Equinox - Diane Carey [12]
She was glad Tuvok had the sense not to converse. She had nothing to say. Not yet.
The lift door squawked and actually cracked, its molecular structure somehow destabilized. Together, the captain and Tuvok stepped onto the bridge, weapons and lights first. Tuvok swept the bridge briefly with his naked eyes, then holstered his phaser and brought his tricorder up for a scan. When he cleared the area, he glanced at Janeway and gave her tacit permission to enter. At least he wasn't scanning any hostile life forms or deadly emissions. She didn't want to ask if he was picking up any life signs at all or if this was another killing field. She would see for herself. Some things were better found in person.
Someone coughed. Alive! She plowed forward, knocking her knees on wreckage, nearly stumbled, recovered, and forced herself on. Tuvok was so close behind as to come up to her side in a step. He went immediately toward the cough and got there first.
An officer... lieutenant, slumped over a console, just stirring back to consciousness. Sweat filmed the pasty face, but the dark eyes blinked with comprehension as the officer drew a hand across h is face and stirred back to awareness of his surroundings. He blinked into Tuvok's light as if beyond shock, even at the sight of survival.
The captain...
Janeway lengthened her stride and vectored to the command chair. Captain Ransom-he looked dead. There was no pretty way to say it His face was stony, frozen in a grimace, a clotted gash over his left eye, shoulders hunched, hands gripping his command chair's arms. A spent phaser rifle lay at his feet and a piece of ceiling brace had fallen across his legs. Might have been the thing that saved his life.
From what?
Anticipating the clammy chill of death as she touched his arm, Janeway flinched as the captain's eyes slitted open. He wasn't dead! Half alive, maybe, but this was something at least.
She touched his shoulder, then the side of his face as his head lolled. Alive... his eyes flickered at her touch.
"My crew?" Though ragged, his voice was strong with concern, even defiance. He actually wasn't done fighting.
"You took heavy casualties," Janeway reported, cloaking her own shattering spirit with protocol's cold efficiency. "We're treating the survivors."
Please don't ask about the dead ones.
"Who attacked you?" she asked, before he had the chance to think about the nonsurvivors.
"We don't know," he garbled. "We can't communicate with them. They've been attacking us for weeks..."
Pressing down on the chair's arms, he shoved himself to a better position, then instantly faltered and hardened with pain.
"Easy," Janeway said.
"I've got to secure the ship ..."
"Leave that to us."
She attached a sedative marker to the side of his neck, but he roused more and swiped it off. "Treat me here," he protested. "I'm not leaving my bridge."
Warmly, Janeway smiled at his heartrending loyalty. She understood. What would she want someone to say to her?
"I can't pull rank on you, Captain," she said quietly, as if she'd known him for years. "But you're in no condition to put up a fight."
He blinked again, his eyes focusing briefly on the command pips at her collar. Four of them. Another captain. The sight seemed to ease him.
"So tell me," he managed, "how's Earth?"
Uh-oh.
Should she lie to him? Let him get a night's sleep before she told him the truth?
"I wish I could say," she admitted.
Ransom's eyes blinked and stayed open this time. Hope and faith and his estimation of what he was worth to the Federation all took a bad blow as he real-
ized what she meant. "You weren't sent here... to find us?"
"I'm afraid not," Janeway