The Garden - Melissa Scott [104]
"Thank God," Jenar said, and holstered his phaser. Torres copied him, shaking her head, and stepped cautiously from behind the protective wall. This hadn't been much of a fight-a slaughter, really, she thought, and I find it hollow to think just that it wasn't mine. The Andirrim commander must be crazy, to have sent them in like this.
The guardians were busy with the Andirrim bodies, turning them over one by one-all dead, she saw, with some relief, and then one of the Kirse sledges, a dozen paired arms on a low-slung, multiwheeled body, appeared in the nearest doorway. The guardians began to load bodies onto it, stacking them like wood, and she glanced at Silver-Hammer.
"For burial?"
The Kirse nodded. "We can't use them anymore."
Torres blinked, but before she could question Silver-Hammer any further, her communicator beeped.
"Janeway to away team. Report your status."
"Tuvok here," the Vulcan answered, and Torres moved to rejoin him. "We are all safe and accounted for."
"Excellent," Janeway said, and Torres could hear
real relief in her voice. "The ion shield is dropping. The transporter chief says she can beam you up in twelve minutes." There was a pause. "Correction. She can beam you up now, if you can come outside the citadel's walls."
Torres looked at Silver-Hammer, who nodded. "The Andirrim are gone. The courtyard should be safe now."
Tuvok nodded. "Captain, we are going into a courtyard. Tuvok out."
Torres followed him toward the door, averting her eyes from the diminishing pile of bodies. She heard Quarante give a soft hiss of distaste, and Jenar swore again under his breath as he passed the hardworking guardians. Then they were out in the watery sunlight, and Torres heard Silver-Hammer give a soft, mournful cry as she stooped to touch one of the deep gouges in the pavement where the attack craft's landing skids had scored the stone. There were burn marks as well, and Silver-Hammer touched them, too, her beautiful face stricken.
"How," Jenar said, "how can you worry about that when there are all those dead people-?"
Silver-Hammer blinked up at him, her expression genuinely puzzled. "This injury," she began, but her words were cut off by a sudden crack of light that filled the sky.
Torres winced, thinking of radiation, of a dozen other, nasty possibilities, and Tuvok touched his communicator. "Tuvok to Voyager-"
"The defense satellites have destroyed the Andirrim shuttle," Janeway answered, flatly. "That's what that was, Mr. Tuvok."
"Understood," Tuvok said. "Voyager, four to beam up."
Janeway stared at the officers gathered once again in the ready room, well aware of the grief imperfectly concealed behind Paris's smile and the concerned look Kim gave him when he thought no one was looking. Tuvok's face was as impassive as ever-no surprise there, she thought-but there was something in Torres's expression that made the captain uneasy. Something seems to have happened on the surface, she thought, and deliberately drew herself up to her full height. The murmured conversations stopped as though she had spoken, and all eyes turned to her.
First things first, she thought, and said, "Mr. Chakotay. The ship's status, if you please?"
Chakotay glanced at the datapadd that lay in front of him. "We're in good shape, actually, Captain. We suffered only minor damage, mostly to outboard sensor arrays, all of which has been reported to engineering. The preliminary estimate says it should be repaired in under eight hours."
"I haven't had a chance to give the situation more than a cursory look," Torres said. "We may be able to better that time."
She sounded subdued, Janeway thought, but decided not to pursue the matter just yet. "Injuries?"
"Only minor ones," Chakotay answered, and in the viewscreen the holographic doctor cleared his throat. It was a studied sound, almost theatrical, and Jane-way was quite certain that the doctor had carefully studied the physiological mechanisms involved before adding the sound to his repertoire.