25.
"I almost wish I had a god to damn," remarked Dejin as she strode into the wrecked midsection of the engine room and stopped at the edge of a steaming pit.
Halfway into the deck's plasma control assembly, B'Elanna wiped her wet brow with a filthy hand then turned to see the trader. "I heard you were coming through today."
"I just transported a flat of parts to your main bay," she told her. "Tom grabbed me two minutes after I got here."
"I hope he got what we need."
"He said it was Ridge's list, some of the items he couldn't get through the usual routes here." There, Dejin shrugged for what it was worth. "I'm sorry you've been picked apart so readily."
B'Elanna nodded her thanks, not wanting to discuss it further. "Maryl says she's only dealing with what the Maquis won't be looking for so we can have a break. I don't know that'll be possible for long."
"I'll be surprised if it is," Dejin admitted. "But if you can, head out to the outer Migan scrap yards. You might find something useful, collect some of the larger items you might need and refurbish them. You might buy yourself a better break later on."
"That's a good idea. Thanks." The engineer pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the deck. Reaching out to her kit, she ran a sonic wand over each hand and her face, removing most of the grime with a few concerted sweeps. A neat little device, she'd picked it up from a Lasaran vendor on Podala after signing off on their waste dump. She knew she needed to conserve her funds, but couldn't resist the promise of getting suitably clean in seconds and without having to go any further than her tool kit. After using it the first time, she wondered what she'd ever done without one and how she'd managed not to hear about it before.
"Are you off?" Dejin queried.
"No. We need these systems online before we break dock at twenty-two hundred. But I want to see what you've brought."
With a nod, the other woman backed up enough to give B'Elanna room to fall in by her side. Together, they started walking towards the port ladder. Glancing over, Dejin commented, "Tom's looking pretty rough."
B'Elanna shrugged. "Is he?"
"You're here every day; maybe you don't see it. He looks sick." Pausing, she tried again. "His mood wasn't much better. Being targeted isn't much fun, but I think he's trying to make up for something here now, too."
That managed to pique B'Elanna's curiosity. "What do you mean?"
"I mean it's interesting that you hoped he'd bought the right parts. He seemed especially concerned that you got what you needed."
"What's so wrong with that?"
"Nothing, but Tom usually doesn't care whom he's getting the parts for, just that they get to the right place-and don't tell him I told you that."
"Then why tell me at all?"
Dejin managed a grin at that. "You've really been riding him, haven't you?"
B'Elanna colored at the truth of it and hoped the wily trader couldn't see it in the dim lights as she tuned to get on the ladder. Climbing down, she waited for the other woman to come down before answering. "We've had some disagreements, but I wouldn't say it's been an all-out war. I hardly even talk to him right now."
"Hmm." Waving her ahead, Dejin let B'Elanna set the pace that time. "Look, I wouldn't bother if I wasn't concerned about him and about what could happen to all of you. The Federation not taking care of the Maquis and jumping on the Cardassian problem is only going to exacerbate the problem in the end. We're all at risk because of it."
"Things will get resolved eventually," B'Elanna told her, "there and here." She didn't bother telling how it would be resolved on her end, at least, in only a couple more months. As for the other matter, she wouldn't have to worry about it after the first was done with.
Dejin didn't ask for details on it, either, but said, "The Maquis are a pretty tough group. Tom had a bad feeling about the colonies when we talked here last year, so it only figures he'd be a magnet now. He's not alone."
They passed into the aft loading bay, where a neat flat of equipment and parts sat just off the loading dock, waiting to be inventoried. Coming around it, B'Elanna could tell someone had begun to-likely Ridge. He had a habit of leaving his tricorder on top of the next thing he needed to get to, like a bookmark. Respectful of his work, B'Elanna passed it to tap into the central console for the input list.
"So how do you see it playing out?" she asked as she worked, correctly assuming Dejin wanted to tell her.
"Money's tight, and it'll only get worse all around the region," the trader said, leaning back against an adjacent support pylon, "especially for us politically unaffiliated traders. Worse than that, without affiliation and as unremarkable as it is, you can bet the Guerdon will eventually be a target for persuasion."
B'Elanna hid her response behind a concerted scrolling effort.
"One of these days," Dejin continued, "Tom will have to decide what's more important, his living or his pride. He captains your ship, but he has a pilot's sensibility. That's going to be a tough choice for him, not to mention the rest of you."
B'Elanna eyed her. "You sound like someone who's having to make that decision, herself."
Dejin returned the attention in a glance. "Almost. But not yet."
"Yet?"
