Unworthy - Kirsten Beyer [35]
B’Elanna shut down the warp drive and pushed her impulse engines to maximum as she came about to face her assailant.
“You’d better have more than that in your torpedo tubes,” she said aloud, “because I’m done running.”
B’Elanna returned fire.
Captain Eden had sat calmly in her chair on the bridge for the hour it had taken Voyager, the Hawking, and the Galen to cover the twenty-plus thousand light-years between the fleet’s first stop at the terminus of the Beta and Delta quadrants to the first location they were going to investigate. The fleet had separated into three groups of three ships. The first group was tasked with investigating a potentially dangerous alien species encountered during the Aventine’s prior investigation of a series of subspace corridors that had granted the Borg easy access to the Alpha quadrant. The second group was following slowly on Voyager’s heels dropping communication relays along the way.
Paris was looking forward to the end of this particular leg of the trip, mainly because he knew B’Elanna and Miral would be waiting there to greet him. But he was also curious to see what was left of the transwarp hub Voyager had destroyed four years earlier. Their rendezvous point was the last stop Voyager had made in the Delta quadrant and it was poetic that it would be the first place the fleet would investigate. Tom hadn’t spent a lot of time wondering what they might have missed when they left the Delta quadrant behind. Picking up where they had left off just seemed right.
Starfleet Intelligence’s reports assumed that they would find nothing. All traces of Borg technology had vanished along with the Caeliar. Whether or not this would include the debris of a vast unicomplex remained to be seen.
Though he was still getting used to seeing the trim, ebony-skinned figure in the command seat, the last several months working to ready the fleet had banished any concerns Paris had felt in serving under her. Eden was sharp and tough. She began every morning with a long list of orders, but Tom took comfort in the fact that her personal list was usually twice as long. She treated her senior officers as trusted comrades, encouraging them to show initiative and rewarding them with heartfelt praise when they managed to exceed her high standards. It was still too soon to tell whether or not she would bond with those who had been with Voyager the longest. The sudden death of Admiral Janeway followed too quickly by the chaos of the Borg Invasion during which Chakotay had completely unraveled had left those who had served together for eleven years shell-shocked. It was clear that some of the newer officers, including Conlon and their new CMO, Doctor Sharak, were warming to Eden. Counselor Cambridge, Paris had learned, was an old friend of Eden’s. Tom had served for three years with Cambridge aboard Voyager without ever developing the casual warm regard for him that Eden obviously felt.
Paris found himself considering the differences between Voyager’s female captains. Kathryn Janeway had been ferocious, driven by a passion for exploration. She was protective of her crew, quick to find the brightest spot in any catastrophe, headstrong, and sometimes reckless in battle. Afsarah Eden’s power was calmer and deeper. There was a regal quality to her that went beyond her exotic beauty. Her wide, dark eyes set above an aquiline nose punctuated by firmly set, full lips were always hungrily searching, an inquisitiveness borne of a desire beyond exploration. She seemed to be seeking synthesis, whether of a new technology or a character trait of a crewman. She rarely spoke freely. The distance she kept was professional and appropriate to her station, but Tom felt that if he ever needed to cross that line, she would respond with patience and respect.
She was fifteen years older than Janeway had been when she assumed command of Voyager, and with her age had come a sense of both calm restraint and poise. Eden hadn’t spent all her years in Starfleet exploring space. Scuttlebutt had it that she had