Star Trek Day of Honor 04 Her Klingon Soul

VIP免费
2024-12-20 0 0 346.8KB 142 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Star Trek - Voy - Day Of Honor, Book 3 Of 4 - Her Klingon Soul
BY MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN
Her shift over by a good twenty minutes, chief engineer B'Elanna Torres exited engineering and headed
for the ship's mess hall. As she had hoped, the predictable change-of-shift traffic was over. There was no
one in the corridor but her.
So far, so good. If she kept to herself, she imagined, she would get through the day with a minimum
amount of agony.
"Lieutenant?" said a voice from behind her.
Oh, no, she thought. Reluctantly, she turned to look back over her shoulder.
It was Paisner from stellar cartography. He was smiling in his beard at her, smiling as warmly as she'd
ever seen him smile.
"Happy-"
"Yeah," she said, "thanks."
And before he could finish his greeting, B'Elanna ducked down an intersecting corridor. Nor did she turn
around until she was sure she'd left Paisner behind.
Unfortunately, as she approached a turbolift on her left, its doors opened and a couple of her fellow
officers came out. One was Trexis, a stocky Bajoran who'd been with her in the Maquis. The other was
Morganstern, an attractive redhead who ran the bio lab.
"Lieutenant," said Trexis. "A brave-"
"Right," B'Elanna interjected. "Uh-huh. See you later."
And she accelerated her pace, passing the two of them before they could say anything else. Again, the
engineer found another corridor and took it.
She cursed inwardly. This was harder than she'd believed it would be.
Coming to another turbolift, B'Elanna ducked inside it. "Mess hall," she said, slumping against the side
panel. But just as the doors were about to close, someone slipped inside with her.
It was Wu, who worked with her in engineering. He was obviously pleased to see her.
"Lieutenant," he said as the doors closed.
"Mister Wu," she responded, looking at the ceiling and not her colleague. She could feel the slight
vibration that meant the lift compartment was moving.
"I didn't think I was going to see you today," he told her. "But since I have, allow me to wish you-"
"Hang on," she interrupted. Turning to him, she asked, "Why aren't you in engineering?"
Wu looked at her, surprised. "It's my day off."
B'Elanna eyed him. "Are you sure about that? I could've sworn I saw your name on the duty roster."
He thought about it for a moment. "I don't see how that could be. I distinctly recall-"
Suddenly, the doors opened. "Now that you mention it," the lieutenant remarked, "it is your day off. My
mistake." And she exited the lift before Wu could say another word.
Turning left, she set her sights on the double doors of the mess hall. She was almost home free, she told
herself. If she sat by herself and grimaced enough, she could eat and get out without meeting any more
wellwishers.
Then, just as she was about to enter, the doors opened and a half-dozen of her crewmates spilled out.
She sought a way around them, but there wasn't any-not unless she wanted to bowl them over.
"Lieutenant Torres," said one of them.
"Just the woman I wanted to see," said another.
"After all," said a third one, "it is your day, isn't it?"
B'Elanna wanted to crawl into an EPS conduit and die.
As First Officer Chakotay entered Voyager's brightly lit mess hall, he wasn't looking for B'Elanna Torres.
Chakotay had no reason to be looking for her at that particular moment. After all, everything was running
smoothly in the ship's engineering section, and there weren't any emergencies elsewhere on Voyager that
required B'Elanna's special expertise.
Still, it was difficult not to pick out the lieutenant in the midst of all the other uniformed personnel in the
room. After all, she was half-human, half-Klingon. That made her rather noticeable-the only one of her
kind on the entire starship. Indeed, the only one of her kind in the entire Delta Quadrant.
But what made her even more noticeable was the fact she was sitting all by herself. The ship's engineer
had sequestered herself in a corner of the mess hall, facing one of the observation ports, her back to the
entrance and therefore to him as well.
Alone.
Though the first officer couldn't see her face, he couldn't imagine she was very happy right now. People
usually didn't seclude themselves when their hearts were bursting with joy.
As her commanding officer in their days with the Maquis, Chakotay had known B'Elanna to be moody
on occasion, even volatile. She had never resented his company, however, not even when she was at her
worst. In fact, she had always welcomed it.
He hoped she would welcome it now. And beyond that, that she would let him help her with whatever
was on her mind. It was tough enough to be a lifetime's journey away from home, but to make that
journey by oneself was too great a burden for anyone.
Crossing the lounge, he headed for B'Elanna's table. But before he could get halfway there, someone else
beat him to it.
