Revolution II: Road to Restoration
Author: MJB (http://mjb.ficml.org/, mjb317@hotmail.com, mjb317@my-deja.com)
Series: Revolution #2
Characters: Tom Paris
Codes: crew, AU
Genre: adventure, AU
Rating: PG-13 to RRating: PG-13, R
Series: Star Trek: Voyager, VOY
Warnings: violence
Archiving: Permission given on request.
Available at http://mjb.ficml.org/revii/ (linking allowed)
Warnings: less than graphic violence, less than happy
people.
Summary: Sequel to Revolution. The aftermath of the failed mutiny.
Part 1
The strength of a ship depends not only on
the sturdiness of its structure and the strength of its systems, but
also on the soundness of its crew. The crew of the smallest ship is
what keeps it afloat on the rockiest of seas. When a vessel is
destroyed, it is because the metal shell gave out, not because of
anything short of devotion from its crew.
But when the
crew of a ship is shattered, ripped apart by betrayal, and the ship is
only damaged, will it still survive?
What doesn't kill
you makes you stronger, right? True, maybe, if applied to something
that benefits from being hurt. Like a muscle, which will ache and burn
after being used excessively, but will strengthen and grow from the
painful work. Muscles allow people to function, but it can be hard for
one to accept such a concept in life.
Arguably, it
doesn't even apply in some situations.
Certainly, it
means nothing to the participants in a carefully planned uprising,
which proved to less carefully planned than thought.
And
therefore, a failure.
By all accounts, a failure which
should have been a resounding victory. All the components were in
place for the Maquis to trounce the Federation. Scoundrels versus a
good, upstanding loyal crew, with the battle conditions favoring the
Maquis. Or so they'd thought. Being outnumbered, outgunned, and
fighting on the enemy's turf would hardly seem advantageous, but it
truly had looked that way.
The Maquis always fought like
that, relying on the emotion behind fierce and persistent, if meager,
forces. And it was usually an effective, brutally quick strategy. A
detailed strategy, with meticulous planning. One which normally didn't
deteriorate at such an unbelievably fast-and unstoppable-rate. Reading
of the opposite forces was usually good enough that it was possible to
predict and hopefully prevent reactions that would threaten the
completion of their mission.
A very big error would be to
underestimate their enemy and be woefully unprepared to react to the
retaliation.
They made a very big error.
If
they had the patience, they would probably be able to identify the
point at which the tables turned. Or, they might produce a variety of
answers.
When Janeway stopped being totally
oblivious.
When the entire Federation crew was given
weapons.
When they had to cancel Plans A and
B.
When Plan C didn't work.
When they
decided to take on Captain Janeway in the first place, one of the more
bitter ones might respond.
Bitter being one of the most
common emotions among those who fled the scene of their failed attempt
to take Voyager. All know better than to be openly resentful of the
mastermind behind the entire thing. And most know to better than to
internalize the anger and blame, making oneself completely
miserable.
Which is why it's preferable to cover those
feelings with more rage at the victors of this conflict. The
Starfleet crew is to blame for the failure of the mission against the
Starfleet crew. Pretty simple. Pretty self-explanatory. Pretty
frustrating. And from this anger grows the desire to return and
try again.
And win this time.
Because Maquis
missions don't end with half being forced to flee and the others being
left in the lap of their enemies, to an unknown
fate.
The only way anything like that happened was if
the mission wasn't over, and they were planning on coming back and
finishing what they failed to complete the first time. And whether or
not they'd originally thought they'd need an encore doesn't really
matter. The Maquis won't accept that they went through the pain of
the loss of their comrades and the humiliation of being defeated just
to be taught some lesson in humbleness and
resilience.
They are, however, perfectly willing to
accept that the pain they feel will soon be transferred back on to
those who caused it.
The concept that they shattered the
crew of Voyager is entirely ignored by the Maquis, who for the most
part never considered themselves part of the Voyager crew and were
with this effort trying to remove those who they did consider
Voyager's crew: people in Starfleet uniforms.
The winners
of this conflict might have a slightly different perception of on what
that battle was supposed to do, besides force the Maquis to
retreat. But again, it's far more pleasant to dwell on the emotions
stirred up by the fight, than think about what actually
happened.
Most of these emotions are actually very
similar to the feelings contained by the losers of the battle. Maybe a
little less shame and finger-pointing, but anger is the prevalent
emotion, again.
It could be because it is better to hate
the Maquis for daring to revolt, than to think about why the Maquis
thought they'd win or why they came so close to actually
winning.
Well, it wasn't *that* close.
Close
enough to disable the Bridge.
Close enough to gain
control of Engineering, even if temporary.
Close enough
to hurt *a lot* of Starfleet crew.
Close enough to shoot
the Captain.
All of which are very close,
actually.
And they all serve the purpose of heating the
anger of the Starfleet crew.
Whether or not every
individual Starfleet member will admit to feeling betrayed by the
violence instigated by people wearing more or less identical uniforms,
they do. Even if they never liked the Maquis, it was pretty much
accepted that they had given up being terrorists. Even if they
never trusted the Maquis, this kind of brutality was not on their
minds. And so this crew is shattered, by betrayal and
fury.
It's not very safe to be a Maquis prisoner on
Voyager now. Those who were left behind because they were wounded,
unconscious, or otherwise unable or unwilling to retreat now reside
behind force fields in the Brig, overlooked by guards who, if it were
a democracy, would certainly vote for a few public
executions.
Ironic, how much the Maquis appreciate
Starfleet regulations now.
Unmentioned is the Starfleet
crew who fled the fight, neither participating in the attempted
coup or defending against it. It's probably less dangerous to be one
of them than one of the captured Maquis but not by much. Desertion
ranks a little bit lower than mutiny in terms of ways to enrage the
Voyager crew. Punishment is coming, the unfortunate few understand,
but not before the mutineers who escaped are returned to the ship to
face their own punishment.
Those without weapons played a
part in fracturing Voyager, by their faithlessness in her
strength.
In addition, there are those who never picked a
side to win. Or maybe they did pick a side, but didn't take actually
take part. And maybe the furious crew could construe that they
did indeed take part.
There are only two people who fall
under the last two categories, one under the former and one under the
latter.
Only one remains on Voyager, one very lonely,
very scared, very paranoid woman.
***
Samantha Wildman's heart had finally resumed a close to normal
rhythm after-well, if one was counting the months of nervousness and
anxiety leading up to the current situation, then a very long
time. And if one was just counting from more recently, then just a
week.
A
week of glancing over her shoulder, fully expecting to see a team
armed guards ready to take her into custody.
Worse yet,
every time she heard footsteps behind her, the thought would surface
that it had to be the Captain, hurt and infuriated upon discovering
Sam's prior knowledge of what had occurred. Sam hadn't quite
decided what Janeway's reaction would be, just that it would probably
be between utter disappointment and violent anger. Either way,
it ended with her spending the rest of Voyager's journey in the Brig,
next to the actual conspirators. Maybe Naomi could visit
weekly.
And while she harbored an incredible fear of the
scenario, a part of her was wondering just *who* would be her
potential neighbors. Unable to leave Sickbay due to critical
patients-not that she would dare to check the inhabitants of the Brig
if she could-Sam could only guess who had been caught and who had
escaped.
If Ken had been caught. If Ken had been able to
escape. If Ken had been killed.
His death, she had
convinced herself, was unlikely. She'd personally put all the
fatalities into the Morgue, and he hadn't been among them. Which
didn't mean that he hadn't been disintegrated by weapons fire or
caught up in the vacuum when the Shuttle Bays opened, or any of the
other awful methods of obscure death that she was
imagining.
Methods of death that certainly might have
included being treated by an incompetent Acting Chief Medical Officer,
had he been brought to Sickbay.
For when it wasn't her
own mind concocting frightening ideas that sent her heart pounding, it
was the explosion of sound from various medical monitors, alerting her
that another patient was near death or dying.
She didn't
think there could be a worse feeling than what she felt while leaning
over a critical patient. It was surreal to know that the person before
her was not part of a holographic medical exam, and that even though
it was the life of a very real person at stake, there was no EMH to
step in. Not too mention the incessant mental mantra of stricken
guilt, blaming herself for the patient's injury and possible
death.
She didn't even feel close to normal once the
latest medical crisis was averted, because she new there would only be
a matter of time until the poor Ensign on bio-bed 4 tried to bleed to
death from the aorta again. She finally gave in to the part of her
that was trying to assert some medical expertise-and maybe even some
courage-over the side that was petrified of performing that kind of
invasive surgery by herself.
It was after that
surprisingly successful procedure that she was sitting in the CMO's
chair, peaceful for the first time. She'd finally finished confirming
to the computer that despite what appeared to be the EMH's last
activity before he disappeared, the entire crew was not unfit. It had
probably been an effort on his part to halt the violent mutiny, but
he'd been interrupted before he could finish. Not that it would have
worked, anyway.
Among her other thoughts was the one that
she might be Voyager's permanent Chief Medical Officer, if the EMH's
program could not be found or salvaged or replaced.
It
was an overwhelming thought, comforting only in the knowledge that
Voyager's only Doctor certainly would not be put in the
Brig.
After that hope entered her mind, she apparently
fell asleep, for when she opened her eyes to locate the voice calling
her name, her face was pressed against the desk.
She
peeled herself off the desk, climbing out from behind it. As she got
to the doorway of the office, blearily rubbing her eyes, she saw who
was calling for her.
Harry Kim was standing in front of
the entrance, putting no weight on one leg and being unsteadily
supported by a smaller crewman.
Part 2
Tom Paris should have
been enjoying the feeling of pilot controls beneath his fingers. He
should have been reveling in the feeling of freedom on board the empty
shuttlecraft. Empty of vicious Maquis and Starfleet crew, empty of
anyone planning on hurting him in one way or
another.
There was a side of him that was thrilled to
have finally made it off Voyager, after the long time spent on board
the insufferable ship. That side wasn't concerned, at the moment, with
the fact that he'd escaped Voyager in a very different way than
planned, leaving the ship under circumstances he'd never
imagined.
That part of him was significantly happier than
the side of him that was actually dealing with
reality.
The side that was very much aware that he'd
launched from a ship in the midst of a failed mutiny. Launched side by
side with the escaping losers of said mutiny. The troubled side
of him knew that his course was not all that different from the
Maquis' course. He also knew that he had no real idea what conditions
on Voyager were now, just that he'd left Harry, Neelix, and Naomi and
her mother there. He realized that unless Voyager was completely
crippled beyond repair, she would be chasing the escaped Maquis as
soon as possible.
Hell, even if Voyager was crippled
beyond repair and Janeway was still alive-which she had been the last
time he had checked-Voyager would still be coming after the
Maquis. The crew would just get out and push.
It was
these worries that haunted him, overcoming his ability to be pleased
with himself for finally getting away.
He really, really
wished he'd escaped without the Maquis right behind him. They'd
ignored him, after hailing his shuttle moments after launching from
Voyager. He hadn't responded, and they hadn't
persisted.
Which was a really good thing, considering
what they might have responded with.
Somebody had
spruced his shuttle up very nicely, and he had no doubt the Maquis
acquired shuttles were equally improved.
Regular
Starfleet shuttles did not come equipped with such massive firepower,
and nor were the shuttle systems designed for enduring years of
travel, which they appeared to be now. Shuttle Medkits weren't
stocked as extensively as the one stored in the back. Starfleet
shuttles certainly weren't manufactured with cloaking
devices.
Which the Maquis controlled shuttles definitely
had.
He'd yet to be able to find a cloaking device
installed on his own shuttle, to his great dissatisfaction. He guessed
it was hidden somewhere in the shuttle systems, disguised as
something else. That was how the Maquis back in the Alpha Quadrant got
harmless merchant vessels though check points, only to have them turn
into unseen weapons of assault once past.
For now, he was
reduced to tracking the Maquis ion trails with his sensors, feeling
incredibly exposed.
He didn't think that the Maquis were
going to attack him, after paying him no attention whatsoever for the
past week. Of course, the Maquis preyed on what their enemies
didn't expect, so he wasn't going to take his eyes off
them.
He knew very well that he could alter his course,
head a direction that would take the Maquis significantly away from
their chosen path if they wanted to follow him. He stayed on course,
still feeling the incredible need to keep an eye on the Maquis, just
to watch his back.
That was assuming the Maquis had a
chosen path; he knew he didn't. Tom wasn't going anywhere, he was just
going *away*, wherever that might prove to be. The Maquis, however,
were probably heading somewhere in particular, even if 'somewhere' was
just randomly chosen coordinates.
All of that meticulous
planning by Chakotay, of course.
Tom wondered just how
Chakotay felt about losing, which brought a grin to his face. The
grinned dropped as he began to realize that although Chakotay was
probably thoroughly pissed off by the results, he probably had been
prepared for them. Hence the improved shuttles.
The
Maquis hadn't been planning on launching the Starfleet crew off in
these improved craft, in all likelihood. The shuttles had been the
Maquis' escape clause.
Eyeing the small sensor blips that
were the Maquis ion trails, Tom wondered just where in Chakotay's plan
the escape clause was. And where the re-try plan was in relation. He
may have only flown one actual mission with Chakotay's Maquis, but he
knew Chakotay's style and giving up wasn't.
Tom doubted
if the fight for Voyager was anywhere near
over.
Part 3
There was nothing like the atmosphere in craft fleeing the scene
of defeat. It felt like deja vu to Chakotay. He'd experienced it with
many of the same people, back in the Alpha Quadrant. The difference
was defeats by the Cardassians and occasionally Starfleet and other
anti-Maquis Federation allies weren't nearly as disheartening as being
defeated by Janeway. That woman triumphing over their efforts was an
enormous blow.
He was glad, though, that his people weren't acting
as if this was a crushing situation. They were acting pissed, bitter,
and wounded-which many of them were-but not
vanquished.
Henley was stomping around the small craft,
pretending to be checking on the wounded that she had already treated
days ago, but really, Chakotay could tell, only pacing restlessly. She
occasionally stopped to swing open the Medkit and remove an instrument
and swipe it over someone. Then she returned to her path, winding
around the legs and other extended limbs of the other
passengers. Finally, getting more than a little annoyed with her
incessant wandering, Chakotay sent her a fierce glance,
communicating that she should plant herself
somewhere.
Henley received the look with the smoothest of
reactions; a quirked eyebrow and a small, temporary pout. She slowed
her stride to a stroll, without disrupting her determined walk, and
slid nonchalantly into the seat beside Ken Dalby. Her Medkit swung
with the motion of her body, falling forward and striking Dalby in the
knees.
Dalby yelped softly, scooting away from her and
nearly falling off the bench.
"Sorry," muttered
Henley, hauling the Medkit to the side of the
seat.
Chakotay watched Dalby deliver an irritated look
to Henley-who barely managed to look apologetic-as he moved back into
the center of the bench. Dalby's eyes dropped then, to scan the sensor
readings before him. Henley craned her neck, peering over his
shoulder.
Chakotay found it slightly amusing that upon
having her roaming shut down, Henley would turn to Dalby's method of
distracting himself from whatever frustrations he was feeling. All the
Maquis were, of course, frustrated and trying their damnedest to keep
it from seeping into the atmosphere, making the already uncomfortable
feel of the craft completely unbearable.
Dalby, it
seemed to Chakotay, was feeling considerably worse than the others
were. The stricken look on his face, tight lips and hunched brow
communicated far more than just disappointment at losing, or even
sadness at the loss of so many of their comrades.
He
looked heartbroken.
Well, he looked like he was trying
desperately to avoid looking heartbroken.
For all of
Dalby's beseeching for Sam and Naomi Wildman's safety, it had always
seemed like a nervous performance to Chakotay. Perhaps it wasn't. It
appeared Wildman was more to Dalby than a warm body to bed, and her
daughter more than just the offspring of the warm
body.
Chakotay made a small mental note to keep an eye on
Dalby. He had never given any indication of disloyalty so far-his
failure to kill Tom Paris appeared to be incompetence not
disobedience. They were in pretty deep for Dalby to suddenly decide
that he'd made the wrong choice. Still, relationships had odd effects
on normally reliable people.
Ironically, Dalby's distress
seemed to be improving his performance. He was watching the sensors
like a hawk, focusing on the small blip that was the other
shuttle.
It had launched with the Maquis, but taken a
slightly different course and gone to warp instantly.
At
first, Chakotay had hoped fervently that it was B'Elanna-who hadn't
been heard from since she reported that she needed to get to
Sickbay. He had full confidence in her ability to escape, but it was
not to be, at least on that shuttle.
They'd hailed the
shuttle, but received no response.
Dalby wasn't even able
to read any occupants before the other shuttle raised its shields, and
he promptly wanted to blast it to pieces. After it didn't respond to
their hail, that want grew.
That was the general desire
of most of the Maquis, fresh from battle and not ready to stop
fighting.
Chakotay overruled them all, knowing that
whoever was on board would certainly be able to retaliate with the
improved weapons systems of that shuttle.
A battle so
close to Voyager could only lead to the Maquis shuttles getting
damaged, and even if the other shuttle was destroyed, he couldn't risk
the chance that one or more of their acquired vessels would be lost or
harmed.
They just didn't need to give Janeway the
additional advantage of damaged ships.
That wasn't even
considering the other options, like Voyager suddenly coming alive and
taking part in the battle.
No, it was better to put as
much distance as possible between them and Voyager, while planning
their second attempt to take Voyager.
An eye, of course,
was kept on that mystery shuttle.
It didn't do anything
to identify it as friend or foe.
It didn't do anything,
period.
With only a slight difference from their course,
it stayed steady.
Dalby watched it, and Chakotay found
it easy to believe that despite their cloaked ships, whoever was
inside that shuttle was watching them.
Part 4
Harry Kim gripped tighter to the crewman holding him upright, which
probably wasn't the best way to counteract the wobbling, because the
arm around his shoulder loosened and nearly dropped while his
supporter grunted and struggled to hold him up. Given a choice,
he wouldn't have chosen someone so slight in stature to half-carry
him, Harry thought, and then decidedly agreed with when the arm did
slip off, sending him lurching to the floor.
His leg jolted agony up his spine as he landed, his vision
blackening. When it came back, Samantha Wildman's face was above
his. She was pale, with deep dark circles under her eyes, concern
being expressed in a ragged, exhausted voice. She slipped her hands
under him; somehow managing to draw him up while the man he'd fallen
half on top of pushed from below. Somehow they managed to lift him on
to the nearest bio-bed. Sam whipped out a hypospray, pressing it into
his neck. It hissed, and the pain began to subside.
Now she was scanning his leg, a focused expression creeping over
her face. Finally, she snapped the medical tricorder shut, setting it
aside.
"What'd you do, Harry?" She asked, tiredly, turning and
walking towards some medical equipment.
"He fell," supplied the former human-crutch, lingering at
the door.
"Yeah," Harry confirmed to Sam. To the crewman by
the entrance, "Thanks for helping me here. Can you finish
the repairs without me?"
"We're almost done, so yeah."
"Good. Watch your step," he called to the crewman's back
as the door slid shut.
"Right," the half-amused voice trickled back.
Sam walked back holding what looked like a leg brace. She grasped
his leg and drew it straight, sending a muted signal of pain up
Harry's body. He hissed, teeth clenched.
"Where'd you fall?"
"The Jefferies Tubes. We were repairing some of the blown
circuits. I fell down one of the ladders."
"You broke three bones," Sam said, setting the instrument
over his leg from his ankle to upper thigh, not noticing his grimace
as he began to feel the uncomfortable sensation of bones knitting.
She seemed almost distracted, hardly interested in his injury,
simply performing the necessary treatment automatically and she was
definitely exhausted.
"I was lucky the hatch to the next deck was closed. I would
have fallen further," he said, trying to drown out the slight
buzz of the instrument clamped onto his leg with his voice.
"Why'd you fall?"
"I missed the next rung with my foot and then just fell."
"Oh." She stared at the contraption around his leg for a
moment, then looked up as if his response had triggered a delayed
reaction.
"How long has it been since you slept, Harry?" She asked,
her face still listless but her tone sharp.
"Why?" Harry replied, perfectly aware that he was
thwarting the question.
"Because," she began, a quality to her voice somewhere
between sarcasm and exasperation that still managed to communicate her
total understanding of the situation. "I was wondering if you're
another one of the many people who are ignoring their health and
physical needs-such as *sleep*, endangering themselves and
Voyager."
Sam stared at him blankly, clearly awaiting a response.
"Many?" he asked.
"*Yes*."
"Who?"
"Tuvok, for starters. I tried to explain to him that victims
of close range phaser blasts do not leave Sickbay within thirty-two
hours, if that," Sam let out an irritated breath. "He was
able to justify it, logically, of course, somehow. Which is something
considering how many people with injuries like his left without even
bothering to act like that were listening to me."
She checked the progress of the procedure, adjusting one of the
clamps around his calf.
"Joe Carey, too. He's risking permanent side effects for
leaving with a half-treated head injury. And you can tell him that the
Medkit he swiped when I wasn't looking is only going to reduce the
pain in his head, and only coming back here is going to get rid of
it. And then there's you," Sam finished matter-of-factly.
"Joe's really needed in Engineering," Harry told her
earnestly. "It's a mess. And Tuvok's coordinating everything
that's involved in getting the ship back on its feet and ready to go
after the Maquis. *I* was fixing some of the damage done to the
Jefferies Tubes. The Maquis wrecked a lot of systems by having
fire-fights up there."
Sam deactivated and began swiftly undoing the clasps of the device
on his leg.
"Repairing Voyager won't do any good if the entire crew is
ready to collapse from exhaustion and untreated injuries," Sam
snapped.
She tugged the brace off his leg and set it aside. She ran a
scanner up and down, not meeting his eyes. Harry stared at the top of
her head, trying to understand that Sam was simply stressed from
having dealt with the injured, and trying to deny that a small part of
him was thinking the she had other reasons for wanting to delay
repairs by reducing the workforce. Reasons having to do with
protecting the escaped Maquis, among whom, he thought, was Ken Dalby.
"How does it feel?" Her voice interrupted his thoughts.
"A little stiff."
"That's normal." She set the scanning instrument
aside. "Though I wouldn't go climbing any ladders for the next,
say, six hours."
Sam crossed her arms, stepping to the side of the bio-bed.
"Got it?" She asked in much the same tone that she
probably used to tell Naomi to go to bed.
"Yes," he replied. "Perfectly."
"Good."
Harry started to scoot off the bio-bed when Sam stopped him,
pressing a hand lightly against his shoulder.
"Harry, please don't think that I don't want you to help speed
up repairs, I just..."
Sam sighed deeply, closing her eyes momentarily, then meeting his
eyes again.
"I'm just not enjoying being the only doctor on Voyager, and
having to try treat patients who need the EMH or at least someone
better trained than I."
"There's no one else," Harry began, feeling his
suspicions soften as he stared into her drawn face and shiny eyes.
"No, Harry, I know that. I know you don't have time to
try to find the EMH, or even if his program still exists. But
the crew is over-extending themselves and having accidents like yours
because they're too tired or in too much pain to concentrate, and I'm
getting a little stressed. And you were here to yell at." She
squeezed his shoulder. "Don't take it personally. I still want
you to go get some sleep, though."
"I will," Harry agreed. Almost as an afterthought,
he asked, "When was the last time *you* slept, Sam?"
Sam almost smirked. "That's not important, Harry. As acting
CMO, I have access to every single stimulant in the medical
database."
She nearly cracked a smile.
"But, it was at the EMH's, er, my desk. Right before you
walked in here."
"Neelix to Sickbay," the Talaxian's voice cut through
almost before Sam stopped speaking.
Sam's hand left Harry's shoulder, darting to her comm badge.
"I'm here, Neelix. Is Naomi-"
"Naomi's fine," Neelix interjected before she'd finished
the question. "The Captain just informed me that the power supply
to the Mess Hall has been repaired. I want to get down there so the
crew has something better to eat than those awful rations. Do you need
me to take Naomi with me, or can you or someone else come and watch
her? She's taking a nap, but I suppose she can sleep in the Mess
Hall."
Sam's hand dropped from her communicator, rising to rub the bridge
of her nose in an utterly defeated motion.
"Neelix, I can't leave Sickbay. I guess you'll have to take
her with you. She's going to have a fit when you wake her,
though."
Sam's drawn face resurfaced as her arm lowered and her hand slid
down her face. Her dreary expression changed as her eyes alighted on
Harry.
"Hey.... Hold on, Neelix."
Sam closed the line, grasping Harry's shoulders with both hands.
"Harry, would you please? Naomi hates having her
schedule disrupted, and I don't want her any more upset than she
already is. She's napping, so you can sleep on my bed. Would you
mind?" Sam asked hopefully, withdrawing one hand and fidgeting
with the single pip on her collar.
"Sure," Harry said, relieved to see a look of gratitude
sweep over Sam's face, replacing the despair.
"*Thank you!*"
She opened the comm line, confirming to Neelix that he was free to
leave and that Harry was on his way. Harry rose from the bio-bed,
feeling the slight awkwardness in his repaired leg. He took a
few tentative steps toward the door, testing his balance.
"Thank you so much," Sam repeated.
"It's no problem," he assured her. "Have you told
Naomi what happened?"
