Equinox - Diane Carey [31]
Horrible-that seemed to take away all judgment in a situation that desperately needed humanizing. She
wasn't quoting the whole regulation, the part about a captain's autonomy and how 'tactical superiority' didn't include ordering another captain to abandon his own functional ship. Someday he would find out, and he would hate her almost as much as she hated herself right now.
She hoped he didn't know. What was that look in his eyes?
"I looked it up this morning," she added, softening the idea that even the straitlaced Janeway didn't lie around in the late of night memorizing regulations.
"Good thinking," was all Ransom said.
Max Burke glared with undisguised bitterness at Janeway, though he didn't speak up.
While she could, she played her last card. "In this case, protocol recognizes my authority."
She held her breath again. They could just as easily look it up, find the fine line between tactical authority and ordering another captain to sacrifice his command Later, though. For now, she needed an edge.
Ransom eyed her, suddenly cold. "Are you ordering me to abandon my ship?"
He was going to make her say it. She couldn't blame him.
Trying to ease the bad feelings quickly rising, she gave him the only offer she could under the circumstances. "I'd rather not have to."
Give the order yourself. Take the last step.
His crew watched him. Her crew watched him too. All their immediate futures were in Ransom's hand.
This, though, was nothing new for him and he was still up to it.
"That protocol was written in the Alpha Quadrant," he told her. "I'm not sure it makes much sense here."
He said he wasn't sure, but that was his way of putting it nicely. By that, Janeway could tell he was absolutely sure and had been acting upon that certainty. How could she blame him? At a maximum of warp eight, Equinox was in the Delta Quadrant for the rest of their lives and then some. How could she condemn him for not letting go?
The moments were ticking away. The shields weakened even as she entertained her sympathy for him while also playing this unfriendly game of poker, whit-fling him down with half a regulation to nobody and nothing, the worse thing that could happen to his land of person, and her.
A captain without a ship.
"The regulation stands," she said, trying to make the forceful sound gentle.
Ransom could see, as all could, that Janeway wasn't about to budge with that clock ticking. There would be no discussion. If they were to save themselves, she had to make sharp turns.
He opted for a strategical retreat.
"Who am I to dispute protocol?" he began. Turning to his crew members, he added, "Give Captain Janeway your full cooperation."
Burke stiffened. "Rudy ..."
"That's an order, Max."
By this, Ransom spared Janeway from having to start ordering his crew around-just yet. That would come, they both knew. There could only be one captain.
"We'll get through this," he added.
Burke mentally retreated, eyes still hot.
"If that's all, Captain," Ransom said, "I'd like to go back to my quarters and collect a few mementos."
Janeway wanted to feel relieved. Something held her back. "By all means," she accepted.
Something was wrong with that. He had agreed too quickly.
Not fair-could it be just barely possible that he'd had enough of that torture chamber they'd called a ship and saw the logic of taking a stand in a single fortress? No sense underestimating him until he gave her a reason. After all, captaincy hadn't ever been his dream. Command was something forced upon him by a vectoring off from his real skills. He might very well not be so sorry to see it go.
She tried to give him the benefit of her doubt and the credit he deserved for setting his ego aside for the good of all. It took a big ego to be a captain, and the thing was heavy to move.
They had their plans. Rudy knew what he was doing.
So did Max Burke as he slipped into the Voyager's roomy engineering area. So big,