It was Neelix, the ship's Talaxian chef and semiofficial "morale officer," carrying a large metal pot with a
flat bottom. No doubt it held another of his
strange and exotic concoctions, thrown together from whatever planetary flora Voyager's foraging parties
could supply him with.
But something was different here, Chakotay told himself. Usually, Neelix served up his creations with
undiluted eagerness. Right now, that eagerness was tempered with a certain...
Revulsion.
"Here you go," said the Talaxian, forcing a smile.
B'Elanna looked up at him, then at his pot. Clearly, she had no idea what Neelix was talking about.
"Here I go with what?" she asked.
"A mdlange of traditional Klingon dishes," said the Talaxian, failing to suppress a shudder as he placed
the pot on the table. "Serpent worms, heart of targ, and rokeg blood pie. All fresh from the replicator, no
less. I'll just leave it here on the table, and you can. . ." He grimaced. pick it over at your leisure."
The lieutenant seemed surprised as she surveyed the contents of the pot. As he approached, Chakotay
could see them as well.
Not being a connoisseur of Klingon cuisine, he had only a vague idea of what Neelix had come up with.
One part of the pot held what looked like a mess of snakes, another some kind of internal organ.
None of it was cooked. Even Chakotay knew that Klingon delicacies were generally served raw-and
whenever possible, still alive. Not up my alley, he thought. Even sushi made him a little queasy.
B'Elanna gazed at Neelix, perplexed. "You used your replicator rations to make these?" she asked.
He nodded proudly. "I sure did. But I felt it was something I had to do. After all, I've made plomeek
soup for Mister Tuvok and pineapple pizza for the Devlin twins, but I've never attempted anything
Klingon before. Then I got wind of this wonderful holiday of yours and. . ." He shrugged. "I couldn't
resist. Bon appetit, Lieutenant." He leaned a little closer to her. "That means knock your socks off in
French."
B'Elanna shook her head. "I can't eat this," she said. She pushed the pot away from her.
The Talaxian was mortified. "I... I don't understand," he replied after a moment. "I did extensive research
on your cultural background. I could have sworn this was the way I was supposed to present these
dishes."
The engineer got to her feet. "It's not the presentation," she said, her tone cold and blunt. "I don't eat
Klingon food. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not your run-of-the-mill Klingon."
And with that, she stalked off, leaving Neelix and the pot behind. The Talaxian looked to Chakotay, who
was the nearest person around.
"I didn't mean to offend her," Neelix explained, clearly at a loss. He watched B'Elanna's departure with
genuine disappointment. "I knew she hadn't eaten these things before, but I thought it was because they
weren't available. I didn't have any idea she would-"
The first officer put a hand on the Talaxian's shoulder. "It's all right," he said. "Your heart was in the right
place."
Neelix glanced at the writhing, pulsating contents of the pot and sighed. "So was the targ's. But it didn't
seem to make a difference."
Chakotay frowned. He didn't approve of B'Elanna's behavior. No matter what was bothering her, she
had no right to take it out on the cook.
As the engineer exited the mess hall, Chakotay made his decision. "Excuse me," he said, and went after
her.
Ensign Harry Kim glanced at his shuttle's instrument panel. On the monitor to his right, he could see the
asteroid belt as his sensors saw it-a series of green blips, each a different size and configuration.
There was a path through the blip field, but not an easy one. In fact, it was kind of torturous. And at
warp seven, it looked virtually impossible to maneuver through.
"You can do it," said his copilot.
Kim glanced at Tom Paris, who was sitting beside him. As always, Paris was the picture of casual
confidence. "What makes you think this time is going to be different from the others?" the ensign asked.
"I've got a feeling," said Paris as he consulted his own monitors. "Pay attention now, Harry. Those
asteroids are coming up fast."
They were, too. In a few moments, they'd be right on top of them. The ensign took a breath and let it out.
At this speed, their shields would be of no use to them. One collision and they'd be space debris-if there
was anything left of them at all.
"Ten seconds," Paris told him. "Nine. Eight.
Seven. . ."
"I get the idea," Harry said.
Then he was operating on pure instinct. The first asteroid loomed on his port side; he cut it as closely as
he could. That put him in position to cut even more sharply to port when the second asteroid appeared.
The third one required a quick dip, the fourth a sharp rise. The fifth and sixth required only minor
adjustments. And the ensign handled them all without an error.
Then again, it wasn't that first sequence that had scared the daylights out of him. It was the next one.