Before Harry's eyes, Sam's entire demeanor changed, her posture
stiffening.
"No. Not really. I haven't seen her since we got back, been
too busy here," Sam drew out, her gaze focused somewhere behind
him.
She wrapped her arms tightly, nervously, around her waist, still
not making eye contact.
"Naomi's pretty intuitive, so she knows something bad
happened. Neelix told her that the Maquis left, but not much more. I
was waiting to explain it to her in person, not over the comm line, so
that she could ask me questions," Sam finished, her distant gaze
finally flickering to Harry's face. "Not that I can answer
them."
Sam's eyes dropped then, moving to follow her hand, which was
tracing the edge of the nearest bio-bed, while the other stayed
pressed tightly against her stomach.
"I tried really hard to explain the Maquis and Starfleet
situation to her, that merging into one crew wasn't that easy but that
Voyager made it work. After this," Sam shook her head,
tilting it to glance at Harry again. "I'm not really sure what
I'm going to say. I think, maybe, that this kind of betrayal
from the Maquis might be more traumatizing than being on Voyager when
they were trying to take the ship would have been."
Harry could feel the sympathy well up in his chest, as Sam tried to
tug the edge of off the bio-bed with the hand that wasn't still
clutching herself.
"It's going to be tough," he agreed, searching for words
that might provide some sort of encouragement. "But, you're a
good mother, Sam. I think you can help Naomi understand it and deal
with in a healthy way. You'll know how she feels, considering your
relationship with Ken Dalby."
That was probably the wrong thing to say.
Sam's eyes darted to some distant spot on the far wall, her face
drawing even tauter than before.
"Yeah," she said quickly, her fidgeting hand freezing in
place on the bio-bed rim. "Goodbye, Harry." Forcibly, she
looked back at him. "When you get to my quarters, Harry, I really
want you to sleep. Naomi naps for a very long time, and you'll hear
her if she has a nightmare. Just sleep and you'll build up some more
energy." A tentative, lighter tone tried to come into her voice,
"My bed's really soft, Harry. Probably because Naomi likes
jumping on it."
Her gaze was already travelling away from him before she finished
speaking. The last comment, meant with levity, came out heavy and
dead.
"I promise I'll get some sleep, Sam," Harry said softly.
He turned to go, but before he got near the door, it was already
open. A whirling flash of gold security uniforms surrounding a single
blue science uniform tumbled into Sickbay.
Part 5
The blur of colored uniforms transformed into four security guards
grappling with one struggling Maquis prisoner. For such a slight young
man, Gerron was managing to retain a lot of mobility while being
gripped by four much larger men who seemed to be trying to hold him in
place.
It looked to Harry like there was an electrical current running
from the hands of the security guards holding Gerron's right side to
the grip the other two had on his left side, sending Gerron into
writhing fits.
It seemed to be a quiet eternity of just watching Gerron
struggle. Harry wasn't quite sure what to do, even as he began moving
towards the five to help. He knew he wouldn't exactly be much help,
considering Gerron wasn't even staying still enough for him get a
secure hold.
Time had stilled before Harry's eyes, and now it jumped back into
motion, broken by the sharp feminine gasp from behind Harry. Seconds
later, Gerron jerked free, breaking away from the security guards and
practically flying past Harry. He forcefully brushed Harry's shoulder
in either his haste to get away from the security guards or from some
perception of Harry as a threat. Whatever Gerron's intention, the blow
succeeded in knocking Harry off balance.
His recently healed leg did not take kindly to the shove, refusing
to bend on cue and sending Harry toppling to the floor. One of the
security guards nearly stomped on his hand as the four rushed after
Gerron. Harry pulled his arm back from where the boot sole landed only
a second before it would have been too late.
Forcing his stiff knee to bend, Harry pulled himself up, wincing at
having made yet another impact with the ground in so short a time.
The four security guards had formed a semi-circle around Gerron,
but had not yet seized him.
As he got to his feet completely, Harry saw why.
Standing beside Gerron, in a distinctively defensive and aggressive
posture, was Samantha Wildman. Gerron was half-clinging to her, bright
fearful eyes darting from each of the men surrounding them. Harry saw
now, for the first time, why Gerron had been brought to Sickbay in the
first place. Before, he hadn't been still long enough for Harry
to discern anything to be wrong with him.
Now, Harry could see a distinct layer of sickly sweat over Gerron's
paler than usual skin, and it didn't seem to all have been produced by
exertion. There was a very large developing bruise running from his
chin to his temple on the left side of Gerron's skull, accompanied by
a fresh, bleeding gash on his forehead. . There wasn't anything
observably wrong on Gerron's torso, but he was hunched over, the one
arm that wasn't frantically clutching Sam Wildman wrapped protectively
around his stomach.
Gerron suddenly looked very young. He *was* young, Harry knew
that. But he had never seen Gerron when he wasn't skulking around
looking like he had unpleasant intentions, not desperate and fearful
like this.
And he certainly didn't look like enough of a threat to require the
presence of the four hulking security guards.
Sam, looking somewhere between shocked and angry, with her formerly
gray face rapidly flushing, was barking orders at the security guards
to get the hell away from her patient.
The security guards were slowly backing away, protesting that their
orders from Tuvok were to stay with him.
Sickbay had been deathly quiet before the five new arrivals
entered; now it was almost deafening.
Somehow, over the din of Sam screaming and the security guards
screaming right back, Harry managed to make his voice heard.
"Hey!"
Three of the four security guards turned to look at him; two
drawing their weapons from their belts as if he was some kind of
threat.
Sam glanced at him momentarily, not having any more time because
that was the instant Gerron chose to pass out. She rushed to
re-position her arms to catch him as he collapsed. Harry had no idea
where she got the strength to both catch Gerron and then hoist him
smoothly on to the bio-bed that Harry had recently vacated. Gerron
wasn't that big, but was definitely bigger and heavier than Sam. The
strength apparently came from the same place the rage that was on her
face did.
It was probably a combination of the two that allowed her to
forcefully shove the fourth security guard away, as he began
approaching the bio-bed perimeter. Harry didn't think that she
actually caused the guard to stumble backwards, considering that he
probably outweighed her by two hundred pounds of muscle and was nearly
two feet taller.
All the same, he backed up, indicating to his three companions that
their duty could more or less be accomplished from fifteen feet away,
now that their prisoner was unconscious.
"Harry," called Sam.
She was quickly activating various equipment, face still crimson
with fury.
"I need your help. Grab that medical tray next to you."
Harry picked it up, walking quickly past the security guards to
deliver it to her. He felt uncomfortable kinks in his leg snap as he
moved. As he extended it towards her, she didn't look up, hunched over
the medical console. Her hands darted rapidly over the keys and the
medical arch rose from the sides of Gerron's bio-bed to close over
him.
"Hand me the neural-"
She glanced at him, seeing the clueless expression fall over his
features before she even finished the name of the instrument.
"End of the tray, Harry. Little square things that go on your
forehead."
Feeling ashamed of his medical ignorance, even though Sam didn't
seem to care, Harry picked the small instrument and pressed it into
her hand. Sam quickly centered it on Gerron's forehead, making a small
sound of concern as she noticed the cut right beside it for the first
time.
Sam returned to the console, and Harry stood beside her. The
medical scanner began to scroll information down the screen at an
unbelievably quick rate. It was a blur to Harry; not that he could
understand it any way.
Sam, however, understood it perfectly.
"Broken.... punctured... lacerated... concussed...!"
Sam turned, mouth agape, cheeks flushed blood red and eyes blazing,
to the security guards.
"Just what the hell were you trying to do? Kill him!?"
She spat the accusations with fury.
The one who she had shoved responded, seemingly barely affected by
her reaction.
"He resisted," he said, calmly.
"Did he?" Sam mocked as her eyes slid into slits and
darted sideways.
It was apparent to Harry that she was contemplating saying
something else but was holding her tongue. She apparently decided
against it, physically turning away from the men.
"Get out of Sickbay," she commanded coldly, pulling a
regenerator off of the tray Harry was still holding and leaning over
Gerron.
"We have orders to stay with him," stated the same
insolent guard.
"You have new orders," Sam snarled, without looking
up. "From the Acting Chief Medical Officer, who outranks you
all. She says get the hell out of her Sickbay before she reports you
to Tuvok for brutality."
It took a very short amount of time for the four men to consider
her words.
"We'll be outside," the only vocal one of the four told
Harry, choosing to not look at Sam.
"Just get out," Sam ordered.
The four quickly retreated out the door.
The door slid quietly shut, almost drowned out entirely by the
loud, emotion-filled sigh produced by Sam.
"Thanks, Harry. You can just put the tray down on the
instrument table right there," Sam said, quite pleasantly if
hurried, in stark contrast to the harsh voice she'd been using for the
past ten minutes.
"And Harry, once you get to my quarters could you comm Tuvok
and tell him that I would like to see all the injured Maquis? Somehow,
I think the brig guards are only bringing in the ones who are at risk
of bleeding to death internally."
The harsh tone began to creep back into Sam's voice.
"Sure, Sam. I'll tell him."
"Thank you. And don't forget to go to sleep."
"I won't," Harry promised.
He exited, awkwardly stepping around the four security guards
crowding around the other side of the door.
"We had to end up with the Maquis whore as the only Doctor,
huh," the same dolt commented casually as Harry walked by.
Harry didn't answer.
He found himself troubled.
The four faces of Samantha Wildman flashed before his eyes in rapid
secession. She'd been exhausted, slow in movement and pale in
complexion, when he'd first walked in. There'd been a little anger
when she talked about the stress she was under, but she'd remained
with an almost gray complexion. When he'd brought up Ken Dalby-which
he now knew not to do-she'd turned into an anxious, distant and
disconnected person, who wouldn't make eye contact. And when Gerron
had clung to her, there had been full-blown rage, with her cheeks
inflamed and eyes blasting. Rage that had faded into medical
competency and blood that had drained from her face.
Harry wasn't sure what to think. She was obviously hurting, at the
loss of Dalby and by the destruction of Voyager's peaceful
life. Before arriving in Sickbay himself, he'd heard some concerns
from other crewmembers who returning from visiting the injured, that
the only doctor on board was the lover of one of the people who had
inflicted so much damage to Voyager. He couldn't, however, associate
Sam with any kind of destruction. He couldn't see her supporting the
Maquis, even if half of them were gone. She felt betrayed, he was
sure. He couldn't believe she was feeling anything else, even if
Gerron ran to her like she wasn't wearing a Starfleet uniform.
Part 6
Tom peeled himself out of the helm seat, grimacing as his stiff
muscles strained and his joints popped. One bad thing about being the
only pilot-hell the only person-was that he didn't have any down
shifts. And with his paranoia-justifiable, yet paranoia all the
same-he didn't want to leave the sensors for the bunk in the back for
a while or even the sonic shower for a few minutes.
He was, however, hungry enough to head to the replicator and bring
back some dinner to the helm. Or he was until the sensors started
beeping like crazy. He dropped back into the chair instantly, having
only half risen in the first place.
There was something off to port. Something made of titanium and not
moving, with either no life signs or shields. As his shuttle got
closer, the object became visible, looking like some kind of primitive
satellite or probe.
It was inactive, Tom's sensors reported, and it looked to be dead.
Satisfied that it wasn't going to come to life and do something
nasty- like shoot at him-Tom stayed on course. He resumed his plan of
getting dinner, rising from his seat. He stretched as he walked over
to the replicator, trying to kick the kinks out of his legs. He
approached the replicator.
"Paris984," he told it. "Tomato Soup. Hot."
The dish shimmered into existence, smelling delicious before it
even finished appearing. Tom reached for it, mindful of the computer's
warning of its heat. He picked the bowl up, careful to keep his
fingers away from the heat radiating from the bottom of the bowl and
seeping through the saucer it was set on. Really not in the mood to
burn his hands, Tom held the edges of the saucer.
All his precautions really were very wise and safe; they just
couldn't help that it was the instant that he was holding boiling soup
that his shuttle started to shake. It lurched backwards, sending
everything not attached to the shuttle falling in that direction.
Tom honestly barely felt the scalding liquid as it sloshed over his
hands and then his uniform, past the very first moment of fiery
pain. So intent was he to find out what the hell had just happened and
to get back to where he might be able to retaliate. He let the
tray drop and shatter on the floor. He put the pain out of his mind,
fully expecting that worse things were on the way if he didn't get
back to the helm.
He stumbled back to the helm, hands stinging and the alarms of the
computer going nuts ringing in his ears.
The dead satellite had come to life.
A tractor beam extended visibly-and his sensors confirmed that's
what it was-holding his shuttle immobile.
Tom pressed his hands against the helm controls-the burned pads on
his fingers exploded in pain at this-and proceeded to try every trick
he knew to shake a tractor beam's fix.
The only thing he succeeded in shaking was the shuttle, so
violently he nearly fell out of his seat.
He gave up on the idea of breaking the hold through piloting
methods.
He'd just blast it into little pieces.
He sent a mental thanks to whichever Maquis had improved his
shuttle's weapons, not that whoever it was had had any idea that he or
she'd be helping him in the long run.
He targeted the center of the probe; the area that his sensors said
was emitting the beam.
Tom fired.
He didn't have time to observe the damage.
The shuttle exploded in blinding light.
The blinding light faded to solid red.
The red lifted like a curtain as he opened his eyes.
Oh, shit.
Somehow he'd ended up sprawled on the floor near the helm. Except
for the residual flashes of light every time he blinked, the shuttle
cabin was eerily dark. The computer was off, realized the part of his
mind that wasn't completely stunned and in significant pain. Tom
glanced down at his hands, which were sending jolts of pain up his
arms again. His palms were blistered and bloody. The soup definitely
hadn't done that.
But the helm had, apparently, when it exploded beneath his fingers.
Clumsily, Tom stumbled to his feet, without using his hands to push
himself up off the floor.
Orally, he confirmed the computer's deactivation.
"Computer?"
Silence.
Tom felt a cold shiver run up his spine, a welcome yet frightening
guest to the heat radiating from his arms.
The satellite-probe-whatever the hell that thing was had gone dead
again. The tractor beam was gone but Tom still couldn't move with a
dead shuttle.
Something wet dribbled off his chin, and without thinking he raised
a hand to touch it.
Blood.
He'd bashed his face in to the floor as well. For the first time he
noticed the taste of blood coating his lips.
Feeling helpless, Tom moved to the back of the shuttle where the
medkits were. If nothing else, he could treat his burned hands and
torn face and wait for whoever had activated the satellite to come and
get him. He wouldn't be completely helpless when they came.
Unless, of course, the Maquis came across him first.
Part 7
There were still phaser blast holes on the corridor walls. In
places, the rug was burned completely away. Half of the crew quarters'
doors had been reduced to mangled pieces of metal after the Maquis had
locked them inside. It made Voyager look so much more like a
helpless vessel of castaways than the powerful starship it was.
It disgusted her to see the damage as she walked the halls.
She knew, of course, that it was far more important to fix the
structural damage, to revive the failed systems, and to heal the
injured than to patch minor scrapes for being eyesores.
But it turned her stomach, every scorched mark a reminder of one of
her crew who had fallen, shot by one who had pretended to be one of
their own, until such time that they thought they could wrench control
of Voyager away.
A time that should never have come.
And hadn't, really, for what the Maquis did-* tried to do* failed
miserably for they seemed to have thought that her crew would just
cower and surrender.
Wrong.
If you didn't count the cowards who had fled rather than fight for
the ship, that is.
And she wasn't counting them, not as part of her crew.
Every leader, every captain, learned from mistakes.
Her mistake was blindness, allowing infiltrators to enter her crew,
serving along side them only to turn and try to destroy them. She had
been so unseeing up until the very commencement of the attempted
mutiny, even now she couldn't think of why she hadn't felt the
uprising coming as quickly as it had, and why she hadn't known that
certain members of her crew were so cowardly as to flee.
She did have inklings of ideas, but they repulsed her.
When she had demoted Jenny Delaney, among the others who had fled,
the woman had been crying silently. It wasn't so odd that one would
cry at a demotion and formal reprimand with the threat of future
confinement but that Delaney was staring straight at her the entire
time, as opposed to most of the others who wouldn't even make eye
contact.
It was very easy to read the blame in Delaney's eyes: blame for not
preventing the mutiny attempt -that badly injured Megan Delaney,
incidentally-and made Jenny Delaney decide that it was necessary to
drop her Starfleet duties and flee Voyager.
That accusation existed in the silent faces of everyone who had
fled Voyager; everyone who didn't want to recognize their own
cowardice.
She'd really wanted to toss them all into the Brig, just to quench
her desire to punish them. She'd realized, though, with a little
conference with Tuvok, that it wasn't that simple. Despite her loss of
trust in them, they were needed on Voyager. With the sheer amount of
crew who'd been lost-the Maquis, the injured, and the dead-Voyager had
to use every last man they had. Everyone who wasn't in the Brig
or in Sickbay was working around the clock to repair Voyager, she'd
seen to that.
And everyone in the Brig or in Sickbay knew exactly why.
The Maquis in the Brig didn't need to be told why, although she'd
made a point of visiting the Brig for that exact purpose.
They didn't seem to know how to react. It was plain to see that
they'd lost a great deal of their fusion with the absence of
Chakotay. Half of the Maquis glared silently at her, others flung
whispered obscenities towards her, and still others looked away
fearfully.
They all reacted to her intention to capture Chakotay and the other
escaped Maquis in pretty much the same way. One collective smirk.
She'd left the Brig, even angrier than before if that was
possible. She was heading to the Bridge, her eyes catching every
scorched mark on the wall.
There was even one in the turbo lift.
She already seen the battle scars on the Bridge. Someone had had
the sense to clean up the bloodstain besides Tactical. She didn't know
where the burned patch on the floor a few feet in front of her chair
came from, but she couldn't take her eyes off of it.
As she sat in her seat, listening to Joe Carey's report on
Engineering, her gaze gravitated to the mark on the floor.
Engineering was functioning normally finally, despite significant
water and fire damage. It could sustain warp and engage in
battle. There were still a few questionable systems. The Maquis had
raised hell by having shoot-outs in the Jefferies Tubes. The
remaining systems would probably be up by the time they encountered
the Maquis.
At maximum warp, starting now, and considering the fact that the
Maquis had almost a week head start but also that the Maquis had only
shuttles, Voyager would be close to the Maquis within two days,
optimistically .
And then the escaped Maquis would wish very badly that they never
tried to take Voyager away from her rightful Captain.
Part 8
"That's awfully destructive," mused Ken Dalby as
neutrally as he could, not lifting his eyes from their spot on the
sensor screen.
"That's the point," snorted Henley from her seat beside
him.
Ken could feel the eyes of every Maquis in the shuttle land on him,
and he was more than certain that although the small shuttle view
screen only showed a few of the passengers on the other shuttles, they
were all listening to him.
"What I mean," he asserted, looking up, "Is that if
we pick up from that point in Plan E Voyager is going to take a real
beating. If we go through with that, it's going to be so much work to
repair it all. It's not very far from destroying Voyager
completely."
Chakotay stared at him, hard.
"There is a great amount of destruction in that
scenario," he admitted. "How would you suggest we change
it?"
"We don't use all of the step from Plan E. Localized
destruction in Engineering and the Bridge. Less mess for us and it
probably will kill everyone there."
Ken heard the murderous intent of his last words ring in his own
head.
Henley shook her head, "That might be possible if we were on
Voyager, like we planned it. There's no way to execute such
specific attack measures with photon torpedoes from the
exterior."
Over the comm link, Jarvin's voice sounded as if he were standing
right next to Ken.
"We don't even know if anyone activated any or all of the
charges."
Henley sank backwards in her seat.
"We didn't think we'd need them. Plan C was supposed to have
worked," she muttered. "It wouldn't have been a
priority."
There was a heavy silence, the discussion of attacking Voyager
deteriorating into the depressing reasons of why there had to be this
discussion in the first place.
Chakotay cut into the stillness curtly.
"Let's think it over. Think what we can do, not what we
can't."
For a moment there was only the familiar blips as the other
shuttles disconnected from the comm channel. Then, simultaneously,
everyone moved, turning back to monitor his or her station.
Ken started to glance down at his screen. He felt Henley move
closer and peer over his shoulder. He resisted the urge to elbow her
away, her closeness bothering him. Chakotay had made her sit down
after her incessant pacing made everyone nervous, and inexplicably she
had decided to practically sit on his lap.
He forgot all about Henley when he looked down at his screen.
The other shuttle was dead in space. No shields, no life
whatsoever.
Nothing, the sensors said, should have caused that.
There was some sort of antique satellite off to port of the dead
shuttle, but it was inactive and harmless, the sensors reported.
Ken spun around in his seat, jostling Henley and nearly knocking
her off.
"Chakotay, I think you should see this."
Chakotay rose and walked over to Ken's station, drawing the other
Maquis' attention. He looked down at the screen, quickly assessing the
information.
"What happened?" He asked, concern in his voice.
"The sensors don't see anything that should have disabled
it," Ken reported.
"It could be a trap," suggested Henley. "Waiting for
us to come up to it so it can attack. How old is this trick?"
"It's too obvious," replied Chakotay. "And
stupid. The odds aren't even in its favor. It's only one ship."
"And its not supposed to be able to see us," Ken
added. "We're cloaked."
Chakotay stepped back to the center of the floor.
"Power weapons on all shuttles. If it moves, destroy it."
He paused.
"Have you been able to identify the occupants, Dalby?"
Ken glanced downwards.
"One human male, with normal life signs."
Chakotay nodded, his face unreadable.
"Steer clear of that satellite," Chakotay ordered the
helmsman.
"It's dead," said Henley.
"And how old is that trick?"
Henley smiled a little, scooting back on to the seat.
Suddenly, she spilled on to the shuttle floor, though Ken knew he
hadn't touched her. Everyone in the shuttle was jostled in
place. Chakotay gripped the top of a chair for support.
"What happened?"
"Cloaking device is disabled," Ken reported.
"Weapons are down," added Henley, scrambling urgently
back on to the seat.
"The other shuttles are reporting the same thing."
"I want to know what did that," Chakotay ordered,
striding over and holding tightly to the back of Ken's chair.
"Not the other shuttle!"
Ken stared at the sensor readings, which were refusing to tell him
where that jolt had come from.
Behind him, he heard deafening noise and indiscriminate phrases
shouted at Chakotay from the shuttle's various stations.
What he did hear was that the cloaking device was decidedly not
going back up and none of the shuttles had access any longer to their
weapons systems.
He blocked the ruckus out, and then he found out just what the hell
had done that.
A ship. A very big ship. In exactly the same location that the
ancient satellite had been only moments ago. Well, the satellite was
still there; actually, it was part of the ship. If in fact that
was a ship and not a space station.
"Chakotay..." he called.
At the same time, a Maquis at another station shouted above the
din:
"We're being hailed!"
The sound dropped, everyone silencing and turning expectantly to
Chakotay.
Chakotay looked at Ken's sensor screen, face dark and serious.
"Open a channel."
The view screen blinked from the sparkling stars to the dark
interior of, apparently, the bridge of the massive ship. The Maquis
shuttle was deathly quiet, its occupants alternating from staring at
the screen to staring at their commander.
Henley's hushed whisper sounded awkwardly loud as she stared
frightfully at the sensor readings and murmured,
"Technologically superior and *huge*, Chakotay. Be nice."
"Weapons wise," Ken clarified, softly. "We might be
able to outrun it, though."
"If it wasn't shooting," Henley added.
The humanoid that appeared on the screen was remarkably
indistinguishable, gray with a brown ridge where there might be a
nose.
"I am the rear quadrant Defensive Minister of Pelora. You have
entered the Peloran Empire's space. It is forbidden to travel our
space disguised as you were. Such devices are not utilized in this
space, nor are weapons. Identify yourselves and purpose."
Chakotay stepped confidently forward, and Ken could swear he had
the same charismatic expression he wore when they weaseled their way
past inspection points back in the Alpha Quadrant.
"Greetings, Minister. I am Chakotay of the Maquis."
There was a definite change in atmosphere when Chakotay identified
themselves as something they'd been pretending for the longest time
not to be. Ken saw the faces of so many people light up that he
couldn't help but smile as well.
"We are travelers from very far away. Please forgive our
accidental infraction of your laws. We were merely protecting
ourselves. We are peaceful and of course will abide by your
laws."
The Minister was not convinced.
"Explain your purpose here."
Chakotay tried again, visibly moving into the persuasive persona
that usually worked so damn well.
"We have no distinct purpose. We are travelers and
explorers."
"And refugees," muttered Henley, soft enough to avoid
being picked up by the speaker yet loud enough that Chakotay sent her
a stern glare out of the corner of his eye.
The Minister's eyes shifted, a motion that Ken had seen enough
times on enough border guards to know that it meant, "I still
don't trust you." Every Maquis had seen the expression before,
and with it there was the distinct feeling of discouragement setting
in.
"Are you affiliated with the shuttle that arrived a while
ago?" Continued the Minister.
It was easy to tell from his demeanor that being affiliated would
probably not get on his good side.
"No," said Chakotay instantly. "We are from the same
place, but have no alliance with it."
