Equinox - Diane Carey [32]
lonely thrum of a healthy warp core nearly made him cry.
Cry? Didn't have time.
That's an order, Max.
Crew moved about, way over there. Burke nodded to them, but said nothing. He didn't want their attention. This would go better if they just stayed busy trying to supplement the shields. They were getting ready for the transference, the abandonment of Equ inox. Problems ... how to get the Equinox ditched, let it drift out of the shield sphere, then close the shields without a rift that those aliens could slip through. There had to be some kind of break. Shield energy wasn't exactly an egg yolk.
He poked around, pretending to be busy too, so no one would talk to him. They didn't know him, and their sympathy would keep them away. No one knew what to say. "So, abandoning your ship, huh? Tough luck. Glad it ain't mine."
The isolated monitors on the lower deck's command station were silently prodding through the mathematics of the problems they were anticipating for the upcoming maneuver and what would be needed after that to secure the shields, perhaps eventually even throw off the siege. He stepped down to them and knelt at the access displays.
Burke didn't even try to correct the assumption that those aliens could be thrown off. They couldn't. They weren't going away. They had to be fought. Janeway and her crew were spitting over a canyon even though they couldn't see the other side.
Was that crewman leaving? Yes!
And there went the other one! What luck-he was alone. All of engineering to himself, while the crews worked on deflector problems. This wouldn't last.
The command station's force-field generator was in full operation, a direct tie-in to the systems he had to sabotage. He brought his tricorder around and secured the remote to the junction bolt. Button, button, pressure pad ... work fast.
Searching ... searching ...
DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS.
Perfect. Hurry up, hurry ...
How long would Maria's shutdown of the security alarms hold up?
"Intruder alert."
Burke flinched and looked up. Oh, not now.
B'Elanna Torres. Fancy meeting her here ...
She was just coming out from the companion-way, luckily in front of him, where the casing of the computer console blocked her view of the operating download. Burke stepped around in front of the console so B'Elanna wouldn't come around here.
He had to distract her or get her out of here. Somehow he had to get the remote off the bolt.
"Same old Max..." She approached with that old swagger. Still had it "Going through my things without permission. That's a command station. It's off limits without my direct authorization."
"I didn't realize," he told her fluidly, pretending to be
interested in something else entirely. "You going to throw me in the brig?"
She smiled. Also still had it. "Oh, I think I can overlook this infraction. Can I help you with something?"
Offering a schoolboy shrug, Burke tried to look teas-ingly guilty. It was a great cover.
"Just doing some homework... studying your propulsion system. If there's a chance I'm going to be stuck on Voyager, I thought I should learn my way around."
Hoping that "stuck on" didn't come out with too much of an emphasis, he closed the space between them. Would the old sensations sizzle? Distract her? They were already distracting him from his own purpose.
"Maybe you could tutor me... over dinner."
What an idiotic thing to say. They were in a killing situation. Dinner? Sure, between deadly attacks and desperate defenses. Had life come to seem so leisurely here compared to on Equinox? Rudy was right- Burke was getting too comfortable. Dinner. Of all the-
"Problem is," B'Elanna began, "you were never really interested in the work. Or the meal. Something tells me you haven't changed."
Another step brought them too close for just