I don't own star trek...yet!

Secret Hero chapter four

Tom had now been a member of the crew for ten months. Slowly the ship was making its way back to the Alpha quadrant, and in the mean time, roughly 60 years, Tom was expected to play nice and be a member of the crew.

He wasn't!

No matter how he acted people on board the ship still treated him like he was a useless traitor…even the holographic doctor seemed to have more friends than him! In the meantime the two crews were getting along very well. B'Elanna Torres was the new chief of Engineering, and Chakotay was the first officer: something Tom wasn't happy about. He didn't know why when he'd first met Chakotay it'd felt very familiar, but for no reason the man had always been really mean to him. He decided it must be because of his father, and the way he'd screwed up.

He'd always regretted what had happened, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He didn't know why it'd happened; he'd been so down at the time he didn't really care, and it was only because of the fact his friend died that he came forwards. He'd basically lost interest in life, and that was a wake up call. Then he'd been kicked out of Starfleet, and joined the Marquais. When he looked back it was easy to see that where he'd all gone wrong was the night he got drunk and fell off the cliff. From then on his life had fallen to pieces…and now because of that he was stuck on Voyager for the rest of his life, however long that'd be.

Voyagers trip so far had been far from uneventful. They'd already made several allies, and about twice as many enemies. They'd nearly died on many occasions, and had only barely scraped through, though Tom had to say Janeway was a great captain. She'd obviously do anything for her crew, but would still follow the prime directive as much as she could, and when she couldn't she'd take the blame.

So far Tom had made a few friends. Their first day in the delta quadrant Tom had saved Chakotay's life, but the man had still been a pig to him. Of course he still had Harry Kim, and the doctor wasn't too bad. He quite liked Kes, the Occumpan girl they'd rescued, but she had a bit of an over protective boyfriend. To be honest he didn't like the girl enough to actually date her, but he liked winding Nelix up. He'd chatted with several people on board the crew, and once they got ot know him they didn't find him too bad. He'd even hooked up with a guy from one of the maintenance crews after they'd got drunk in the holodeck. The next morning they'd both agreed that they'd better keep it to themselves.

He'd been given the duty of helmsman, and he was grateful for that; he didn't want to end up on cleaning duty or some shit like that. Everyone knew he was extremely qualified, but they seemed to enjoy watching him squirm and salute. Tom was so pissed that even bloody Chakotay (who had no Starfleet training) got promoted over him, though he could understand why.

He was currently sitting at the helm, making some course adjustments for when they left orbit. They were holding some diplomatic meetings on the surface of the globe, but were planning to leave tomorrow. Tom couldn't wait to be flying his ship again. He wouldn't admit it, but when he was flying Voyager he felt completely at home, and peaceful. He could forget about all the rubbish that's happened in his life, and just fly. He could imagine he was ten again, and racing his best friends in their holoplanes, or that he had just arrived at the academy and was showing off to his instructor, or he'd just forget about everyone else on the bridge, and just be Tom.

When he was Tom he was relaxed. He had wondered sometimes if he suffered from split personalities, because it felt like at some times he was Tom, a happy, confident person, whom people seemed to love; but at other times he was this man who was mean, arrogant, and generally a bad boy. Admittedly the latter did seem to get him laid more often, but it was sort of like a defence mechanism, that when he felt threatened the other man would take over Tom's body.

He'd noticed that the more time he spent on the bridge flying, the more he'd be Tom, and the more people would like him. He'd be witty, and they'd laugh. He'd say something, and they'd listen. Even Tuvok seemed to like him sometimes…very rarely.

He'd also felt someone watching him a lot while he was driving. At first he'd thought it was the captain, checking up to make sure he wasn't about to flip and drive them into a plant. He'd been convinced it was her, until he'd turned round suddenly one day, and found himself staring into the slightly surprised looking eyes of Chakotay. He'd quickly demanded a status update, before talking with someone else, but Tom was certain from that point on it was Chakotay's eyes he felt exploring his back.

That just pissed him off.

Obviously the man still hated him. Tom wondered if maybe he'd run over Chakotay's cat in a past life, as that was the only reason he could explain this unusual hatred he felt from him. Sometimes it reminded Tom of the way his father hated him, and that just upset him more; even all this way from Earth he could still feel his fathers disappointment in him.

He was just thinking about all of this when he was brought back to reality by a beeping to his right.

"Tom to engineering. Are you running any tests on the warp drive at the moment?"

"No, but we did this morning. Everything was fine."

