(Left poised on the brink of rescue or further attack??? I couldn't leave him like that for long.)
Chapter Five
Only twelve years old, alone and frightened. He thought they wanted to kill him.
"I'm sorry kid. You understand why we had to do this don't you?"
Tommy peered up at him and nodded; the recent beating still fresh in his mind.
"It's your fathers fault, we warned him about what would happen if he defied our requests. You remember what we told you?" The man, a human with dark hair and brown eyes, asked.
"Yes."
"Say it."
"Your name is Jared Grey. You want my father to know you keep your promises." Tommy recited before standing up. He didn't understand any of it, but he'd tell them anything they wanted to hear if it meant they'd stop hurting him.
"Get out of here." Jared Grey ordered.
Tommy walked out of the hatch and into the dim light of the space station docking pad. Jared Grey walked back towards the shuttle and initiated the take off sequence. The bay doors closed between Tommy and the shuttle, and for the first time since the man dragged him away from the rest of his group, he actually started to believe everything would turn out okay.
In cargo sections the lifts didn't have doors like in the passenger areas. This one was broken. Tommy slid open the cage doors and contemplated the ladder along the side of the turbo lift shaft, which led up to the more populated areas of the space station.
Tommy reached out, a fingertip grazing the metal of the ladder. He stretched some more and was able to grab hold of the ladder. With his hands firmly gripping the ladder he swung the rest of his small body across. He sighed with relief when both feet were safely on the ladder's rung. He briefly looked down to see where he would have ended up had he fallen. He didn't want to go in that direction.
He didn't have to climb out this way. Eventually someone would notice him missing and begin a search, but Tommy didn't want to wait. He didn't want to be found waiting in the shuttle bay to be rescued, and he didn't want to have to explain why he needed rescuing.
He felt stupid for letting this happen. He took self defence classes in school. Looking back he could think of at least ten things he should have done when the strong arms grabbed him from behind. He should have fought, struggled, bit, screamed, anything just so long as he didn't allow himself get taken by the man. But he didn't. Tommy Paris froze.
Jared Grey wanted him to go crying to his father, fine. Jared Grey and his fists could go shove themselves out the nearest airlock. Tommy would stay silent. He started to climb.
He expected there to be another opening like the one he entered into the shaft by, but he couldn't see one so he continued to climb. Minutes passed, and it didn't take long before he realized that climbing into a turbolift shaft wasn't such a great idea after all.
Darkness surrounded him completely, and due to the frequent twists and turns he could no longer even see the light from the exit below. He reached up blindly for the next rung on the ladder, carefully pulling himself up and securing new footing before reaching up for the next. His arms ached, and the rust on the metal rungs dug into the skin of his hands. He already had blisters from the climbing and Tommy stopped to rest before starting his climb again. He considered making his way back down, but he couldn't bring himself to give up yet. He still believed he could finish this. He would find a way out of the turbolift and rejoin the field trip, he could tell them he fell down a flight of stairs or something to explain his injuries, and everything would be okay. No one had to know what a coward he really was.
He reached up for the next rung, his fingers wrapped around the rusted metal and he pulled his foot up… the metal broke… he lost his balance…
Back on Voyager…
With propulsion repaired and the Kazon threat neutralized, Voyager entered the gas cloud. The ship's sensors picked up the Federation signature of the shuttle within an hour of initiating scans. Now came the time for retrieval.
"Captain, I request permission to join the rescue party."
Janeway looked at the Ensign but couldn't hold his gaze for long. Everyone on the ship knew of the unlikely friendship between Harry and Tom. The two were like brothers and practically inseparable in their off hours. Times like these reminded Janeway of exactly how inexperienced many members of her crew were, especially Harry Kim. Even with all their experiences in the D.Q. so far, couldn't Harry see that the away team headed to the shuttle were a rescue party in name alone?
"Sorry Ensign, you're needed here." She said as she headed for the turbo lift, leaving no room for protests. "Commander, You have the bridge."
