Crawlways were crawlways. The ones of the Lady Grace
were somewhat dirtier than the ones on the Enterprise, but they
were the same inconvenient size and they had the same
positioning of struts and braces and bolts that meant
anyone using them was guaranteed to pick up a nice
collection of bruises on their way through. Larssen moved
fast, willing to pay for it in bruises later. Every
branching she stopped and called Janice Rand's name.
Every time, she waited to hear a response. Every time, she
expected the page to tell her the fire had reached full
emergency status.
Just as she was about to give up, a voice answered her
from below. Larssen found the nearest hatch, moved it,
stuck her head down.
Janice Rand looked very tired and very dirty, but she was
composed. "I fucked up, ma'am." she said.
"Can you get up here?" The room where Rand had locked
herself seemed to be a supply cupboard. There was nothing to
climb on to bring the access hatch within reach. "Here, jump up
and grab my hand."
"I'll pull you down." Rand said.
"You have a better idea? Deck three is on fire. Jump up
and grab my hand."
It was a near run thing. When Rand was safely in the
crawlway Larssen's back and shoulders felt like she'd been
beaten with a piece of the pipe that had been used against the
rioters. Her hand was bleeding from the edge of the hatch
and her knees felt as if they'd have the print of the crawlway
flooring for life. "Straight forward." she said
breathlessly. "Fast as you can."
They managed quite a turn of speed. They were almost
down to main engineering when Larssen's comm. beeped.
"Get the nearest hatch up." Larssen ordered Rand, and
then answered her page. "Yes?"
"It's at five."
"Section seals in thirty seconds." Larssen said. "Down,
Janice, now."
They dropped to the corridor floor almost together. "That
way." Larssen said, pointing towards the nearest airlock
where she knew there'd be emergency supplies and a
supply closet that locked. Rand took off running, soon
outdistancing Larssen. As she pounded along behind,
Larssen heard a shout behind her.
"There's one!"
She didn't have breath to curse. Ahead of her, Rand
reached the supply closet, jerked the door open and hesitated.
Larssen turned, swung at the nearest face and connected,
ducked a punch and swung again. Someone raced past her,
heading for Janice.
"Close the door!" Larssen yelled, blocking and turning and
kicking hard and low. "Close the door!"
More went past her. In seconds they'd be on Rand, would
at the very least take or damage the emergency gear the
yeoman would need if life support went, finally, down.
"Close the door *now*, that is an *order*!" Larssen
screamed, took a blow to the face that knocked her staggering and
looked up to see one glimpse of Rand's white face as the
supply closet door hissed shut and the green locking light
above it went on.
Larssen dived blindly for the nearest corridor. She
knocked someone sprawling and they grabbed at her feet. Fingers
snapped under her boots. The seals would be down any
second now, any second - breaking away from the clutching
hands, she got a few meter's clearance and tried to orient herself.
No safety anywhere here, not even a door she could close.
Down the corridor, then - and as she rounded the corner she
realised she had chosen wrong, fatally wrong, for ahead of
her was the sealed door to main engineering and nowhere to
turn. She spun, set her back to the door and saw them coming
for her up the corridor, faces she could hardly recognise as
having once belonged to civilised people, voices that made
no sense in any language she knew.
She raised her hands in a futile gesture of defence and
focused on the nearest figure, the one that would reach her
first. Just as she was bracing herself, there was a sudden
space at her back and the rioters skidded to a stop, staring
beyond her.
Risking a look over her shoulder, Larssen saw the door to
engineering was open. Just behind her stood Madison, his
blaster in his hand, levelled at the nearest refugee as if it
were anything but useless.
"I can probably only get the first five of you," he said, and
Larssen thought his low, menacing voice was the sweetest
sound she had ever heard. "But which fucking five will it
be, huh?" And then, out of the corner of his mouth, "Don't just
fucking stand there, lady, get inside!"
She staggered backwards and Madison hit the controls.
The door came down as bodies hit it. It vibrated but stood firm,
and Larssen dropped to her knees on the decking, trying to
get her breath. She snatched out her comm.
"Bridge." she said. "Where are those seals?"
"Are you safe, ma'am?"
