Star Trek: Voyager: Architects of Infinity by Kirsten Beyer

Author:Kirsten Beyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

DK-1116

Lieutenant Patel started forward into the darkness.

“Whoa,” Lasren said sharply, grabbing her by the back of her wet suit and tugging.

“What?” Patel demanded.

“We’re not going in there alone.”

Patel looked around the cavern. “There’s no one else here, and I’m not going to wait for Jepel and Vincent to risk the dive.”

Lasren shook his head. “You’re so intent on finding whatever is back there, you’re not thinking straight. We don’t have to wait for them to dive down here. Voyager’s transporter room has a lock on our position.”

“Oh, right,” Patel said, chagrined.

“Plus, don’t you think we should share this with the rest of our team? Isn’t that part of the point of this exercise . . . all of us working together?”

Patel activated her combadge. “Patel to Voyager.”

Waters responded. “Go ahead, Devi.”

A few minutes later, Jepel and Vincent materialized in the cavern a few meters from the open doorway.

“Wow,” Vincent said, playing his light all around him. “This is amazing.”

“You know what I bet is even more amazing?” Patel asked.

“What?”

“Whatever is back here behind the hidden door Lasren and I found. Let’s move.”

Jepel was quiet, simply studying his tricorder readings. Lasren could sense unspoken anger studiously controlled.

“Omar?” Lasren said softly, stepping close to him.

The young Bajoran lifted his dark brown eyes to meet Kenth’s. Not now, they demanded.

Much as Lasren wanted to respect Jepel’s wishes, he wasn’t about to enter an alien environment with a team member harboring resentment toward one or more of the rest of them.

“Look,” he began. “I don’t know what we’re going to find down here, but I do know that if it’s problematic, the only way we’re going to survive it is by trusting one another.”

Lasren could see Jepel’s jaw clenching.

“Whatever you have to say, you should say it,” Lasren continued.

Some of the tension Jepel was holding seemed to release. Turning to Patel, he said, “Lieutenant Patel, a word?”

“What is it?”

Jepel stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head. “What you just did, endangering all of us in hopes of discovering this, was bullshit. I know you fancy yourself the leader of this mission, but I will not follow anyone who is careless about my safety or their own.”

Patel absorbed this, then stepped closer to him. “I apologize,” she said coldly. “It was a risk, but a calculated one. I didn’t have time to explain it, but the odds were good, based on my readings of our most recent scans, that this cavern was here. You don’t have to like following me. But I am the senior officer, so if that doesn’t work for you, speak now and you can transport back to the surface. I’m sure there’s time to assign you to another team, maybe one that’s planning a little flower gathering or sunbathing.”

Lasren didn’t like where this was going one bit, but he also knew Patel was the only one who could solve it, were she the least bit inclined to do so.

“Devi?” Lasren said.

“What?”

“The only operative words there were the first two you spoke.

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