Harry gritted his teeth.
Hard to starboard to avoid a large asteroid, the largest he'd seen yet. Hard again, this time to port, to
miss another one. To starboard; starboard again. And then a backbreaking ascent.
The shuttle shivered mightily with the force of each turn, but it managed to hold together. More
importantly, there were no collisions, not even a particularly close call.
And there were only two asteroids ahead of him, virtually side by side, only a few meters apart. Two
asteroids to beat and he was home free. The ensign bore down, concentrating harder than ever, rotating
his craft ninety degrees in an attempt to slip between them.
You can do it, he told himself.
"You can do it," Paris echoed. "You can-" Before the lieutenant could finish his sentence,
Harry's shuttle wavered ever so slightly from the vertical-and clipped one of the asteroids. The impact
sent it bouncing into the other one.
The ensign heard his copilot utter a curse. Then, before he could take another breath, his craft exploded
in a cataclysm of light and sound.
Harry closed his eyes and scowled as he embraced obliviori- Then he felt Paris tapping his shoulder, and
he opened his eyes again. The holodeck grid was all around them, a mocking reminder of the ensign's
failure. Or at least, that's how it seemed to him.
"You did it again," said his friend. "Too much starboard thruster."
Normally, Harry didn't like to let his frustration show. He made an exception this time.
"I tried to keep her from heeling," he said. "I thought I had it."
Paris grunted. "If you'd had it, you and I would still be safely ensconced in the shuttlecraft, popping open
some champagne-not standing here in the middle of the holodeck doing a postmortem."
The ensign pressed his lips together and turned away from his friend. If he'd cracked up just once or
twice, it wouldn't have been such a big thing. But this was the seventh time he'd tried the very same
maneuver-and each time, he'd run into the same crushing results.
"You know what?" he said at last.
"What?" Paris responded.
"I think I've had it with this program," Harry told him, shrugging. "I mean, what's the big deal? I'll
probably never run into a situation like that one anyway. How many asteroid belts have we seen since we
got ourselves stuck here in the Delta Quadrant?
Two or three altogether?"
The lieutenant eyed him soberly. "I see. When in doubt, retreat. Or better yet, just run away."
Something in the ensign stiffened. "I'm not running away," he answered. "I'm just conceding my
limitations. It's not as if everyone can be the kind of pilot
you are."
Paris smiled. "Harry, I'm not asking you to be the kind of pilot I am. I'm just trying to prepare you as best
I can. Don't forget, we're in terra incognita. We don't know what to expect here. And that's all the more
reason to be prepared."
Truthfully, the ensign wanted to be able to execute the maneuver, and not just to get his friend off his
back. It irked him that any move-no matter how difficult-could make such a monkey out of him.
"Tell you what," said Paris after a moment or two. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret. No, scratch
that. It's actually a pretty big secret."
Harry regarded him. "I'm listening."
"The starboard thrusters aren't the problem," said the lieutenant. "Not really. The problem is you're afraid
to go for broke."
"Go for broke?" the ensign repeated. "What does that mean? I'm not completing the maneuver because I
haven't got the guts?"
Paris winced. "I didn't want to put it quite that way, but-"
"That's what you're saying?" Harry pressed. "I'm
screwing up because I don't have the backbone for it?
The nerve?"
"What I'm saying," his friend explained, "is you care too much about the outcome. The secret of piloting,
whether it's in a holodeck or out in the real world, is to loosen up, to not give a damn-to not even
enterLain the possibility of failure. And then, if you lose-hey, it happens to the best of us. At least you
gave it your best shot."
The ensign was beginning to get angry now. "I am giving it my best shot-for what it's worth."
Paris shook his head. "You only think that's your best shot. Stop worrying, stop thinking altogetherand
maybe then we'll see Harry Kim's best shot." He clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Be a risk-taker,
Harry."
The ensign threw his hands up in exasperation. "All right, all right. We'll try it again. And this time, I'll try
not to think." He sighed deeply. "Whatever that means."
Paris winked at him. "That's the spirit." He looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, program Paris beta-"
Abruptly, the empty holodeck rang out with the voice of authority. "This is Captain Janeway. All senior
staff officers are to meet me in the observation lounge immediately. Janeway out."
Kim felt relief more than anything else. What's more, his friend seemed to sense that.
"I'm not done with you," Paris assured him. "Not by a long shot."
"Hey," said the ensign, "I'm just as disappointed as you are. I really wanted to tackle that program again."
