Unworthy - Kirsten Beyer [42]
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Eden asked.
Paris suddenly realized that the idea had never crossed his mind. He was struck by how great the gulf was between them. He wouldn’t have hesitated to go to Captain Janeway or Captain Chakotay with such a problem. The disappointment in Eden’s face suggested she was well aware of this.
“Are you telling me that if I had come to you, you would have helped us?” he asked.
“You didn’t give me the chance,” Eden said honestly. “You talked about this ship and her captain. You have done a disservice to both of us. You’re my first officer. I need to trust you for the good of my ship and my crew.” After a long pause, she added, “That trust has been broken.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Eden said. “Earn it back.”
Tom nodded intently. “I will. Thank you, Captain.”
Since the days of wooden sailing ships there has been one constant: the fastest form of communication was scuttlebutt. Between the unexpected arrival of Seven of Nine and Chakotay and the morning’s battle to recover an unregistered Federation shuttle, the rumors were flying.
Lieutenant Conlon reported to the conference room as ordered to find the captains, first officers, science officers, and chief engineers of Voyager, Hawking, and Galen assembling around the large triangular table. She’d heard that this room had been all but destroyed during the Borg Invasion and had been rebuilt to allow up to fifteen individuals to meet comfortably. As best as she could tell, the only ones missing were Commander Paris and Admiral Batiste.
She had a quick question to run by Vorik, so she made her way to the side of the table where he stood waiting for Captain Bal Itak of the Hawking to finish his remarks. Itak actually looked old even for a Vulcan, which was remarkable. The slight stoop in Itak’s shoulders and his fine white hair suggested he might have recently seen his sesquicentennial.
“… but all four are inhabited,” Itak finished as Conlon stood beside Vorik.
“Fascinating,” Lieutenant Lern, Hawking’s science officer, noted. “Will the subspace instabilities you discovered inhibit our ability to safely approach the system?” she asked Vorik.
“With proper modifications to the shields and deflectors, they should not,” Vorik replied.
Conlon tugged as unobtrusively as possible on Vorik’s sleeve.
“A moment, Lieutenant?” she asked.
“Of course,” Vorik said, stepping away from the others.
“What sort of deflector modifications are we talking about?” she asked.
“Minimal. I will, of course, forward the specifications to you as soon as I have completed them.”
“Thanks,” Conlon said with a nod. “I’m also curious to know whether or not you’ve completed your post-flight diagnostic of the slipstream drive and deflector components.”
“No, Lieutenant. You would have received them, as you requested, had I done so.”
“The thing is, we finished up ours just before I got the call for this meeting and apart from the microfractures …” she began, but was cut off by an announcement: “Admiral on deck.”
She turned to see everyone else in the room standing at attention. Once the admiral had taken his seat, Conlon settled in beside Vorik, realizing that directly across from her were Voyager’s former captain, Chakotay, and a striking woman who had to be Seven of Nine.
“Good afternoon,” Batiste said briskly. He hadn’t struck Conlon as a particularly warm man on the few occasions she’d heard him speak. Then again, most admirals weren’t. She secretly believed that good cheer and compassion were surgically removed prior to one’s promotion. What puzzled her was that he had once been married to Captain Eden. In temperament and leadership style, they appeared to be polar opposites. Of course, Conlon preferred Eden’s way of doing things. She just wondered what had ever drawn them together.
“We have a lot of ground to cover. Before we proceed, have we made any progress on the issue of sustaining or supplementing our benamite reserves?” the admiral asked flatly.
Eden quickly replied, “Not yet, Admiral. Lieutenant Conlon has a team working