Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [32]
“I’m sure it won’t last forever, and then we’ll get back to work.”
They parted then, but met again unexpectedly the next morning when Captain Janeway called Kes to the bridge.
The captain moved toward Kes as she emerged from the turbolift. Taking her arm, she guided the Ocampa toward the view screen, where the highly reflective exterior of the now infamous alien ship, bouncing slightly in Voyager’s wake, was displayed. The nearly perfect surface was marred in several places by what looked like scorch marks, but they didn’t seem to affect its space worthiness.
“I’m sure you’ve heard about that,” Janeway said, pointing to the screen, “and that they won’t respond to our hails.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“What you might not know is that the whole time it’s been on our tail, the power levels of the ship have been increasing. That’s about the only thing our scans can tell us.”
Kes grimaced. Janeway’s tone left no doubt about that being a bad thing. “What would you like me to do, Captain?” she asked.
The captain put her hand on Kes’s shoulder. “Would you try to make contact with them telepathically? Even if you can’t speak mind-to-mind with them, maybe you could get a feeling for their intentions.”
Kes nodded. “Of course I’ll try.”
“Trying is all I can ask.” Janeway turned briskly, pointed Kes toward the captain’s chair, and then moved back to stand with Tuvok at his tactical station, apparently deciding Kes needed solitude to make her attempt.
As Kes moved across the bridge, B’Elanna, who was sitting at one of the engineering monitors, flashed her a supportive smile. She settled into the big chair, happy for the engineer’s increasingly comfortable presence. But then she had to block such thoughts-all thoughts, really-from her mind.
She closed her eyes and lowered her chin to her chest, concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply. Breathing was the only thing she would allow her mind to settle on. Any other thoughts rolled off her consciousness like water droplets off glass until, once again, the breath was all.
When the stray thoughts abated, she raised her chin and reached out with her consciousness. She searched for the sense of other minds, starting with those closest to her. To her left, she could feel Chakotay looking away, trying to give her privacy with less than a meter of distance between them. His presence was warm and gentle, like bathwater. Tom Paris, in front of her, had an aura that was constantly changing. Kes wasn’t reading his thoughts, but if she had been, she supposed they would be jumping from the status of the conn to anticipation of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he wanted to replicate for lunch to wondering how he could make B’Elanna lose another bet so he could get some of his holodeck sessions back. Afraid she would laugh, she focused elsewhere, landing in Tuvok’s familiar, structured psyche, which she always pictured as a spice rack, neatly organized alphabetically, each vial clean and full. The concern she detected on the surface of his mind had been swept up and placed in one of those vials, but the lid hadn’t been screwed on yet. Drawing on his control, she stretched toward the unknown.
She pictured tendrils of her mind leaving her body, passing through Voyager’s hull and the darkness of space, and into the alien ship. For several minutes she cast about for the feeling of other minds, but detected nothing. Reminding herself that these minds could be different than any of the others she’d experienced, she tried to relax, staying open to familiar or unfamiliar, but not actively scanning. She did this until Captain Janeway came up beside her with a purposeful gait that broke her concentration. Kes didn’t know how long she’d been trying, but it had been long enough to make the bridge crew restless.
“Nothing, Captain. I sense nothing from over there.”
Janeway’s hands went to her hips. “Is it because of that shield they’ve got up, or that their