“We’re ready,” Conlon replied to the officer who had asked the question.
“You’re sure?”
Conlon glanced toward Lieutenant Ranson Velth. She hadn’t known him at all when they had entered the Galen’s cold, dead engineering room and she had begun the process of getting acquainted with the heart of a ship that wasn’t her own. She would have felt a lot better about the cobbled together system she had just created if the ship’s chief engineer, Cress Benoit, were available to review her work and offer the kind of insights unique to any ship and the officer who knew her best. But Cress Benoit had never regained consciousness. He was counted among the deceased and none of his engineering staff had the experience to take his place. The twenty-two survivors of the catastrophe—which had transformed Galen from a fully functional starship to a carcass of its former self—were now huddled on decks five and six, both of which were part of Galen’s vast medical bay, wrapped in emergency blankets, changing out power cells in portable heaters and SIMs beacons, venting backup oxygen tanks to supplement the dwindling breathable atmosphere, and monitoring carbon dioxide filters. Harry Kim was alone on the bridge, waiting for her to flip the switch that would either extend their lives or put an end to what had become a truly terrifying existence.
“I’m sure that there is nothing else I can possibly do to prepare the reactor,” Conlon replied. “We’re only going to get one shot at this and the more time I spend thinking about all of the things that could go wrong, the worse I feel.”
“You want to walk through it, junction by relay, one more time?” Velth asked.
He was trying to be helpful. He had been nothing but helpful up to this point. She knew next to nothing about him apart from the fact that in a crisis, he was the best possible companion: supportive, attentive, quick witted, and eager to be of use, despite the fact that he had to be every bit as exhausted as she was.
“I really don’t,” Conlon said. “Starfleet didn’t design this system with our particular crisis in mind. Normally when there is a catastrophic failure of the warp reactor, safeties and emergency backup systems protect the fusion reactor. You don’t usually lose both at the same time without losing the entire ship. We are in uncharted territory, Lieutenant Velth, and while I think I have accounted for every eventuality, the basic problem hasn’t changed. We are about to cold-start a nuclear reactor. Outside a lab or testing facility designed for that purpose, it’s a terrible idea. But it’s all we’ve got.”
“Then let’s do it,” Velth said.
“Any last words?” Conlon asked.
Velth took a moment to think about it. “I hope this works.”
“Yeah, me too,” Conlon said.
“Not just because I’m curious to know if we’re still going to be alive in thirty seconds, but because I really want to find whoever did this to us and make them sorry they did it.”
Conlon turned to face Velth. She had clearly heard the first part of his statement but had difficulty understanding the second. It sounded like he’d said “because I really want to ground sleeves and truck leaves crippled.”
Obviously the absurd amount of stress she was under coupled with a lack of sleep was taking its toll. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I know seeking revenge isn’t very Starfleet of me, but don’t judge me too harshly,” he said, somewhat chastened. “A lot of people I care about are suffering right now, and a few more it was my job to protect are already dead. I’m going to allow myself a little healthy anger about that and make sure that when the time comes, I take it out on the right people.”
Conlon nodded in relief. Must find time to sleep soon, she decided before replying, “Assuming this works, I might just help you do that.”
“Okay, then.”
Conlon took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Her hand was surprisingly steady as she reached for the initiation switch.
There was tired, there was exhausted, and then there was whatever this slightly sick to your stomach, famished but couldn’t possibly eat a bite, light-headed but strangely focused feeling that seemed like it was all Harry Kim had ever known.
Alone on the bridge of the Starship Galen, staring at a dead viewscreen, wondering how much longer it would take for Nancy to attempt her reset of the fusion reactor and whether or not he would ever see her, or Tom, or B’Elanna, Captain Chakotay, Admiral Janeway, his parents, or his daughter again, Kim found it hard to believe it had come to this. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that he was back on Voyager’s bridge during a lonely gamma shift. He wished he had his clarinet with him. He’d passed many an hour during those seemingly endless shifts allowing the dim lighting and pinpricks of stars before him to conjure new pieces of music from the instrument he had reluctantly picked up for the first time when he was eleven. The simple act of releasing his thoughts into a series of tones always made him feel connected to the universe in a way that felt transcendent. Whatever his concerns might be, they settled into the back of his mind as he attempted to do nothing more or less than live in and give voice to a singular moment. Invariably when he finished, solutions to difficult problems or, at the very least, possible new strategies would emerge.
He wondered if Nancy had ever played a musical instrument, or if his daughter might one day try to play. He hoped