This pacified the Minister.
"Very well. You may proceed into Peloran Space, but you will
not be able to activate your disguise or your weapons."
Chakotay nodded affably, although Ken was beginning to see tension
in his back. The view screen blinked back onto space. Chakotay ordered
the helmsman to proceed, his order nearly drowned out by Henley's
explosion.
"No *weapons*! No cloaks? Chakotay-"
"I don't like it either," Chakotay interrupted, speaking
to everyone. "We'll get out of this space as soon as we're
able. But, for now, at least, we know that Voyager won't be able to
attack us here, and I got the feeling that the Pelorans are the ones
detaining the other shuttle."
"Why?" Wondered Ken, out loud.
"It must have done something to upset them. And we're not
going to upset them to find out what it takes," responded
Chakotay, turning to stare out the view screen.
Part 9
Tom Paris had a hell of a time wrenching the Medkit open with the
condition his hands were in. Once he got the regenerator out and
working though, the relief was indescribable.
And if he concentrated on the physical relief then he didn't think
as much about how scared he was.
Nothing had happened since that satellite thing had blasted his
computer off-line.
Not a damn thing.
He kept waiting for the aliens who had activated the satellite to
show their faces, but they didn't.
He kept waiting for the Maquis to discover he was an easy picking
and blast him away. But they didn't, either.
Keeping an eye on the view screen-his only way of observing now-he
continued working on his hands until the burns and scrapes were mere
memories.
It had been only ten minutes since he'd pried himself off of the
floor, but Tom could feel every second that was slowly ticking
silently by. He almost felt like he was being watched. Which was
why he felt the need to look like he was doing something else entirely
as he carefully pried the bulkhead off the wall to see if he could
manually mess with the components and bring the computer back up, all
without touching the controls-which were completely destroyed at the
helm-and which he didn't trust not to conduct another blast to his
hands.
Not that he didn't think that the same incapacitating shock could
be directed through the exposed electronics, but going for the
components instead of the control panels seemed a tad bit sneakier.
The sudden hum of the computer and the intensifying light made Tom
jump out of his skin.
Because he hadn't touched anything yet.
He turned around slowly, almost expecting to see someone already
standing in the shuttle.
There was no one.
Not inside the shuttle, anyway. Through the view screen, he
could see a massive ship that definitely hadn't been there when last
he looked. He couldn't take his eyes from it as he crossed from
where he had been standing to the front of the shuttle. One of the
consoles chirped, but he couldn't look away from that huge ship. Or
maybe it was a space station. Either way, it was giant.
It kept chirping, insistently, until Tom backed up and finally tore
his gaze from the screen.
The ship, the enormous ship, was hailing him.
Apparently their logic was shoot first, then talk.
Tom dropped into the nearest chair, reaching over and activating
the comm channel. He was facing away from the screen, as the chair had
been turned away from the screen. He heard the screen activate as he
began to swivel, the oddest feeling of fear and anticipation taking
over his body like being doused in cold water.
The screen blinked from the view of the gigantic ship to a dark
room, with a single nondescript occupant. Tom stared at the decidedly
non-threatening alien, a slight figure with gray skin and a patch of
skin resembling a roach instead of a nose.
It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, considering that the
alien had a much bigger ship-which was actually attached to the
so-called satellite that had blasted him, the slightly damaged sensors
were only now reporting-superior technology, and seemed to be quite
good at damaging ships with inferior technology.
Tom did it anyway.
"What the hell is your problem?" He demanded before the
alien could speak.
The hairless skin on the forehead of the alien shot up, indignation
obviously not the reaction he was used to.
"I am the rear quadrant Defensive Minister of Pelora,"
the alien began, flustered.
"And I'm Tom Paris, pilot. What the hell did you do to my
ship?"
"You violated Peloran law by attempting to damage my
vessel," replied the Minister, gaining composure.
"And what about holding my ship? That's legal?"
"It's standard procedure when two or more related vessels
proceed separately to the Peloran border."
"I'm one ship, Minister," Tom said, well aware that the
alien was talking about the Maquis.
"I know that," snapped the Minister, offended.
"You were followed closely by several disguised ships, of
identical making."
"I *didn't* know that," lied Tom smoothly. "When
that satellite-which I thought was a satellite, not a ship-detained me
I thought I was in imminent danger and defended myself. I didn't
know it was that it was a border procedure. I didn't even know this
was a border," Tom finished truthfully.
The Minister looked exasperated, but not quite to the point of
blasting Tom's shuttle again.
"You're transgression is forgotten, providing you abide by our
laws if you are allowed to enter Peloran space."
"Absolutely."
The alien looked at relieved as Tom felt.
"Then, identify yourself and purpose."
"Tom Paris, pilot," Tom repeated.
And I'm fleeing the scene of a really ugly mutiny-no, that didn't
sound very good.
"I'm going home. To the Alpha Quadrant."
"As you have no hostile intentions in Peloran space, you may
proceed. However, you will be escorted by one of our ships to ensure
your compliance to our laws. You cannot utilize weapons in our
space."
It sounded to Tom like he just got a free escort of protection from
the Maquis.
"Good," Tom said.
The Minister seemed to scowl, cutting off the comm channel.
From somewhere a smaller ship appeared on Tom's sensors. Smaller
than the gargantuan, but bigger than Tom's tiny shuttle. Bigger
than Voyager, by a bit. Tom felt the jolt as it extended another
tractor beam and latched on to him. He could repair the helm in the
time it took for the Peloran vessel to propel him through Peloran
Space.
And he wouldn't have to worry about the Maquis.
Hell, maybe he'd just sleep.
Part 10
Harry Kim couldn't help but notice all the damage in Voyager's
corridors. There were phaser streaks one every wall, a minimum of one
every meter. Half of the doors had huge holes in them from when
their occupants tried to escape the locked quarters by blasting their
phasers. The carpet was also wrecked, burnt and shredding. If he
looked long enough he could imagine it served as a timeline of the
attempted mutiny. Smooth, clean and normal, to slightly singed and
dirty, to completely unrecognizable, blackened until he could see the
plating on the floor.
On his way to Samantha Wildman's quarters, he mentally assessed all
the destruction. He'd have to make up repair assignments for all the
cosmetic damage, eventually. Once all the system repairs were done,
and that wouldn't be for a long while.
He did a double take as he neared the Wildman's quarters. One of
the adjacent quarter's entrances was completely mutilated. Not only
were the doors mangled by a piece of the doorway had been broken off,
and the other half hung down like a broken branch. It didn't even
resemble what the quarters of a starship of Voyager's caliber should
look like.
Harry reached Sam's quarters. Her door was actually intact. But
then again, she and Naomi had been on shore leave during the
mutiny. No one had been inside to fight his or her way out.
Hoping not to wake Naomi, although there was nothing he could do to
quiet the door controls, he tapped in the appropriate sequence to open
the door.
The doors slid smoothly, and thankfully quietly, apart. It was
pitch black within, and when the doors slid shut blocking out the
light from the corridor, Harry couldn't see a thing. He squinted into
the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
He still couldn't see anything.
"Computer," he whispered, wincing at the loud beep of
recognition. "Lights at twenty percent."
The lights instantly rose, illuminating the previous darkness.
Only seconds later, Harry heard the light patter of a child's feet,
followed by the small shadow that entered the room moments before
Naomi did.
"Mom?"
"No, Naomi. It's me, Harry."
"Oh." Naomi's face drooped. "Where's my mom?"
"She's in Sickbay," Harry explained, noticing that
although in her pajamas, Naomi didn't look to have been napping
recently.
"Still?"
Naomi crossed her arms over her chest, her face squeezing into a
distinct pout.
"Yeah, Sweetie. She has a lot of patients. She has to take
care of them."
Harry walked further into the living area of the quarters.
Unconvinced, Naomi scowled harder.
"She's been there forever. I thought the EMH was supposed to
be Voyager's doctor."
Feeling somewhat intrusive, Harry took a seat on the sofa.
Naomi, still plainly unhappy, climbed up and took a seat besides him.
"We can't find the EMH, Naomi. Without your mom, there's no
one to help the injured."
"What happened to the EMH?" asked Naomi, staring at him.
"We don't know. The computer won't run his program,"
Harry told her honestly.
He hadn't had that much time to search the annals of the Sickbay
files for the Doc's program before being reassigned. He still couldn't
believe that the Maquis would delete the EMH, however much resistance
he was providing. No one in the Maquis had substantial medical
training, and Torres, among many others, could certainly have
programmed him into a loyal Maquis doctor.
Remembering his promise to Naomi's mother, Harry got up off the
coach and headed to Sam's comm station. He called up Tuvok's station
on the Bridge, knowing that there was nowhere else the Vulcan would
be. He relayed Sam's request to Tuvok, who had no discernible
reaction, only nodding and assuring it would be taken care of.
He thanked Tuvok, cutting off the comm link and returning to the coach
where Naomi was still sitting.
"When is my mom going to come home?" asked Naomi,
plaintively.
"Pretty soon," Harry reassured her, although he honestly
didn't know how long Samantha needed to monitor her patients.
"Oh," said Naomi, obviously not believing him. She leaned
against the back of the couch, looking a bit sleepier now that her
hopes of having her mother come had been dashed.
"Did the people in Sickbay get injured when the Maquis
left?" She asked innocently, looking at him from half-closed
eyes.
Unsure of just how much Naomi had been told by Neelix or for that
matter how much Sam wanted her to know, Harry was tentative to
respond.
Naomi took his silence as an affirmative to her question. Her eyes
were closing faster now, and Harry took the pillow from the space
between them and put in his lap. Naomi practically collapsed on it,
confirming that she hadn't been napping at all. As she curled up
on it, Harry could barely hear her murmuring as her face pressed into
the pillow.
"I guess Mom wanted to go on shore leave so badly 'cause she
knew people were going to get hurt when the Maquis left,"
muttered the child as she drifted off. Then she raised her head, eyes
barely open, and said loudly and clearly,
"Computer, lights off."
In the darkness, Harry Kim sat frozen at what Samantha Wildman's
daughter had just accidentally revealed.
Part 11
Maybe fifteen minutes after Harry left Sickbay, Tuvok commed Sam
Wildman. He told her that she should be receiving the untreated
injured Maquis within the hour. He sounded perfectly neutral, of
course. She'd managed to calm down significantly since Harry left, but
heard the hoarseness in her own voice and knew Tuvok would too. She'd
thanked him for his quick response, not letting on that she was
thanking him for being the only person on board whom she could truly
trust to not be seeking further revenge against the Maquis. Moments
after Tuvok cut the comm line, O'Donnell from the Brig reopened it. He
only spoke a few words, telling her that he was beaming in the injured
Maquis one at time. He was curt, speaking sharply like he'd just been
chastised.
Good.
She turned around to face the bio-bed that she'd cleared, checking
the set up of the medical equipment. She hadn't actually treated any
conscious Maquis yet. She'd had far more Starfleet patients than
Maquis, but the Maquis patients were in far worse condition than the
others, and thus far unconscious. Sam picked up the medical tricorder
and flipped it open, watching the figure on the bio-bed shimmer into
existence.
It was B'Elanna Torres, stretched out on her side, facing away from
Sam. Even from the back, Sam diagnosed a grazing phaser blast to the
shoulder, which looked to be a few days old. Torres reoriented to the
room, sitting up quickly and surveying Sickbay. She glanced over her
shoulder, noticing Sam for the first time. She didn't move, just sat
there, her lack of reaction making Sam suddenly become nervous. More
nervous, anyway. She didn't quite know what she'd been expecting
Torres-any Maquis-to do, but to sit quietly and wait for medical
treatment was not high on the list.
She circled the bio-bed, running the tricorder over Torres. Another
phaser wound, this one to the upper torso. Maybe the Maquis got worse
injuries because they didn't stop after being shot once. Torres mutely
extended her right hand into the tricorder's path. Sam first
stared at the tricorder screen, which said Torres had broken her
wrist, rather badly at that. When Sam raised her eyes from the
tricorder to the actual injured body part, she saw the massively
swollen limb that had to hurt terribly. Forgetting the identity of her
patient momentarily, she found herself speaking almost
sympathetically.
"How did that happen?"
"Vorik," responded Torres, making direct eye contact for
the first time. "And Paris shot me twice."
Sam turned away, reaching for the equipment tray. Over her
shoulder, she felt obliged to retort.
"Someone shot Vorik, too," she said, remembering his ugly
phaser wound.
"That was Henley," replied Torres, an almost amused
innocent tone to her voice. "Not me."
She winced when Sam took hold of her wrist, regenerator in
hand. Sam could feel Torres' eyes on her as she held the regenerator
over the injured wrist.
"So, where's the EMH?" Torres asked, staring at her
outstretched hand.
"That's a good question. If you asked enough of the Maquis,
you might find out."
"Oh," said Torres, an inexplicable look of mirth falling
over her face.
Torres' apparent amusement at the Doctor's absence irked Sam enough
that she was less than gentle in rotating Torres' wrist. If Torres
noticed the aggression, she ignored it.
"Is Ken in the Brig?" Sam asked finally, avoiding eye
contact.
"No," Torres said smoothly. "He must have left with
Chakotay."
Sam continued her ministrations with the regenerator, her mind
slowly processing the information. She wasn't sure, actually, how she
felt knowing that Ken wasn't on Voyager.
It eliminated the dangerous temptation to go down and see him,
which she obviously couldn't do.
And it increased by tenfold the desire to want to know where he was
and if he was okay.
As if reading her mind, and if not that certainly reading her face,
Torres smirked.
"Don't worry, Janeway's made it clear that's she's going to
bring them all back." Torres' lips curled. "You can probably
arrange to share a cell."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Having prior knowledge of a mutiny and keeping quiet about it
is frowned upon by Starfleet, *Ensign*."
Torres met Sam's eyes, her own wide and knowing.
"I was-"
"You don't have to explain yourself to me. You helped us
out. Thanks."
Sam dropped Torres' arm, backing away.
She returned to the tray of instruments, putting down the
regenerator.
"If you take off your uniform and get into a patient gown,
I'll treat the other injuries."
Torres obliged to that request without speaking any further. In
fact, she remained quiet for the rest of the exam, except for wincing
when Sam prodded the sore tissue on her belly. Treating Torres'
injuries, running completely on automatic, Sam could barely keep from
inflicting more. Torres had all but threatened to tell Janeway. Not
that Janeway would believe her, Sam calmed herself by
thinking. Janeway hadn't even mentioned Ken when Sam had seen her in
Sickbay after first being brought back to Voyager.
Of course, she'd been a little occupied then.
After the exam, as Sam was putting away the equipment, Torres
scooted off the bio-bed and wandered across Sickbay. Sam turned
to watch her, not putting it past Torres to attack one of the sedated
Starfleet patients. Or to snatch something and use it as a weapon.
Torres wove around the bio-beds, heading toward the one on which
Gerron lay.
She paused by it, leaning over the side. When she looked up, her
expression was serious.
"Is he going to be alright?"
"He was hurt pretty badly," Sam replied, not feeling the
desire to assure or comfort Torres in any way.
"Would the EMH be able to treat him better than you can?"
Part 12
Someone had finally alerted Tuvok to the fact that the injured
Maquis had yet to be treated. A situation that was in violation of
regulation number whatever. B'Elanna Torres didn't know where it said
prisoners had to have access to medical care, but it did and Tuvok
knew where, so no matter how pissed O'Donnell was, he still had to
beam her to Sickbay.
She didn't bother rising from the cell floor, watching O'Donnell's
furious face disappear as the tingling transporter beam overtook her.
Sickbay appeared around her. B'Elanna sat up. The phaser wounds to
both her shoulder and stomach protested mightily to the movement but
she ignored them, peering around and seeing no one, save patients who
appeared to be unconscious. They hadn't been that stupid, had they? To
beam her into Sickbay without anyone conscious there.
No, they hadn't.
Samantha Wildman, Dalby's paramour, walked out from behind her. She
was holding a medical tricorder, making her way to the front of the
bio-bed. Wildman looked...odd, was the only word B'Elanna could
pick. In silence, Wildman ran the scanner over her. B'Elanna offered
her arm out into the path of the tricorder. Looking past her fingers,
B'Elanna let her eyes roam around Sickbay. She didn't see the EMH
anywhere. Wildman had been training with the Doc for a short while,
B'Elanna knew. She had thought that perhaps Wildman had been stuck
with her to assure that the other patients were treated by a medical
professional, but it appeared that they actually hadn't been able to
activate the Doc.
Ha. Morons.
"How did that happen?"
Wildman's voice interrupted. She sounded hoarse and tired, but
surprisingly sympathetic. Sympathy was not what B'Elanna had been
expecting. This was an interesting development. The Maquis might have
an ally who wasn't locked up or light years away from Voyager.
"Vorik," B'Elanna answered, searching Wildman's face for
a reaction. "And Paris shot me twice," she added, angrily.
Waking up in a haze of pain and confusion on her Brig cell floor,
with the barest memory of Paris shooting her as she rushed him in the
Turbo Lift had been an awful experience. She didn't know what had
happened to Paris, but she hoped it was very painful and slow.
Wildman turned away, reaching for the equipment tray. She turned
her head and tossed a remark completely devoid of sympathy over her
shoulder.
"Someone shot Vorik, too."
That wasn't compassion lacing Wildman's words, it was acid.
Oh well. It had been nice to hope, even for a few seconds, that
Wildman might be still be on the Maquis' side. Seemed when
Wildman no longer had to worry about the violence of the mutiny and
whore herself to Dalby for protection, she was perfectly comfortable
in a Starfleet uniform. Big shock there.
"That was Henley," B'Elanna pleasantly informed
Wildman. "Not me."
Wildman took hold of her wrist, sending lancing pain jolting up
B'Elanna's arm. B'Elanna ground her teeth at the sudden reunion
with the pain she'd been ignoring for the past week. Upon awakening in
the Brig, it had been far more important to determine just why the
hell the Maquis had lost while she'd been unconscious than to lie
still and experience the agony of a broken limb and two separate
festering phaser wounds. Well, she'd been able to do that after
the Brig guards had told her to shut up.
Wildman was running the instrument over her wrist, a dark look on
her face.
"So, where's the EMH?" B'Elanna asked innocently,
watching the instrument's progress and relishing in the relief it was
providing.
"That's a good question," Wildman snapped. "If
you asked enough of the Maquis you might find out."
"Oh."
At that moment, Wildman fiercely twisted B'Elanna's wrist. That was
just nasty. And it *hurt*. B'Elanna chose to ignore it, deciding to
wait until after medical treatment to react.
"Is Ken in the Brig?" Wildman was avoiding eye contact,
her face as tight as her voice.
She's not supposed to care anymore. Why the hell would she
ask?
"No," B'Elanna answered truthfully. "He must have
left with Chakotay."
She watched Wildman's face for a reaction. Something flickered
across it. A series of somethings followed rapidly.
"Don't worry," B'Elanna said, well aware of the taunting
tone in her voice. "Janeway's made it clear that she's going to
bring them all back. You can probably arrange to share a cell."
Wildman looked stunned.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Having prior knowledge of a mutiny and keeping quiet about it
is frowned upon by Starfleet, *Ensign*," B'Elanna said in the
closest imitation of Janeway that she could manage.
Pretty close, apparently. Wildman started stuttering out an excuse.
"You don't have to explain yourself to me," B'Elanna said
sweetly. "You helped us out. Thanks."
Since Wildman had switched loyalties, it couldn't hurt to point out
that her current side wouldn't like her any more if they knew what
side she'd been on a week ago. It would be nice to have an ally not
locked up, whether through traditional loyalty or equally traditional
blackmail.
Wildman turned away, harshly directing her to take off her uniform
and get into a patient gown.
It felt surprisingly good to shed the Starfleet uniform. Actually
it hurt very badly to lift her arms above her head, but once she
dropped the gold and black garment on the floor, she felt
better. Removal of Starfleet uniforms was part of what the Maquis had
meant to do.
Definitely not in Sickbay after having been shot and having lost,
but it was a small...well, it wasn't a victory, it just felt damn
good.
B'Elanna felt much better than she had when she'd arrived in
Sickbay by the end. Wildman had remained silent while treating
the phaser wounds, and it had given B'Elanna a chance to get a good
uninterrupted assessment of Sickbay. She noticed Gerron, unconscious
or sedated, laid out on a bio-bed. When Wildman retreated to put away
various instruments, B'Elanna got up and made her way over to him.
Gerron was still very pale, the same color he'd been all week. It
had taken all week for him to vomit up blood, a serious enough symptom
for the Brig guards to finally decide that maybe he was going to die
if they didn't get him some treatment. They hadn't been interested in
Ayala's and her own insistent warnings of his condition up to that
point.
B'Elanna felt Wildman's eyes on her from across the room and raised
her head to meet them.
"Is he going to be alright?"
"He was hurt pretty badly," Wildman replied coldly.
B'Elanna looked down again.
"Would the EMH be able to treat him better than you can?"
"Probably."
There was a definite trace of expectancy in Wildman's voice, and
without the accompanying contempt and anger, B'Elanna might have been
tempted to undo what she had done earlier to the EMH.
As it was, she wasn't.
"Then it's a shame you can't find him."
"It's time for you to go back to the Brig. Get back in your
uniform."
"I don't want to ever put that thing on again," B'Elanna
said simply.
Wildman audibly smacked the heel of her hand into the console she
was leaning against, before storming over to the nearest
replicator. She shoved the garment that she got from it into B'Elanna
hands and returned to the central Sickbay consoles, then turned her
back on B'Elanna.
The transporter beam caught her by surprise, considering she'd only
just pulled her head through the clothes and that Wildman had only
turned around for a second.
Part 13
The Mess Hall was nearly deserted. The word had yet to
spread, probably, that power had been restored and Neelix was cooking
something that tasted marginally better than the rations. A week of
eating supplies meant for stranded away teams and Neelix's cooking was
more than welcome. At this point, Jenny Delaney would normally have
inserted some relatively obnoxious remark about how wonderful it was
that Tom Paris was no longer involved in food preparation.
But it wouldn't have been funny in the least.
Instead, she and Megan sat in silence in one of the few intact
chair and table sets. It appeared that to the Maquis-or some cornered
Starfleet crew-chair and table legs made excellent bludgeoning
devices, once broken off. Jenny categorically refused to think about
the scene that she might have found here during the Maquis mutiny, but
she could tell by the way that Megan's eyes wandered aimlessly around
the room that was exactly what Megan was doing.
Megan's arm was firmly folded around her side, where one of the
Maquis had struck her with some nasty exploding device. It was long
healed, by Samantha Wildman of all people. It could have been Ken
Dalby who inflicted it in the first place, but Megan didn't remember
and Jenny hadn't gotten there fast enough to see her attacker.
The decision Jenny had made next was the reason it was so wonderful
to be alone is the Mess Hall, without the aggressive stares, hateful
glances, and spiteful whispered remarks.
They weren't hiding from the rest of the crew, but it was nice to
find refuge from them. Okay, maybe they were hiding, but it was really
hard to get any work done with the knowledge that someone nearby
seemed to be inclined to shove her down the nearest Jefferies Tube
hatch. Here, Neelix didn't seem to know what had occurred, and didn't
care to ask why her single pip was missing.
Because Captain Janeway had ripped it off.
Except for that, her sister's trauma so recent in her memory, and
the demolished condition of the Mess Hall, it might have been a normal
day having lunch-more like dinner, now-at a time when there wasn't
much traffic.
Except that on a normal day they'd be bitching to each other about
their days-specifically the Maquis and how much they hated them.
Now, the mere memory of those conversations induced chills. As did
the encounters with Chakotay. Running into Torres-jeez, *mere* days
before the mutiny.
It was frightening to think how unaware they'd been.
It was more frightening and disgusting to think about how unaware
Captain Janeway had been.
And from the tone she'd used while berating Jenny and the others
who had avoided the violence, it was clear that the Captain thought
she bore no blame whatsoever.
Although unwilling to get herself in deeper trouble by informing
the Captain that she was indeed culpable, she hadn't been able to keep
from glaring at her during the demotion.
She hadn't been able to keep from crying, either.
At least Megan was considered to have been involuntarily removed
from Voyager, and therefore hadn't been regarded a deserter.
Yes, having been bleeding heavily enough to lose consciousness,
Megan hadn't been able to have an opinion on whether or not she wanted
to stick around to see if they could be target practice for more
Maquis who were in fact very skilled as it was.
Captain Janeway may have distinguished that they were two different
people, but as far as the rest of the crew was concerned at the
moment, they were one and the same and they were both traitors. The
fact that Megan retained her single pip was of unimportance.
No matter what Janeway did to Jenny in the long run-and at worst it
seemed to be limited to permanent confinement to the Brig or her
quarters-she didn't and wouldn't regret launching in the escape pod.
Jenny could still feel her sister's blood flowing over her arms as
it had when she'd held her in the escape pod.
As long as she only felt it as a memory and Megan sat beside her.
The door to the Mess Hall slid open, loud against the silence.
With her back to the door, Jenny had to judge from the expression
on Megan's face. Her sister's eyes slid to the doorway, face tense.
Fleeing the ship and then to be found shirking the work would do
well to piss off anyone who didn't already hate her.