"Drop the seals!" Larssen howled into the comm. "Drop
the fucking seals before we burn up where we are! Drop the
seals, goddamn you!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Klein said.
Somewhere very far away, Larssen could hear the klaxon
sounding, warning all those who would listen to stand
clear of the section divisions. She wondered whether Wrenth
and the others had made it into the emergency pod. She wondered
how Shimona was doing in secondary life support.
She wondered how many of the refugees would pay
attention to the klaxon. ~Not many,~ she guessed. ~ Not enough.~
With a thump, the hydraulics engaged. All over the ship,
the massive barriers that made each section a self-contained
unit, sealed off from each other at every ventilation duct, every
crawlway, every corridor, started to descend.
And, Larssen knew, at many of those points people who
didn't know what the klaxon meant were taken by surprise as the
doors started to drop. Were frozen in fright, unable to
decide which way to jump, or were crammed in a press of
bodies too thick to get out of the way.
The seals came down, and all over the ship Larssen knew
there was screaming. Screaming, and crying, and dying.
"Shimona." she said. "Shimona, deck three is burning.
Have you got it on your boards?"
"We can see it. It's at six. Fire control is out."
"Put the fire out. Raise the CO2 level, and if that doesn't
work then space the whole section."
"Yes'm." Shimona said. "Ma'am, life support is at forty
percent of standard. We can't even think about fixing it
with the seals down. It's going to get real stale, real
fast."
"Priority is to the bridge." Larssen said. "Secondly to your
section. Third to the sections where refugees are known to
be - cargo, first. I'm not suffocating whatever sensible souls
stayed put and did as they were told."
"No'm. Ma'am, we have enough air bottles here in
emergency lock down for all of us, if we share masks.
This room is on the Delta A section system, and I don't
think any passengers got through there. We can take
ourselves off line. And the bridge should have twice as
many supplies as they need - enough for a full bridge
crew, and there's only two of them up there."
"All right." said Larssen. "Call them and tell them.
Confirm they have the equipment before you take them
off." She looked at Madison. "Do we have masks and air bottles
here?"
"I've got my personal." Madison said. "Don't leave home
without it. Dunno about any extras. I know we
stripped out for the refit."
"Shimona, take engineering down as well."
"Yes'm." Shimona said. "They're standard issue
bottles, ma'am."
That meant each would last sixteen hours. Well, they
were well past the perimeter now and somebody would
have to investigate their radio silence soon. "Hopefully,
we won't need that much." she said. "Put it in place,
Shimona. Larssen out."
Madison turned out to be right. The emergency lockers
in main engineering had been stripped out prior to the
refit, and his own mask and air-bottle were the only
ones in the whole of engineering.
"Well, fuck me." Madison said. "Lady, I hope you don't
have anything catching, because in a couple of hours
were going to have to share this, and I've managed to
get this far without any interesting exotic diseases."
"I don't have a medical certificate to show you," Larssen
said, "and I'm not sure Dr McCoy would issue one to
certify me 'clear of interesting, exotic diseases'
anyway."
Madison laughed, tossed her a blanket from the drawer
in his desk and took another for himself. "It'll get cold
faster than anything else." he said. "It's always
warmest near the engines."
Larssen wrapped herself in the blanket and followed him
to the warp core housing. He settled himself down, mask
and air bottle to hand.
"You had a lot of practice at this?" she asked.
"Some. Merchant shipping isn't what it's cracked up to
be, safety wise. Nobody much shoots at you - or at
least, not as fucking often as they shoot at Starfleet -
but owners are always trying to do things on the cheap,
you know. The Lady Grace is alright. I can't say I like
the Master, but the little prick is at least willing to
spend enough money to keep the crew alive."
"Is that what happened to your brother?" Larssen asked
without thinking, and Madison stared at her, then
reached up to touch the amulet he had hung back
around his neck. Larssen looked down at her hands
rather than meet his eyes. "Sorry."
"No." Madison said after a while. "No, it isn't what
happened to my fucking brother. My brother was in
fucking Starfleet, Yeoman Mitchell Madison, Mad Mitch
Madison, and he died a fucking hero's death, ordered to
lay down his life for something or other that nobody can
quite work out by some jumped up little fucker with
collar pips like yours. That's what fucking happened,
for your information."
