For Photogirl1890. An embarrassingly long time ago, I asked her for three prompts. She sent back,
"Well that should make the rest of the trip back home more interesting."
"It was a planetary survey mission. I didn't realize you were expecting a souvenir." And,
"So, do you think it has potential?"
At long last, here are the resulting fics.
Thanks is also due to Photogirl since she has patiently and generously beta-read these pieces over the course of their slow creation. And thanks as well to Sareki for her helpful feedback on Proton universe technobabble.
Flight Dynamics:
Yaw, Pitch and Roll
"Every flying machine has four basic controls: power, pitch, yaw, and roll. Where are yours?" Starbuck, Battlestar Galactica
Yaw
"And how did I know I'd find you here?"
"B'Elanna!" Dropping the drink in his hand - the extra liquid will never be noticed on the permanently sticky tables and floor - Tom pushes through the press of bodies separating him from the chief engineer. "You shouldn't be here." Unthinking, he puts a hand to her elbow to guide her to the exit, scanning the crowd with growing apprehension.
"I shouldn't be here?" She shakes off his hand and stops dead, turning to glare at him. "What about you, Paris? I wasn't aware that enjoying the questionable pleasures of the local dive bar was one of the objectives for this away mission."
"Look, it's not what you think. We need to get you out of here." Tom tries his best imploring look. "Just trust me, okay?"
"Trust you? You? Really, Paris?"
Not that she doesn't have a point, but this is a bad time for such technicalities. Tom opens his mouth to respond when a pair of arms close around his waist from behind.
"Is this where you've been hiding from me, Tommy boy?"
He spins around in alarm that does not abate at the sight of his voluptuous captor. "Vala!"
Vala gazes at him in adoration as she loosens one hand to wag a finger, her Renuit phalanges glowing a soft blue in the dim lighting. "I thought you might be trying to run out on me early."
Torres, meanwhile, has stepped around to get a clear view of the proceedings. "Not what I thought, huh, 'Tommy boy'?"
Damn...
"Look, Torres, really..."
A roar from across the room swallows his words.
Vala turns toward the source of the roar and gives a satisfied smile. Reaching up on her tiptoes, she passes her lips across Tom's cheek before whispering, "As promised," in his ear and pressing a vial into his hand.
In the time it takes him to look down and verify the contents of the tube, she has slipped into the crowd.
"What the hell is that?" Torres snaps, eying the vial.
But Tom's attention has turned back to the commotion across the room which centers on a very large, very angry Renuit male.
A very large, very angry male whose eyes lock on Tom at the same moment Tom spots him.
"Paris!" The roar takes definite form and even Torres's eyes widen.
"Right. Time to leave," the engineer murmurs, and it's her turn to pull on Tom's arm as she backs towards the bar's exit.
Bull-like, roaring alien notwithstanding, Tom can't help his delight that she isn't instead securing a front row seat to watch him get pummeled. "Why, Torres – I didn't know you cared."
To which she gives an eloquent reply with her free hand while continuing to pull him to the door.
Pushing their way through an assortment of Delta Quadrant species that any Federation exobiologist would give his or her eye teeth – or whatever anatomical equivalent might be available – to view, they stumble through the exit and out into the clean and silent corridors of the Atarean space station.
Clean, silent and unmarked corridors.
Taking a fifty-fifty shot, Tom turns left, eager to put distance between them and the door that is likely going to reopen all too soon. A sharp yank on his arm spins him around.
"This way, Paris," B'Elanna hisses and sets off down the corridor without waiting to see if he will follow.
He considers arguing but fifty-fifty is still fifty-fifty, and, after all, a space station is more or less a huge, floating machine. If anyone has an edge navigating through a machine, it's Torres.
They turn two corners before Tom hears a tell-tale commotion from behind confirming that their pursuer (pursuers? It sounds like bull-man has friends...) have arrived in the corridor. Torres skids to a halt in front of one of the station's lifts expectantly.
The doors to the lift remain firmly closed.
"Hells..." The engineer attacks the panel at the lift's side. "We need to get down five levels to the docking ring," she explains without looking away from the panel. "The lifts have been stopped by some sort of override code." She frowns as she glances briefly at a second screen. "It looks like there is a waste chute there," she shrugs towards a slotted vent, "if we wanted to try our luck with that."
Tom grimaces at the vent. "Bad idea. I saw that in a movie once. Very bad results."
"'Movie'?" Torres queries, still working furiously.
"Old entertainment form…" An energy blast hits the wall at the end of the corridor, interrupting Tom's words. "You know what: not important."
"Right." The engineer taps out one final command with something that might almost be a flourish and the lift doors open. "In we go, flyboy."