Megan's face relaxed fractionally. Jenny glanced over her shoulder
to see for herself.
The Mess Hall door slid shut behind Harry Kim. Harry was holding a
bundled up blanket to his chest. He stopped only steps inside,
probably as stunned by the damage as Jenny had been.
He started walking again, shifting the blanket he was holding,
heading towards them. As he got closer, it became clear that there was
small, sleeping, figure wrapped up in the blanket. Harry looked like
he'd been asleep recently, too. The hair on the back of his head
was pointing every which way.
On any other day, Jenny would have immediately started teasing him
about it.
On this day she waited to see what he said first.
Megan spoke first, rising from her seat to greet him.
"Hi, Harry," she said softly, minding the tuft of red
hair peeking out of the top of the blanket.
"Hi, Megan," he answered. Turning his head toward Jenny,
in the first relatively kind voice she'd heard since returning to
Voyager, "Hello, Jenny."
"I heard that one of you was injured by one of the
Maquis."
He was positively the only person besides Sam Wildman to have
expressed any interest or sympathy in Megan's injury.
"Yeah. But I'm fine now," Megan said brightly.
He smiled at her.
"Glad to hear it." He glanced back to Jenny.
She held her breath, not really pinning Harry as the type of person
to say something like, "I heard you're a cowardly traitor,"
for example.
"Neelix is in the kitchen?" he asked.
It was a totally innocuous question but it made Jenny really happy.
"I think he went back to the storage area."
"Thanks."
He moved on, heading towards the door to storage.
Part 14
Pablo Bateheart was having a difficult time concentrating on the
helm controls. It just felt indescribably different on the Bridge.
Not just because the first officer, among the other Maquis Bridge
officers were gone.
Even the tone of the silence that dominated the Bridge had
changed. Before it had been respectful and professional, with brief
occasional friendly banter between stations. Now the silence was
just chilly and cautious.
Cautious because making Captain Janeway's face turn any darker
would definitely be a bad thing, if even possible.
So, distracted as he was, Pablo didn't let it affect his
performance.
The change in the Bridge atmosphere, disturbing as it was, was
significantly better than it had been when the Maquis had been on it
last.
It had been mildly surprising to hear the acid exchange between the
Captain and Chakotay; that kind of thinly veiled aggression was common
between Maquis and Starfleet crew, but the rumor mill had Janeway and
the first officer sleeping together.
The rumor mill was very wrong, for shortly after the exchange,
Chakotay took it upon himself to shoot the Captain.
Pablo's recollection ended shortly after that, having been hit in
the back by someone firing either at Chakotay and missing, or
deliberately aiming at him. He'd woken in Sickbay, with many injured
colleagues, among them Janeway herself and even Tuvok.
A good number of the Maquis, including Chakotay, had escaped in
shuttles, apparently.
They had a good head start, but left easily traceable ion trails.
Janeway had made it unquestionably clear that the escaped Maquis
would be captured, no matter what.
Pablo had his doubts about whether they'd be able to bring the
Maquis back, even if they caught up to them.
It was while he was thinking what Janeway would probably consider
heresy, that sensors reported they were approaching a vessel.
Janeway ordered a full stop and the vessel appeared on the view
screen. After a tense pause, Janeway asked if the image was magnified.
It wasn't
In fact, Janeway had to have the image compressed, just so the
whole ship would fit on the screen. Tuvok quietly ticked off the
sensor readings.
Its capabilities certainly matched its size. Predictably, its
maneuverability and speed were impeded by its size, and Pablo thought
that if it proved to unfriendly some quick flying might save
them. Still, he hoped the Maquis hadn't picked up any alien allies
during their flight from Voyager.
He was too immersed in analyzing the helm data to notice who
initiated the comm link, but suddenly it was open.
The Captain's typical introduction had already begun, as Pablo
raised his head to look the view screen. The alien listening to
Janeway was human-sized and gray, with a brown ridge where Pablo had a
nose.
Janeway continued speaking. When he was bored and sure he wouldn't
get caught-and now was certainly not the time-Pablo sometimes mouthed
Janeway's introduction speech right along with her. He knew exactly
what she was going to say.
She was doing it now, identifying herself and Voyager, assuring the
as yet unidentified alien that they were peaceful explorers. Janeway
did, however, have an unusually hard edge to her voice.
The alien spoke then, identifying himself as the rear quadrant
defense minister of Pelora. He wanted to know their purpose in Peloran
space.
What Janeway said next, Pablo couldn't have mouthed along. If one
forgot the situation, it was truly bizarre.
Captain Janeway had been preaching tolerance, understanding, and
unification with the Maquis since the beginning. After what had just
happened it was predictable that her feelings might have changed, but
it was still surreal to hear the words coming out of her mouth.
Janeway rose from her seat and stalked across the Bridge, stopping
behind the helm chair and resting her hands on its back.
Pablo felt her grip his chair, rather tightly at that.
"We are pursuing several shuttle craft which escaped from
Voyager a week ago."
She started drumming on the helm chair with her fingertips.
"They contain fugitive mutineers. They were a terrorist group
we were forced to integrate into our crew and staged an unsuccessful
violent attempt to overthrow my command. We believe them to extremely
dangerous and wish to take them into custody for our own safety as
well as the security of whomever they may encounter in the
future."
The alien on the screen reacted to this information.
"Several shuttlecraft entered our space hours ago." The
Minister seemed deeply perturbed. "How did this terrorist group
identify themselves?"
"They're called the Maquis."
The Minister had definitely heard that word before.
"Minister, may I invite you to come on board Voyager, where we
can more intimately discuss the situation?"
"There is nothing to discuss," replied the
Minister. "One shuttle is already in custody for firing upon this
ship. The occupant claimed to be unaffiliated with the others, but
clearly was. We will return that shuttle to Voyager and the others
will follow shortly."
"Let us assist you," Janeway said, steadily drumming her
fingers near Pablo's neck.
"Unnecessary, Captain. This region was once full of conflict
and the Peloran government is dedicated to preserving the current
peace. We will not allow foreign conflict to enter our space for
it could potentially escalate. I would not have allowed the
shuttlecraft to enter, had I known. Once these Maquis are returned to
Voyager we would ask that you detour around Peloran space."
Janeway was now tapping the heel of her head against Pablo's
shoulder. The rhythm had altered slightly, and Janeway was oozing
irritation, if well disguised.
"Thank you, Minister."
The comm channel blipped off, and the Bridge was left in the cold
silence.
Janeway removed her hand from Pablo's shoulder, returning to her
seat.
"Now," she said softly. "We wait."
Part 15
Naomi
was stirring in Harry's arms, not quite awake but no longer completely
asleep. Tom had told him that Naomi was a notoriously light sleeper,
but exhaustion seemed to be keeping the little girl down. She'd stayed
asleep for four whole hours, and shamefully, so had he. It had been
completely accidental. He'd been sitting in the dark, trying to
think of ways to turn Naomi's incriminating statement about her mother
into something innocent. He'd failed, miserably so. And then suddenly
he'd been opening his eyes and cringing at the extremely painful crick
that had developed in his neck.
When he checked the
chronometer, shockingly nearly four hours had passed. Naomi had still
been asleep, but he hadn't been willing to stay seated and concoct
further virtually baseless suspicions about Samantha Wildman. He knew
Neelix had been on shore leave with the Wildmans. Harry was sure that
Neelix could disperse his paranoia.
Or, alternatively,
confirm it.
Naomi had barely moved when he slid the
blanket beneath her and wrapped it around her. He thought she might
wake up when he lifted her, but she only snuggled tighter into his
hold. Even the bright lights in the corridor didn't bother her, nor
the hum of the Turbo Lift.
She'd started to wiggle while
he was talking to the Delaney twins, and he'd had to cut the
conversation short. He was almost glad, not feeling that comfortable
around the twins.
It was all over the ship what had
happened. One of the twins had been injured during the mutiny and the
other had taken her sister and fled Voyager in an escape
pod.
From their nervous faces and uneasy voices it was
plain to see that they had been taking much abuse from the rest of the
crew, in addition to whatever punishment Janeway had handed
down.
Harry was careful not to add to it. It was very
easy to understand panicking under those circumstances. He'd been
panicking, too, but had had the sturdy and logical presence of Tuvok
to remind him to stay sane. If he'd been Jenny and seen a relative, an
identical twin -someone with his own face-injured, he was sure he
would have seen the appeal of leaving the ship.
Terror in
the face of the mutiny he could understand. Prior knowledge, the
ability to warn Voyager and maybe even abort it, he could
not.
Naomi continued to stir as he walked into the
storage area where Jenny had directed him. Neelix rose from a place on
the floor. Knowingly, he wordlessly took Naomi out of Harry's arms. He
carried her further into the storage room, settling her onto a
makeshift cot set on the floor.
He slid a partition
shut, blocking off the area.
"She's really tuckered
out, isn't she?"
"Yeah," Harry
said. "She is."
"She's been waking up five
times a night to see if her mother has come
back."
"Sam's pretty busy in Sickbay. It might
be a while."
"I know. She asked me to wait for
her before answering any of Naomi's questions. That doesn't help
Naomi, though."
"Sam's pretty upset with what
happened. Especially with Ken Dalby's
involvement."
"She has a lot to explain to
Naomi," Neelix went on.
She has a lot to explain to
everyone, Harry thought.
"When Ken Dalby and Lon
Suder tried to kill Tom, she told Naomi that he had fallen down."
Neelix smiled marginally. "I guess she'll have to do better than
that.
Harry had completely forgotten about the attempt by
the Maquis on Tom's life. After the attempt on the Captain's life, as
well as on virtually every other Starfleet crew member's life, it had
seemed pretty normal for what the Maquis had been doing. And since
sometime during the mutiny Tom had simply disappeared-Harry chose to
believe that his friend had made it to a shuttlecraft and safely
escaped-he hadn't thought of it.
Now his only thought
was if Sam had known about the attempt on Tom's life
beforehand.
She could not have. She just could not
have.
Harry become aware that his mouth was hanging open
and he was standing there in stunned silence.
He
recovered.
"How long was Sam in a relationship with
Dalby, anyway?"
"She never really told anyone
when it began, understandably. Only later was she more honest about
where she was spending her free time. It was probably under a
year."
"Oh."
A year.
Sam had to have known what the Maquis were up to. How could you spend
a year with someone and not know virtually their every move?
The partition Neelix had closed now creaked open. Naomi,
hair tousled and face scrunched up, stepped
through.
"Neelix." She was not very far from
whining. "I'm hungry."
"I'll get you
something, sweetie." Neelix turned to head back into the Mess
Hall. "Would you like something,
Harry?"
"Sure." He really wasn't that
hungry, though. His appetite had steadily decreased, right along with
his opinion of Naomi's mother.
Naomi and Harry took a
seat at the table vacated by the Delaneys. Neelix headed to the
kitchen. Harry sat across from Naomi and watched her petulant
face.
"So, Naomi, did you have fun on shore
leave?"
"No!" Naomi was
emphatic.
"Why not?"
"It was
raining. Everything was green. Mom was fighting with everybody. No one
wanted to go back to Voyager and I did."
That was
not quite the evidence against Samantha Wildman that Harry was looking
for.
"And they were keeping
secrets."
"What kind of
secrets?"
"I don't know. They were
secrets. Everyone was whispering so I wouldn't
hear."
Naomi toyed with her
fork.
"And I didn't get to say goodbye to
Tom. Neelix said he left with the
Maquis."
"Yeah, he did."
At
the same time as the Maquis departure, anyway. *With* the Maquis was
doubtful.
"I'm going to miss him," Naomi said
softly.
"I am too, Naomi," Harry said. "I
already do."
Part 16
In the time since the
smaller Peloran vessel had grasped Tom's shuttle in its tractor beam,
he'd repaired the damaged helm controls. He'd picked up and disposed
of the smashed remnants of what had been going to be his dinner. He'd
replicated a new bowl of tomato soup, but after raising the spoon to
his lips and experiencing one of the most painful sensations in the
entire universe, he carefully set the bowl aside and picked up the
regenerator he'd been using earlier.
He hadn't quite done
an adequate repair job on the damage done to his face-particularly his
mouth-by his sudden impact with the floor.
He was more
careful and precise with the regenerator this time. Of course, he
wasn't distracted currently with any thoughts of his imminent death,
as he had been last time.
His soup was cold when he
finished. He rose, picking up the bowl and returning to the
replicator. The soup sloshed from side to side as he set it back in
the slot.
That was expected, he'd been walking with it
and stopped suddenly to put it down. It wasn't the motion of the
liquid that made him stop and stand still, it was another
feeling.
When he'd been in flight training, one of his
instructors said to feel the motion of the ship. Other instructors
thought that was ridiculous, because one didn't need to rely on a
feeling because of all the helm instruments.
Tom didn't
usually notice, but he definitely felt something.
On this
instinct he returned to the helm and took in the
sensor information.
The Peloran vessel towing him had
just reversed course.
That move would definitely not get
him through Peloran space faster, as the border Minister had clearly
wanted him to go.
Tom wasn't ready to overreact just yet,
although the thought of the Pelorans changing their plans all of a
sudden was setting off alarms in his head.
We need to
talk this out, Tom thought. He took a seat and hailed the Peloran
vessel.
The alien that responded closely resembled the
one at the border, although Tom instantly noticed a different demeanor
that told him indignation and sarcasm was not the way to go with this
one.
But there was nothing wrong with being direct and
demanding to know where he was being taken.
"You've
reversed course. Why?"
The alien stared at him
scornfully.
"We have orders to return this
shuttle," He paused, glancing downwards at some kind of
reading. "To a ship called
Voyager."
"Unhh?"
Was the
first unintelligent sound Tom produced, and it was followed by several
more disjointed syllables as Tom's brain went into overdrive so fast
that his mouth couldn't follow.
He realized pretty
quickly from the expression on the alien's face that he had better put
himself back together and talk his way out of
this.
"No!"
Still one syllable,
but actually coherent.
The ridge on the alien's face
moved up an inch in what was probably a
sneer.
"No?"
In any culture in any
quadrant in any part of the universe the expression on the alien's
face was one of somebody in a position of power about to get
considerable pleasure out of abusing someone in a lesser
standing.
Tom knew that face. He knew that if he didn't
take a deep breath and calm down he would not get
anywhere.
Well, he might get back to
Voyager.
His chest tightened at the mere
thought.
"No," Tom said, calmly and
deliberately. "At the border, the rear quadrant Defense Minister
said that I would be escorted through Peloran
space."
While speaking, Tom quietly checked the
status of his weapons systems. His promise of obeying Peloran law and
not firing any weapons was completely negated if they wanted to bring
him back to Voyager.
"That is correct. Voyager is
outside Peloran space. They will take custody of your shuttle once we
escort you to the border."
The ridge moved again in
what was definitely a smirk.
"Wait," Tom
began.
"It is not negotiable."
The
screen blinked dark, bringing back up the view of space and
stars.
A stream of profanity raced through Tom's mind,
aimed half at the Pelorans and half at Janeway. He ground his teeth
together and resisted pounding his fist against the
controls.
Then, before he had time to think twice and
decide it was a really bad idea, Tom powered the shuttle's weapons,
hitting the keys with a bit more force than was
necessary.
It was a whole half-second before the Peloran
vessel noticed, hailing him again.
The interior of the
Peloran vessel again filled the view screen. Simultaneously, his
sensors alerted him that although smaller than the gargantuan border
guard ship, his escort had substantial weapons, all of which were now
activated and aimed at him.
"It is forbidden to
activate your shuttle's weapons in Peloran space."
It was not the threat of the Peloran ship that made Tom
reach over and lower his weapons.
"Oops," he
said sourly. "My mistake."
The rational side of
Tom that wasn't blinded by fury had managed to convince him that
trying to fight his way free in the middle of Peloran space was far
more suicidal than doing it when he was closer to the
border.
Closer to the border meant closer to Voyager,
that he knew.
The nasty Peloran disappeared from the view
screen, leaving Tom alone with his thoughts, which incredibly managed
to get more profane.
Eventually, though, the sound of
his pounding heart echoing in his ears drowned out his obscenity laced
internal mantra on what he would rather have done to him than return
to Voyager.
He couldn't sit still, getting to his feet
and pacing the shuttle confines.
His heart was beating
abnormally fast. His breathing was unusually rapid, too. His desire to
kick something was overwhelming.
He was either having a
panic attack of some sort or his brain was revolting and punishing his
body for having to deal with the thought of returning to Voyager after
everything he'd done to get off.
In keeping with his
terrible luck, time started to fly. Seriously. Every time he looked at
the chronometer-and since he couldn't stop checking it, that was quite
frequently-an obscene amount of time had passed from when he last
looked at it.
Tom sat down at the helm, finally. He
rested his elbows on the surface, burying his head in his hands. He
slowed his breathing, listening to his heart resume a normal
rhythm. In the peaceful darkness of his palms, he came up with a
relatively rational plan.
Rational because it probably
wouldn't get him killed.
But there was now way he was
willingly returning to Voyager. None whatsoever.
The
peace he'd found by blocking out reality was abruptly destroyed when
he raised his head.
He shuddered involuntary, staring out
of the view screen at Voyager.
Part 17
Harry left the Mess Hall, suspicions
about Samantha Wildman not cooled but roaring. He didn't get far in
corridor before three different crewmen stopped him to relay the
latest news.
It seemed Janeway had just gotten a whole
lot of help in her pursuit of the Maquis. The Maquis had entered
the space of a technologically advanced race, who weren't very happy
to learn that they had just allowed shuttles full of violent mutineers
into their territory.
The Pelorans had stated their
intention to remove the shuttles from their space, and return the
Maquis to Voyager's custody.
It certainly sounded
simple.
The Maquis, Harry was sure, would make it
anything but.
Harry had a duty shift on the Bridge in
five minutes, so it looked like he was going to have a front row seat
to whatever happened.
He knew he was going to witness far
more than the Maquis' peaceful surrender.
The Bridge was
silent when he entered it from the Turbo Lift. Janeway was sitting in
her chair, staring straight ahead. She didn't so much as glance at him
as he made his way back to his station. He took over his position,
noting the presence of a truly giant alien ship
nearby.
So these were the
Pelorans.
Actually, judging from the size and
capabilities of that ship, the Maquis just might
surrender.
Or fight back and end up getting
destroyed.
Which would be an enormous shame. Because it
would mean that the number of Maquis on Voyager would not double, that
their leader would not return for them to unite behind, and that
Voyager would not find itself in the exact same position as when they
first appeared in the Delta Quadrant.
There was nothing
wrong, in Harry's opinion, with having fewer Maquis.
It
was fine with him if the Maquis got themselves destroyed while the
Pelorans were trying to capture them.
But his thoughts
were only thoughts, for moments later Tuvok reported the approach of
another, smaller Peloran vessel, towing one of Voyager's shuttles by a
tractor beam.
Janeway rose from her seat. Although she
had her back to him, Harry could read the triumph in her
movements.
"On screen."
The
smaller Peloran vessel crossed the coordinate line labeled as the
Peloran Border. It dropped to impulse, staying close to the
border.
"We're being hailed," Harry said to
the Captain. "Audio only"
"Open a
channel."
"Voyager, we have retrieved one of
the shuttlecraft," the Peloran voice spoke. "Once you have
taken custody, we will join the other ships in the retrieval of the
other shuttlecraft.
"Thank you for your
assistance," Captain Janeway began.
"We would
recommend caution with this shuttlecraft," the voice
interrupted. "The pilot was displeased with being returned."
"As expected."
The channel
closed, and Janeway turned halfway around. There was a distinctive
smirk plastered across her features.
"Tractor beam,
if you would, Mr. Kim."
Harry did. He watched the
beam extend to surround the shuttle, distinguishable from the
Peloran tractor beam by its color.
There was absolutely
no reason for the two tractor beams to have any reaction to each
other
So there definitely shouldn't have been a miniature
explosion, followed immediately by the retraction of both ships'
tractor beams.
But there was. And suddenly the shuttle
was free. The Peloran ship was reversing course and returning to
Peloran space.
Before Janeway asked, but because he knew
she would, Harry tried to reestablish the tractor
hold.
He couldn't.
The shuttle was deftly
maneuvering itself. Whoever was the pilot knew what he was
doing.
At the helm, Bateheart agreed, muttering to
himself, "Who the hell is flying
that?"
"Take out its engines," Janeway
ordered, brow hunched.
"Firing," responded
Tuvok.
The shuttle pilot was quick, but not quick enough
to avoid getting hit.
Quick enough to reposition the
shuttle so that the damage occurred elsewhere, keeping the engines
online, however, as Tuvok reported moments
later.
Janeway's head snapped back furiously. At her
command, Tuvok fired again.
A small explosion rose from
the shuttle. It went dead in space.
Janeway dropped into
her seat.
"Tractor beam."
This
time, the tractor beam smoothly engulfed the shuttle, drawing it
quickly towards the Shuttle Bay hatch.
"Tuvok,"
Janeway directed, needlessly since he was already halfway across the
Bridge.
Tuvok disappeared into the Turbo Lift, calling
for a security team to report to the Shuttle Bay 1.
Ten
minutes after he left, Tuvok commed the
Bridge.
"There is only one occupant,
Captain."
"Who?" It very clear who she
wanted it to be. But it wasn't Chakotay, and Harry was not expecting
what Tuvok said next.
"Tom Paris. And he requires
medical attention."
Part 18
"What the hell are they
doing?"
Henley's tense voice cut through the
silence. None of the other Maquis were speaking, too entranced by the
sight of several Peloran vessels through the view
screen.
"Boxing us in." Chakotay heard Dalby
say. There was strain in Dalby's voice, too.
"How
many are there?" He asked, not really wanting to know the
answer.
"Six," Dalby said.
Those
weren't impossible odds.
"And I'm reading another
fleet of six on their way."
Chakotay heard more than
one person exhale a soft expletive.
He felt the eyes of
his Maquis on him, but it was Dalby who spoke
first.
"Sir," he began
questioningly.
"Hail
them."
"Which
one?"
"Whichever one
answers."
They didn't get a response until they were
completely surrounded by all twelve ships. By that time,
everyone was jittery. Dalby couldn't stop combing his hand
through his hair. Henley looked like she wanted to start pacing
again.
From another shuttle, Jarvin had already expressed
his desire to shoot something.
Chakotay told him-told
everyone-very clearly that there would be no
shooting.
The Peloran who answered the hail was similar
in appearance to the one at the border. It was immediately apparent
that this one was significantly less easily persuaded. Probably
some kind of military commander, if one was thinking
tactically.
He could tell it wouldn't work just by the
look in the alien's eyes, but Chakotay tried anyway.
In a
smooth, competent tone-the one that was wonderful for explaining to
border guards at the Demilitarized Zone that he was certainly not
smuggling weapons to anybody and how dare they accuse him of such a
thing-he began to speak.
"You have taken
unmistakable hostile actions against us. We have been granted safe
passage through Peloran space by..."
"Rear
quadrant defense minister," Henley quietly
supplied.
"By the rear quadrant defense
minister," Chakotay repeated after
her.
"Permission has been withdrawn," the
alien said curtly. "Terrorist groups of any culture are not
welcome. Your shuttlecraft will accompany us back to the border or we
will disable your engines and tow you back."
"Who," Chakotay countered, "judged us a
terrorist group?"
A Maquis in the back could be
heard muttering, "Bitch!", but Chakotay ignored
him.
"This is not negotiable. Will you return
willingly or must we disable your
shuttles?"
Pausing, Chakotay let his eyes roam
around the shuttlecraft. There was not a single willing face there,
nor were there any on the other shuttles, he knew.
But
there was also not a single suicidal face among them,
either.
"Willingly," he said, letting all
pretense drop from his voice. "Although we must protest your
involvement in something that does not concern
you."
"We became involved once you entered our
space. Once you have departed Peloran territory, we will no longer be
involved."
The view screen went back to a view of
the exterior of one of the vessels.
"We're being
held in tractor beam. All of us," Dalby said
softly.
"I hope you have a plan," sighed
Henley.
She jolted from her seat and started pacing
again.
This time, Chakotay didn't stop
her.
Part 19
The Brig guards were
whispering to each other. And whatever they were talking about seemed
to be good news.
To them, anyhow.
Try as she
might, B'Elanna couldn't hear a damn thing. Discreetly listening from
the center of her cell, she heard only murmurs. Pressed up
against the force field, rather blatantly, she heard nothing but the
fizz of her body against it.
Even if she had been able to
hear anything, the two Brig guards immediately stopped talking to
each other and told her to step back.
She did-not
without a parting obscene gesture-returning to the rear of the
cell. Ayala inched over to give her room on the bench without
being asked. Probably because the last time that he hadn't moved she'd
knocked him onto the floor.
"What are they talking
about?"
"I don't know," she snapped,
keeping her voice hushed.
"They look
happy."
"I
know."
"That's not
good."
"I know that,
too."
"They could have news about Chakotay and
the others," Ayala said after a moment.
She knew
instantly what he was imagining.
"If Chakotay had
been captured or anything of the sort, they'd tell us."
"Why?"
"So they could
gloat," she told him. "Break our spirits by catching our
leader."
"I guess so," Ayala replied, not
particularly believing her.
