Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [15]
CHAPTER 4
B'Elanna Torres held her lower lip between her teeth as her eyes scanned the data on the main engineering console. "Lieutenant Carey, how are those magnetic constrictor coils coming?" she shouted. He was on the upper level, somewhere out of sight. She saw him peek down at her through the railing, a look of exasperation on his face.
"They're coming."
B'Elanna took a deep breath, then nodded to him. Her greatest regret was that she couldn't do everything herself, but Carey was a good man, as were the others working with him to get the warp drive back on-line.
Let some of it go, she told herself.
But she had to keep everyone pushing hard right now, including herself.
Partly because the captain required it, partly because she couldn't help it. Not with so many systems so badly damaged.
Not when at any moment Voyager's survival might well depend upon the work they were doing here. Still, there were limits, and some of them applied to everyone.
She bent over the panel and began touching keypads. Schematics flashed one after another on the dark glass screens above the console. She had so many people crawling in conduits that she'd lost track of some of them. Then there was the crew assigned to the transporter subsystems, ll of which needed work and none of which seemed to be improving according to the red indicators on the display she was looking at right now. She'd been after them on the intercom not ten minutes ago, but she hadn't gone up there and personally... inspired them. Not yet, anyway.
Another grid appeared as she touched the control. More red flags.
"The captain isn't going to like this," she muttered, thinking out loud.
"Like what?" Janeway said.
B'Elanna looked around to see the captain standing just behind her.
She made a sour face. "Plenty."
"Tell me what's going on."
B'Elanna took a deep breath, tried to think of a good place to begin, decided there wasn't one. "I've got Carey working on the warp drives; that's our number-one priority right now.
Life-support is stable. The transporters are still down, but we're making progress there. The impulse engines are running at eighty-five percent, maybe eighty-six. That's the good news.
The phasers... well, I'm sorry, Captain, but I'm afraid they aren't--" "I know, Tuvok told me. At least the Televek don't know about it yet.
Not specifically. At least I don't think they do. We're working on the phaser problem from another angle."
B'Elanna looked at her. "What's that?"
"The Televek may have the hardware we need, if you think you can adapt their technology to ours. It's possible they'll want to cooperate. It seems they are merchants first and whatever else second, and from the looks of things, we are certainly potential customers. They're coming over for a visit."
"I'm more than willing to try," Torres said. "I'd use rubber bands right now if I thought they'd help, but do you think we can trust the Televek to help us rearm?"
"No." Janeway grinned, which seemed to put B'Elanna somewhat at ease.
"That's the tricky part. But I'm willing to try, as long as we proceed cautiously. I would like my chief engineer to be there when we talk to them. Can we spare you down here for a little while?"
B'Elanna looked around, making a quick evaluation. She saw several sweaty brows flash in her direction and couldn't help a little smile of her own. "I think everyone here would welcome that idea," she answered.
"Good."
"Bridge to Captain Janeway," Tuvok hailed. The captain raised her voice to engage the intercom. "Yes, Mr. Tuvok?"
"The Televek are aboard. They are unarmed."
"Escort them to the briefing room. We're on our way."
***
No two first contact situations were ever the same, but Captain Janeway had seen enough of them to know that there were often similarities and that certain rules of engagement always applied.
She was prepared to give her visitors the benefit of the doubt