Equinox - Diane Carey [21]
He didn't need a hand, either. Nobody needed a hand downloading. What he needed, she supposed, was the company of a peer. Or perhaps it was only that he didn't want to go back to Equinox by himself quite yet. He'd been virtually alone as supreme leader of a team of young scientists, alone in the responsibility for their lives and their survival or witness to their grisly deaths. He'd stood that tide by himself, never breaking down. Max Burke wasn't really a first officer, but he had been shoved up to that position much as Ransom had been shoved into command. That wasn't the same as having a qualified captain as your first officer, which Janeway was privileged to have in Chakotay. She could sleep in confidence that her ship was in experienced hands. Ransom couldn't.
He and Burke obviously were very close, by nature and by needs, but even that kind of trust didn't replace years of experience running a ship in good times to be prepared for the bad times. The Equinox crew and their officers had been shoved headlong into the bad times. Janeway was happy to be able to give Ransom whatever moral support he needed.
And yet, he didn't trust her completely. She could sense that. Easily attributed to five years without being able to trust anybody other than his little crew, the lack of forthrightness and those glances of murmuring communication between Ransom and his crew somehow set off alarms in the back of her brain. They were holding back.
Frightened of commitment? Afraid that if they got too familiar with the Voyager crew they wouldn't be able to go back to their own ship, as regulations demanded?
No, that couldn't be it. They knew they'd have to go back. She thought she would want to go back if the situation were reversed and she had a miraculous chance to secure her damaged ship.
Was this fair? Fixing all her own reactions to other people? Maybe they felt something completely different. It had been so long since she'd been in a fleet... even a fleet of two. She hardly remembered how to feel.
Tune, time. They all needed time to adjust. All these feelings and suspicions would even out. Janeway determined to make sure they evened out. Regulations would do that, protocol, routine, the command structure. Those forces would eventually take over and smooth out all the problems. Do things by the book, follow the rules, give and follow orders, report to superiors, improvise when necessary, but fall back on Starfleet motions and methods.
That would save them all. They were not just two isolated ships popping around deep space. They were
United Federation of Planets representatives on the far frontier, Starfleet officers and crew members to the last one, and they had a big book to fall back upon. That's what would save them, and would eventually bond them to each other.
Time. Tune. Regulations, a sense of identity, a sense of purpose beyond just survival, and lots of time.
Did they have it?
CHAPTER
5
FUNNY HOW THINGS COULD BE. A GREAT CHANCE AT A CA-reer, science, and get paid for it, a rank, and a captain to take care of all the problems. One day, scraping asteroids, the next day fight for your life seventy thousand light-years from home. One day, dying in a conduit, can't feel the legs anymore, and today ...
Noah Lessing drew a sustaining lungful of air and leaned on the Voyager's doctor program, putting weight on legs he was sure were gone for good.
'Try putting a little more of your weight on it," The Doctor instructed.
Lessing realized he was holding back, afraid to believe that he could walk again. He thought he had been putting weight on. Leaning forward more, he pressed down on his newly fused right leg.
"Go ahead," The Doctor encouraged.
One step ... two ...
"Good. Any pain?"
"Just a little," Lessing said. It might have been a lot of pain, but he couldn't judge anymore between a little and a lot. He'd taught himself to ignore what he couldn't change, even if it killed him.
He