"Chakotay's not going
to do anything to get captured," B'Elanna reassured him. "If
he's coming back to Voyager it's on his own terms."
Ayala nodded.
"We might be able to
help him somehow," she continued, lowering her voice even
more. She didn't care if the guards heard them wondering about the
conversation, but they couldn't hear them
conspiring.
"Yeah?" Ayala snorted,
loudly. "From in here? How?"
"Shut
up," B'Elanna hissed, glancing over at the Brig
guards.
"Okay," Ayala said, considerably
softer. "How? Everyone's in the Brig."
"Samantha Wildman
isn't."
"She's not on our side anymore,
B'Elanna. She only was because she thought we'd
win."
"I know. But she was on our side once,
and I think she'd do a lot to keep Janeway from knowing
that."
"When I was in Sickbay for the cut on my
back, she had me restrained to the bio-bed," Ayala
insisted. "She was very clear, she hates us. And Janeway wouldn't
believe anything we said about her."
"I think I
upset her," B'Elanna mused at the first piece of
information. "Look, it doesn't matter whether or not Janeway
would jump out an airlock before believing us, Wildman thinks she'd
believe us. If we could get access to a terminal in Sickbay, we could
do something."
"One of us has to be in Sickbay
for that," Ayala pointed out.
"Yes. Someone
has to get injured again. And then that someone has to intimidate
Wildman into letting them get on the
computer."
"Without making her mad like you
did."
"Yes."
"The new
command codes would be useful," Ayala said
thoughfully.
B'Elanna nodded, already
planning.
Part 20
Tom gradually became aware of a
figure in a Starfleet uniform moving around in his peripheral
vision. He felt a little woozy, but it was already fading. Damn Tuvok
and his nerve pinch.
The mental stream of profanity that
had begun on his shuttle started up again. How badly he had wished
never to see anyone wearing one of those again.
With his
eyes in slits, he couldn't tell where he was. Back on Voyager, that
was for sure. But not in the Brig, that was a surprise. And if he
wasn't in the Brig, then maybe he wouldn't be on Voyager for much
longer. The Starfleet uniform walked closer to him. From the position
on his back, he couldn't see above the person's abdomen. He was
completely still, eyes nearly shut. When the uniform was within arm's
length, he struck.
Tom wrapped one hand around the
person's throat, getting a fist full of their uniform with the other
and forcefully yanking downwards. His grip on the person's throat was
tight enough to cut off breathing, which would hopefully cause the
person to pass out, allowing him to try and get off Voyager
again. Or at least out of this room.
He completely
surprised his guard, if that's who it was. The person lay heavily
against him, to stunned to struggle, gasping and gagging for air
against the pressure of his hand.
It was a woman-which
Tom felt slightly guilty about-her hair was falling in his face. His
tossed his head to clear her hair from his view.
He was
holding Samantha Wildman by the
neck.
Oops.
Tom released her. She stumbled
backward, coughing and gasping, face bright red. She lurched to her
knees on the floor, where she stayed, taking deep ragged
breaths.
Tom sat up, noticing for the first time that he
was on a bio-bed in Sickbay. He looked around.
There was
no EMH.
There were a few unconscious or sedated
patients.
On the floor was Naomi's mother, who had he
just tried to choke. Sam was breathing a little easily, wiping her
watering eyes. Tom felt horrible. He climbed off the bio-bed and
took a step towards her.
Sam flinched like she'd been
struck when he approached. Tom stopped dead and backed up, raising his
hands to show he wasn't going to hurt her. Hadn't meant to hurt her in
the first place.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry." He
wiped the guilty sweat off his forehead. "I didn't mean-I meant-I
thought you were Tuvok or someone."
Which was a very
weak excuse for trying to crush her windpipe.
"Are
you okay?" he asked, staying where he was. "Should I
activate the EMH? Is he fixed?"
Sam struggled to her
feet, one hand rubbing her neck tenderly. She stayed, Tom noticed, the
same distance from him.
"Fixed?" she asked,
hoarsely.
"Yeah. From what Torres did to
him."
A look of fury that appeared to have nothing
to do with recently having been choked came across Sam's
face.
"Torres," she snarled. "What she'd
do?"
"I don't know. She cycled the power
and when it came back on the Doc was gone and I couldn't get him
back."
"This was during the mutiny," Sam
clarified, her back to him as she headed towards a Sickbay
console.
"Yeah. You and Naomi were on shore leave,
right?"
"Yes."
Sam retrieved
a medical tricorder from an equipment tray. She arched her neck and
held the tricorder out in front of herself, running it up and down
over her throat.
Guilt hit Tom again, but he kept his
distance. He knew he wouldn't want someone who just been squeezing his
throat to get particularly close to him.
Case and point:
Lon Suder.
"I'm so sorry," Tom repeated
earnestly. "Are you okay?"
Sam lowered the
tricorder to examine its readings.
"Just a little
tissue damage," she told him. "You scared me more than it
hurt."
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I
thought you were Tuvok. Or someone from
Security."
Like he would have been able to get the
drop on Tuvok, Tom chided himself.
"Tuvok said you
resisted being taken into custody."
Tom snorted, his
guilt over grabbing Sam's throat fading for his
anger.
"Yeah, I resisted. Then he pinched me and I
blacked out."
"And then you fell onto the butt
of your phaser rifle and broke your collar bone," Sam
added.
Tom touched his chest.
"I don't
remember that," He said, thinking hard. "That's why
I'm here and not in the Brig?"
"No," Sam
said. "That's not the reason."
Part 21
Sam decided that talking anymore was not in the best interest of
her throat. It had been hoarse and scratchy after all that screaming
she'd done. Now it just hurt.
Tom Paris was significantly stronger than he looked. Of all
the people she had pegged to assault her, he hadn't even made the
list. He wasn't a Maquis, though, nor was he female and
half-Klingon. It was clear he hadn't meant to attack her personally,
from the stricken look that had been on his face when he realized what
he was doing. Well, not what he was doing but to who.
And then he had let go and practically shoved her away and
apologized profusely, still looking stricken and guilty.
The guilt subsided for anger when she brought up Tuvok's name. He
apparently only remembered being subdued by Tuvok, not falling chest
first on to the butt of the phaser rifle and cracking his collar bone.
"That's why I'm here," he asked from somewhere behind
her, "And not in the Brig?"
"No. That's not the reason."
Sam felt a tickle begin in her sore throat even before she finished
speaking. She coughed to ease it out, but it only got worse. And
coughing hurt. And yet she continued coughing, harder than before. At
some point she dropped the tricorder and fell against the nearest
console, coughing so forcefully that her shoulders shook.
Her eyes watered, blurring her vision. It cleared to reveal Tom's
bewildered and alarmed face opposite hers.
Her voice sounded like a malfunctioning mechanical
instrument, screeching and inordinately high, as in between the
wracking coughs she directed Tom to find a regenerator.
Tom went scavenging for the regenerator, completely destroying
Sickbay as he tossed instruments aside. Sam leaned against the
console, concentrating on controlling her breathing around hacking
and not on how badly her throat hurt. Tom came rushing back to her,
regenerator in hand.
It was then that she realized she needed a deep tissue
regenerator. Tom flung the normal regenerator he was holding aside and
went hunting for the other kind.
She took the correct regenerator from him and angled it against her
throat. She immediately felt the smooth relief against the itchy
painful tissue. Tom sank to a seat on the bio-bed where the damage had
been inflicted in the first place.
"I'm sorry," he muttered again.
Sam made a forgiving sound, but didn't speak.
"This is all the Pelorans' fault," he continued, angrily.
The Pelorans. Tuvok had mentioned them as the race that had
returned Tom Paris and were in the process of returning the other
escaped shuttles. She'd been so occupied with having no noticeable
reaction to the news that she hadn't really understood it.
"In the long run, it's Janeway's. But she's done enough to
ruin my life that there's enough blame to go around."
He scowled.
"Do you know if the Pelorans are bringing back the other
shuttles?"
Sam nodded, moving the regenerator over an inch.
"Great," Tom said sarcastically. "And Janeway thinks
she's going to punish them?"
Sam nodded again.
"She's not. It's going to happen again. And they might win
this time," he looked straight at her.
"You and Naomi were lucky to know about the mutiny. For
obvious reasons, I don't like Dalby much, but he arranged to get you
and Naomi off the ship and for that he's not totally
despicable." Sam felt her mouth drop open. Did anyone *not*
know that she'd been aware of the mutiny? It had been an unspoken
reality between herself and Ken, but suddenly Torres and in all likely
hood all the Maquis and Tom Paris knew.
She cleared her throat. "I didn't know about what Chakotay had
him and Suder try to do to you, I swear."
She hadn't been. But she couldn't say what she would have done had
she known.
"I believe you. So believe me. When the Maquis are brought
back, spend a lot of time hiding in your quarters. They're going to
try again," Tom finished, deadly serious.
Sam nodded, nervously beginning another path with the
regenerator. "Okay," she began. "Tuvok said that you
aren't going to the Brig. I don't know why. You're going to be
confined to quarters, but they've been modified while you were
sleeping. I don't know how. The Brig might be full," she offered.
Tom considered this. "They think putting me in the Brig would
get me killed."
Sam shrugged.
"Not that Janeway's ever been concerned about that in the
past," he said dryly.
Sam winced, knowing it was true.
"Any chance that phaser rifle I fell on is anywhere
around?"
"No."
"Too bad," he sighed. "You might want to get
yourself one just in case."
The doors to Sickbay slid apart then, causing her to drop
the regenerator and making Tom stiffen.
Tuvok, flanked by two other Security men, entered.
"Hi, Tuvok," greeted Tom in an obnoxiously sweet voice.
Tuvok spared him a glance, turning to Sam.
"Is the treatment complete, Ensign?"
"Yes, sir," she answered trying to keep the fear Tom had
just instilled out of her reply.
Tuvok was looking at her neck.
Of course. The deep tissue regenerator worked on what it was named
for-deep tissue. Any bruised or marks or handprints would still
be visible on her throat. And of course Tuvok would notice.
"Ensign, what happened to your neck?"
"One of the sedated patients woke up disoriented," she
said smoothly. "Grabbed me and made a little mess."
She indicated the strewn instruments Tom had created while looking
for the right regenerator.
Tuvok quirked an eyebrow.
"I'm fine," she said.
"May I recommend you restrain this patient?"
"Already done, Sir," she lied.
Tuvok nodded.
"Mr. Paris, you will accompany us." Tom slid of the
bio-bed.
"With pleasure," he said insolently.
The two guards moved to either side of him.
"Bye," Tom called as he was escorted out the
door. "Say hi to Naomi for me."
Part 22
After the Security team left with Tom, Sam retrieved the deep
tissue regenerator from the floor and finished healing her scratchy
and swollen throat.
She began the mindless activity of picking up the scattered
instruments from the floor and putting them back where they
belonged. Sam deliberately didn't think of anything other than the
proper placement of all the instruments.
She wouldn't think about Tom's warnings and the likely possibility
that despite everything she'd done to protect herself and Naomi,
they'd still be caught up in a violent conflict. Not while she still
had to function and the lives of the few remaining critical patients
still depended on her not being neurotically afraid and incompetent.
Her arms were still full of the misplaced instruments when the
doors to Sickbay slid apart. Harry Kim walked inside, face expectant.
"Hi, Harry."
"Hey, Sam." There was an odd tone to his voice. "I
was told Tom was taken here?"
"He was," she said. "Tuvok and a Security team took
him back to his quarters."
"Oh."
Harry started to backtrack out the door.
"Wait," she called.
He stepped back inside and the doors slid shut behind him. There
was a definitely a strange look on his face that she couldn't place.
"How's your leg?"
"Fine." His voice was cold.
"Did you get some sleep?"
"Yes."
He was giving icy one-word answers. She knew that she probably
should stop pressing then and there.
"Where's Naomi?"
"With Neelix."
The strange expression on Harry's face matched the way he was
looking at her. She didn't like either of them. Sam looked away,
taking one of the instruments in her arms and setting it carefully in
its place on the tray. She suddenly wanted him to leave very badly.
"You'll probably have to ask Tuvok or the Captain for
permission to visit-"
"Naomi said she didn't like shore leave very much," Harry
interrupted sharply.
"No," Sam said evenly, although she now had a very
painful idea of where this conversation was headed. "It
rained. She was bored."
Sam set another instrument down. "Though I rather she was
miserable in the rain than on Voyager then."
"That's understandable," Harry said slowly. Without so
much as raising his voice, he continued. "What I don't understand
is how you could betray Voyager."
Sam felt herself become cold, like there was ice traveling through
her bloodstream.
"What?"
It might have been close to the right amount of indignation
and bewilderment, if she hadn't heard the admission in her own
voice.
"You knew what the Maquis were going to do all along and you
didn't tell anyone," Harry continued flatly and accusingly.
"That's not true."
She was having trouble holding on to her armful of medical
instruments. She was having trouble standing upright. It was upsetting
and alarming when Torres and Tom Paris knew about her, but Harry
was...Harry and he wore a Starfleet uniform with pride and served an
unqualified Captain with misguided loyalty.
"Do you know how many people you could saved just by telling
someone?" Harry's voice rose a fraction.
"I couldn't have saved *anyone*," Sam spat
back. "The only thing I could have done was make it start
sooner."
She had just admitted to treason, acknowledged the small part of
her mind that was still concerned with protecting herself from
Janeway's wrath.
"You could have told someone!" Harry cried. "It
could have been stopped before it started. Before people died."
"It couldn't have been stopped," Sam said. "I saw
that."
"You saw an opportunity to save yourself," Harry said
bitterly.
"I saw the opportunity to protect my daughter."
Harry glared with disbelief.
"I was protecting Naomi," Sam repeated. "Because no
one else would."
"You can believe that. It doesn't make you any less of a
traitor."
Harry turned on his heel and headed for the door.
Almost shamefully, but because she had to know, Sam called after
him, "Are you going to tell Janeway?"
"Eventually."
The doors slid shut behind him.
Sam let the instruments clatter to the floor as she crossed
Sickbay.
It was no longer a matter of keeping her secret from Janeway. It
was a matter of not being there when Harry told on her.
Part 23
It was really amazing that despite having been searched and scanned
multiple times, one of the Maquis in B'Elanna's cell immediately
produced a sharp blade upon the request for suggestions on how to
inflict some minor injury requiring a trip to Sickbay.
Staying perfectly still while Ayala prepared to slash a shallow
gash into her arm was the only real challenge. The cut was supposed to
bleed enough to alarm the Brig guards, while causing minimal pain and
not impairing her movement. The urge to defend herself was very hard
to suppress. Still, she extended her arm and rolled up her sleeve. The
other Maquis in the cell took the cue to start moving around the cell
confines. Crouched in the back, with the others moving in front of
them, they were completely obscured from the view of the Brig guards.
Ayala drew back his arm, the blade positioned above her arm where
there were enough small veins near the surface of skin to bleed like a
much deeper cut would.
"Torres!"
The Maquis who had been blocking O'Donnell's view moved reluctantly
to the sides of the cell. Ayala surreptitiously dropped his arm and
the blade behind his back. B'Elanna rose, forcing a look of innocence
on to her face.
"What?"
"Wildman wants you in Sickbay."
This was an interesting. And exactly what she wanted, but without
being stabbed in the process.
"Okay." Not that he was asking her permission.
Ayala slipped the blade in her hand and B'Elanna tucked it into her
waistband only moments before she felt the tingling transporter beam
envelop her.
The normal disorientation that accompanied transporting was broken
by the sharp blasting sound of an alarm. B'Elanna turned her head
towards the deafening noise.
Wildman was straddling Gerron's prone body, a medical instrument in
hand. The alarm was coming from a nearby monitor. Wildman whipped her
head around, face desperate.
"Torres, I know you got rid of the EMH. I need him back,
now!"
She didn't even have a chance to deny it.
"Listen to me," Wildman yelled. "Gerron is having
multiple aortic seizures. I don't know how to fix that."
B'Elanna still hadn't moved, frozen in place.
"Without the EMH," Wildman continued. "He's going to
die."
That simple three-letter word got B'Elanna moving. She climbed onto
the bio-bed under the Jefferies Tube opening. She forced open the
hatch and started to pull herself through. Right before her head
passed through the hatch, she heard another alarm explode into sound
below her.
She crawled through the Jefferies Tube, her mind flashing back to
the last time she'd been here. The Jefferies Tube had been much more
difficult to navigate when it wouldn't stop spinning. B'Elanna could
crawl much faster now, and could only hope that Gerron could hold on
long enough for her to undo what she had done to the EMH.
She found the panel over the controls. She'd ripped it off without
a lot of care the last time, and apparently broken the closing device
in the process, although she didn't remember doing it. Some
idiot-some Starfleet idiot-had fixed it. Very quickly and without
much intelligence.
It looked like it had been welded shut, but only along the top and
half of one of the sides.
Badly done and stupid.
B'Elanna stuck her fingers inside the edge that wasn't welded down,
grasped the panel and pried upwards as hard as she could.
The panel came loose, colliding with ceiling with an echoing clang.
B'Elanna reached inside, fingers frantically flying over the
controls.
It was miracle the moron who had repaired the panel hadn't messed
with the components inside.
But they hadn't, so seconds later B'Elanna was able to retrieve the
EMH from his storage spot in the system code for the medical lesson on
alien physiology.
She crawled back to the hatch and peered down.
The EMH was standing by Wildman, looking at the monitors.
The EMH could save Gerron. And B'Elanna had suddenly been given
free access to the ship. She backed away from the hatch, crawling
toward the Jefferies Tube that connected to the ladder to the next
deck.
This was a hell of a lot better than intimidating Wildman into
giving her limited access to the computer.
This was freedom.
Below the Jefferies Tube that B'Elanna was crawling through, stood
the EMH and Ensign Samantha Wildman.
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Came
out of the Doctor's mouth as he was activated.
"Hi, Doc," Ensign Wildman said. "It's good to have
you back."
She reached over to the two monitors that were loudly warning of
cardiac arrest and imminent brain death, and quietly turned them off.
"All this," she said humorlessly, "is now
yours."
With out another word, she turned away, walked to the door and
exited, ignoring the fact that he was calling her name.
"Ensign Wildman!"
The doors slid shut behind her, leaving the Doctor standing stunned
besides a patient who was definitely not about to enter cardiac arrest
or brain death and was apparently only sedated.
He stood in the same place as he'd been activated in.
"Who won?" he asked.
Part 24
Harry almost knocked over the crewman he banged into in the
corridor outside Sickbay. The crewman stumbled backwards with an
annoyed cry.
"Hey," he began, with irritation.
Then the crewman caught sight of Harry's face, abruptly dropping
his complaint and giving Harry a wide berth as he continued through
the corridor.
That encounter told Harry something about the expression he wore
after the confrontation with Samantha Wildman.
The unplanned confrontation.
All he had intended to do was see if Tom was still in
Sickbay, suspecting that Janeway would be less than understanding
about allowing a visit elsewhere. Tom was already gone-oddly confined
to his quarters, not the Brig-and Harry should have just left.
Instead, he'd stayed, allowing Sam to chatter on. Everything she
had said had been harmless enough, but coming on top of what he knew
about her, it just built the rage he already felt until he couldn't
keep quiet.
It was clear she'd been expecting the accusation, though probably
not from him. Her denials were weak, as was her reason.
Naomi was completely innocent in this, even if her mother chose to
make her an excuse.
Harry found the Turbo Lift, directing it to Tom's deck.
It was a short ride, but in the small amount time that it took,
Harry managed to calm down and hopefully remove the expression on his
face that had frightened the crewman.
The corridor leading to Tom's quarters was deserted.
If you didn't count the man leaning against the wall right outside
Tom's quarters-clearly from Security and clearly very bored.
Harry walked up the man, who quickly straightened and pretended
that he hadn't just been slouching against the wall.
"Ensign Kim," he greeted.
"Hi," Harry said. "Paris is back?" He tried to
make his voice curious, but not overly so.
"Yeah."
"Um, Wildman sent me from Sickbay to check on him. Said he got
hurt while being taken into custody, or something?"
Lying never was Harry's strong suit. Especially impulsive
lies he'd had no intention of telling thirty seconds ago.
And apparently detecting lies was not among the Security guard's
best skills, for he turned around and started entering the proper
security clearance into the door's keypad.
"I thought he'd already been to Sickbay?" the guard
asked, not pausing on the keypad.
"Follow-up," Harry explained smoothly.
"The Captain is supposed to be coming down to talk to him in
an hour or so," the guard said as he finished the keypad's
sequence.
The keypad released an electronic chirp and the doors to Tom's
quarters slid apart.
The guard started to walk inside, but Harry stopped him.
"You don't need to supervise. He's not going to hurt
me." When the guard didn't look persuaded, Harry added,
"And he's not going anywhere."
The guard peered into the darkened entrance room, suspiciously.
"Just let me get the lights."
He called for the lights and the darkness gave way. The
lights brought to view a totally ransacked room, in the midst of which
was Tom, sitting frozen on the couch as it rocked back into an upright
position.
He stared at the door, eyes taking note of Harry's presence without
his face reacting.
"What the hell were you doing?" Demanded the Security
guard, hand moving to the phaser on his belt.
"Um." Tom wiped off sweat of his forehead. "Um,
trying to throw the couch at you?" he offered.
"Whatever you're doing, stop it!" ordered the
guard. Softer, to Harry, "Are you sure you don't want some
company?"
"It'll be fine," Harry reassured him.
The guard stepped outside and the doors slid shut behind him. Harry
barely had time to turn around from watching him leave before being
caught up in tight bear hug, as Tom grabbed hold of him.
Part 25
The word had finally gotten out that the kitchen was in working
order and there was the choice of eating something other than the
inedible rations. The crew started flocking to the Mess Hall. Despite
the fact that there were very few intact chairs or tables remaining,
Neelix suddenly found himself as busy as he ever was during the dinner
hour rush, back before the Mess Hall had served as a battlefield.
The lack of furniture didn't seem to bother the crew. The first
arrivals claimed the remaining intact tables and chairs, and the rest
got their meals and then camped out in clusters on the floor.
If one looked at the groups and ignored the scattered pieces of
broken furniture pushed to the side, it almost looked normal.
Neelix barely had time to look though, so busy was he with keeping
an eye on the stoves, making sure Naomi didn't touch anything hot, and
then with dishing out the food to the very long line of hungry crew.
The normalcy he felt in serving up the meal was in strong contrast
to the people he was serving it to.
There was stress in the faces of everyone in the serving line. Some
more than others, but everyone looked afflicted. Most looked drawn and
tired. More than a few seemed to have recently emerged from a fist
fight, many with a few ugly bruises and others with still fresh scabs.
These were the mutiny victims who hadn't had severe enough injuries
to stick around Sickbay or even go there in the first place. Neelix
found the regenerator he kept in kitchen for when he inevitably burned
himself and stuck it along side the Leola Root Stew on the tray of a
customer who looked like he might have trouble chewing due to the
massive fist-shaped bruise on the lower part of his face. He was
pleased to later see it being passed around the room.
From further back in the kitchen where she'd been playing quietly
on the floor, Naomi got to her feet and walked up to him.
"They have bruises," she said, eyebrows
knitted. "Did they fall down?"
"They might have," Neelix replied carefully.
"The Maquis hurt them," Naomi said solemnly.
She turned around and returned to her seat on the floor.
Neelix sighed, thinking that Sam's instructions to wait for her
before telling Naomi anything wasn't the best idea.
From what he could hear of the conversations drifting in the air, a
few had to do with the injuries sustained from the mutiny, or what
injuries they had managed to inflict during it. But more people were
talking about things that had nothing to do with violent event.
He heard some relishing their meal, which considering the quality of
the rations was not a surprise but pleasing anyway.
After an hour, the rate of new arrivals finally dwindled and people
started returning their empty dishes.
As another one came to turn in his tray, the Mess Hall doors parted
and Sam Wildman entered, walking quickly. She approached the counter.
"Hi, Neelix. Where's Naomi?" she asked urgently.
He didn't have to answer for Naomi heard her mother and came
running.
"Mom!"
Naomi clambered into Sam's arms, wrapping her arms around her
mother's neck.
Sam adjusted the child into a more comfortable position. She took
one arm off Naomi and reached out to Neelix. She grasped his hand and
held it tightly.
"Goodbye, Neelix." She squeezed his hand. "Thanks
for everything."
She let go and withdrew her arm, wrapping it around Naomi.
Neelix watched her leave, a little confused about the finality in
her farewell.
Maybe forty-five minutes after Sam left with Naomi, the crew really
started to clear out. In the midst of the all the exits, there was one
new arrival.
He made his way up to the serving line.
"I'm supposed to be on duty," the crewman confided to
O'Donnell, who was returning his tray. "I'm supposed to be
monitoring Paris' quarters. Ensign Kim is covering for me."
"I took off from Brig duty," replied O'Donnell.
Neelix handed a plate to the crewman.
"Paris was destroying his quarters looking for all the little
toys Tuvok removed when we searched them," he told
O'Donnell. "The Maquis causing trouble?"
"Well, they keep requiring medical attention," O'Donnell
sneered.
Then he froze.
