Equinox - Diane Carey [50]
He knew he had something there. As Starfleet officers, they knew about the line in theory, a little in practice, but never to this level. Chakotay struggled, too, as he watched his captain struggle. This was a fire he might himself have to jump into someday, if anything happened to her, and he found himself cruelly intrigued by her not-so-interior battle.
The ship pulsed around them as if waiting for her answer. Suddenly the hums and thrums of energy that constantly burbled around them rose to a symphonic pitch, matching their heartbeats as if kettledrums were hammering.
As Janeway stared at him in hurtful challenge, Chakotay pushed on with these thoughts, defending a man he didn't like, explaining actions he found questionable, for the sake of his captain's ability to make a decision he found daunting.
"When the time came for Ransom to let the other half of his crew die, Ransom couldn't do it How do we know we'll be strong enough? What do we do, Captain, when it's really 'us or them'? Would you die for a whale? Some people would say yes. Fine. Would you let your child die so a whale could live? Five children? Thirty-nine?"
"These aren't children, Chakotay. These are Starfleet officers. Every one of them understood what they were getting-"
"So we're all expendable?" he interrupted. "Why are we fighting, then? Are we expendable first? Or last? When do you start fighting, Captain? When do you kill? The ante keeps ratcheting up. We draw the line, and the line moves."
She stared at him. The words were crushing.
He was ready to continue, to force her to examine herself and find that answer, but they were cruelly interrupted by Tom Paris' desperate cry from beyond the entrance panels. "Bridge to captain! Defenses are breaking down!"
"Later," Janeway snapped to him, and plunged for the door. In that instant, everything between them changed. They took refuge in necessity.
They charged onto the bridge to the punctuation of Harry Kim's panicked report back to Tuvok and Seven, at the defense grid-"I'm picking up spatial fissures! Hundreds of them!"
Kathryn Janeway was grateful when Chakotay ran immediately to tactical and shoved aside the terrified
crewman manning the post. She didn't really want him in the middle of the bridge at the command station right now, and she sensed he didn't want to be there. This was one of those moments-after such an altercation between commanding officers-when it was altogether better to have one person in indisputable charge.
"Looks like they stepped up their attacks," Paris gasped from the helm.
Janeway slid into her command chair as the ship trembled noticeably. "Reroute all available power to the shields."
At the tactical station, Chakotay was now authorized to do that drastic measure. She could hear the clicks and appropriate answering buzzes as he worked and silently thanked him for his efficiency and the support he was giving her now that hadn't been present only seconds ago.
"They're holding," he said, "but at this rate, it won't be long before the aliens break through."
"Bridge to Tuvok." Janeway almost didn't hit the comm in time. "We need that security grid!"
"We're preparing to bring it on-line. Charge the emitters."
Janeway almost told him they couldn't do that from here, when she realized he had been talking to someone else, Seven or Torres, down there in astrometrics. No, not Seven-she was still on board Equinox, trying to work on that warp core's dilithium matrix.
Leaving them to their work,