Equinox - Diane Carey [66]
"Fine!" The Doctor's arms stiffened at his sides. 'Take it away. Give it a proper burial. And while you're at it, make room for some of Voyager's crew."
Suddenly, cold down to her feet, Janeway felt the insurmountable problem shift from their shoulders to hers. The arguments had been posed and now had to be arbitrated. That was her role, her burden.
She looked at the dead alien, the animalistic face, the teeth, claws, sharklike body, and tried to empathize with it as a fellow intelligent being... but she couldn't find the link she needed to decide more in its favor than in her own living shipmates' favor. A delayed image of Chakotay's crinkled-cardboard wounds and his nearly fatal experience haunted her suddenly. What if she could find an antidote by dissecting these bodies? What if she could help her own at the others' expense?
"Proceed, Doctor," she said, her voice a box of gravel.
The Doctor's icy expression took her by surprise. "I'll need two more."
Neelix's eyes crossed to her, filled with anguish and disappointment. He said nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"They're already dead," she argued, more with herself than him.
He still said nothing. Instead, the ultimate hurt, he turned and walked out of sickbay. Neelix, speechless?
"Rumor has it," The Doctor began as Janeway started to leave and now turned back, "that we've lost track of the Equinox."
"For now," she told him. "But we'll find them."
"Please inform me the moment you do," he said.
Janeway parted her lips to ask him why a medical program would make such a request-and make it sound like an order-when he seemed to realize he'd made some kind of faux pas and immediately said, "In case there's an armed conflict I'll want to prepare for more casualties."
Something about the way he spoke, the way he glanced at her but didn't really look at her... Janeway gave in to her own troubles and decided his explanation made sense.
As long as there was a reason.
"Come in."
Captain Janeway sat at her ready-room desk, studying a desktop monitor that showed several points of repair and adjustment going on all over the ship that needed her diligent surveillance. Beside her was a PADD that disturbed her very much. How close was she coming to that "line" both Ransom and Chakotay talked about? She could barely feel her legs, she was so tense.
Chakotay strode in, looking remarkably normal for what they'd all been through, except for the dirt on his uniform and the expression on his face.
"You wanted to see me?"
Careful of her tone, Janeway picked up the PADD. "It's not like you to submit recommendations in writing."
He stood before her desk and clasped his hands behind his back. "The last time we spoke, you weren't exactly receptive."
"I'm afraid I'm not going to be very receptive this time either," she warned. "It's an interesting idea, but the Ankari are fifty light-years in the wrong direction."
He nodded. "I understand that. But they're the ones who introduced Ransom to these life forms. It stands to reason that they might be able to communicate with them. Tell them to call off their attacks."
Lowering her voice, Janeway tried not to sound abrasive this time. "Our first p riority is to find Ransom." When he was silent about that-no longer challenging her decision, though he still obviously disapproved- Janeway snatched the angle away from the philosophical problem. "Still no sign of nucleogenic particles?"
"Not yet."
"Then he couldn't have gotten far. Without his 'enhanced' drive, his ship's only capable of warp six."
She tapped her monitor and brought up a file, then gestured to it. "I've been studying his service record. He's had his share of run-ins with hostile aliens. It seems that when he's being pursued, he tends to hide. At Epsilon Four, he ran into a Klingon Bird of Prey,
and played cat-and-mouse for three days in a nebula before the Klingons finally gave up." She got up then and started pacing to get her back and thighs to relax. 'Two years later, he eluded