"Yeah, right," his friend muttered, rolling his eyes.
"Just like Tuvok wants to learn how to dance."
As the corridor curved, obscuring his view of the lieutenant, Chakotay lengthened his strides. He called
after her.
"B'Elanna!"
After a moment or two, he caught up to her. She had stopped at the sound of her name. Or was it the
fact that it was he who had called her?
"What is it?" she asked.
Chakotay could tell by her attitude that she didn't want to have this conversation. Tough. She would have
it anyway.
"What is it, sir, " he corrected.
The engineer scowled. "What is it, sir," she echoed.
The first officer looked around to make sure no one else was present in the corridor. What he had to say
wasn't necessarily for public consumption.
"You were rude to Neelix back there," he told her. "All he wanted to do was please you, and you shot
him down. I want to know why."
"Isn't that between me and Neelix?" she asked. "Or am I under orders to eat whatever he puts in front of
me?"
Chakotay sighed. "All right, forget I'm your superior. I'll speak to you as your friend-who was
embarrassed by what he saw."
B'Elanna's lips pulled back, as if she were about to lash out at him. But in the end, she seemed to think
better of it.
"Fine," she said, looking away from him as her anger ebbed. "Maybe my reaction was inappropriate. But
you know how I feel about Klingons. And that includes the things they eat."
Chakotay knew, all right. He had served with B'Elanna long enough to hear the whole story. How her
Klingon mother and her human father had separated when she was very young, so she had never really
known her father.
How she and her mother had lived in a mostly human colony, where she was self-conscious about her
Klingon characteristics. And how she had always emphasized her human characteristics, in an attempt to
belong.
That desire for acceptance had gotten her all the way to Starfleet Academy, where she had excelled in
the sciences. However, her Klingon side had surfaced there as well-manifesting itself in the way she
argued with her teachers. Finally, it had forced her to quit the place.
But several months ago, B'Elanna had obtained a new perspective on her Klingon heritage. Abducted by
the Vidans, she had been split into separate Klingon and human personas, each with its own positive and
negative attributes-and each incomplete without the other.
In order to escape her captors, B'Elanna's two halves had been forced to work together-to, in effect,
form a whole. In the process, her human self had come to appreciate how much of her courage and
determination came from the Klingon within her.
The first officer considered his protdgd. "I don't buy
it," he replied. "When you were sitting in sick bay, after the doctor had announced he would have to
merge you again with your Klingon DNA-"
"I said I was incomplete without it," the lieutenant recalled. "I said I had come to admire my YIingon self.
For her strength, her bravery."
"Exactly," said Chakotay. "And even though you'd never be at peace with her savagery, it seemed you'd
at least come to terms with it."
B'Etanna shrugged. "So?"
"So, why did you abuse Neelix that way in the mess hall? His intentions were good-as always. And you
treated him as if he'd insulted you."
The lieutenant sighed. "All right. Maybe there's more to it." She paused. "Maybe it's this damned
holiday."
At first he didn't know what she meant. Then he recalled the Talaxian's reference a few moments earlier.
"Holiday?" he prodded.
She frowned. "Yes. The Day of Honor. It grew out of an incident a hundred years ago. A Starfleet
captain named Kirk risked his life to save some KJingons, and now the day is celebrated throughout the
Klingon Empire."
Chakotay grunted. He had heard of Kirk, of course. The man's exploits were required reading at the
Academy. And now that he thought about it, he remembered something about Kirk rescuing some
Klingons early in his career.
"But why does that bother you?" he asked.
B'Elanna looked at him. "It would bother you, too, if you'd spent your life denying a part of yourself. The
Day of Honor has always been a reminder that I'm different from everyone else. That no matter what I
say or do, people will always look at me as an outsider."
Chakotay regarded her. He was starting to understand.
"To make matters worse," she went on, "my mother always wanted me to spend the day contemplating
its meaning. And of course, I would run away when she wasn't looking and have some kind of bad luck.
No-make that horrible luck. When I was six, I went exploring outside the colony and fell into a big hole.
They had to send a search party out for me. And I didn't get found until well after dark, when the
temperature had dropped below freezing."
Chakotay grimaced at the thought of it. "Not one of your fonder childhood memories, I imagine."
"It got worse," she told him. "When I was eight, I was fiddling with the controls to a sensor array when
no one was looking. All I did was change the angle on a single data collector-no big deal, right? How
was I to know a damaged ship was sending out a distress call, and that we would miss it because the
collector was off"
The first officer winced. "Was the crew rescued?"
