Author's Note: This story takes place early in the Voyager series and is set some time after "Investigations" but before "Basics, Part 2". Originally printed in the hardcopy fanzine We'll Always Have Paris, published by Unicorn Press, 1997, this is the first time it has appeared on the net. The usual disclaimers apply. Paramount owns the Voyager universe and the characters of Paris and Kes. Melchor and the plot are mine. Reviews and constructive criticism, always welcome.
by Maddie
Jerking his head upward with a start, he shook the fog from his mind, then blinked in the brilliant sunshine. Disoriented, he closed his eyes and lay back on the warm stone wondering what had startled him awake. Then he remembered, it had been a deep rumbling sound. His eyes shot open and he rolled his head to the left where she still sat, meticulously cataloguing plant samples, just as she had been doing when he had drifted.
"Awake?" Kes asked, not looking up from her work, her delicate fingers, flitting across the padd in her hand. The corners of her mouth twitched as laughter threatened to engulf her features, her eyes twinkling.
"Uh..." Brilliant, some part of his mind told him, brilliant repartee, but he could not quite get his voice to cooperate. "Yeah." He finally managed. The flat, broad rock he lay on was baked warm by the midday sun, and despite its hardness, felt incredibly comfortable. He rolled over to face the young Ocampa. "I think. Did I fall asleep?" he asked, his voice rising in the annoying way it did when he was caught off guard and embarrassed.
Then Kes did laugh, her face alight with impish glee. "Yes," she said through the giggles. "Right in mid sentence."
"Uh..." he mumbled again. "What were we talking about?"
Kes barely controlled her laughter. "You had asked if we had found anything interesting, and I was very excited about the medicinal potential of some of the plant samples we collected, as well as their food value. Somewhere around sentence three, you...fell asleep. Rather loudly."
"Loudly?"
"Yes, Tom Paris. Loudly." Again Kes battled the giggles edging into her voice. "Did anyone ever tell you, you snore?"
Paris rolled to his back and closed his eyes again. "Not in the recent half century?" he answered blearily.
"Well, your secret is safe with me." Kes said.
Reluctant to sit up, yet, not wanting to get caught napping by any other members of the away team Paris dragged his eyes open. Kes had continued to work as they talked, reducing the pile of plant samples in front of her to data in her tricorder. Sunshine glinted off her hair, tangling in the stands of fine gold and shimmering like a mystic halo. Sitting cross-legged in the secluded glade in which they had paused to rest, surrounded by the delicate greens and dappled shadows, she looked for all the world like the fairies and sprites in the story tapes he had read as a child. Her delicate upswept ears and pixy features, her petite form, all lending credence to the fantasy.
Paris found himself smiling.
"We're not here for a picnic, Paris."
Kes jumped, startled by the intruding voice, her eyes widened, and a faint blush colored her cheeks.
****
Kes felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and burn momentarily hot, then realized she had nothing to be embarrassed about. She stared up at the intruder who had emerged from the underbrush behind Paris, then let out a soft sigh. It was only Lieutenant Melchor, the mission specialist for the away team, a member of the Starfleet crew, he had originally trained as an engineer, but was also a very talented botanist who had proven invaluable on more than one foraging expedition. She smiled and started to speak, to explain to Melchor that it had been her suggestion to rest, when she caught the look on Paris' face. It was a mask she had not seen him wear in her presence recently, the one he had worn the first time she had seen him, standing in the background ebb and flow on board Voyager, observing what transpired around him with detached interest colored with cynical amusement. The veiled blue eyes, and smirking half grin, were expressions she had come to associate with the "old" Tom Paris.
Before she could speak, Paris pushed lazily to a half-sitting position making no effort to stand. Melchor circled the flat rock on which the pilot reclined to stand so they faced one another. Kes could feel the unexpressed tension in the air, see it on the faces of the two men before her, and read the unspoken confrontation in Paris' insubordinate posture. Leaning casually back on one elbow, carelessly flicking a tiny pebble from the stone surface in front of him, his eyes challenged Melchor as his silence did.
"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?" Paris questioned, his phrasing an intentionally laconic drawl.
Kes could sense the sudden stiffening in Melchor's posture, though his face reflected no emotion.
"You didn't answer my hail," Melchor said evenly. "Now I understand why."
Paris laughed, shook his head, then lay back down, his eyes closed. "You have an overactive imagination, Merritt."
At the casual use of his first name, Melchor's face did flush with anger. He resents the familiarity, or perhaps, Kes thought, he prefers to have people, Paris in particular, defer to his rank.
"That fact remains that you did not respond, and in doing so might have seriously jeopardized your safety, along with that of your partner, and myself, since I had to come looking for you."
"The fact remains," Paris said sharply, sitting up and facing Melchor, "that we weren't hailed."
"The channel was open. I placed the hail myself."