Dejin shrugged. "Starving people will eat live rats to survive, B'Elanna. When you know that as a fact, the last thing you'll do is let yourself get to that point-if you've got any sense, that is. They've put the pressure on my resources, been tracking me and my affiliates from inside the DMZ; their eyes are all over these stations and they know every deal, every opportunity. When they see something they want, I have no doubt they'll try for it, one way or another. If it comes down to making a deal or losing my ship and my crew...I'll make the deal." Dejin's eyes closed. "I'm not proud to admit it, but I refuse to deny what's more important to me." She opened her eyes again to stare directly at the young engineer. "Pride isn't worth a pile of crap when you're cleaning blood off your bulkheads."
"I guess not," B'Elanna whispered.
"Tom knows that better than anyone right now."
She sawed her molars together as she looked up again. Dejin seemed glad to see her point sink in.
"My whole life is on this route, B'Elanna. Like the colonists, I made everything I have out here, and I love it. Even Tom has more back on Earth than I do anywhere outside this region and I can't see him going back to that life, either."
Ridge and Nadrev came into the bay, the former detailing where they needed the duranium set screws presently and how much should be stowed. They both gave B'Elanna a nod as they picked up another tray each. Distractedly, she nodded back.
"Honestly, I don't care what they think they're fighting for," Dejin continued as her stare darted around at the loading bay. The back walls were still smeared with gray soot; blackened rubble in haphazard piles, yet to be sold for scrap. "I really don't anymore. I used to feel some sympathy for their plight; but that they'd track the circuit and gun freighters down, kill us as if we're the problem, rob us as if we'd been attacking their damned planets..." Dejin pushed herself off the wall, shaking her head. "I need to stop talking about this. I'm just getting pissed off."
B'Elanna nodded. "You can help me finish up the plasma control valves, if you want to work some of it out. We have the right rods now, if you want grab a box."
Dejin grinned. "It'd be my pleasure, B'Elanna. -And thank you."
"I didn't do anything," she dismissed.
"Yeah, you did. -It's okay. It doesn't always have to be on purpose." Patting the engineer's shoulder, Dejin started with B'Elanna back to the main engine room.
Leaning back in his uncomfortable chair, his robe tied lazily around his waist, Tom looked out at the stars as he blindly reached for his glass. Nothing was going to numb it that night, but maybe he could knock himself out. Then again, how could he sleep when he'd just destroyed everything he'd worked so hard to build on that rickety brick of a ship he'd not wanted in the first place?
Before the Ligaran deal, they'd been doing pretty well. Even when Livich left them in a lurch, they'd gotten by. They picked up B'Elanna-literally-they had some good, regular deals, and the crew was finally clicking all together, even with him. Naturally, the temptation of some excitement and a huge paycheck lived up to the "too good to be true" standard and they were paying for it in tenfold-and would continue to, now. Now, he'd dealt with the devil.
One possible result of that deal could send him as low as he could possibly get. He breathed a silent laugh. As if getting cashiered didn't make Dad mad enough. Getting thrown in jail for helping out terrorists would grab the gold.
He drank again. He could hardly feel the liquid go down.
He'd just taken a shower. Coming out of the stall, he had been startled at his appearance when he passed by the mirror. Why he hadn't noticed before the changes in his body, he couldn't figure. Why only Savan had bothered to point it out troubled him. The crew either didn't care, didn't notice, or didn't want to say anything about it to him. He generally didn't give a damn, and though he liked that they didn't either, it did sting a little. But then, he'd been feeling a tad insecure of late.
There was something ever comforting about staring at the stars, though. Always there, always before him, beautiful, clean, uncomplicated: They always reminded him that there was something else, somewhere else, more that what he had.
He ran his finger over the lip of his cool, moist glass, breathing into the steady haze in his head, which grew, circled then radiated out. His shoulders relaxed a little.
A chirp rang out behind him, but he didn't turn towards it. "Open," he commanded and heard a swish and footsteps a moment later.
"Letting it all hang out again, Paris?" queried Dejin quietly as she slid a chair across the room, stopping on the other side of his table. Coming around, she set a bottle of wine on the table and pulled out her own glass as she sat. Reaching over, she threw his robe over his opposite leg. "I don't need to be looking at all that."
He coughed a little laugh. "What's up?"
"I don't feel like drinking alone," she shrugged, pouring her glass, "and I'm not much for the lounge atmosphere. The Irtri have the best trade station in eight sectors, but I feel like I'm imbibing in a sickbay here." Leaning back with her drink, she shared his view of the stars. "I just left your little engineer... -In the engine room, Tom, but thanks."
His responding grin came and went within the same breath. "How's it going back there?"
