Equinox - Diane Carey [71]
As Lessing's expression moved through several incarnations, Janeway stalked out of the cargo bay with Chakotay following her. She was glad he followed. Could be trouble if he didn't.
In the corridor, the nearest wall panel was ten feet from the bay door. She went straight to it, activated it, and started pushing buttons.
Chakotay came to her side. He said nothing at first, probably expecting her to be activating the gravity control or changing the pressure in there to make Lessing believe something was going on.
What he didn't know and now realized, something was going on.
"What are you doing?" he challenged, noticing the sequence she was activating.
"Weren't you listening?" she shot back. On the small monitor, she called up a picture of Lessing sitting in the cargo bay, shackled, shuddering in his chair. Inside, the alien tone began to wail.
"Bridge to captain," Tuvok called through the
comm, "we've lost shields in section twenty-nine alpha."
"I know. Stand by."
Beside her, Chakotay shifted, tense and disbelieving. "Don't do this."
"He'll break."
The alien tone now screamed through the cargo bay, growing louder and louder by the second.
"Captain, a fissure is opening in that section!"
"Understood."
"He's a loyal officer!" Chakotay protested. "He's not going to betray his captain. Put up the shields!"
"He'll break."
"Captain!"
"As you were!"
In sheer defiance, Chakotay put his hands to the panel and punched a code.
"LEVEL NINE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED," the computer responded, on critical mode.
Failed, Chakotay slammed his fist into the wall. "Damn it, Kathryn!"
"You're panicking," she insisted. "He's going to talk!"
His forehead beaded, Chakotay drew his phaser, threw her one last furious glare, and plunged through the bay doors with his weapon high.
In the cargo bay, Noah Lessing sat crushed into his chair with terror, helplessly shackled as an electric globe opened over his head.
Chakotay fired, collapsing the fissure as it opened. The tone continued to whine as other fissures tried to
open around them. As Janeway watched, deliberately not interfering, Chakotay dragged Lessing out of the bay and into the corridor. As the doors swept shut, he pressed Lessing up against the bulkhead, crushing one fist and his phaser to the shaken crewman's bare neck.
"Okay," Chakotay broiled, "you've demonstrated your loyalty to your captain. Fine. Now let's talk about theAnkari!"
Having proven she was probably crazy, Kathryn Janeway watched the ghastly scene with cold appraisal. Was Chakotay just doing his job? Or had he reached his own equinox?
By separate paths, they had both reached the line.
The briefing room. Normally a place of calm discussion, reports, facts, and options. Today, something else.
Everyone knew, by now, about the break in allegiance between the captain and the first officer. Janeway sat at the head of the glossy table, ceding the moment to Chakotay, who seemed to want it. She sat in silent awareness that the final decision, no matter how the day wrangled itself out, would be hers. They all knew that. She owed it to them to let all the arguments vent themselves, to allow every possibility to be explored. Then, she would decide and they would follow her orders. They were all uneasy. The only change in that course was an unthinkable and irrevocable course for them to take-mutiny.
Despite her conviction, she was ice-blooded and embarrassed. Chakotay had held himself back from the
edge-she hadn't. Like Ransom, she had convinced herself she was right. He did what he did for survival, she did what she did for civilization.
Now her crew doubted her. None of them met her eyes. That was Chakotay's fault.
Tuvok, Paris, Torres, and The Doctor sat at the table, all heads of critical shipboard functions during battle stations. Chakotay was leading the conversation under the pall of his captain's stony glare.
"It's there," he was asking.