The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [80]
Who had they been? What had happened to them? How had they gotten trapped in this aberration, this bizarre hybrid of black hole and wormhole?
Some answers, she'd never know. But the last one, she suspected she would find out--somehow.
"Janeway to Paris. We'll be lowering our shields momentarily.
They won't be down long, not with Destroyer in here with us, but we'll give the five ships enough time to get clear."
"Understood, Captain." She heard Paris intake a breath; there was more. "Captain, request permission to join the scout ships in this mission."
"Request denied, Lieutenant," Janeway replied at once. "We promised we'd get them in here and get them out. The rest is up to them."
"With all due respect, Captain, they're down to five ships now.
There won't be enough room on them to take all the slaves. I don't know about you, but I don't think I want to tell four innocent people that they're not going home when their fellows are."
Damn. He was right. She did not want to engage in any action that could be interpreted as antagonistic, not when her final goal was peace, not war, between the Verunans and Akerians. But she had to agree with Paris. She couldn't just abandon a random few while saving the rest.
And what about Tom Paris himself? She'd sent him on this mission because he was the natural choice--he was indeed, as he so often bragged, the best pilot Voyager had. But she'd also wanted him to befriend the Verunans, to overcome his initial repugnance and learn to see beyond appearances. Well, he'd obeyed that second, unspoken order only too well. He'd made friends. She could not urge him to trust, to let down his guard among a race of beings, and then ask him to turn his back on them.
She recalled the sleepless night she'd been fighting when this whole thing began. Sleeping at nights was never easy for her.
not anymore. If she turned away from the Verunan slaves now and ordered Paris to do likewise, she doubted she could ever have a night free from nightmares again.
"In for a penny, in for a pound," she sighed to herself, dredging up an old Earth phrase. "Very well, Lieutenant. You've done a good job leading them this far, you might as well take it all the way. But be careful, Tom. No heroics. Get in, get the Verunans, and get the hell out, understood?"
"Aye, Captain." His voice held a pleased grin.
***
Tom Paris would never have thought he'd be pleased about going into possible combat. But, he mused with a hint of dark humor, fighting his way past Akerian guards was preferable than continuing to sit next to Kaavi with that heartbroken expression on her mercurial, reptilian face.
When he beamed her and Takoda aboard, they had been wearing what served the Verunans as envirosuits. Except, of course, the helmet. No need to put that on until the last minute. Now, safely aboard the shuttlecraft, the two pilots were alive, but without their helmets they might as well have been wearing nothing at all. There was no way that a human helmet could fit the long, sinuous Verunan head and neck.
So not only did they not have a ship in which to transport their fellow Verunans, Kaavi and Takoda were unable to even go to their rescue.
Kaavi had been so distressed about this and so pleased when Paris suggested going in their stead that he knew he'd made the right decision. He was glad he'd been able to talk Janeway into letting him go. Kaavi would have understood his not being able to disobey a direct command from his superior, but she still would have had that dreadful, miserable look on her face. And that, Paris was discovering, could not be borne. It made him feel far too guilty.
She took the controls while he stepped quickly into his own envirosuit, keeping up perfectly with Voyager as the bigger ship slipped into orbit around the dead planet and yielding the controls to him when he sat back down.