"She's all done. I gave her a hand." She smiled. "Helps to keep in touch with our subordinates sometimes. Keeps us humble, doesn't it?"
"I'm getting the feeling you're trying to cheer me up," he said cautiously.
She got the point. "Are you sick?"
He drew a fresh sip, rolled it over his tongue before swallowing. "Yeah. Savan's insisting I see a Human specialist. We'll get to one in a few more stops."
"You're getting it taken care of, then?"
"Yeah. I need to."
Dejin nodded, leaned back. "Okay. Thanks for telling me."
Tom drew a slow breath, the corners of his mouth turning up again. That time, it stayed. "Thanks for asking."
It'd be ten days to Miga at warp six-point five; after their pickups there, they'd be off for Kytrel. Away from the border for a little while, the crew saw it almost like a vacation. Maryl, continued to press for the Tagran deal via some old contacts at Ulinas and Ridge was working almost full-time with Nadrev while they weren't doing their usual jobs. Savan continued to spend the bulk of her shift running constant checks on the systems, averting what she could from the bridge and alerting the engine room of failures of malfunctions she couldn't fix remotely. The malfunctions remained common, but without new sores in the side of the ship, they had been better able to focus on them.
For B'Elanna, the run would give her time for work she was anxious to start. Along with suggesting the scrap yards, Dejin had scrounged up some parts in her back room and sold them to B'Elanna at a cut rate. "No one else is going to buy them," Dejin dismissed. It wouldn't fix the bulk of their major problems, but they could hold stave off some of their symptoms, which in B'Elanna's book was half the battle.
They could relax to know the Maquis wouldn't bother them that time, going out or coming in. B'Elanna cursed her relief, cursed the quiet but busy atmosphere she'd enjoyed before the Ligaran deal and now had again. No one else seemed to feel guilty about it. She wondered why she did. She wondered why, every time she thought about their upcoming deal with the Maquis, she could hear the last thing Jerod had said to her, over the scratchy comm and the phaser blasts. "On my way!" he'd called. She believed he'd tried.
Then she wondered why she was being so bothered by it. She hadn't known him long...
Shaking her head at her spinning thoughts, B'Elanna wandered starboard. She'd heard Ridge tell his wife Tom was in the aft parts bay.
She hadn't seen him since the meeting and hadn't thought about it at first. Maryl's little lecture and Dejin's follow-up started playing on her mind, though. She didn't need to be so damned determined to leave when he'd spoken in anger, in an argument. He might reconsider, now that they weren't being blown to hell between stations. It was her mistake to blame him for Jerod's death and for the initiator malfunction, for the ship's bad timing... Then again, the timing wasn't actually that bad after all. Remembering that the same captain that'd met Tom on Mesler's barge was the one who'd attacked them on the DMZ border and now was exacting another advantage made her pity her captain a little. Indeed, Tom had been fighting as hard as anyone to keep them alive; there weren't many options if he wanted to keep doing that.
She was still angry with him, but she was coming to understand his feelings better.
Another half of a battle, she figured as she slowed, then peered inside the old parts room.
Much like the last time she'd found him there, he was kneeling on the bare deck, hunched over one side of a plasma injector, which sat alongside the impulse engine. The shell of the tiny shuttle had been moved to the back corner, and all the other systems remained in neat piles around the room. His coat was in a lump near the door. A flask lay at his ankle.
His breathing was barely audible; in the cool white light of the room, she noticed for the first time how ill he looked. From day one, he had a tendency to be a little rumpled and sometimes haggard after a hard night. This was different. His eyes were sunken and dark and his skin was sallow. He must have lost weight, as without his coat, she could see how his clothes hung upon him, the tendons in his hands. She wondered how long he'd been like that and she hadn't noticed. Certainly, she'd been busy and distracted, but he really did look like hell.
She could see the stress and his sadness in his automated movements, in his quiet, alone in the middle of the room. She stepped in quietly, but her boot heels gave her away. He stopped, but didn't look back. B'Elanna took a few more steps in.
"Mind some company?" she asked, poised to leave on his word. None came. "I happen to know something about shuttle engines. They can be twitchy."
Looking up, seeing an expression as quiet and plain as her tone, Tom blinked, shrugged then wordlessly slid the tools around so she could start on the other injector.
B'Elanna moved closer and knelt on the deck on the other side of the tray. Slowly, they began to work in tandem, pulling parts off the assembly, gradually revealing the smaller machinery within. B'Elanna reached over and wrapped her fingers around a microoptic driver.
"I'll bring my tools next time," she offered, her eyes on the upper valve as she set the end of the tool carefully into it, "if you want."
Stealing a glance her way, he reached down for another driver then continued his work. "Sure."