"Oh, hell," he swore. "I forgot."
O'Donnell tapped his comm badge.
"O'Donnell to Sickbay."
"Sickbay," answered an irritated male voice. The EMH.
"Doctor, is B'Elanna Torres in Sickbay?" There was worry
creeping into O'Donnell's voice.
"No. She's not," the Doctor replied. "While I have
you on the line, Crewman, I'd like to know-"
O'Donnell cut him off, reaching for his comm badge again.
"O'Donnell to Brig." There was more worry in his voice
now.
"Brig."
"Has Torres been returned?"
"Not yet."
O'Donnell closed the comm line and opened a new one.
"O'Donnell to Tuvok." That was panic.
"Tuvok here."
"Sir, we have a Security Alert." O'Donnell sighed
loudly. "B'Elanna Torres is loose."
Part 26
Carefully climbing the ladder bridging to the next deck, B'Elanna
Torres had to decide what she could do during her temporary
freedom. She could possibly help the Maquis in the Brig. If she
managed to get them free too, together they could do some damage. But
it was all too likely that very soon the idiot Brig guards would
notice her absence if not told even sooner by Wildman, issue a
Security Alert, and then the first thought would definitely be that
she would be trying to free the Brig prisoners.
So she decided instead to make Chakotay's and the other escaped
Maquis' job a little easier. In the end, that would help all the
Maquis on and off Voyager.
It took an agonizingly long time for B'Elanna to reach the deck she
wanted to be on. It would have taken under two minutes in a
Turbo Lift, but she couldn't risk it. She put up with the burn that
developed in her shoulders rather than slow her speed and take even
longer.
She heard movements and voices at the workstation below her.
This section was staffed, although not by many. And they certainly
wouldn't be expecting her.
B'Elanna crawled further into the Jefferies Tube, until she heard
nothing below her. Ever so carefully, she silently pried open the
hatch.
She let her legs drop through, wishing that she hadn't changed her
uniform. In her old uniform, if the crew didn't see her face and only
saw the ordinary engineering uniform coming through the ceiling they
would assume she was part of a repair team and pay no attention until
it was too late.
As it was, she was incredibly conspicuous. Almost no one walked
around in civilian clothes, especially into areas like the one she was
about to drop into.
She couldn't do anything about it now.
B'Elanna let go of the hatch and dropped down onto the
floor. Before she even landed, B'Elanna was looking sharply around the
room for any occupants.
There was no one. Around the corner, she could hear voices and
computer noises, but no one walking into the deserted section where
she was now.
She still didn't have any time to waste.
B'Elanna raced over to appropriate console and went to work.
She could do what needed to be done from here, but once they
figured out what had happened, it could easily be reversed from the
very same console.
She could make sure that the job was done and that anyone who
wanted to repair it would have to manually fix what she was going to
manually break.
It helped that she could do the necessary damage safely out of
sight. Safely wasn't the word. Should the system be activated while
she was trying to disable it, she would definitely be killed.
Which was why she deactivated it, in a way that the Bridge wouldn't
notice it was off-line unless they tried to use it. They could get it
back on-line easily while she climbed out, and hopefully they wouldn't
be suspicious.
Because using it would accomplish exactly what B'Elanna wanted.
And she could trust Chakotay to take full advantage of the result.
It was the mental image of a horrified, enraged yet helpless
Janeway standing on the Bridge that accompanied B'Elanna inside the
cramped space, where she went quickly to work.
It was twenty minutes later-nearly an hour since B'Elanna had been
free and just as she was finishing an impressive amount of
sabotage-that there was a ship-wide announcement of a Security Alert.
B'Elanna Torres was free and very dangerous.
They were right about that. Late, but right.
She climbed out and shut the panel behind her.
There was still no one in the section. She boosted herself up into
the open hatch and pulled herself completely into the Jefferies
Tube. She closed the hatch firmly.
There was no sign she'd ever been there. Of course, nothing had
exploded yet.
Part 27
Captain Janeway passed the Crewman she'd assigned to watch Paris in
the corridor. Tuvok had removed a few weapons as well as a some
suspicious items that could probably be converted into weapons from
Paris' quarters, and had recommended that he still be under
surveillance.
The Crewman greeted her with a respectful nod, looking rather
guilty for being caught away from his post. He disappeared into the
door where the monitoring screens were set up. Seconds later, Ensign
Kim emerged from within.
He was clearly startled at seeing her, but recovered well.
"Captain."
"Ensign."
"He just went to the Mess Hall for dinner," Kim excused,
eyes toward the door he had just walked out of. "Paris was
asleep."
"Is he still?"
"Yes," Kim said. "He has been since I got
here."
Janeway nodded, which Kim took as a dismissal and started to walk
away.
"Wait," she called after him. He stopped and turned
around. "How's your leg?"
"It's better," Kim said slowly. He had an odd look on his
face. "Did you speak to Samantha Wildman?"
"No, I received the daily injury report."
"Oh." He looked strangely relieved.
"Should I have spoken to Ensign Wildman?"
Kim took an unusually long time to answer.
"You might want to, Captain." He didn't wait for her to
react to the peculiar statement. "Excuse me."
With that, he continued down the corridor at a speed plainly
designed to avoid elaborating on his last puzzling statement.
Janeway didn't stop him, although she could have. Instead, she
continued to her destination. It had taken a very long time for her to
talk herself into coming here, so she could not let herself walk away
under the pretense of wanting to know what Kim had meant.
There was no guard outside the door, as Tuvok had assigned there to
be. Apparently, more than one crewman felt they were excused for a
dinner break.
She did allow herself to ponder his strange suggestion that she
speak to Ensign Wildman while she tapped in the Security authorization
code to open the door.
She almost considered chiming, as if asking permission to enter,
but decided she wasn't that contrite.
Paris' quarters had been ransacked. Clearly, Tuvok had been wise to
remove the items Paris had been looking for. The lights were on
at half power and Paris was no where to be seen.
Janeway moved further into Paris' quarters, heading toward the
bedroom.
In the dim light, she could see a figure outlined beneath the
sheets of his bed.
As Kim had said, Paris was asleep.
Loudly, she cleared her throat.
Paris stirred but did not make any movements to emerge from under
the sheets.
"This is Captain Janeway."
If anything, identifying herself should make him try to bury
through the mattress to get away. Not surprisingly, he stayed still
and out of view.
She sighed.
Deciding to come here had been hard enough, never less deciding
what to say.
"I wanted to talk to you."
No response.
"I feel I need to apologize."
That should have gotten a response.
"I think that I've misjudged you in the past. And I know
for certain you have been mistreated for it."
She took a deep breath.
"I put most of what the Maquis did on you and I'm sorry,"
she admitted. "That is not to say that you aren't without guilt,
but that I am aware I've made mistakes and that I'm not going to make
them again."
Paris was trying to sit up and pull the sheet off his
head. Bizarrely, he appeared to be having trouble with that simple
task.
Janeway reached over and lifted the sheet away.
Then her mouth dropped open.
Every cell in her body that until now had been feeling relatively
repentant went cold.
It was not Tom Paris lying dazedly in the bed, one eye swollen shut
and the other showing distinct signs of being concussed. Somebody had
kicked the Security Guard assigned to stand outside Paris' quarters in
the face and then placed him under the covers in bed.
He was clearly disoriented, squinting at her with the one eye and
mumbling about how much his head hurt.
Tuvok's voice cut through her shock.
"Tuvok to the Captain."
Blindly, she answered the comm.
"Janeway."
"B'Elanna Torres has escaped Brig custody."
Janeway sank down on the edge of the bed.
"She's not the only one," Janeway said slowly. "Tom
Paris is missing."
Part 28
Naomi held tightly to her mother's shoulders, getting jostled in
place by every step her mother took as they exited the Mess Hall. It
seemed to Naomi that her mom was walking unusually fast.
Once inside the Turbo Lift, Naomi was lifted down and set to stand
beside her mother's legs. Calling for their deck, her mother
leaned against the back of the Turbo Lift and stared straight ahead.
Confused by the silence, Naomi peered up at her mother's face.
It was, Naomi realized unhappily, the very same face that her
mother had been wearing for months before they went on shore leave. It
was like the tight, stressed face that she'd seen during shore
leave. It was a combination of the angry expression that came up
when she argued with Ken and the silent upset face of whenever she
wasn't arguing with Ken.
Naomi reached upwards and took hold of her mother's hand. She
glanced downward at this, squeezing Naomi's hand, offering a small
tight smile, before looking away again.
When the doors slid open to their deck, Naomi was pulled out into
the corridor by the hand, stumbling behind her mother's long
stride. She looked at the damage to the corridor walls and to their
neighbors' doors. Almost all the doors had jagged holes in
them. Naomi hadn't thought it was possible to break the sturdy doors.
In addition to hurting people when they left, the Maquis had made a
mess, too.
She was dragging her heels, looking at the dark burned smears on
the wall. Impatiently, her mother reached back and lifted her up off
the ground into a loose one-handed hold. At their door, one of the few
that was perfectly clean and not mangled, she used the free hand to
tap the keypad to open the door.
Their quarters were still dark from when she had fallen asleep on
Harry's lap. Naomi sat on the couch, watching her mother head for the
still unopened storage cartons that had been brought back from shore
leave.
As her mother examined the carton labels, Naomi had a frightening
thought.
"Are we going on shore leave again?"
Her mother paused in her search, looking up.
"No, Naomi."
She looked down again, but not before Naomi caught one of the
expressions she hated most flicker across her face. It was the
expression that came across her mother's face whenever she was lying.
"I don't want to go on shore leave again. Ever!"
"I said we aren't," her mother repeated, but the
expression was still there.
"I don't want to leave Voyager," Naomi continued, feeling
tears well up.
Her mother moved away from the carton, over to the couch. She
pulled Naomi into a tight embrace.
With her face pressed against her mother's shoulder, Naomi
sniffled.
"Neelix promised you'd tell me why the Maquis left,"
Naomi said, muffled. She lifted her head up and looked her mother in
the eyes. "They *hurt* people, Mom."
Naomi could feel the sigh that went through her mother's
body. Naomi moved off her mother's lap.
After a very long pause, her mother began to speak.
"You remember when I told you how hard it was for the two
crews to merge?" she asked. "For the Maquis and Starfleet
crews to stop hating each other?"
Naomi nodded.
"They never really did. Merge or stop hating each other. What
the Maquis did before they left is called a mutiny. They wanted to
take command from Captain Janeway and take control of Voyager."
She stopped, looking at Naomi intently.
"They hurt people because the Starfleet crew resisted the
mutiny. And they left because the mutiny wasn't working."
She stopped again, looking at Naomi for a reaction.
"Do you understand?"
Naomi nodded, and then began climbing back into her mother's
lap. Once there, she hugged her tightly.
"Did Ken hurt people?" she asked softly.
"I don't know, honey."
Naomi stayed in her mother's hold for a long time, thinking this
over.
"Because we were on the planet, on shore leave, we were
safe," Naomi said, finally,
"Yes."
"Are we going to get in trouble for that?"
"Not you, Naomi, never. But I might. Which is why we
have to leave Voyager now."
Naomi held tighter to her mother's shoulders, trying to digest
this.
There were two announcements while she thought, but Naomi wasn't
listening.
It was shortly after the second announcement that they heard a
mechanical click from Naomi's bedroom. It was followed by the distinct
sound of a person jumping to the floor and walking around. Her mother
stiffened, arms tightening around Naomi.
"Sam?" a voice called from the hallway leading to Naomi's
room.
Naomi scrambled off her mother's lap and ran to the voice.
"Tom!" she cried.
He emerged from the hallway, catching Naomi and picking her up as
she clung to him. Over her shoulder Naomi heard him address her
mother.
"They're looking for me."
"I heard."
"Tom," Naomi said sorrowfully into his ear. "Mom
says we have to leave Voyager now."
"Yeah?" he asked sympathetically. He looked to her
mother.
"Need a pilot?"
Part 29
Tom left the Wildman quarters the same way he had arrived, through
the Jefferies Tube hatch in the ceiling of Naomi's bedroom. Sam and he
had agreed to meet in Shuttle Bay 1, but Naomi and Sam would be taking
a Turbo Lift.
Walking through the corridors mere minutes after they announced a
Security Alert for him was a little too reckless. He'd decided to get
out of the Jefferies Tubes after hearing it, knowing that they'd be
scanning every deck's Jefferies Tubes for him. He hadn't thought
they'd look in Sam's quarters.
He'd also been pretty sure that the subject of the first Security
Alert, the one he'd thought would be for him, wouldn't find him in
Sam's quarters.
The prospect of meeting Torres in the Jefferies Tubes made being
caught by Tuvok and locked up again inviting.
But he returned to the Jefferies Tube after conferring with
Sam. His own concerns were secondary to the forlorn look in Naomi's
eyes and the frightened discontent in her mother's.
There were a lot of repair teams still working in the Jefferies
Tubes, according to Harry. Lots of repair teams meant it wasn't odd
for life signs to be read inside the Jefferies Tubes, and to discern
which ones were working and which ones were escaping there would have
to be a security team searching deck by deck.
And surely, Torres was considered far more dangerous that he
was. Tom just wanted to get off Voyager; Torres probably wanted to
destroy it.
Torres was probably also not trying to get off the ship, more
concerned with releasing the other Maquis.
So he convinced himself that he could elude the search and not
encounter Torres on his way.
He heard voices on one deck, but it was only a repair team, a good
distance away, bickering about some replacement piece.
He made it to the Shuttle Bay deck without trouble. Having promised
Sam that he would take care of the crewman on duty, he decided to lure
him or her away without risking a physical confrontation and the
chance that Security could be called.
He used the components in the Jefferies Tube to send a message to
the Shuttle Bay console, ordering all occupants to report to a section
on the other side of the ship, under Captain Janeway's name.
Cracking the hatch near the Shuttle Bay door-hoping desperately
that it wouldn't echo-Tom watched a small, non-Maquis Bajoran woman
who he didn't recognize receive the message, dutifully leave her
station and head out the door.
Waiting a few minutes, should she suddenly return, Tom opened the
hatch completely and climbed down to the floor.
The shuttle he'd taken in his first escape attempt was set
nearby. There were several burned smears across its exterior, probably
from the explosive reaction he'd caused while trying to escape the
holds of both Voyager's and his Peloran escort's tractor beams. Tom
didn't know how badly the affect had been had on the shuttle's
systems, having been too busy scrambling to get a weapon while
helplessly watching his shuttle beginning to enter the Shuttle Bay
hatch.
Time was short, so Tom headed to the other shuttle. He'd only just
lifted up the door, when he heard someone enter the Shuttle Bay.
Tom glanced sharply over his shoulder, ready to dive inside the
shuttle should it be the crewman returning. It was Sam and Naomi
Wildman.
Sam was practically dragging Naomi, who now looked completely
crestfallen. Sam didn't look too happy herself.
"Ready?" Tom asked her as she approached him.
"No!" said Naomi, angrily resisting as her mother lifted
her into the shuttle.
Sam used one hand to keep Naomi inside the shuttle.
"Naomi," Sam said fiercely. "Sit down!"
Naomi did so, glaring. Sam turned back to Tom.
"Ready?" he repeated.
"I don't know," Sam said softly. "I didn't really
think this through. Things can only get worse if they catch us and
bring us back," she finished woefully. Tom nodded, understanding.
"All I can promise is that I can get us away from Voyager. If
they come after us, that's another story."
"The Pelorans are bringing the Maquis back. Voyager would
probably have to wait until they had them in custody," Sam added,
trying to convince herself. "That would probably buy us some
time."
"Harry's knocked out the tractor beam," Tom encouraged.
He was very confused by the dark expression that came over Sam's
face when he mentioned Harry. She was silent for a moment.
"Okay," she said finally. "Let's go."
Sam climbed inside the shuttle, taking a seat.
Tom walked over to the deserted console. He was ensuring that
once the Bridge was alerted of the unauthorized shuttle launch, they
wouldn't be able to close the hatch and prevent the launch. While he
was doing this, Tom noticed an additional Security Alert scrolling
across the console screen.
He felt his mouth drop involuntarily open.
Of all the worst luck.
No, just his luck.
B'Elanna Torres was being tracked through the ship, and was now
thought to be on this deck, presumably heading to one of the Shuttle
Bays, the bulletin announced. It advised the crewman on duty to become
armed.
The crewman would certainly have obeyed, had she not been sent to
the opposite side of the ship.
Tom could just hope that in the five minutes it was going to take
before they could leave, Torres stayed far away.
Finishing the override that would keep the hatch open no matter
what the Bridge did, Tom headed back to the shuttle.
And as if on cue from some deity with a depraved sense of humor,
the Shuttle Bay doors slid apart.
Tom didn't even turn around immediately, hearing the pounding
footsteps as the person raced inside. Sam peered out of the
shuttle, eyes wide.
Tom looked over his shoulder in time to see Torres-*of
course*-bring down her elbow and smash the door controls.
Almost instantly, something sparked outside the door. Again,
with more sparks. Torres regarded it, then turned around.
She noticed Tom for the first time. An expression of shock
and exasperation registered on her face.
"I don't have time to deal with you," she snapped,
stalking past him toward the damaged shuttle, surprisingly not making
any aggressive movements.
The sparks from the efforts of the people outside to get in were
getting more numerous, and there was now the sound of something
grinding against the door.
Torres stuck her head inside the unoccupied shuttle, pulling it out
seconds later.
"The computer's fried." she exclaimed, more to herself
than to Tom.
Her eyes shot to the other shuttle, probably noting Sam's stunned
face watching her, but clearly having ideas about removing Tom's mode
of transportation off Voyager.
There was a loud clink, causing both Tom and Torres to whirl
towards the door, which was now an inching open.
Torres didn't speak, she just ran over to the other shuttle and
climbed inside. Tom heard Sam's disbelieving sigh, but also didn't say
a thing as he too climbed inside the shuttle, closing the door and
taking a seat at the helm. He didn't talk as he set up for the launch.
Silence was truly the best way to deal with the fact that he was
escaping Voyager again, this time with Sam and Naomi Wildman, but also
with the woman who had spent a day in the previous week trying to kill
him.
Tom really didn't know if getting captured would be a better
alternative.
On the Bridge, Harry Kim waited nervously for his console to alert
him to an unauthorized shuttle launch. Tom had sworn that all he
needed to escape was no tractor beam catching hold of him, all Harry
needed to do was that tiny little piece of sabotage and his friend
would be free.
That sabotage in addition to looking the other way in the
monitoring room while Tom had knocked out his guard and stuffed him
under the sheets in his bed.
He'd already been passively involved in helping Tom escape, once
Tom launched Harry would take the active role of disabling the tractor
beam.
Or, he could do it now.
Hoping he didn't look suspicious, not that anyone was watching him,
Harry set the tractor beam function into its dormant state of repair.
It wouldn't activate no matter how angry Janeway got. And it
looked innocent enough.
Harry swallowed, noticing his mouth was parched.
Then his console beeped.
Harry looked down. He cleared his throat.
"Captain, unauthorized shuttle launch in Shuttle Bay 1,"
Harry announced.
Janeway got to her feet, turned toward him.
The amount of rage her face could accommodate was increasing daily.
"Close Shuttle Bay doors," she ordered.
Harry tried. He genuinely did. The Bridge was locked out of those
controls.
He relayed the information, watching Janeway's mouth get thinner
and thinner as her jaw tightened.
So far, Tom was right. He didn't need Harry to do anything else.
"Security reports B'Elanna Torres last known location to be on
that deck," Tuvok reported.
"On screen," Janeway commanded, turning sharply on her
heel to face the view screen.
The shuttle emerged from the Bay hatch, navigating away from
Voyager but not yet at warp.
"Tractor beam."
Harry went through the motions of activating the tractor beam,
pretending to be frustrated when nothing happened.
"I can't, Captain," he said. "It's been
disabled."
That was true. He needn't mention that he'd been the one to disable
it.
The frustration of Janeway's face was no pretense.
"Occupants?"
"Tom Paris, B'Elanna Torres, and Ensign Samantha Wildman and
Naomi Wildman."
What the hell was Tom doing on a shuttle with B'Elanna
Torres? Harry hoped the shock on his face could be interpreted
to be related to the oddity everyone else seemed to be finding of Sam
and Naomi's presence on the shuttle.
"What the hell," whispered Janeway.
"It could be an abduction," offered Tuvok.
Or Sam could have decided that she was not going to take
responsibility for her accountability for the mutiny and flee with Tom
before Harry could tell Janeway anything.
What Torres was doing on that shuttle was the real question, as far
as Harry was concerned.
"Hail them," Janeway said.
"No response."
"Open a channel."
The audio chirp signifying the open channel was heard.
Janeway took a step forward, hesitating to speak.
Then again, there wasn't much to say to two people fleeing
imprisonment and another doing the exact same thing before anyone even
knew that she was supposed to be a prisoner.
"Ensign Wildman," Janeway began. "If you are
voluntarily leaving Voyager turn back now. If your shuttle does
not return, I will open fire."
With her back turned, Janeway signaled Tuvok to activate weapons.
***
On the board the shuttle, Sam had pulled Naomi into her
lap, holding her so tightly that her daughter was trying to get
away. Janeway's voice filled the craft, threatening to open fire.
"They've activated weapons," Tom reported to Sam.
He noticed a ridiculous grin spreading across Torres' face. She
seemed absolutely thrilled that Voyager was going to shoot at
them. Tom scowled at her, which only made the grin wider and more
salacious.
"They're firing!"
Tom worked frantically on the helm controls, not having the time or
attention to notice Torres was still staring happily out the view
screen.
Part 30
The time went by excruciatingly slowly. It seemed to Chakotay to be
taking twice as long to be returned to Voyager as it had to escape.
It wasn't, according to Dalby, who quietly informed them of the
time as each hour dragged by.
Chakotay might have been thankful for the extra time-or at least
the sense of extra time- if they'd been able to use it for anything
productive, such as formulating an escape plan.
As it was, his shuttle's atmosphere was one of condemned prisoners
be marched to their doom. Overwhelming anger but a total inability to
do anything about it.
Resisting the Pelorans had already been discussed and
dismissed. They were technologically superior, there were a lot more
of the Peloran ships, and this was Peloran space, after all.
Should even one shuttle miraculously escape the conflict, it would
only be a matter of time before the other Peloran fleet of six, which
had disappeared once it became clear the Maquis weren't a threat,
returned.
Once that topic was exhausted relatively quickly, the conversation
turned to discussions of how much everyone on board hated Janeway. His
crew could be very eloquent and articulate on that subject, but it
became quite depressing and he shut it down.
He couldn't be sure, but Chakotay thought two of his Bajoran crew
were continuing it in their own language. He let them, wandering
over to stand behind Dalby.
The sensor screen Dalby was supervising had a diagram of a Peloran
vessel up. Dalby seemed to be searching it for weakness.
Chakotay rested his hand on Dalby's shoulder, alerting him to his
presence.
"Anything?"
"Nope," Dalby said. "We take them on, it's
suicide."
Chakotay nodded, sighing.
"Which," Dalby continued, looking up at Chakotay. "I
think a lot of people would prefer to spending the next sixty years in
the Brig."
Chakotay hadn't heard that before.
"Really?"
Dalby shrugged.
"Would you?" Chakotay prompted.
"I don't know," mused Dalby. "I don't think we'll
survive that long on Voyager anyway."
"Why's that?"
"You know Janeway won't be able to get Voyager home. It would
only be a matter of time before..." Dalby trailed off.
Chakotay nodded, definitely sharing that sentiment.
"You would get to see Samantha Wildman again, though,"
Chakotay said, watching Dalby's face for a reaction.
A wistful look crossed Dalby's features for a moment, before
disappearing.
"Not likely," Dalby replied, looking down at his sensor
screen. "She'll need to stay far away in case anyone connects her
to the mutiny."
They were silent for a while, Chakotay listening to the soft
conversations brewing behind them, Dalby changing the image on the
sensor screen before him.
"Our best chance would be to do something right at the
border," Dalby said suddenly. "And hope they won't follow us
across. We'd have to deal with Voyager then, but it's probably
worth a shot."
As he got Chakotay's attention, Dalby continued.
"Target their tractor beams here, here and here," Dalby
pointed to areas on the Peloran ship diagram.
Henley came over and listened in.
A plan, not a wonderful or even definitely passable plan began to
form. It wasn't a sure thing, and no one thought it was. Chakotay was
usually against such desperate actions, for they almost always proved
to be incredibly costly.
But this was not a normal situation. There was no waiting for
reinforcements, no waiting for conditions to improve.
The possibility that circumstances could in fact get much worse.
And the fact that his crew was brewing for a fight because to most
of them going quietly was not an option.
A fight at the border was their best chance.
Maybe half an hour later, Dalby alerted Chakotay as they approached
the border. He did a double take, looking at his sensors and
without being asked brought it up on the view screen for all to see.
There was a loud collective gasp of shock from inside the
shuttle. Chakotay stared out of the view screen, then dropped his eyes
to Dalby's sensors to confirm that what he saw was indeed happening.
Because what he saw looked like Voyager. Exploding.
Part 31
Extra Warning: A little bit of violence
between two people of opposite sexes. She started it.
