String Theory_ Cohesion (Book 1) - Jeffrey Lang [115]
Focusing back on the moment, she replied, “No, of course we’re not. We never are.”
Captain Janeway turned to look at her chief engineer, and B’Elanna sensed she was being watched carefully. “What are you thinking, B’Elanna?” the captain asked softly.
Torres decided to answer truthfully. “That some might argue we don’t know what happens to all the worlds we visit and leave our mark on. Others might say we have a responsibility to see things through….”
“What do you say, B’Elanna?”
Recalling her conversation with Kaytok, B’Elanna plunged ahead. “That we need to be careful, very careful, not only for our sake, but for the sakes of the people we encounter.”
Turning to look back out her window, the captain asked, a slight note of worry in her voice, “Do you think we broke the Prime Directive?”
B’Elanna pondered that one for several seconds before answering. “I’m not a debater, Captain. Or a lawyer if it came to that, but this time I’d say probably not.”
“This time? Have there been times?”
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
“Yes, ma’am. But there’s something else I’d like to add.”
“And that is?”
“Every time you did it, every time you broke the Prime Directive, you were right to do it. The planet where it happened was better for it.” Torres had been thinking about the topic a lot over the past several hours, had even discussed it with Tom last night after their reunion, but before sleep. “Here’s what I think: The Prime Directive is in place to protect planets and cultures from bad decisions being made by…you’ll forgive the term…average ship captains. By people like me—people who act before they think. But there’s a few, Captain Janeway, people like you or like Chakotay or, I think someday, Harry Kim, who always know the right thing to do. Or who make it right.” She hesitated, wondering how much more she should say. “I can’t pretend I understand all this, but there are captains and then there are captains.”
“And you think I’m one of the latter.” Captain Janeway turned back to B’Elanna, her face softly underlit by the stars.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
The left corner of the captain’s mouth curled up ever so slightly before she turned away. “You realize, of course, that Starfleet Command would never see it that way.”
“I figure that’s a problem we’ll deal with when we get home.”
“When? Not if?”
“It might take a while,” B’Elanna said, figuring she was allowed to slip in one jab. “If we keep taking the scenic route. On the other hand, I decided that home…home is where the hara is.”
“And yours is here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She found herself thinking of Tom and Harry, Chakotay and Neelix, and, yes, even the Doctor. My hara, she thought. And there stands my harat. Or is it haras? She had never quite figured out the gender assignments.
“How are you feeling?” Janeway asked, changing the subject. “Since becoming unlinked?”
“Fine,” B’Elanna said. “The Doctor said all the nanoprobes died off after Seven completed a regeneration cycle. Something about changing the resonance signature—I’m not sure I got it all. One minute she was here in my head and the next, poof, she was gone.” She shook her head and smiled.
“Sounds like it was quite an experience,” Janeway remarked.
“Not one I’d care to repeat,” B’Elanna said, “but it was very strange feeling so intimately bound to someone…feeling like I belonged. I think I understand the Borg a little better now.”
“Then I’d say the experience was worthwhile. We may need to call on that knowledge someday.”
B’Elanna nodded uncertainly, thinking of that last moment before she and Seven had been severed from one another. She had not thought to say anything more, but then, somehow, she found herself saying, “There was one other thing, Captain. Something about Seven.”
“What’s that?” the captain ask, sounding worried in that maternal way she sometimes did.
“She’s very…alone,” B’Elanna said. “Actually,