They couldn't bring the shuttle in with the tractor beam, the likelihood being that it would tear the damaged shuttle apart by the time it reached Voyager. They needed to make the first trip Kathryn intended to be on it. If Lieutenant Paris died as a result of a mission she assigned to him, it seemed only proper she be the one to recover the body.
She put a halt to that thought. Thinking of him as already dead didn't help anyone, and the scans did detect minimal environmental control still operating. Even with the condition of the shuttle being as bad as it was, the hull didn't breach. There was still a chance.
Kes, Ensign Baytart, and Joe Carey were already waiting in the shuttlebay.
Kathryn stared at Kes. "Are you ready?"
Kes nodded.
"You've never been in a situation like this before. I know you and Tom are friends, I'll understand if-"
"Thank-you Captain." Kes said softly. "I'll be okay."
It didn't take long to launch and then connect the two shuttles. Lt Carey carefully cut open a section of the hull. "Captain." He called to gain her attention as he opened the hole for them to fit through. Noxious smoke poured into their shuttle and the environmental controls automatically increased their power output in an attempt to clean the air.
"Thank you." She allowed the air to vent before entering. She switched on her flashlight and stepped inside the dark interior of the shuttle. Whatever hope she had of Paris being alive quickly faded as she surveyed the damage. Despite the amount of smoke already vented by the connecting shuttle, the smoke in the cabin frustrated the search. Primarily she aimed her light along the floor, looking for Tom's body.
A sound to the left caught her attention. Kathryn aimed her light in the direction of the noise and held her breath as her light found the leg of her helmsmen. She saw no movement in the limb, and her stomach churned as she swung the light up along the body.
Blood stained his uniform in several places and the prognosis did not look good, but Kathryn thanked every god of every religion she knew when she saw his chest move with a laboured breath. "Kes!"
Kes had been waiting just on the other side of the hatch and now ran in and quickly knelt beside Tom.
Joe Carey followed close behind, but did not advance too close. "If you need any help let me know. I'll recalibrate the environmental controls to clear the air in here." He said and disappeared back into the other shuttle.
"Janeway to Torres."
"Yes Captain?"
"Do we have the transporters back yet?"
"With the enhancers I might be able to manage something."
Kathryn arranged the enhancers into a triangular formation. "We're all set here. Two to beam to sickbay." She stepped back and watched as Kes and Tom disappeared in the transporter beam.
…Five hours later…
Tom lay on the bio-bed staring up at the ceiling. He didn't feel anything. No pain, no sensation whatsoever. He might have been floating rather than lying down.
He looked to the right. Kes stood at the medical console entering something into it.
"Kes." He spoke without meaning to, and the word came out as little more then a whisper.
She turned around and quickly came to his side. "Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"Nothing." He smiled at her look of confusion. "The nothing is good."
Kes nodded and ran a medical tricorder over him. "You're doing better."
He lifted his left arm and looked at his hand. It felt bizarre to see it and not feel it. He tried to lift the right arm, but couldn't. He looked down and it looked normal, no burns, and no evidence of any damage. "How's the shuttle?"
Kes turned away. "You need rest."
He watched as she prepared a hypospray. "I'm not tired." He heard the hiss of release as she pressed it to his neck and the comfortable nothing turned to darkness.
The darkness allowed his subconscious to surface and with it memories.
Patients do not normally wake up in stasis while being moved to a more advanced medial facility.
He remembered the distinct feeling of the rusted metal crumbling in his hand and he remembered falling. When he woke up he thought he was still on the space station. He couldn't move, he couldn't see, and he couldn't feel any pain. Tommy Paris, a boy the of age twelve who once dreamed of sailing Earths oceans, believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he lay dead at the bottom of the turbo lift.
"Mr. Paris."
He opened his eyes and the dream faded.
"How are you feeling?" The Doctor asked.
