Ghost of a Chance Read Free

noticeably.
    “Captain,” he said, “I must go to Medical and see that Kes is all right.”
    “Of course, but first I’d like to know anything you can tell me about that brown dwarf. Anything at all.”
    “Which would be nothing, Captain, as I said. It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you. Had I only known—” “Understood.” The Talaxian was not a liar. The captain was going to have to figure this one out on her own. “Very well, you may go.”
    Neelix turned and rushed through the open door of the turbolift.
    Nothing happened.
    “It seems you will be staying on the bridge a while longer,” Tuvok said with a dry Vulcan finality that Neelix was apparently not inclined to emulate.
    For the first time in several minutes Janeway smiled. She let it fade.
    “Mr. Tuvok, contact Medical, find out how Kes has fared and let Neelix know. The rest of you, get to work on restoring these systems.
    Mr. Paris, set a course for the system’s largest gas giant. I don’t see any reason just to sit here and sulk.
    Mr. Kim, I’ll want full sensor sweeps, the best you can give me.
    Start with that brown dwarf, and then scan the entire Drenar system. I want to know everything. Transfer all available data to my ready room.
    I need to figure out just what the hell is going on.”

CHAPTER 2
    As her officers acknowledged her commands and went to work, Janeway breathed a heavy sigh. She gazed at the viewscreen once more. The Drenar system contained a G-class star and eleven planets, and appeared quite ordinary in most respects. Clearly it had never been a binary system, the positioning of its planets was indication enough of that.
    With luck, the system would provide some interesting astrophysical data, and with a little more luck, they would be under way again in a few days’ time.
    But in truth, just at this moment she didn’t feel very lucky.
    She left Chakotay on the bridge and headed for her ready room.
    For now Janeway’s only hope, and Voyager’s, was that her crew was equal to the task of getting the starship up and running again, or at least in a condition that would set them once more on their journey home.
    There would be other star systems, places where at least some aid might be found, where proper supplies could be procured—Neelix had assured her of that. But with nothing but a badly crippled ship between the crew and the harsh, endless night waiting all around them, none of those tentative safe oases mattered.
    Out here there was no hope of assistance from anyone familiar, no starbases to turn to, nowhere to run. It was a truth everyone onboard tried not to think about very often, though just lately such thoughts had become impossible to avoid.
    Janeway blinked the darkness from her thoughts and went back to concentrating on the data displayed before her on the ready room terminal. The brown dwarf was moving through space undisturbed, and its trajectory was easy to mark, a path that had taken it through the middle of the Drenar system. Its effect on Voyager had been profound, and she was just beginning to explore the more serious consequences that its preceding path implied. She was still deep into the exact calculations when the door chime sounded. She glanced up. “Come in.”
    The door slid aside, and Commander Chakotay stepped into the opening.
    “We are in orbit around the largest moon of the sixth planet, Captain,” he said. “The impulse engines seem to be holding their own, and we still need fuel—more than ever, in fact. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t go ahead with your original plan. With your permission, Tuvok and Kim would like to begin collection procedures.”
    “Agreed, and thank you,” she said. She had intended to discuss that very possibility with her senior officers; it pleased her to find them way ahead of her. “I’ll be right there.”
    “Have you seen the casualty reports?”
    Janeway held her breath. “No.”
    “Nothing serious, mostly bumps and bruises. We