B'Elanna nodded. "Eventually-after someone noticed that the collector was off and corrected it. But I
caught hell for my fiddling-from my mother, especially."
He got the point. However, the engineer wasn't finished yet.
"When I was nine," she said, "I accidentally locked
myself in a storage room. When I was eleven, I nearly lost my leg to a falling cargo container. When I
was thirteen, the boy I liked-"
Suddenly she stopped. Her face was a bright shade of crimson.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," she muttered. "But you see what I mean? This holiday has been nothing but trouble for me.
And yet, people always seem to want to thrust the Day of Honor on me, as if it were a badge of pride. If
Suddenly, an intercom voice interrupted the conversation. Chakotay recognized it instantly, even before it
identified itself.
,,This is Captain Janeway. All senior staff officers are to meet me in the observation lounge immediately.
Janeway out."
He looked at B'Elanna. She seemed rel'."ved to have been provided with a distraction.
"I guess we'll have to continue this another time," Chakotay told her.
"Another time," she echoed as they headed for the turbolift.
B'Elanna and Chakotay were the last to arrive at the ship's observation lounge. As they took their seats
around the table, the engineer saw the others look up at them.
Tuvok, the security officer, was as stone-faced as ever. But then, he was a Vulcan, and Vulcans had
mastered their emotions hundreds of years earlier. Whatever he was feeling at the moment, he kept it
well-hidden-even from himself, the engineer suspected.
Tom Paris, the helmsman, smiled a perfunctory smile at B'Elanna. In some ways he was the opposite of
Tuvok, reveling in his human foibles and faults. But right now, he seemed pretty businesslike.
Harry Kim, the young ensign who'd been making his maiden voyage when Voyager was whisked into the
Delta Quadrant, had taken a chair to one side of Paris. As always, he seemed eager to apply his intellect
to the problem at hand-no matter what it might be.
Neelix was in attendance as well-not just cook and morale officer, but also their resident authority on
people and places in the sector. As a being who had scavenged and traded his way from star to star, he
was an invaluable guide in what often proved to be hostile territory.
The Talaxian didn't mention B'Elanna's behavior in the mess hall. But then, he didn't look at her either, so
it was hard to tell if he harbored any resentment over it.
Finally, there was Janeway, their captain. She sat at the head of the table, her usual place. As always, she
seemed calm and unruffled, hopeful without being demanding.
But then, she was the commanding officer of this vessel, the only real Starfleet presence in the entire
Delta Quadrant. If she didn't maintain an even keel, who would?
B'Elanna was glad Janeway had summoned her staff when she did. More than likely, the engineer
would soon have something to occupy her mind. If she was really lucky, this damned Day of Honor
would be over before she had a chance to think about
it again.
Janeway looked around the table, from one to the other of them. "Thank you for being prompt," she said.
"This shouldn't take long." The captain leaned back in her chair. "Long-range sensors have identified a
Class M planet not far from here. There's a good chance it'll have the kind of plant life we've discovered
elsewhere-and put to good use."
"Excellent," said Neelix. "We're running low. As always." He had muttered the last part under his breath,
but there wasn't anyone at the table who failed to hear it-or to understand what he meant.
As a ship on its own, with limited energy and raw material, Voyager couldn't produce large quantities of
food through its replicators. The crew had to depend on natural flora for much of its diet. Some of it
could be produced in the aeroponics bay, but the majority had to be foraged from the surfaces of alien
planets.
"We'll send down three teams of two people apiece," Janeway announced. "Each team will take a
different area, examine the local plant life firsthandand coordinate its transport, if it fills our needs."
Janeway leaned forward in her chair. "Any questions?"
B'Elanna tried to think of one that wouldn't be a complete waste of time. But she couldn't. And no one
else had a question either, apparently.
The captain nodded. "Dismissed." Then she
摘要：

StarTrek-Voy-DayOfHonor,Book3Of4-HerKlingonSoulBYMICHAELJANFRIEDMANHershiftoverbyagoodtwentyminutes,chiefengineerB'ElannaTorresexitedengineeringandheadedfortheship'smesshall.Asshehadhoped,thepredictablechange-of-shifttrafficwasover.Therewasnooneinthecorridorbuther.Sofar,sogood.Ifshekepttoherself,she...

展开>> 收起<<
Star Trek Day of Honor 04 Her Klingon Soul.pdf

共142页,预览29页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：142 页 大小：346.8KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-20

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 142
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注