"But we didn't receive it," Kes intervened, attempting to diffuse the situation. "We really didn't. What did you need to tell us?"
Melchor turned sharply, his voice controlled, but the color in his face rising.
"This discussion is between Lieutenant Paris and myself."
Paris came quickly to his feet, stepping close to Melchor, but keeping his hands carefully by his sides. "The lady asked a question." Paris' inflection was light, but his demeanor backed his apparently frivolous tone with a belligerent attitude that only a blind man would fail to comprehend. "It would be polite to answer."
Melchor did not respond, and the ensuing the silence was taut with anger, drawn thinner as each second passed until it would surely reach a breaking point. The two men stood face to face, within inches of each other, but not touching, and Kes held her breath, not wanting to fuel the obvious resentment.
Finally, Melchor retreated a single step, and although neither man altered his posture in any other way, the 'giving in' was accomplished. Melchor took a single deep breath then turned to Kes, anger still coloring his voice and his manner, though his words were properly phrased. He spoke directly to her, ignoring Paris. "We've received word from Voyager. Their surface scans indicate a large concentration of broad leafed plants similar to specimens belonging to the Order Aramaecae. We've had some luck extracting a chematotrophin from the roots of like plants that might be of value in prolonging the health of the gel packs."
"I'm familiar with the studies you've been doing. They're quiet brilliant," Kes added, gently nudging Melchor away from his angry encounter with Paris now that she had him talking. "Where exactly are the plants located?"
"Approximately one point five kilometers south of here. A very large stand. Since you seem most adept at cataloguing this type of sample, I would like you to proceed there."
Kes, nodded, then looked past Melchor to where Paris now stood, arms crossed on his chest, silent but wary. She sensed he wanted to ask a question, and guessed its nature. "I'm still puzzled as to why we did not receive either your transmission or the one from Voyager," Kes said. "The ship should be broadcasting on a broad, open channel."
Melchor shrugged, "The solar flare activity we noted when we took orbit has increased dramatically. Communications are all but impossible, surface scans are becoming indistinct, which is why they wanted us to investigate from here, and transporters are also having problems locking on to surface personnel because of the irradiated particles in the ionosphere. They used a tightly focused comm channel to contact the primary mission shuttle."
"Is there any immediate danger to the away team." Paris asked, his voice cautiously neutral, but leaving no doubt his word was final in any matter concerning crew safety.
Still not looking directly at Paris, Melchor answered, "Voyager didn't think so. Shuttle performance will not be affected. Surface radiation levels are also stable. We're only having problems with communications and to a limited extent, sensors and transporters."
"Any additional orders from the Captain?" Paris asked.
Melchor cast a sidelong glance at the helmsman, the spoke directly to Kes. "No other changes in our original schedule. We plan on leaving the planet's surface approximately one hour before dark."
"Then we have plenty of time to investigate that stand of Aramaecae." Kes said, finding it difficult to hide her enthusiasm. Besides, she thought, better to ease these two apart before they start sparring again. Gathering up her tricorder, she took a step between the two men.
"Make sure the other members of the away team are aware of the communications problem," Paris said.
Melchor nodded once, before he turned to leave, Kes saw an odd expression pass over his face. She was not sure if it was relief, or satisfaction, and she felt a sudden chill of apprehension, as swift and fleeting an impression as the touch of a cool breeze. Then the feeling, and Melchor were gone. Turning to Paris, she found him staring at the patch of underbrush into which Melchor had disappeared.
"He's good at appearing and disappearing," Kes said, trying to recapture the comfortable, relaxed interlude they had shared before Melchor's intrusion.
"Like a snake." Paris still wore the same expression he had when Melchor first appeared, removed, yet wary.
"What is it, Tom?"
He did not answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched in a sarcastic imitation of a smile. "Long story, Kes."
Reaching out she lay her hand on his arm, "Its a long walk." Turning him, she started out in the direction Melchor had indicated. "I can listen."
****
Paris followed as Kes passed effortlessly through the underbrush, her sense of direction uncanny and unerring. He wondered how a species that had spent most of the last five centuries buried underground in rigidly controlled environmental conditions could possess such an innate ability to deal with the natural environment. They had traveled a little more than half a kilometer when the shrubs and low growth thinned and Kes slowed her pace, allowing him to walk beside her. As they walked she had continued to collect and catalogue plant samples, the soft bleep and whir of her tricorder the only unnatural sound.
"So?" she asked at last, breaking the silence.
Paris shrugged, looking down into her concerned blue eyes and feeling decidedly uncomfortable. Kes did not need to know what Melchor thought of him, and vice versa. "It really was nothing," he said smiling his most disarming grin. "A misunderstanding."
