ceiling. The impact caused her to lose her grip on the ball, and though she batted it toward a blue marker on the wall, it missed by several meters and bounced straight into Torres’s arms.
After Kes had blinked back her tears of pain, she fumbled for a wall. As her opponent sped toward one of her own red markers, Kes pushed off the wall with her feet. She headed right at Torres, but was not quick enough. The engineer dodged and hit her marker, while Kes’s momentum kept her moving forward until she rammed the opposite wall with her shoulder.
That was one bruise too many. She touched the hover suit’s keypad again and managed to lower herself to the floor with a little more finesse this time. Settling cross-legged, she yanked off her helmet and flung it away from her with enough force that it clattered across the floor and hit the far wall. Torres touched down beside her.
“I’m not doing this any more,” Kes told Torres from between clenched teeth, her shoulders heaving with her breath. “It’s not helping.”
“Sometimes it takes practice to get the hang of it.”
“No! No hoverball, no anbo-jytsu. They just make me feel worse.”
Torres’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I wouldn’t want to make you feel worse,” she said. “This was your idea, you know.”
“Well, it was obviously a bad one. I can’t believe you went along with it.”
Torres jumped up. “You asked me to help you!” She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “I was trying to be nice.”
“For a change.” Kes had said it under her breath, but apparently loud enough for Torres to hear. Hurt flitted across the engineer’s expression, replaced quickly by anger again; she shook with it. Kes rose.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean that.” She was almost pleading. “See? That’s what I’m up against. I have trouble controlling what I say and how I act.” She was interrupted by the chirp of Torres’s combadge.
“Chakotay to Torres.”
Torres turned away from Kes. “I’m here, Commander.”
“We’ve picked up a ship at the limit of the sensors’ range. Can they be optimized to tell us more?”
“Probably,” Torres answered. “Give me five minutes to clean up, then I’ll work from the bridge.”
“Acknowledged,” Chakotay signed off.
Torres strode from the holodeck without a word or a backward glance. Kes sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. How many more people did she have to hurt before she learned to control this beast that had invaded her?
Two hours later, B’Elanna burst into holodeck two, a bag containing her swimsuit and towel flung over her arm. She stopped short at the sight of Tom Paris, dressed in grimy coveralls, bent under the open hood of his light blue and white automobile. Next to the car, on a clean white sheet, sat hundreds of oily engine parts in neat rows.
“What’s this?” B’Elanna asked.
“It’s my fifty-seven Chevy,” Tom answered, pride in his voice.
“I know what it is,” B’Elanna said. “But Neelix’s resort program is usually running in here. I was hoping to swim a couple thousand laps.”
Tom straightened and looked at her for the first time. “That’s quite the workout. What’s the problem?”
“Who says there’s a problem?” Tom always thought he knew everything.
Tom wiped his hands on the rag he’d had draped over the side of the car. “Your tone of voice, for one thing. Then there’s the look on your face.”
“What look?”
Tom took two steps toward her. “Oh, the look that says ripping someone