Equinox - Diane Carey [43]
"Max-" Ransom calmly nodded toward another corridor, then steered Burke down that way. A few
more paces ... step lively. "The transporter room's not far from here. Keep moving."
Janeway was smarter than he thought. Or he hadn't fooled her at all. He couldn't tell which. He hoped he'd fooled her some because, if so, there might still be a way out of this.
Would the guards chase them? Would they open fire? Even phaser stun was questionable against a post captain. Did Janeway possess the nerve to have given that order already? To fire on another ship's officers without due process? She couldn't be that sure of her standing, regulations or not.
Twenty more steps. The transporter room. He could lock the door once he was inside. Most of his crew was already on Equinox, still working. He bet Janeway wouldn't already have slammed them in the brig before consulting their captain about the circumstances. He and Burke were the last-if he could have those twenty steps-
"Captain Janeway wishes to speak with you."
The Vulcan appeared in front of them, heading them off, phaser drawn. Another security guard was with him.
No mistake. They'd figured out some of it. Part of it
Beside Ransom, Burke's hand slipped to his own phaser.
No-
Ransom put out his own hand, stopping the challenge before it turned sour. Behind him, the footfalls of the other two guards converged. He braced himself, willing Burke to take the cue.
"All right, Mr. Tuvok," Ransom said strictly. "That's enough. We won't draw on you. You're holding weapons on Starfleet officers, do you realize that?"
"Of course, Captain," the Vulcan said. "We determined that your passions might compromise us all. This is a precaution. Captain Janeway is waiting for you. Mr. Burke will accompany us to a holding area until the captain makes her decision."
"Until she makes her decision," Ransom echoed bitterly. "She hasn't even been to the gate yet, Mr. Tuvok. Why don't you stand aside and let me lead the way. Because we both know you won't fire on me."
Janeway sat at the head of the table in the briefing room. Her unhappy task lay before her, in the form of a mute witness to war crimes-a lab palette with a couple of handfuls of alien matter reduced to crystals. Her anger fused the room. It felt hot in here. Confirmation of bottom-feeding suspicions was a bitter thing.
Two armed guards stood at the door. At the opposite end of the table, by himself, was Captain Ransom.
Or was he a captain now? His ship about to be abandoned, a maneuver to which he had acquiesced... through the broiling rage, Janeway could see no clear answer. Fuming with the sourness of the moment, she lay unchecked tension upon the funereal room.
'Ten isograms," she said harshly, accusing. Picking up the PADD with the operative data, she scanned it for the twentieth time. "If I understand your calculations,
that's enough to increase your warp factor by... what? Point zero three percent for one month?"
Ransom was silent. Apparently she had the numbers right.
"Unfortunately," Janeway went on, "that boost wouldn't get you very far. So you'd need to replenish the supply. And that means killing another life form. And another. How many lives would it take to get you back to the Alpha Quadrant?"
The question hung, boiling, in open air. Hot in here now.
The other captain's eyes were cold and unapologetic. Janeway put the PADD down. No point hashing percentages.
"I think you know the reason we're under attack," she said. "These aliens are trying to protect themselves from you."
Ransom shifted in his chair, losing some of the defiance. "Sixty-three," he bluntly said. "That's how many more it'll take. And every time I sacrifice one of those lives, part of me is lost as well."
"I might believe that," Janeway snapped, "if I hadn't examined your 'research.' These experiments were meticulous. And they were brutal. If you felt any remorse, you'd never have continued."
"Starfleet Regulation Three, paragraph twelve," Ransom shot back with utter confidence.