He felt Kes' hand on his arm, the slight squeeze of her fingers. Then she stopped, and pulled him to a stop as well. "You forget, Tom, I may be very good at observation, but I'm also an empath, even if only a latent one. What I saw...what I felt was not 'nothing'. Melchor's resentment runs deep."
"Yes," Paris agreed. "But that isn't so different, now is it?"
He saw the sadness shadow across her face, darkening the clear blue of her eyes and turning her mouth downward. "I thought things had gotten better since...the incident with Michael Jonas?"
Paris shook his head, a sardonic half smile creasing his handsome features. I had hoped they would, he thought silently, aware he was doing a poor job of hiding his feelings from Kes. The concern in her face was more cutting than Melchor's attitude or words. "Some people will never stop thinking of me as an outsider, Kes. It doesn't matter what I do or say." So I've stopped trying to convince them otherwise, he added to himself.
"Melchor is one of those." Kes asked, her hand on his arm tightening slightly.
Paris nodded.
"Tell me." Kes eyebrows drew together, her expression that of an old fashioned school marm, stern and demanding. Paris was not going to get out of telling her that easily.
With a sigh, Paris shook his head again, then smiled, a warm genuine smile, touched by Kes' heartfelt concern.
"It goes back to the Alpha Quadrant, Kes. Back to when I first came aboard Voyager. Things were different. Attitudes were different. It wasn't Maquis versus Starfleet then, it was more like Starfleet versus Tom Paris." With rare exceptions, he thought. Like Harry. "Everyone seemed to know who I was and what I'd done. Some were more blatant about expressing their dislike. Doctor Fitzgerald, Cavit, even Stadi. Others were more subtle, but the feeling was there. I was the outsider, an 'observer' and nothing more. Forever watching what I couldn't have." Paris cut off the words, stemming the bitterness, that never quite went away, the burden he would never completely shed, as long as someone remembered the Alpha Quadrant. He did not want that to sour his relationship with Kes. A relationship he had come to cherish, even though, he was, once again, all too much the outsider, observing what he could never possess.
The touch of Kes' fingers on his cheek, a feather light brush of fingertips, yet as jolting as a phaser on full stun, brought him back. She still waited patiently.
"Melchor," he said simply, as thought the name itself was explanation. "I had a hard time figuring him out. He's one of those people who fade into the background. You never know they're there. Never know what they're thinking."
"He's Starfleet." Kes commented when he paused again.
"Yeah. A good 'fleeter. Steady. Dependable. But nothing outstanding." The kind of loyal, unquestioning crewman Dad would have loved, he thought. A model officer. Never out of line. And never brilliant.
"A follower." Kes said again.
Paris nodded. "That's how I always read him. He was one of Cavit's puppies. Liked what Cavit liked. Disliked what Cavit disliked."
"And Cavit disliked you?" Kes forehead creased with concern.
"Look, Kes," Paris smiled, trying to lighten her dismal mood. "That's all ancient history. This is the Delta Quadrant. Cavit is no longer here."
"But the resentment and anger are."
Paris cocked his head to one side, took a deep breath, and continued. "I don't know. Maybe he blames me for Michael Jonas' death." He tried to make the statement sound flat, emotionless, as though the possibility was of no concern. The last thing he wanted was for Kes to worry. As soon as he had said the words he knew he had made a mistake.
Kes stepped back, "But you had nothing to do with that. Neelix..."
"Yeah, Neelix may have been the one who pushed Jonas into the warp core, but I'm the one who pushed until Jonas' activities were exposed. Neelix just came in on the tail end of things. Wrong place at the wrong time."
"I didn't know Melchor and Jonas were friends."
"Surprised me too," Paris said. "Seems they were extremely close friends. Jonas never struck me as the charismatic type, but Melchor was stuck to him like an old coon hound to its master."
Kes walked a few paces away, then turned to face Paris, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, her body stiff with tension. "Do you think he knew what Jonas was doing? Transmitting information to the Kazon."
Paris shrugged. "Melchor was too loyal to Starfleet to be a spy. And in all honesty, I doubt he had the imagination. But, I don't know. I just know he isn't too fond of me. Probably wishes Neelix's allegation that I was the spy was the truth. "
Stepping closer to Kes, Paris took her firmly by the shoulders. "Now let's forget him. Enjoy what's left of the day. We may not see planetside again for weeks."
Kes smiled, then nodded. Taking out her tricorder she slipped free of his grip and quickly scanned the area. "That stand of Aramaecae is just on top of a slight rise. A few minutes more in this direction."
Turning, the Ocampa moved off in the direction they had been walking, her step light and apparently carefree, caught again in the joy of exploring. Paris watched for a moment, envious of her ability to find pleasure so easily in simple things. He tried to convince himself the incident with Melchor was a passing irritation, something that might never go away, but need not hang like a dark cloud over his every move. He was not very successful. Breaking into a dog trot, he jogged after the receding back of his companion.
****