He considered that for a moment while he tried to focus on reality and push the images from his dream as far back into his mind as possible. Tom stretched experimentally. "Good." He made a fist with his right hand. It felt strange.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "You required major re-constructive surgery to the nerves in your arm. Thanks to my skill and expertise however, you should feel sensation return to your hand within the next week. Until then you are on medical leave."
"So, that means I can go?"
"No. You've just woken up from thirty-three hours of recovery. In that time I managed to repair the neural damage to your forearm, numerous broken ribs, a fracture to your femoral neck, and a shattered aceatabulum. You've recovered from anaemia and severe damage to your lungs due to the toxins you breathed for five hours while you waited to be rescued. You won't be going anywhere until I am completely satisfied that you've reached a sufficient level of recovery." He waited for his lecture to sink in, although he doubted that his most frequent patient ever paid any notice, but at least he tried. "I have for you a list of exercises and stretches that must be completed each day, I'd like to go over them with you."
Tom accepted the padd in his left hand. It detailed thirty pages of therapeutic exercises. "Sounds thrilling."
"I am glad you think so. Now, if you could access page three you will see a diagram of-"
Tom tuned the Doctor out, and could only hope to gain that sufficient level of recovery as soon as possible.
Chapter Five
Only twelve years old, alone and frightened. He thought they wanted to kill him.
"I'm sorry kid. You understand why we had to do this don't you?"
Tommy peered up at him and nodded; the recent beating still fresh in his mind.
"It's your fathers fault, we warned him about what would happen if he defied our requests. You remember what we told you?" The man, a human with dark hair and brown eyes, asked.
"Yes."
"Say it."
"Your name is Jared Grey. You want my father to know you keep your promises." Tommy recited before standing up. He didn't understand any of it, but he'd tell them anything they wanted to hear if it meant they'd stop hurting him.
"Get out of here." Jared Grey ordered.
Tommy walked out of the hatch and into the dim light of the space station docking pad. Jared Grey walked back towards the shuttle and initiated the take off sequence. The bay doors closed between Tommy and the shuttle, and for the first time since the man dragged him away from the rest of his group, he actually started to believe everything would turn out okay.
In cargo sections the lifts didn't have doors like in the passenger areas. This one was broken. Tommy slid open the cage doors and contemplated the ladder along the side of the turbo lift shaft, which led up to the more populated areas of the space station.
Tommy reached out, a fingertip grazing the metal of the ladder. He stretched some more and was able to grab hold of the ladder. With his hands firmly gripping the ladder he swung the rest of his small body across. He sighed with relief when both feet were safely on the ladder's rung. He briefly looked down to see where he would have ended up had he fallen. He didn't want to go in that direction.
He didn't have to climb out this way. Eventually someone would notice him missing and begin a search, but Tommy didn't want to wait. He didn't want to be found waiting in the shuttle bay to be rescued, and he didn't want to have to explain why he needed rescuing.
He felt stupid for letting this happen. He took self defence classes in school. Looking back he could think of at least ten things he should have done when the strong arms grabbed him from behind. He should have fought, struggled, bit, screamed, anything just so long as he didn't allow himself get taken by the man. But he didn't. Tommy Paris froze.
Jared Grey wanted him to go crying to his father, fine. Jared Grey and his fists could go shove themselves out the nearest airlock. Tommy would stay silent. He started to climb.
He expected there to be another opening like the one he entered into the shaft by, but he couldn't see one so he continued to climb. Minutes passed, and it didn't take long before he realized that climbing into a turbolift shaft wasn't such a great idea after all.
Darkness surrounded him completely, and due to the frequent twists and turns he could no longer even see the light from the exit below. He reached up blindly for the next rung on the ladder, carefully pulling himself up and securing new footing before reaching up for the next. His arms ached, and the rust on the metal rungs dug into the skin of his hands. He already had blisters from the climbing and Tommy stopped to rest before starting his climb again. He considered making his way back down, but he couldn't bring himself to give up yet. He still believed he could finish this. He would find a way out of the turbolift and rejoin the field trip, he could tell them he fell down a flight of stairs or something to explain his injuries, and everything would be okay. No one had to know what a coward he really was.