Harry Kim heard Captain Janeway command Tuvok to fire upon the
fleeing shuttle. He turned his eyes to his readings, waiting to see
Tom pull some acrobatics and escape.
Harry didn't get to see what happened, though. For all of a sudden,
he couldn't see his console.
He was vaguely aware of the floor beneath his feet surging upwards,
although he didn't connect it with the fact that his console suddenly
disappeared from view, nor did he know immediately that he was being
violently propelled over his console.
When he realized this, he made a frantic grab for the edges of his
console. His fingers brushed over the smooth ends of the console, but
he couldn't get a grip on anything.
Still having no idea why he was being thrown over his station,
Harry could only brace himself for the inevitable landing towards the
front of the Bridge.
Land he did, jarringly despite his best efforts to absorb the blow
evenly. Twinges of pain, more of shock than actual injury, went
through him. The distinct unpleasantness of having the wind knocked
out of him followed shortly. His head was stinging-not hurting,
stinging-and there was something dripping down his forehead over on to
one eyelid.
Harry felt somebody's hands on his shoulders, helping to pry him
upward off the floor.
He groaned unwittingly as the set of arms pulled him into a sitting
position. He opened his eyes, immediately squeezing them shut again
when the liquid flowing over his eyelid got inside, then automatically
brought a hand up to wipe the blood blinding his right eye away.
Keeping his hand over the one eye, Harry opened the other to look
into pale concerned face of Captain Janeway. Her hair was falling out
of its neat bun, indicating he wasn't the only one to have been thrown
around.
She was speaking to her comm badge, he came to realize, ordering an
emergency beam out to Sickbay. For him.
"No!" He put his hand on her arm. "No, I'm
okay."
More or less.
Janeway cancelled the beam out, helping him to his feet. The
muscles he'd bruised in landing so hard made both standing up and
walking a startlingly painful experience, and he stumbled rather than
walked back to his station. The cut above his eye was still bleeding,
and he kept wiping it away so he could see his readings and find out
what the hell had happened.
There had been some kind of explosion when Voyager tried to use its
weapons, resulting in severe damage to all of Voyager's weapon
capabilities. And the damage was pervasive, shields and most of
the systems that had just been repaired were offline.
For such a small gash, the wound on Harry's forehead was bleeding
enough for him to have to keep a hand pressed against it so he could
still see.
The damage report was relayed to Janeway, as Carey from Engineering
contacted the Bridge with a damage report of his own.
Tom's shuttle was completely forgotten in the midst of the delivery
of such bad news, and Janeway's orders to contain the damage. And if
anyone, Harry for instance, was still thinking about him, the thoughts
quickly disappeared.
"Captain, Peloran vessels are approaching the border with the
Maquis shuttlecraft in custody," Tuvok reported.
"Strap yourselves in, " Tom directed Sam and Naomi,
purposefully leaving Torres out of the advice, hoping she'd ignore it
and crack her head against something when the shuttle was hit.
The hit never came.
And as much as he would have liked to have credited his piloting
skills for avoiding it, he was fairly certain he'd had nothing to do
with it.
He stared out the view screen at a blaze streaming from the side of
Voyager.
"Whoa," he said inadequately.
Torres was smirking gleefully. Tom didn't need to ask why.
"What happened?" asked Sam, staying in the rear.
"Voyager's been damaged." Tom shot a look at
Torres. "I don't know how. Their weapons are down."
He checked his sensors again, assuring that Voyager was indeed no
longer a threat. That's when he saw the Peloran fleet escorting the
Maquis shuttles to the border.
"Time to get the hell out of here," he muttered under his
breath.
But of course Torres was watching the sensors too. He at least
expected her to order him to change course, not that he would
have. Considering she was right by his shoulder watching the
sensors, he didn't think she could hit him at the close range.
Wrong.
Her fist knocked him backward out of the helm chair and into
darkness on the shuttle floor.
Chakotay watched the flames erupting from Voyager.
"This is a window of opportunity," remarked Henley
pointedly, breaking the stunned silence.
"Right," Chakotay responded. He took a seat. "Do
it."
"Wait, Chakotay, there's a shuttle from Voyager directly
across the border heading towards us," Dalby reported
"Friend or foe?"
"I don't know." Henley leaned over Dalby's sensor
readings, to his evident annoyance. Moments later, almost
triumphantly, Dalby announced, " I'm reading one half-Klingon
life sign, one half-Ktarian life sign, and two humans."
"Do it," Chakotay repeated.
The Peloran vessels were clearly as confused by the state Voyager
was in as the Maquis had temporarily been, not reacting immediately to
being fired upon by two of their three charges while the third made a
desperate attempt to break free from the tractor beam, and a fourth
unrelated shuttle began to cross the border, with incredibly sloppy
piloting.
Immediately meaning a total of one minute fifteen seconds, before
the revolt was crushed with three carefully aimed charges that knocked
the three shuttles' weapons offline, and the large border patrol ship
took hold of the new arrival.
And if the Pelorans were confused by that development, it was only
magnified when they contacted the latest transgressor of their
space. For although the shuttle answered, one could barely see two of
the passengers once the screen activated.
A man and a woman were wrestling on the floor, while a second
woman, looking distressed, stood directly in front of the screen
trying to hold on to a bawling, struggling child.
Part 32
Torres was an idiot. She had climbed into the helm seat Tom
had just been knocked out of-by her- and appeared to be setting a
course into Peloran territory. Tom tried to get up, his head spinning,
and fell right back down again. He tried again, feeling the ache
spreading across his face and his attempt to balance on two feet
proved to need more concentration than ever before.
Why oh why was Torres choosing the one direction that promised to
get them almost instantaneously returned to Voyager? For the second
time today, in his case.
If he'd been feeling reasonable, had the time, and had not just
been punched in the face, he might have attempted to tell her that the
Pelorans were very unsympathetic to people fleeing into their
territory.
As it was, he was feeling completely unreasonable, primarily
because he knew he didn't have the time to get back in control of the
helm before the border patrol took action, and to a lesser degree
because she had indeed socked him in the face.
He took the quickest, most obvious method of removing Torres from
the helm chair while simultaneously interfering with her control over
the helm console.
Tom wrapped one arm around her throat, shoving his other hand in
randomly to hinder her movements over the controls, and yanked
backward as hard as he could.
His intent was to pull her over the back of the chair and away from
the helm.
It might have worked if the helm chairs in shuttlecraft were
designed to be stationary, and not spin around when directional force
was applied to the occupant, sending the one seated flying forward
into the other person.
A scenario such as the one Tom was engaged in had probably never
occurred to the shuttlecraft designers, for Tom's efforts to pull
Torres over the seat resulted in the helm chair spinning sharply
around and launching Torres directly into him.
He landed on the floor, thrown there by his own momentum. Torres
landed on top of him with his arm still wrapped around her neck,
giving Tom a momentary advantage.
Momentary, because it only took a moment for Torres to dispatch the
arm around her throat and twist it maliciously.
Tom jerked it out of her grasp, trying to make a move of his own,
but getting to caught up in defending himself from the flurry of
attacking limbs he found directed at him.
From somewhere, he heard a child begin a rising wail. Naomi, of
course.
He'd like to scream, too.
Naomi's cries become closer, and peering around Torres, Tom could
see Sam stumbling to the front of the shuttle, leaning forward to
activate the screen.
He hadn't noticed anything, but then again Torres was a significant
distraction.
Naomi was wailing as loudly as she could, struggling mightily in
her mother's arms, and staring tearfully at Tom.
That was when he remembered Torres , and that she should have taken
the opportunity of his diversion to break his neck.
Glancing quickly back, he saw Torres frozen in place, arm poised
above his face, eyes on Sam and her activities.
It was too much of a relief to be comical, and Tom jerked agilely
away from Torres and rolled an appropriate distance-out of her reach,
to be precise-and got to his feet. Torres seemed to think the screen
was more interesting than Tom, definitely allowing him to get free,
barely casting anything beyond a warning glance to stay away in his
direction.
His knee hurt. His face hurt. And already knowing who was
going to appear on the screen and what they were going to say began to
hurt in advance.
He glanced at the sensors, noting their shuttle was already in the
holds of the Peloran border patrol and that the Maquis shuttles were
idling close by.
He kept one eye warily on Torres, who was reciprocating his own
defensive stance, while they both tensely watched the screen.
It may have been the same Peloran to whom Tom had spoken earlier,
and if it was not then this one had memorized the exact same austere
greeting.
If anything, this one was more impatient and more exasperated,
speaking forcefully over Naomi's cries as he demanded that Sam
identify herself and her purpose.
Under other circumstances, it was a simple request.
Naomi was quieting, either because Tom and Torres were no longer
fighting or because of the death grip Sam appeared to have on her
daughter as she clutched Naomi to her chest.
Still, Naomi struggled and murmured in her mother's grasp,
producing hoarse scratchy protests from her nearly broken voice.
Telling Naomi emphatically but ineffectively to be quiet, Sam
struggled to explain. She was flustered, stuttering out a nonsensical
response for a few moments, before recovering ever so slightly.
"My name is Samantha Wildman."
Naomi squealed then, inopportunely, as she beat against her
mother's arms.
Sam began again, dismissing the usual preliminary comments.
"I know. I mean, I've been told the Peli, um, Pelona,-"
"Peloran," Tom supplied softly, breaking his silence for
the first time.
***
"Peloran," Sam correctly weakly. She
recovered well, then. "That Peloran space was once a terribly
violent and conflicted region which has endured to achieve
stability."
How she knew any of this, Tom wasn't sure. As Sam talked,
remarkably well composed now for a completely unplanned, unrehearsed
speech, Tom moved unobtrusively over and gently removed Naomi from
Sam's tight hold. Naomi clung to him, actually obeying his soft
instruction to hush. Torres watched him while he did this, and Tom had
a brief gratifying moment when he thought that she probably would not
hit someone holding a child.
"I know that the Peloran people are careful to avoid
altercations and I have to tell you that by getting involved with
Voyager, by returning the Maquis and us, you are cooperating with a
group of people who have as much hostility and internal trouble as
your people ever did."
Sam ran out of breath, pausing to inhale deeply and nervously wet
her lips.
"To which of these 'hostile' groups do you align
yourself?" The Peloran questioned, rather sarcastically.
"I," Sam flared angrily, stopping herself as she realized
the caliber of her response. "I have been trying my best to get
my child and myself away from both of them."
"As have I," Tom contributed, moving closer to Sam.
Still watchful of Torres, Tom saw her quirk an eyebrow and move
almost imperceptibly closer to the screen.
"I am with the Maquis," she reported smoothly. "And
I warn you that returning the Maquis to Voyager will only worsen the
situation for all involved, as you have made yourselves."
The Peloran didn't seem to comprehend the blatant threat.
"The Maquis have been identified as terrorists and
mutineers," he accused.
"You clearly didn't ask Janeway why we were forced to act as
those," Torres replied, unfazed.
Threatening the Pelorans was an absurd strategy, in Tom's opinion,
far more likely to get them handed back to Voyager than anything else
was.
Sam felt the same way, apparently, quickly jumping in before Torres
could escalate it.
"In the interest of opposing the kind of aggression that
Voyager and the Maquis on engaged in, I would ask that the Peloran
government grant us permission to enter their space and asylum from
Voyager during our journey through it," Sam entreated,
careful to politely make it an obvious request and not any kind of
demand.
Torres followed on the heels of the appeal, her own request
decidedly less pleasant.
"And I would ask that you grant the same concessions to the
Maquis."
"There are no concessions as of yet," the Peloran
informed them all. "You accusations will be investigated and
validated. Conclusions will be reached from there."
Sam nodded.
"You are correct in that the Peloran government does not wish
to enable such behavior, but wrong that we have any duty to prevent
it. But we will have no part in it."
With that, the screen flipped back to a view of the stars, the
Peloran vessel, and Voyager.
There was silence, Sam dropping into the nearest seat with an
exhausted cry. Tom watched the diminishing flames lingering on
the side of Voyager, rapidly disappearing.
Holding Naomi close, he glanced over at Torres.
"I wonder," he said. "How that happened."
Torres spared him a venomous glance, staying standing.
Naomi began to sniffle, the only sound in the entire shuttle.
Part 33
There was no immediate action after the Pelorans had so swiftly
knocked the three Maquis' shuttlecraft's engines and weapons off line.
Chakotay waited patiently for the reprimand to come, but the
Peloran vessels remained silent, shockingly disinterested.
The explosion that could be seen streaming from the side of Voyager
was quickly diminishing in size. Dalby reported severe damage to
Voyager's weapon systems, and to their shields. This information
briefly provided some humor to the shuttlecraft, even if they all
found themselves in pretty much an identical situation.
The shuttle containing Torres, Samantha and Naomi Wildman,
and another unidentified human was in contact with the Peloran border
patrol ship.
Dalby appeared to be inventing numerous new ways to use the
shuttle's scanners in his efforts to find out what exactly was
occurring on the other vessel.
There was an expression of anxiety, combined with determination and
hints of hopefulness on Dalby's face as he worked fervently on the
sensor controls. It confirmed to Chakotay that he'd been correct in
judging Dalby's attachment to the Wildmans, over which he'd been
musing earlier. Then, Dalby looked up triumphantly.
"I can tap into the audio of the comm system and we can hear
what's going on over there," Dalby said, hands poised to go into
action.
Chakotay barely started to nod and Dalby went to work.
There was a cacophony of unpleasant electronic screeches as Dalby
worked to establish the link. Finally, the connection was made.
"But wrong that we have any duty to prevent it. But we will
have no part in it," said an unfamiliar male voice, speaking in
what had to be the very end of a sentence, that made no sense without
the rest of the speech.
With that, the Pelorans severed the comm connection. Looking close
to crestfallen, Dalby closed off the useless link.
"That was informative," Chakotay offered dryly.
No one seemed to appreciate the attempt at humor.
Silence again took over, with shades of despair.
Chakotay only let the silence settle for a minute, before sharply
ordering everyone to stop looking depressed and hopeless and get the
disabled systems back on line as soon as possible.
With limited grumbling, his Maquis went back to work.
And within seconds of the first attempt to bring their engines on
line, the Border Patrol vessel contacted Chakotay's shuttle.
Henley spat a curse, ceasing her efforts with unusually violent
gestures.
"Open a channel," Chakotay instructed. "And calm
down," he added with annoyance to Henley.
The screen blinked from space to the previously seen interior of
the Peloran border control vessel.
Chakotay adopted a serene expression, leaning back in his chair in
what he hoped came off as an intact, undamaged front.
"Chakotay of the Maquis," greeted the same Peloran who
had granted them access to Peloran space, what felt like a very long
time ago.
It was oddly respectful way to begin what had to be a reprimand,
but Chakotay simply nodded acknowledgement, waiting for him to
continue.
"It has been brought to attention of the Peloran government
that through assisting Voyager and returning the Maquis to their
custody we may be enabling an unjust administration to continue. This
was not our intent."
That was not the expected scolding, but it was a shock, to put it
mildly.
The Peloran had paused, clearly awaiting a response.
Not entirely sure where this was going, or why the Peloran was
suddenly being so reasonable, Chakotay nodded again and hoped he
didn't look stunned.
"Do you confirm Voyager's standing?"
"Absolutely," Chakotay said. "There was a basis for
our mutiny."
"Why did you not inform the Peloran government upon entrance
to our territory?"
"It seemed irrelevant," Chakotay said smoothly. "It
is not a practice of the Maquis to involve outsiders in our
disputes. And we believed that you had sided with Voyager."
The Peloran shook his head.
"We did not intend to take sides in what now is clearly a
complicated issue."
"Then is it your intention to release us?" Chakotay
prompted, becoming suspicious of the Peloran's hesitation to fulfil
his apparent change in heart.
"We must confirm the situation with Voyager."
"They aren't going to support anything that does not turn in
their favor," Chakotay answered. "If you choose to cease
your involvement, you have damaged our ships and put us at a
disadvantage in any fight with Voyager. And they still hold many of us
prisoner."
"There will be no fighting," the Peloran said
sharply. "A resolution will be reached and you will remain in our
custody and protection until then."
With that, the Peloran ended their conversation.
"What does this mean?" asked Henley softly, her brow
crinkling. "They're going to ask Voyager to confess to creating
the grounds for the mutiny?"
"What if we don't like their resolution?" Added Dalby,
suspicion on his face.
"We get our engines and weapons back on-line right now,"
said Chakotay. "And then we wait for this resolution."
Waiting, surely was not the most pleasing option to the Maquis, but
at the moment it was their only choice.
"And hail B'Elanna's shuttle," Chakotay ordered, for the
information that B'Elanna was alive and in all likelihood responsible
for the recent damage to Voyager was the best thing he'd heard all
day.
Part 34
The chaos that followed the unexpected explosion on board Voyager
was short-lived, if loud and frightening for the time period that it
did last.
The jolt that had thrown Harry Kim over his own console also shook
every level of Voyager, damage and injuries secondary to the massive
fire that erupted in the torpedo bay when Voyager tried to open fire
upon the fleeing shuttle craft.
When everyone got back up from being violently thrown to the floor,
the fire was actually contained quite quickly, but not before it
caused extensive damage and injuries.
And then they had to listen to the damage report, with the
information that it was going to take a lot of people and a lot of
hours to repair it, in no small part because most of the people who
normally made up the emergency repair teams were incarcerated or gone.
The explosion was clearly sabotage.
Someone had rigged it to activate when Voyager tried to fire its
weapons systems.
There weren't a whole lot of suspects.
Well, there were, but most of them had either been locked up or not
on board Voyager during the time in which the sabotage could have been
rigged.
The process of elimination led almost instantly to someone on board
the fleeing shuttle craft having the presence of mind and the skill to
guarantee themselves a fire-fight free escape from Voyager.
Perhaps this was what Tom had meant when he had declared himself
capable of solving every other obstacle to getting off Voyager.
But then again, Torres was so incredibly destructive and doubtless
a skilled saboteur, she absolutely could have rigged it right before
her escape.
At this point, even Sam could have decided to prove that she could
indeed become a Maquis, by blasting a hole in Voyager.
Although at this point, almost everyone seemed to think that she
and her daughter had been involuntarily abducted or otherwise forcibly
removed from Voyager.
And that her abductors, Tom and Torres-though admittedly, no one
could figure out why these particular two were collaborating-had now
been captured the Peloran Border Guard vessel.
This should have been good news for Janeway.
And yet it wasn't.
The Peloran who appeared on the view screen-the same one who had
earlier been so eager to keep the Maquis mess out of Peloran space-was
no longer feeling very supportive.
Sam, the very same Sam who had allegedly been kidnapped from
Voyager, had requested asylum on behalf of herself and her
daughter. Tom had joined her in this request, and now Torres wanted
the same conditions for the Maquis.
Sam had apparently accused Voyager of having deserved the mutiny,
and the Maquis-surprise, surprise-had backed her up.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
Either way, the Pelorans were now less interested in helping
Janeway and more interested in, well, developing some kind of
'resolution'.
Janeway's face, remarkably, was only a few shades pinker than
normal.
She was composed enough to rattle off reasons why this was a very
bad choice:
Tom was, at this moment, supposed to be a prisoner back in Alpha
Quadrant.
Sam was the lover of one of the Maquis, therefore she was biased
against Voyager, not too mention currently a fugitive.
Torres, or any one of the three adults, was likely responsible for
the explosion on Voyager.
Lastly, the Maquis were unreformed terrorists, and one cannot
support terrorism while claiming to support peace and to want to avoid
chaos.
The Peloran was acceptably disturbed by this information, but
showed no signs of changing his mind.
Their communication ended with the severe and emphatic order for
Voyager to stay where it was and take no action while the Pelorans
considered their options.
***
At some point, someone handed Kim a regenerator to run
over the dripping scrape he had across his forehead. Rather sloppily,
one-handed, he got the bleeding to stop.
It was little hard to do while stumbling in the conference room
with the other senior staff, as Janeway had decided to have an
emergency meeting to discuss how they could fix Voyager as quickly as
possible and then be ready to take on the suddenly unfriendly
Pelorans.
It was not an optimistic outcome.
The only feasible plan was presented by Tuvok, who suggested that
they bombard the apparently judicious Pelorans with indestructible
logic, that the Maquis were bad, dangerous people who could not be
trusted or dealt with in any situation without the sincere threat of a
quick and violent betrayal.
And Voyager certainly had experience with that aspect of the
Maquis.
The fact that the Maquis were an incredibly menacing, if currently
defunct, terrorist group back in the Alpha Quadrant, could only serve
to encourage the Pelorans to keep such an element out of the Delta
Quadrant or more specifically, Peloran space.
As the senior staff scattered to direct their various departments
to do the proper repairs, Janeway called for Kim just as he was about
to exit.
He turned around and stepped away from the door, hearing it slide
shut behind him.
"Harry," Janeway said again, rising from her chair.
"Captain," he replied.
Janeway took hold of the back of the seat she had risen from.
"Earlier," she slowly, pensively. "You suggested I
speak to Samantha Wildman."
Kim nodded, not offering any information.
"Was it in regard to..." she paused. "what
happened?"
"Yes, Captain." It was his turn to pause. "But I had
no idea that she would go to these measures. I thought that she would
come to you. And if she didn't, I told you so that you would go to
her. I didn't think that she'd decide to run away before you had the
chance."
Janeway nodded, which Kim took as a dismissal, for he exited
hastily.
She followed him after a moment, taking a seat in her chair in the
center of the Bridge.
She was indescribably angry and disappointed, and sorrowful
simultaneously.
Her ship had sustained a horrible mutiny, during which some had
taken it upon themselves to flee the ship. Others had died. Yet
another had apparently done something in regards to the mutiny to
motivate fleeing afterwards to avoid being found out.
And now some alien race-involved only by a directional whim of the
Maquis- was going to decide whether or not the Maquis -and Tom Paris
and Samantha Wildman-should be returned to Voyager.
Janeway was deaf to the buzz of various stations and crew working
on repairs, for all she could hear was her own thoughts on how to
repair a much larger problem.
Part 35
After the uninterrupted stream of action and excitement-from
escaping Voyager to being brought back to escaping once again-Tom
thought he would be relieved for the calm he now found.
He was not relieved, if anything he was all the more jittery
And although Sam Wildman wasn't actually saying anything, by merely
sitting with tightly wound apprehensiveness and restlessness, Tom
could feel the same uneasiness roll over him.
Torres' mere presence-although at least for the moment she had
ceased looking violent-was enough to keep Tom alert for the sudden
occurrence of pretty much anything.
Naomi had apparently decided that since every adult on board was
intent on being silent, yet intensely worried and considering that
there was still rather badly hidden overt hostility between Tom and
Torres, that her only refuge was holding tightly to Tom and waiting
for something to happen.
They were all waiting for something too happen.
Tom could not believe the ease with which the Pelorans had been
convinced that all was not right with Voyager.
He half expected to be hailed again, this time with the information
that Voyager had talked the Pelorans into reversing their opinion.
It was not the Pelorans that hailed their shuttle, but people whom
Tom didn't want to hear from, either.
The Maquis shuttles, being held nearby.
Doubtless, they knew Torres was on board and wanted to congratulate
her on damaging Voyager.
Torres, of course, noticed the hail before Tom could do anything to
get rid of it.
She moved to activate the screen, and Tom turned away, balancing
Naomi as he walked towards the rear of the shuttle.
He didn't even want to see the Maquis.
He noticed Sam was looked nervously up at the screen, waiting for
it to activate.
She wanted to see Dalby, he knew.
He'd thought for a while that Sam was only with Dalby for
protection from the Maquis for the mutiny, but it was now apparent
that there was an actual relationship.
It made no sense to him.
The screen had yet to activate, to the extreme annoyance of Torres,
if the sounds she was making were any indication.
Finally, she whirled around.
"I can't open a channel," she said accusingly. "What
did you do?"
Tom made his way back towards the console, gently releasing Naomi
into the arms of her mother. He looked for himself at the console
controls.
"I didn't do anything," he said. "The Pelorans are
blocking our comm channels."
Torres made a snarling noise and went for the controls as if she
intended to pound them into functioning correctly. Tom moved out of
the way, content to let her think she could outwit the Pelorans. He
took a seat next to Sam, who was holding Naomi in silence.
"That was some fast talking," he said mildly. "Very
good."
Sam nodded, something next to humor and near bitterness on her
face.
"I didn't think it would work," she remarked after a
moment.
"Neither did I," Tom replied. "But they've blocked
our comm channels so we can't get our stories straight with the
Maquis. They must be thinking it over."
***
On board the Maquis shuttle, Chakotay discovered
that the Pelorans had suddenly decided to disrupt his hail.
And so, all shuttles, and even Voyager, got to sit in frustrated
silence and wait.
Wait about an hour, one very tense hour.
Then, almost simultaneously, every party involved received a
transmission from a group within the Peloran government, identifying
themselves as some kind of High Council of Judicial Matters. It
communicated the consensus that the Peloran government profoundly
regretting admitting anyone from Voyager into their space, but now had
a responsibility to assess the situation and resolve it appropriately.
This assessment could not be done, of course, with the Maquis
shuttles and Voyager sitting just within and just without the Peloran
border, flinging insults and accusations across it.
