It was to Tom's grim satisfaction that the captain was, for once,
in the wrong. Her plan had backfired in spectacular form. Instead of
supplying information about the Pralor home world, Automated Unit 3947
had abducted B'Elanna. I suppose B'Elanna is partially at fault, too,
he reflected, considering that she had suggested that she could help
repair the others. It was tough to point fingers, though; no one could
have anticipated that a constructed artificial intelligence would behave
so irrationally. Except for Tuvok, Tom noted; the chief security officer
expected the worst of every situation.
The captain's error was no comfort, however. B'Elanna was now a
hostage, tasked to construct more Pralor robots under threat of
Voyager's destruction. Nor was it an idle threat. The Pralor vessel
nearly pounded the ship to pieces, while Voyager only effected a
minimal retaliation on their shields. Only B'Elanna's capitulation to
the robots' demands saved the ship from annihilation. The consequences
were less than satisfactory - not to the captain, not to Tuvok or
Chakotay or Harry, and certainly not to Tom. She was too badly needed
for the design of the transwarp engine.
For the time being the captain had ordered Tom to maintain a
pursuit course on the Pralor ship, but with damage inflicted to the
power distribution systems they couldn't do much more than that. The
only thing left to do was plan a strategy to get B'Elanna back, and the
captain had the senior staff called together to do just that. Tom hoped
that someone could come up with anything better than what he was
thinking. The element of surprise would hardly be effective against an
amalgam of sentient computers, capable of processing and reacting to any
attack in a matter of seconds. They'd open fire on us the second we
made an aggressive move. Our shields wouldn't hold up, and we wouldn't
have the power to get away from them. We'd be space debris long before
we could beam her off their ship.
Janeway tossed out the first suggestion. "Is there any way we
could boost the range of the transporters to beam B'Elanna out of there
without getting too close to the Pralor vessel?" It was a very cautious
idea; Tom surmised that the robots' offensive punch had put the captain
on her heels.
Tuvok had an image of the Pralor ship displayed on the tactical
console, rotating on its axes to present a complete view of their
defenses. "Due to the complexity of their defense field and our severe
power shortage, it is unlikely that we can modify the transporter to
beam Lieutenant Torres out."
Chakotay looked up from the console to address the assembled
group. "But if we can manoeuvre inside the field..."
"...our transporters could get the job done," Harry completed the
thought, quickly comprehending the commander's idea. Tom's mind started
turning over the suggestion. They'd have to get awfully close to the
Pralor ship.
Janeway turned to Tom. "Is that a viable option?"
There was no way to get that close, not with the Pralor ship
likely monitoring their position. Unless... "For a shuttlecraft,
maybe."
The captain didn't seem too happy with that idea, though. "They
were able to knock out Voyager's shields in a matter of minutes; a
shuttle would be more vulnerable."
"It would be advisable to create a diversion of some sort to take
their attention away from the shuttle," Tuvok said. Tom nearly did a
double take; it wasn't often that Tuvok supported one of his ideas.
Chakotay looked back at Tuvok. "Attack them again?"
Janeway shook her head in disagreement. "I don't want to risk
that a second time."
Tom could understand her hesitation. She had 150 people to worry
about. What they needed to do was minimize the head count involved.
Tom thought of a way to keep it at one. "I don't need a diversion. Just give me a chance. I'll get her out of there."
"You don't mind if the rest of us give you a little help, do you,
Paris?" Chakotay chided. Paris. That caught Tom's attention. While
they weren't exactly chums with each other, Tom didn't think Chakotay
would get that upset. Almost as an afterthought did Tom remember that
the commander and B'Elanna were close friends. He was beginning to feel
ashamed of his cockiness when he detected a slip in Chakotay's stony
glare. "I'd hate to lose another shuttle."
A-ha! He's trying to bait me. Tom smirked. He'd almost been
suckered. "Your concern for my welfare is heart-warming."
Before either one of them could exchange another word, Janeway
broke in. "In another twelve hours our warp engines will be on line. I'd like to come up with a diversion by then, okay?" She then gave Tom
and Chakotay one extra look. "Gentlemen?"
Leena stepped in line for dinner and tried to rub the tension out
of her neck muscles. A lot of things had gone wrong in a short time. Voyager had been knocked for a loop, several key systems were rendered
inoperative by power loss and the chief engineer had been stolen. It was ironic that B'Elanna Torres, the same person she could have cared
less about during the Alsaurian raid, was now the center of her concern. Since hearing about the chief engineer's wild theory to eclipse the Warp
10 barrier, Leena had been silently pulling for her success.
"Have a rough day, Lieutenant?"
Leena half-turned and saw Harry Kim standing behind her. "Oh, hi,
Harry. Yes. I'm not exactly used to crawling through Jefferies tubes
and fixing power relays. People my size aren't meant to navigate
confined spaces; my legs are too long."
"Well, we all appreciate the discomfort you're enduring, every one
of you. The more people we can get to help with repairs means less time
before we can get the shields and propulsion up to full strength and
make a run at the Pralor ship."
"What?" She ignored the tray set in front of her to fully face
the ensign. "After what they did to us the first time?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't think we have much of a choice. Voyager will have to create some kind of diversion so Tom can get in
close enough and beam B'Elanna off their ship."
"Oh, I see." Leena picked up the tray and moved off to find a
table, leaving a surprised Harry standing flat-footed in line.
He hurriedly grabbed a tray of his own and scampered back behind
her. "You guys had a fight, didn't you? The other night, I mean." She
didn't respond to his question. She just sat down at an available
table. He sat beside her. "You know, that would explain a lot now."
"What do you mean?" Leena asked irritably.
"When I first told Tom about our transwarp project, he was dead
set against it. Then I got a call from him later that night asking me
to come over with everything I had concerning the project. I'd wondered
what caused him to change his mind."
Leena paused midway through a bite of food. Tom's participation
in the project was a surprising revelation. She pushed her shock aside
quickly, however, and continued eating. She had a fairly good handle on
Tom's change of heart. He was trying to salve a wounded ego. "I
suppose he was the one to suggest this suicide run, too?"
"Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact," Harry said. "You think he's up
to something?"
"Thinking doesn't even enter into it, Harry. The lieutenant's
brain is saturated with testosterone again." She sniffed tentatively at
Neelix's featured entree before putting the fork in her mouth. "You are
right; we did get into an argument the other night during dinner. It
was over the transwarp project, as a matter of fact. There's a personal
reason behind why he didn't want to work on it, but he wouldn't talk to
me about it. He spewed out all this talk about trusting people and he
won't even listen to his own advice."
"Tom's a complicated guy," Harry attempted to rebut.
"No, he's not. He's selfish and cowardly, and I told him so. Now
he's beating his chest to prove me wrong."
They were quiet for a long time. Leena had almost finished eating
before Harry spoke up again. "You must mean an awful lot to Tom for him
to be doing all these things. I mean, I think I know him pretty well. He never does anything risky unless it's really important to him."
"That's exactly my problem with him, Ensign," she said, putting
down her fork and dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin. "He'll put on his white hat and jump in the saddle, but not unless
there's an offer of reward waiting for him at the end of the trail."
She carefully draped the soiled napkin over the remnants of her
dinner. Then getting up, she took the tray to the reclamation unit,
Harry at her side. "There's always a personal stake in everything he
does. This threshold project isn't something he's doing because it's
something that will benefit the crew. He's doing it because he wants me
back."