"Ok. Sir," He turned to Janeway. "Someone's activating the warp drive."

"Tuvok, track them down and lock them out."

"They're doing it from outside the ship. I've got a lock on them. They've stopped."

"Where was it coming from?" Janeway stood up and started pacing the deck.

"Somewhere on the surface. The east side of the capital. I think they were doing it from a public information point."

"They were trying to set a course to a nearby system, called the Phlerate system." Kim quickly informed the captain. "There are no inhabited planets in that system, and a dwarf star."

"Any guesses why they want us to leave?"

"Maybe they're fed up with us being in their sky?" Tom suggested.

"I think it's got something to do with that missing council member." The captain and B'Elanna had been trying to arrange to trade something for some power couplings, but this planets customs meant that ever trade had to be debated on whether it would benefit their planet or not, which took a long time. They had already been here for a week, but they were pretty certain they were going to get the power couplings. That was until the main debater in favour disappeared without a trace. Now they weren't so sure what was happening.

"I think it would be wise to inform the council of this attempt of sabotage." Tuvok was talking to Janeway, but once again saying everything in the longest way possible. Tom couldn't help but wonder what Tuvok as a toddler would be like.

"Good idea. We'll go immediately. Chakotay, you have the bridge."

"Yes sir." Five minutes later and the shifts switched over. Tom headed to get some dinner with Harry. On the way they were discussing the motives of hacking into Voyager.

"Maybe they want rid of us." Tom (aka captain obvious) pointed out.

"You think? ;The captain's right; it's something to do with the debater. Maybe who ever took him thought we were getting close, so wanted us out of the picture too."

"If they wanted us to go and never come back don't you think they'd blow us up or something?"

"Well they could hardly do that right in front of everybody could they? No, they'd have to take us somewhere more private, and then blow us up."

"but the Yamecko people (the people whose planet they were orbiting) don't have space travel, so they'd have to already have planted the bomb."

They looked at each other.

"You don't think-"

"No. Possibly. Yes!" They stopped in their tracks, before turning tail and running to engineering. Tom made it there just before Harry. "B'Elanna! Run a scan of the hull. Check for any unidentified objects; probably very small ones."

"Look Paris, I don't-"

"We think there's a bomb!"

She shut up quickly then, before turning and doing as Tom ordered. Even with death possibly around the corner he couldn't help but smirk at the fact she was doing what he told her. When he'd been in the Marquais she's been a real bitch to him, mainly because she'd simply followed Chakotay's lead. For that reason he'd always hate her, just like him.

"There's something on the fore-hull! I'm ejecting the plate it's attached to – this could get me in a lot of trouble!"

As soon as she'd ejected the plate she put a tracking beam on it to hold it away from the ship.

"Chakotay to B'Elanna. Why is that a bit of the ship floating off the port bow?"

"We think there might be a bomb attacked to it."

"Please explain your logic."

She looked at Tom.

Taking a hint Tom replied "Whoever was trying to hack into the system wanted us away from their planet, but with that distance it would only have taken us a day at warp 2 to get back, so obviously they just wanted us off their scanner range, and then they were going to destroy us. As they're not capable of space travel because of their beliefs it would mean that the bomb is already attacked, and there is something unknown attacked to that decking plate." Tom resisted the urge to say 'so there' or blow a raspberry.

After a few seconds of silence Chakotay said "alright. Scan it and tell me what it is," before cutting them off.

Harry turned to Tom. "Food now, work later!" With a smirk Tom was following him out to the hall way, just as the bomb exploded. The ship shuddered slightly, as the bomb they hadn't noticed on the aft-hull tore a hole in their deck, before being covered by a force field.

Harry staggered to his feet, and turned to the sound of Tom screaming in pain. When the bomb exploded the ships primary computer functions had malfunctioned, before the secondary backup kicked in, but that time in between was just long enough for the doors to engineering to slam shut with enough force to sever Tom's right leg smoothly through the thigh.

His mind was racing as he saw his blood pouring everywhere. He hadn't registered what'd happened. He noticed that Harry was staggering towards him, though he too had some blood on his face from where he's smashed it hitting the ground. He was just wondering where his leg was when the doors opened again, and there stood B'Elanna Torres holding his leg in the air. The last thought he had before he lost consciousness was 'she hated me so much she ripped my leg off? I wonder what she's like in bed.' And then it was black.

Hi everyone. I hope you like this chapter! Please review, and the next chapter should be up soon. If you have any questions feel free to ask, and I welcome constructive criticism, but no flaming please!

TTFN