Thus, this High Council wanted to have a hearing, with testimonial
from every side. Not just from every side, incredulously, but from
every person.
Voyager instantly logged dissatisfaction, inquiring of the Pelorans
if they knew the exact number of Voyager's crew, and complaining that
a swift judgement could never be reached if every crew member was
interviewed-if Voyager even chose to participate in what they were
still of the opinion did not belong to Peloran control.
The complaint was ignored. The communiqué went on to invite
a representative of all sides at each interview, with the warning that
the intent was to develop a clearer picture for the High Council, not
simply allow the opposing sides to get within fists reach of each
other.
Voyager was silent for close to half an hour. It seemed to Chakotay
that Janeway was sulking. Paris and Wildman-two who were
apparently considered third parties to the dispute-agreed almost
immediately. Clearly, they thought that even if Voyager rejected the
offer, the Pelorans would protect them from whomever they each felt
threatened by. Finally, Voyager agreed to the proffered terms.
It was then that the Maquis stepped inside the developing
negotiations, with the demand that all remaining Maquis be transported
off Voyager.
Chakotay waited for a response.
Henley read over the rest of the details for this so-called
hearing.
"Basically, they're putting everyone on trial for the
mutiny," she said finally.
Chakotay nodded. "Basically."
"What," she continued, "Gives them that right?"
"Bigger guns," supplied Dalby, caustically.
No one disagreed with him.
"We're lucky," Chakotay tempered the rising ire,
"that they're including everyone, and it's not just the
Maquis."
The request to transfer the imprisoned Maquis was approved, and if
Voyager felt differently, it couldn't be prevented because Voyager
couldn't activate its shields yet.
Strangely, suspiciously, the transferred Maquis failed to reappear
on the three shuttles, although sensors confirmed that they had indeed
been beamed out, and that Voyager was impatiently hailing the
Pelorans, probably pissed off.
And then Chakotay was hailing the Pelorans, equally impatiently and
pissed off, because he wanted to know where his people had been taken.
The Pelorans took their sweet time in answering.
When they finally did, their response was short transmission
expressing that there was such concern with leaving the Maquis and
Voyager so close together for the future proceedings, that the Maquis
on Voyager had been beamed elsewhere, and the shuttle occupants would
follow shortly.
Shortly was right.
Chakotay had barely finished reading the message before he felt the
well-known sensation of a transporter beam sweep over him. When it
faded, he was standing in a dimly lit space, surrounded by his Maquis,
all of whom were appropriately stunned, and some of whom were sitting
shocked on the floor after suddenly losing their seats.
Dalby lifted himself off the floor, as Henley tried unsuccessfully
to gracefully get to her feet.
"These people do not like asking," she growled, "do
they?"
Chakotay didn't respond, too intent on looking around to see if he
could find one of 'these people' to whom he could express how much he
didn't like them at the moment.
He didn't see any Pelorans, only his Maquis, most still struggling
to their feet and the others looking around suspiciously, hands at
their belts as if they needed the reassurance of a phaser.
That made him reach for his own belt, which he found empty.
Of course, you don't abduct people -especially people that you've
been told are mutineers and violent terrorists-and let them keep their
weapons.
Maybe abduct was too strong a word-move without consent was a
milder and less aggressive term, and the last thing the Maquis needed
to be doing was developing antagonistic feelings towards people to
whom they wanted to appear sympathetic and non-threatening.
From the irate murmuring he was surrounded by, he definitely had
cause to be concerned with such a development.
He had to put a stop to it.
He directed Henley and Dalby to draw the attention of the rest of
the Maquis.
While they were loudly doing just that, Chakotay took a moment to
glance around their new location.
It was wide enough that he could only see one dark wall and the
ceiling lights that were illuminating the floor. The wall he could see
was featureless-doorless as well-and he guessed this was some kind of
storage area converted to an emergency brig.
Rather quickly, impressively, Dalby and Henley had managed not only
to quiet the Maquis, but also to clear the jumbled masses into
semi-straight lines.
This allowed Chakotay to take a good look at his Maquis, finally
together again on one ship, although certainly not in a command
position on another certain ship, as they'd planned. If this was a
ship.
They were smaller in number, it wrenched his heart to conclude,
even with the addition of the Maquis that had been held prisoner on
Voyager.
He noticed a figure coming forward from the dark rear, with little
to no regard to who was shoved aside to allow the person
through. Seeing B'Elanna emerge into the light did a lot to lighten
the previous pain. She made her way to his side, almost as if it was
her rightful place, as Henley stepped away to stand next to Dalby.
B'Elanna looked a little mussed, but otherwise appeared to be okay.
"Are you alright?" he asked, simply letting that
communicate how glad he was to have her by his side again.
"Yeah," she answered, not pausing to take a breath as she
continued, "Where are we?"
Part 36
"Captain," Harry Kim announced, "The Pelorans are
beaming the Maquis out of the Brig."
Janeway glanced over her shoulder.
"Shields still down," he added, because it sounded better
than 'and we can't stop them'.
"Where were they taken?" Janeway asked, staring out the
view screen, rubbing the bridge of her nose methodically.
"A disguised location within the Border Ship," he
answered.
Janeway sighed.
"Hail them," she ordered.
"No response."
Looking at the back of Janeway's head, Harry could see her jaw set
angrily, although she remained silent.
Not that there was much to say. The damage inflicted by the blast
as Tom's shuttle left had more or less assured that Voyager wasn't
going to be doing anything offensive or defensive for a good
while. And even if most of Voyager's facilities weren't unusable,
there wasn't much they could do against the Pelorans.
It was amazing that Maquis had managed to involve an alien race
that was not only technologically superior, but also one that felt it
had an interest in finding a 'resolution' to the situation. The only
reason Janeway had acquiesced to such a claim was because, as Tuvok
had pointed out, if she refused there was the high likelihood that the
Pelorans would spirit the Maquis away, or keep them indefinitely under
Peloran protection.
Harry had kept his objections to himself, but he still wondered why
it would be such a horrible thing to be rid of the Maquis, for once
and for all. To leave while the Maquis were detained, with the
knowledge that the Pelorans would probably keep hold of them for at
least long enough for Voyager to have a head start, in case the Maquis
wanted to give chase and start it again. Tom had made his choice, as
had Sam Wildman.
It was almost too late for that option, though, considering that
Voyager had just regained the ability to go to impulse, and the
possibility of warp was still far off, judging by the tone in Joe
Carey's voice when he commed the Bridge to tell them that if Voyager
needed to crawl away suddenly, she probably could.
Janeway didn't even seem to acknowledge that abandoning the Maquis
was an option. She still wanted to punish them, he guessed. She hadn't
questioned him any further on his limited knowledge of Sam Wildman's
reasons for fleeing, although he thought of exactly what to say if she
did. Naomi Wildman had tipped him off, completely accidentally and her
mother had absolutely flipped when he'd implied she'd had prior
knowledge, but hadn't given any hint she was going to run away. Of
course, in hindsight, when he'd given her the two choices of telling
Janeway or telling her himself, he probably should have considered
that the third unspoken choice was to leave the ship and avoid being
culpable even if he told on her.
Harry was pulled back to reality as his console chirped.
The Pelorans weren't responding to the hail, but had sent a text
transmission of a short message.
He alerted Janeway of this development, but was rather hesitant to
read it.
The Pelorans were remarkably concise and direct with communicating
their power and everything that they subsequently did, and
consequently came off somewhat obnoxious.
He could have interpreted it using language that was much less
contemptuous, but read it off as ordered.
"In the interest of productive relations, it is necessary that
no participant holds hostage members of the others involved, for the
risk of further hostility and deceptive representation for fear of
repercussions unto the prisoners," Harry read.
"*Hostages*," Janeway echoed, incredulously.
"That is most likely Chakotay's terminology," explained
Tuvok.
This information did not soften the Captain's reaction.
"The Maquis requested it," she muttered to herself. She
sat up straighter, shoulders leveling sharply.
"Mr. Kim," she said loudly, "If they won't listen to
us, we'll do it the old-fashioned way. Compose this response,
please."
Harry opened a transmission file and waited.
"In the interest of the safety and peace of the Delta
Quadrant," Janeway hissed, "it is necessary that no violent,
unrepentant terrorists be allowed to escape confinement, for the risk
of imminent violence and brutality that is exactly characteristic of
the Maquis against anyone and everyone."
It was probably a good thing that the Pelorans were refusing audio
communication, Harry thought as he converted the Captain's statement
into text, for the tone in her voice would win her no friends among
the Pelorans. Neither would the very nature of her sneering message,
but at least it came off milder when read.
He sent the transmission, not particularly expecting a response.
The Pelorans were silent for a bit, during which Voyager's sensors
detected the occupants of the four shuttlecraft being beamed to
presumably the same location within the border ship.
Then, Voyager received a short message.
"They say we can have our shuttles back if we want them,"
Harry reported.
"Kind of them," Janeway growled softly. "Is the
tractor beam operable?"
"Yes," Harry responded instantly.
He immediately felt exposed and relatively stupid for not having
even pretended to check. Of course the tractor beam was
operable; it had been resting comfortably in dormant mode ever since
Harry had turned it off, at Tom's request. Well, maybe it was
all for the best. Staying dormant had protected it from being fried
along with most of the other systems from the explosion and its side
effects.
Of course, the explosion might not have happened at all if Voyager
had been able to snatch the shuttle back with the tractor beam,
without firing once.
Harry's guilt and fear of being found out were all inside his head,
apparently, because Janeway calmly ordered the retrieval of the
shuttle craft, not even glancing back at Harry's station.
Then there was yet another lengthy wait, during which the Pelorans
were completely silent, not even bothering to inform Voyager why or
for what they were waiting this time.
It was briefly mentioned that perhaps the Pelorans were
experiencing the danger of the Maquis up close and personal upon
beaming them somewhere inside the Border Ship, but that was probably
just wishful thinking.
It was much more likely, however displeasing, that Chakotay and the
Maquis were lying to and manipulating the Pelorans into doing
something to benefit the Maquis. Charming and deceptive, the Maquis
could certainly be, everyone on Voyager knew that.
And if the Maquis were exploiting the Peloran's desire for a
'resolution' it certainly felt like they had an eternity to do it in.
Finally, the Pelorans contacted Voyager again. They apparently had
decided to ignore the Captain's biting response to the extraction of
the Maquis, for the only content of their message was a very large
data file containing the rules and regulations for the hearing.
Janeway requested the document be transferred to her ready room,
and soon after she and Tuvok disappeared inside.
Harry, ever obedient-at least at the moment- did not read the
document although he was very curious. The size of the file was
tremendous, the list of rules had to be long and complicated.
And so, Harry feared, would be the trial.
Part 37
Although the Pelorans had seemed in quite a hurry to move the
Maquis off Voyager and the shuttlecraft, respectively, there did not
seem to be the same urgency now that they had been transported to
their current surroundings.
This did allow Chakotay some time to set down guidelines for his
Maquis.
There was really only on rule, but it was the one every single one
of the might break.
Be gentle, evoke empathy, and act victimized.
Most of his Maquis lacked the skills to behave like this.
He phrased it slightly differently, in the hopes of better success.
Stay calm, be unthreatening, and act respectful.
He feared his Maquis' abilities to do any of those, too.
It didn't help that he couldn't explicitly explain it either, out
of fear that this new location was monitored and it would appear that
he was manufacturing some cunning deception.
He was, in a way.
He delivered an impromptu speech on the gratitude the Maquis should
have for the Pelorans, never directly stating his orders that they, at
all costs, be civil and non-confrontational towards their as of yet
unseen hosts.
Yes, hosts. Definitely not 'captors' as he'd heard someone call
them.
Although he could definitely understand why some of the Maquis
would substitute one word for the other, especially those had just
been transferred from Voyager's brig. To them, it might seem as if
they had exchanged their surroundings for a bigger cell with no
obvious entrances or guards.
The fact that they were, or appeared to be, completely alone, did
enable an extensive search of the large room. It was done as
inconspicuously as possible, although any observers might have thought
it odd that certain groups of people felt the need to stroll around
the limits, stopping occasionally to touch or lean against the walls
as if exhausted by walking a few meters.
They found nothing.
Nothing and no one.
The relief that came from having most of their people off
Voyager-although apparently some remained in Sickbay-was nothing
compared to the nervousness of wondering if in the silence Janeway was
convincing the Pelorans that she was competent and the Maquis
allegations were insignificant.
They had no way of knowing what was occurring, only that for the
moment, the Maquis were not involved.
Until, out of impatience-and partial approval from Chakotay
considering he didn't do anything except look at little wary- B'Elanna
became a little destructive.
She whipped a metal blade out of the waistband of her non-Starfleet
regulation pants, which of course hid weapons and anything else one
wanted to conceal better than the Starfleet uniform did. When or why
B'Elanna had be allowed to change, Chakotay didn't know, though he
wondered why the Pelorans hadn't separated her from the weapon as they
had everyone else.
She briefly looked at Chakotay, keeping her hand with the blade
pressed discreetly against her leg. He didn't give her a response,
which he supposed was the equivalent of giving permission. B'Elanna
sidled over to the wall, drew her arm surreptitiously back and angled
the tip of the blade towards what looked like a seam in the wall.
Either it was case of terrifically awful timing, or the Pelorans
were indeed keeping an eye on their guests.
The so-called seam in the wall suddenly became a space inching
wider and wider as it rather rapidly became an opening door.
The blade disappeared back into B'Elanna's waistband. Her
expression became one of complete innocence and she backed quickly
away from the increasing gap. Chakotay cleared his throat and with a
gesture of his hand and tilt of his head swiftly brought total silence
to the room and all eyes to focus on the door.
An unfamiliar Peloran strode alone through the door, which clicked
shut behind him. He surveyed the silent room for a moment, and
Chakotay was glad to see that his Maquis had for the most part
successfully adapted expressions of placidity mixed with curiosity or
at least close facsimiles.
The Peloran stopped his observation and turned on his heel, eyes
towards Chakotay.
"Chakotay of the Maquis," he addressed, questioningly.
"Yes," Chakotay responded, careful to include respect but
also a bit of his own authority in his tone.
"I am Aris of the Pelorans. I have been appointed to represent
the interests of the Maquis in the upcoming hearing for a
resolution."
Chakotay hadn't noticed it before, but Aris removed a device that
honestly resembled a PADD from his belt and proffered it to Chakotay.
"The rules and regulations for the proceedings," he
explained. "It closely resembles your own judicial process, so I
don't believe you will have any objections."
At Chakotay's look of confusion, Aris continued, "We scanned
the databases of your shuttles for basic information on your
culture."
Chakotay nodded.
"There will in fact be three separate hearings, only one of
which directly involves the Maquis, but it should be known that the
content of and the information learned in the two prior cases may
influence your own hearing," Aris droned. "I recommend you
or another representative of Maquis attend them. I will be at all
three as the Maquis representative but I cannot participate for I was
not involved in the incident."
Aris seemed quite used to delivering this message.
"What is the purpose of three trials?" asked Chakotay,
already scanning the incredibly lengthy list of rules.
"To determine the custody of a Thomas Paris, the custody of a
Samantha and Naomi Wildman, and of course to develop a resolution in
custodial matters of the Maquis and Voyager."
"Custody of us?" questioned B'Elanna, darkly.
Chakotay sent her a warning look.
Aris nodded.
"We did not interpret a mutual resolution to mean deciding to
place the Maquis in anyone's custody," Chakotay elaborated.
"Placing the Maquis in Voyager's custody in only one possible
resolution," explained Aris. "It will be made clear at the
hearing that such a result is not your desire. Although I understand
it to be Voyager's intent."
Chakotay watched the faces of his Maquis darken with repressed
anger.
"Do you wish to proclaim intent for custody of the other three
involved?" asked Aris, oblivious to the Maquis response to the
mention of Voyager's intent. He took another PADD-like object and
preparing to record Chakotay's response.
"Of Thomas Paris?"
"No," Chakotay almost snorted. "Absolutely
not."
"Of Samantha and Naomi Wildman?"
Chakotay glanced at Dalby, who suddenly looked very worn down.
"Has she requested to join the Maquis?" Chakotay asked,
keeping his eyes on Dalby.
"I haven't spoken with her representative, but I believe in
her statement she distanced herself from the Maquis and from
Voyager," Aris replied.
Chakotay swept a glance over everyone, and with the exception of
Dalby and the scowl on B'Elanna's face, there didn't seem to be any
particular response to the mention of Wildman.
"If she wishes to join us, we have no objections," he
decided. "There's no need to force her."
"I know Voyager has requested her forcible return," Aris
offered, folding away his little device.
"If you have any questions regarding the regulations, I will
be available to answer them," Aris began to conclude. "I am
in the process of arranging accommodations less basic than these,
based upon information from your shuttle craft computers. You came
here so quickly I had not yet finished."
"We had no say in how quickly we came here," Chakotay
broached the subject of the Pelorans' inconsiderate behavior.
"It is standard procedure to separate the parties involved in
a dispute that has come under Peloran concern as quickly as possible,
before anything else is done," replied the representative in what
might have been an apology.
"Do you frequently become involved in foreign disputes?"
"As the most stable government in this region of space, we are
often impeded by the feuds of our neighbors, although usually smaller
and less complicated than the one involving yourselves and
Voyager," Aris answered. "It is Peloran policy to avoid
foreign disputes if possible."
"We had no intention of becoming involved but you had already
entered our space under deceptive fronts," he said, almost
tiredly.
"We had no intention of involving you," retorted
Chakotay. "Hence our deceptive fronts."
Aris smiled a little for the first time, and the ridge on his face
moved up a bit.
"I will finish those arrangements," he said, moving to
exit.
"More waiting," Chakotay heard Henley mutter after Aris
was gone.
Chakotay handed off the device containing the rules document to
her, indicating that she should read the lengthy thing and report on
its content since she had such a hard time waiting.
"At least now we know what's going to happen," remarked
B'Elanna, moving to stand beside Chakotay.
"Do we?" he asked.
Part 38
The Pelorans didn't seem to have a concept of politeness, for
there was no request made to Tom Paris asking if he wanted to or even
if he would mind being suddenly transported from his seat on the
shuttle to landing with a jolt on his seat in a very small and very
dim space.
At least he assumed it was the Pelorans, because he knew this
wasn't Voyager and the Maquis didn't have any place to beam him even
if they wanted to.
He couldn't find a door. He couldn't find anything. There didn't
seem to be anything in the room except him and a few lights in the
ceiling.
He was all alone. For a very long time. Warily, he sat down
on the hard floor in a corner and kept a quiet vigil for something to
happen.
He didn't have a chronometer, but it certainly felt like a
significant amount of time was passing.
He really wondered what was occurring that made the Pelorans decide
that he needed to be isolated. Visions of a "resolution"
being reached that involved his return to Voyager flashed through his
mind.
It only took a few minutes considering the likely consequences of
such an outcome for Tom to change his mind about sitting quietly on
the floor and behaving himself.
He got to his feet and shook out his tensing muscles.
"Hey," he said hoarsely. Clearing his throat, he
continued louder. "Hey!"
He didn't even get an echo for a response.
"I said, hey!" he bellowed, and slammed his fist into the
wall for emphasis.
Well, that hurt. Tom grimaced.
One had to suffer when one was, for all intents and purposes,
throwing a temper tantrum.
He lifted his hand again and was about to bring his arm down when
he heard a voice behind him.
"Please do not hurt yourself," murmured a solemn male
voice from over his shoulder.
Tom tried to twist around to face the newcomer-just where the hell
had he come from, anyway-and nearly tripped over his own feet.
He recovered less than gracefully, managing to remain upright and
but not in a particularly authoritative stance. A Peloran he hadn't
seen before -well, he'd only seen two-stood impassively against the
other wall.
"I wasn't trying to hurt myself," Tom said. "I was
trying to get your attention."
The ridge on the Peloran's face tilted a bit.
"And it worked," Tom added, feeling the ridge movement
was a Peloran equivalent to a smirk.
His guest let the confrontational comment pass, moving away from
the wall and extending a flat device towards Tom.
"Thomas Paris," he said, "I am Elis and I have been
selected to represent you in the upcoming hearings."
A little perplexed, Tom took the proffered object.
"You're my lawyer?"
"It is a role similar to that of a lawyer in the judicial
system to which you are accustomed," Elis offered. "That is
all the necessary information and explanations for our system,"
he explained, gesturing toward the device Tom now held.
Tom glanced at the text, noticing that it was an incredibly lengthy
document.
He, ruefully, had some experience with similar lengthy legal
documents. And he'd always had his lawyer explain them to him.
"How does you role differ from a lawyer?" he asked,
letting the device drop to rest against his thigh.
"I may only clarify issues. I cannot introduce anything into
consideration and I cannot interrogate speakers. My basic purpose is
to instruct you on the function of Peloran law and ensure that you are
able to adequately support your cause. It is meant to contribute to
maintaining order and dignity of the proceedings. I will only
interfere when there is a conflict or a misunderstanding in the
regulations. If you are incapable of properly representing yourself or
your case to the High Council I may step in to clarify your
intentions. "
"Oh," said Tom. He paused. "Do Voyager and the
Maquis get representatives?"
"Yes, as does Samantha Wildman and her daughter."
Tom nodded, not asking but assuming that Sam and Naomi had also
been rudely beamed elsewhere when he had.
"There will be two hearings other than your own," Elis
explained, "You do not have to be present for those, but know
that their content may influence the outcome of yours. The final
decisions will be reached at the conclusion of all three cases."
Tom nodded again. Clearly beginning to conclude, Elis took out a
similar-looking device to the one Tom had been given.
"Do you oppose being returned to Voyager?" Elis asked,
reading from the instrument.
"Yes," Tom replied emphatically.
Elis marked his response.
"Do you oppose being transferred to the custody of the
Maquis?"
"Hell yes!" Tom almost exploded.
Elis quirked his ridge mildly and recorded that response.
"Have the Maquis requested that I be transferred to their
custody?" Tom asked, suddenly as unpleasantly apprehensive as he
had been when he'd been all alone.
"Not to my knowledge," Elis said carefully. "But
they have that right."
"Great," Tom spat sarcastically.
"Do you have any requests relating to Samantha Wildman?"
continued Elis.
"Not personally, no." Tom sighed. "Except that she
should be allowed to go to whomever she wants to go."
"Noted," finished Elis.
He put the device away.
"I suggest you read the entire list of regulations. I will be
available if you have any further questions. I am in the process of
procuring you furnishings and provisions. Those should arrive
shortly."
"Yeah. Thanks," Tom said.
Elis exited, through a gap in the wall that developed at a seam and
then closed quickly.
***
Hours later, Tom reclined on the bunk that Elis had
procured for him. It was just as hard as the floor, but Tom wasn't
feeling particularly restful. He scanned the regulations for the
upcoming proceedings and felt more and more troubled. The Pelorans
intended to have a genuine investigation of the affairs of Voyager,
the Maquis, and himself, before, during and after the mutiny. He
didn't think anyone was going to come out as innocent and guilt-free.
Unknown to him, the Maquis were engaged in a similar activity on a
nearby deck. In their own bunks, set up like a large boarding room,
they discussed their likely future, based upon Henley's interpretation
of the rules document. It did not seem any more optimistic than that
of Tom Paris, but the knowledge that they shared it with so many
others, as they always had, made the nervousness less intense and the
opportunities for levity more abundant.
And as the feelings of unity comforted the Maquis, they worried
Samantha Wildman. She read her own copy of the regulations, delivered
by her own representative, and thought fatefully that she could no
longer avoid any judgement other than her own forgiving heart. It was
not this that bothered her so much, but that it would trickle down to
Naomi, curled up in her lap and whimpering about the dark.
On Voyager, its Captain's mind was perhaps the only thing not
consciously considering the hearings, as the rest of the crew-if they
weren't in sections of the ship with power failures or weren't
occupied with repairing those failures-now had the chance to read the
list of regulations now being circulated to everyone who had to
testify. And everyone had to testify. In her Ready Room, Captain
Janeway napped restlessly on her sofa, the PADD of the rules lying
against her chest. The grinding of repairs nearby finally caused her
to stir, and she awoke. She glanced down at the PADD, sighed deeply,
and stayed motionless, staring at a spot on the floor.
***********END PART 38***********
Notes:
This whole thing can soon be found at the lovely and generous and
occasionally filk-inflicting Jemima's website: [Moved to http://mjb.ficml.org/
- JP]
This is a sequel to Revolution which can be found at the same site,
and the second in a trilogy (I've decided), the third part of which is
swimming around in my brain. I have concluded my posting for a while
until the stress and busyness of Real Life ceases, but trust that I
will be writing the sequel and I will eventually be posting it. I
don't think it's fair to you or to me to promise to post the sequel
regularly when I don't think that's at all possible, because I'll be
breaking promises and I don't like doing that. I remember I finished
Rev I on Jan 31, 2000 (or 1999? my memory's going) and like to be
consitent on these type of things. I want to deeply thank all of my
faithful readers who stayed with me despite my erratic posting, and
sent little notes to tell me they were still there. Yes, busy as I am
in RL, I remain a feedback whore. I'll post Revolution III:
Resolutions in some time. See ya, MJB