Ghost of a Chance - Mark Garland [77]
"Triness, hail the Federation vessel."
***
Tuvok moved to assume the tactical station, eliciting a look of welcome relief from Rollins. The Vulcan's fingers moved only briefly; then he looked to Janeway and nodded.
"Commander Gantel on-screen," Stephens said.
The face of the Televek commander appeared just as Janeway had expected it might. A face Janeway was seeing for the first time, yet one she felt she had seen many times before. Gantel did not look pleased.
"What have you done with my people?" he demanded immediately, almost as if nothing else worth discussing had occurred.
"They are being held for crimes against the Federation," Janeway said.
"I'll decide what to do with them."
"You have no right to hold them or to judge them!"
"We have every right. They lied to us, threatened my people, and attempted to seize my ship. But the crimes your emissaries have committed pale in comparison to those your people on the planet below are guilty of. I've been to the surface, Gantel. I know about the other ship, and about your assassins."
Gantel fumed. "I won't discuss that."
"I think you will."
"You are an insolent fool, Captain!" Gantel roared, leaning forward until his image filled the entire viewscreen. Janeway got the impression he didn't act this way often, though he seemed to have a flair for histrionics.
"I am beginning to think at least one of us is a fool," she said.
Gantel stared at her. "You have no business here, yet you feel you have the right to make rules for others and apply them at will. I must inform you that you do not. And you have few options in any case. If you attempt to fire on us, or if you try to leave orbit, we will destroy you. That is something I wish to avoid, but occasionally it is necessary to accept one loss in order to prevent two."
"Your own people are aboard my ship," Janeway reminded him. "And they're going to stay here for a while."
"Their families will be compensated," Gantel said flatly. "You have lost, Captain. One way or another, your ship, or whatever is left of it, will be boarded and taken from you. We hope to take Voyager intact, thus sparing the lives of your crew, but if we have no alternatives, so be it."
"Captain," a breathless voice hissed from just behind Janeway's left ear. She glanced back to find Lieutenant Torres standing there, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She had apparently been running. Janeway hadn't even heard the lift door opening. She turned her head slightly. "Yes?"
B'Elanna nodded toward the face on the screen.
"Gantel, one moment, please," Janeway told the Televek commander.
"Do not cut me off, Captain," Gantel protested. "Not again. You are in no position to--" Janeway signaled Stephens, and the comm went silent.
"I've been monitoring things from Engineering," B'Elanna said.
"I didn't want to use the comm."
"Yes, yes," Janeway asked impatiently, "what is it?"
"I suggest you try the shields, Captain."
Janeway reached out and took B'Elanna by both arms. "Shields?"
Torres's earnest expression was softened by a modest grin as she nodded. "Shields, Captain."
"Lieutenant," Janeway joked, shaking her head as her own smile broadened, "remind me to make you my chief engineer one of these days."
With that she spun half around again and faced the screen. "Mr. Tuvok, shields up!"
The face on the screen had darkened suddenly. As Gantel listened to someone on his bridge, a silent vow seemed to emanate from his tightening lips, something Janeway could not decipher.
"Mr. Stephens, reopen that channel."
"Open, sir."
"Gantel, you won't mind if we don't go quietly," Janeway told him.
Abruptly, the image on the screen was gone.
"Hail the surface. Get me Daket!"
"Yes, Director," Triness replied.
Gantel could see his career dissolving before his eyes as his carefully laid plans fell to pieces. One way or another, though, the Federation ship and its captain were going to solve his problems.