"I'm sorry." Larssen said.
"What for? Did you fucking kill him?" Madison asked.
"Or are you sorry he's dead and you aren't? I don't
think so. Are you fucking sorry because that's the
thing to say, that's what they teach you at the
Academy? Or are you sorry because you used him to
break me?"
"You don't look all that broken to me." Larssen said,
trying for a smile and failing when she met his eyes.
"How would you know? How the fuck would you know,
lady?"
"I wouldn't. You're right. I'm sorry. And yes, I'm
apologising for - for - *that*." Impossible to frame it in
words that wouldn't make it worse. "I had to make you
co-operate, and I didn't know how else to."
"You had to make me *obey*, you mean." Madison said.
"That's what Starfleet is about, obedience, isn't it? Like
you sending that boy out on the hull and him going
when anyone sane would have told you to bugger
yourself with a splintery stick."
"It's how it works." Larssen said. "You trust that the
people giving you orders know what's best, even if it
isn't best for you. That's how it's possible - all of it,
Starfleet, and the Federation, because Starfleet makes
the Federation possible."
"And when they're wrong?"
"When they're wrong, it's bad. But you have to keep
trying. You keep trying to get it right."
"Lady, getting it right isn't possible. How do you make
those kind of decisions? Based on what? What fucking
criteria do you use?"
"The general good." Larssen said quietly. "The general
good. You can't ever make the perfect decision. Most
times, your choices are between two almost equally bad
options. But you have to try to make the perfect
choice, every time, even if it's never possible. It's that
impossible thing that we can never reach that gives you
guidance."
He looked at her for a minute. "Sounds like a good way
to go out of your fucking mind."
Larssen laughed, hugged her knees against the cold
that was beginning to seep through the room.
"Sometimes I think it is. What time is it?"
"Plus four hours." he said.
"I have to check with the bridge." Larssen said. "Why
don't you get some sleep? I'll wake you when the
readings go down and we have to use the mask."
"You mean you'll let me sleep on and keep the fucking
mask for yourself." he said. Larssen looked at him
wearily.
"Suit yourself." she said, and turned away.
When she had finished talking to Klein and Shimona and
assuring herself of the relative safety of the ship and
her crew, she turned back to see Madison lying full
length, his eyes closed. "By the way," he said without
opening his eyes, "you're welcome."
"Thank you." Larssen said. "You saved my life. I'm
very grateful. I had quite a bit on my mind at the
time."
He smiled. "You did well on the fricatives." he said. "I
heard that kid shitting himself all the way down here.
You'd have a fine career in the merchant fleet." And
then he went to sleep. Just like that, Larssen thought,
watching him, his chest rising and falling slowly, the
slight flicker of his eyelids showing he was deep down
and dreaming. Just like that, like he's in his own bed,
like it's perfectly normal to fall asleep beside the
engines. She wondered if Madison often spent the night
curled up by the warp core housing, hearing the steady
thrum of the engines in his dreams, like a baker
sleeping beside the oven, like a page sleeping across his
king's doorway. Once again, she was startled by how
different he looked sleeping, how much younger.
The air got thin, the indicators dropped. Larssen woke
Madison and he set up the mask, expertly jimmying the
valve so it could be used in short spurts rather than a
steady flow. By mutual, silent consent, they rationed
their air stringently, breathing the unfiltered air as
much as they could bear to. Klein called down to say
he had managed to rig an emergency squeal, and
Larssen congratulated him. She was sorry she had lost
her temper earlier, she said. It had been a trying
moment, and he had done very well for someone of his
limited experience.
Madison gave her a wry look as she ended the call.
"You'd do better to keep him living in fear." he said.
"Keep him on his fucking toes."
Larssen smiled, thinking: ~and if nobody hears the
signal? If he dies up there, the air running out, sitting
his post as he suffocates slowly?~ No. She didn't want
his last memory of her as a commander to be obscenities
screamed over the comm., calling his competency into
question, erasing in three sentences the desperate,
heroic effort he had made over the last three days.
"What time is it, Madison?"
"Plus six hours."