Marooned - Christie Golden [45]
"Status report?" demanded Janeway.
Paris and Torres looked tired but pleased with themselves. "We've managed to lock it down," replied the chief engineer as she plopped herself on the ground. "Those technicians of yours, Hrrrl, really know their stuff. They picked up on what we were doing right away and sped up the process greatly."
She turned to look at them and smiled. "Thanks," she said, plainly glad to give them the gratitude they deserved now that they had a means of communication.
"There's still a lot of warp plasma drifting about, though," put in Paris in a tired tone of voice. "It's still extremely dangerous."
"We've teamed a lot while you were gone," said the captain. "I don't have time to go into it now, but the main thing is, like it or not, we're going to have to return to the dome and get at that control center."
"What?" gasped Torres. Bokk, Neelix, and Paris began protesting at once. Janeway silenced them with a raised hand.
"We are several hours overdue already for our rendezvous with Voyager. Commander Chakotay is not the type to sit idly by and hope we'll show up one day. Sooner or later-and I hope to high heaven later-he'll send down another shuttlecraft. From what I have learned from Hrrrl, the ion storm and that pulse that disabled us are artificial. Aren Yashar controls it from the complex we were just in. If another shuttlecraft attempts to land, he'll activate the ion pulse."
Paris's eyes went wide with understanding. Torres grimaced, but clearly she, too, comprehended what Janeway was getting at.
"Well," said Neelix, as ever trying to make the best of a bad situation, "at least we know the pulse isn't random."
"It would appear that our only chance to avert catastrophe is to return to the control center," said Tuvok, saving Janeway from being the one who had to deliver the bad news.
Janeway nodded. "Agreed. We'll either have to warn Aren not to activate the ion pulse, for his own sake as well as ours, or else we'll have to break into the control rooms and deactivate the ion storm ourselves. One way or another, we've got to go back."
"And get Kes!" exclaimed Neelix, his face lighting up. "I knew you'd have a plan, Captain."
"Neelix, we will deal with recovering Kes afterwards. This is much more important. Thousands of lives are at stake here, Kes's among them."
"But-"
"No buts. I think you know how much Kes means to all of us. But right now, simply living long enough for us to rescue her has to take precedence. I don't want to hear another word about it," she added as Neelix opened his mouth to continue the argument.
"Captain, do you think Aren Yashar will actually listen to us?" queried Bokk.
"I don't know. But we've got to try. Our only other option is to sit here and take bets as to who will kill us first, Yashar or our own people."
The crew fell silent. No one liked it. But no one had to. It was the only option.
"You-you wish to return to New Hann?" asked Hrrri, clearly disbelieving. "Perhaps the translating device-"
"There's no malfunction with our communicator," said Janeway. "You heard correctly. And you've heard our reasons. The Sshoush-shin are in danger as well. You'd have to move a lot farther away than this to escape the danger if the warp core on our vessel ruptures."
"But-" Hrrrl clicked his jaw twice, indicating his disapproval of the plan. "This Aren Yashar who has taken over New Hann, surely he must be aware of the danger the ion pulse must pose. He has downed other vessels before, many of which have warp cores."
"Perhaps," Janeway acknowledged. "But he doesn't know how badly the shuttlecraft was damaged. He doesn't have the schematics of the vessel, to judge the likelihood of something like this happening. And regardless of Aren's knowledge or lack of it, our crew in orbit around Mishkara is most certainly in the dark. And I promise you, our people