Flashback - Diane Carey [53]
At least after that, one way or the other, their problem would be all finished. What happened to the lighting? Torres glanced
around in frustration as she noticed the cloying dimness. Doing close work now, she needed to be able to see, and more than half the lights were out. The salmon-pink emergency lights glowed on the deck, reacting with the pink coolant smoke, casting an unassured rosy glow on half the cabin and shadows on everything else. Though easy on the eyes, the emergency lighting was less friendly than the shad-owless artificial daylight ordinarily cast in the shuttle cabin.
This was insane riskiness here. They might as well stick antimatter down their pants and ignite it.
After yanking the amidships double hatches closed, she settled down to do the welding. The outer hatch would probably blow open, but the inner hatch had a slim chance of holding. Most of the blast would be directed outward, especially if she tripped the automatic lock on the aft cargo hatch and let it drift open. If there were no resistance on the other side, maybe they'd have a matchstick's chance in hell of surviving.
Yet the activity of welding the hatch was therapeutic. Much better than sitting in the nav seat and waiting to suffocate. Torres had always feared drowning, and death by poisoned atmosphere was the same thing. Better to go up in a ball of angry flame.
Much better.
"This is really stupid, y'know." Paris coughed from the cockpit. "I mean, I know it was my idea, but then again, most of my ideas are stupid."
"Why are we doing it, then?" Torres held a pair of safety goggles to her eyes and turned the phaser torch up to its highest setting as she welded the main seam of the hatch. If this one did not hold, their trip would be very short.
"I'm not sure." He contemplated, muttering as he worked. "Maybe we're going to give Voyager a good story to tell. Like, they were valiant until the end, they didn't give up, they tried everything, they did the last possible desperate maniac's thing to do, they were brave, they were dauntless . . . they were . . . help, I need another adjective."
"Delirious? I'm almost ready. Have you got those conduits redirected?"
"Last one's almost finished."
"We're going to kill ourselves," Torres muttered. "Suicide made easy. I'll tell you one thing, though. We're going to die anyway, and at least if we blow ourselves up trying to get out, Voyager won't be tempted anymore to come into this mess and rescue us."
"That's for certain."
"And we could do worse than keep our shipmates from risking themselves to save us. I can take that as motivation."
"Okay." Paris tossed her a thready grin. "I'll take it. One more for the list of call-of-duty heroics. I'm ready when you are, mechanically speaking. I wouldn't give you any guarantees about my fluttering stomach."
"Don't worry," Torres huffed. "In a couple of
minutes your stomach won't know what hit it. All right, I'm just about done. I guess if we survive this, I'm going to have to show you a lot more respect."
He batted his eyelashes at her. "Oh, really?"
"Well... for a while, anyway."
"I'll take it."
She fanned the air uselessly-the acrid pink miasma was definitely getting thicker. Just before she sat down in the nav seat, she decided to do something about that.
"Tom, give me one of your socks," she said.
"My sock? B'Elanna,