A second energy blast adds emphasis to her words as the lift doors close them in. Which should be a relief. Except for the less-than-happy chief engineer who is giving Tom a look that could melt titanium.
"Now why, exactly, am I being shot at?"
Guessing it's his best chance at surviving until the lift doors reopen, Tom extracts Vala's vial from his pocket. "This," he says, tossing it to Torres.
She catches it with a frown. After a brief examination, her expression shifts. "Is this...?"
The doors open to reveal the docking ring. In tandem, they sprint for the airlock where the Drake is waiting.
"Get us moving," Torres directs unnecessarily as Tom slides into the pilot's seat.
"Thirty seconds," he calls over, cutting to a fourth the by-the-book Starfleet emergency shuttle flight prep time. A flashing light catches his attention. "B'Elanna, the station landing struts aren't retracting."
:Shuttle Drake, this is Atarean control tower. Your approved departure is not until the next cycle. If you wish to depart at an earlier window, please apply for the necessary variance:
A glance at Torres's less than diplomatic reaction has Tom jumping in to reply: "We're in a bit of a hurry. Would it be possible..."
"Weapons fire!" interrupts Torres a millisecond before the Drake rocks from the impact.
"Control tower, we need to depart now. We're under attack!"
:The Renuit vessels have authorization to use force in this facility's space. The shuttle Drake does not have authorization to depart at this time:
"You've got to be kidding me," Torres snaps. Diving under the co-pilot console, she tears off a panel and yanks out a series of isolinear chips. "Hands off the controls!" She yells to Tom, who pulls his fingers away from his panel as an electromagnetic surge dances over the screen and out onto the Drake's hull. The distinct pop of the landing struts disengaging follows.
"Go!" Torres shouts, as the shuttle jumps forward at Tom's command.
Jumps forward and nearly collides with the station's main docking pylon.
"B'Elanna?" Tom calls as he struggles to control the vessel.
The engineer pulls back up to the control panels. "Their first shot took out our starboard thrusters."
"Well that should make the rest of the trip back home more interesting," Tom mutters as he burns the port thrusters hard to spin the shuttle around and avoid more station infrastructure. "And 'they' are…?"
"Three ships," Torres confirms. "Closing fast." A pause and then, "I'm working on getting some more power to the shields."
Another jarring spin to clear the last of the station.
"So did you steal it?"
"What?" They're in open space now – except for those three Renuit ships which are continuing to fire with abandon.
"The tellerium. Did you steal it?"
Dive and then roll.
"No. Would it matter?" Were he not so distracted keeping them in one piece, Tom might give some more thought to the nuances of the sometime-Maquis-now-Starfleet engineer's ethical code.
"It might explain why we're being shot at."
Which is fair enough. "I traded for it." A well-timed acceleration leads to one of the Renuit vessels finding itself on the unfortunate end of friendly fire.
"Traded? With Vala? Paris, you didn't..."
Interestingly, the engineer's tone suggests that that would matter.
"Shocking though it might be, no, I did not." The Drake shudders and spins as another shot hits home.
Half-flung from her seat, Torres glares over at him. "Then who's shooting at us and why?"
Another dive and again a hard burn on the port thrusters. "Vala's husband. She says he's the jealous type."
"But you said you didn't..."
"No, I didn't." They are ahead of the Renuit now. "Are we good to go to warp?"
"Whenever you're ready."
"Getting us the hell out of here – now!"
Star trails replace alien ships on the viewscreen; Tom slumps back into his seat in relief.
"No sign of pursuit."
"Setting a course for our rendezvous point with Voyager – though we're going to be a few hours early."
A minute passes as they each work at their respective stations.
"So you didn't sleep with her?"
Tom glances up, but the engineer's eyes are on the panels in front of her. "No, I didn't sleep with her," he confirms.
"And you didn't steal the tellerium?"
"Nope."
"So why the hell were we being shot at?"
Entering a last command, Tom swings around in his seat. "Vala's family runs the tellerium refinery and, like I said, Vala's husband is the jealous sort." At Torres's impatiently raised brows, he continues, "And their relationship evidently thrives on a certain amount of…well…drama. I offered to provide some...drama...in return for some tellerium." Tom shrugs, oddly uncomfortable under the engineer's unreadable stare.
Not responding immediately, Torres pulls the vial of tellerium back out of her pocket and considers it. She looks over at Tom, her expression still indecipherable. "So without stealing or trading Federation technology and while even keeping your pants on, you managed to get us enough tellerium to keep my engines running for the next year?"
Again, Tom shrugs.
One corner of the engineer's mouth lifts into a half-smile as she shakes her head and looks back down at her panel. She neither glances back up nor utters another word, but the smile remains as she continues her work.
And damn if she doesn't have a nice smile.
This might make the rest of the trip back home more interesting indeed.