He reached up for the next rung, his fingers wrapped around the rusted metal and he pulled his foot up… the metal broke… he lost his balance…
Back on Voyager…
With propulsion repaired and the Kazon threat neutralized, Voyager entered the gas cloud. The ship's sensors picked up the Federation signature of the shuttle within an hour of initiating scans. Now came the time for retrieval.
"Captain, I request permission to join the rescue party."
Janeway looked at the Ensign but couldn't hold his gaze for long. Everyone on the ship knew of the unlikely friendship between Harry and Tom. The two were like brothers and practically inseparable in their off hours. Times like these reminded Janeway of exactly how inexperienced many members of her crew were, especially Harry Kim. Even with all their experiences in the D.Q. so far, couldn't Harry see that the away team headed to the shuttle were a rescue party in name alone?
"Sorry Ensign, you're needed here." She said as she headed for the turbo lift, leaving no room for protests. "Commander, You have the bridge."
They couldn't bring the shuttle in with the tractor beam, the likelihood being that it would tear the damaged shuttle apart by the time it reached Voyager. They needed to make the first trip Kathryn intended to be on it. If Lieutenant Paris died as a result of a mission she assigned to him, it seemed only proper she be the one to recover the body.
She put a halt to that thought. Thinking of him as already dead didn't help anyone, and the scans did detect minimal environmental control still operating. Even with the condition of the shuttle being as bad as it was, the hull didn't breach. There was still a chance.
Kes, Ensign Baytart, and Joe Carey were already waiting in the shuttlebay.
Kathryn stared at Kes. "Are you ready?"
Kes nodded.
"You've never been in a situation like this before. I know you and Tom are friends, I'll understand if-"
"Thank-you Captain." Kes said softly. "I'll be okay."
It didn't take long to launch and then connect the two shuttles. Lt Carey carefully cut open a section of the hull. "Captain." He called to gain her attention as he opened the hole for them to fit through. Noxious smoke poured into their shuttle and the environmental controls automatically increased their power output in an attempt to clean the air.
"Thank you." She allowed the air to vent before entering. She switched on her flashlight and stepped inside the dark interior of the shuttle. Whatever hope she had of Paris being alive quickly faded as she surveyed the damage. Despite the amount of smoke already vented by the connecting shuttle, the smoke in the cabin frustrated the search. Primarily she aimed her light along the floor, looking for Tom's body.
A sound to the left caught her attention. Kathryn aimed her light in the direction of the noise and held her breath as her light found the leg of her helmsmen. She saw no movement in the limb, and her stomach churned as she swung the light up along the body.
Blood stained his uniform in several places and the prognosis did not look good, but Kathryn thanked every god of every religion she knew when she saw his chest move with a laboured breath. "Kes!"
Kes had been waiting just on the other side of the hatch and now ran in and quickly knelt beside Tom.
Joe Carey followed close behind, but did not advance too close. "If you need any help let me know. I'll recalibrate the environmental controls to clear the air in here." He said and disappeared back into the other shuttle.
"Janeway to Torres."
"Yes Captain?"
"Do we have the transporters back yet?"
"With the enhancers I might be able to manage something."
Kathryn arranged the enhancers into a triangular formation. "We're all set here. Two to beam to sickbay." She stepped back and watched as Kes and Tom disappeared in the transporter beam.
…Five hours later…
Tom lay on the bio-bed staring up at the ceiling. He didn't feel anything. No pain, no sensation whatsoever. He might have been floating rather than lying down.
He looked to the right. Kes stood at the medical console entering something into it.
"Kes." He spoke without meaning to, and the word came out as little more then a whisper.
She turned around and quickly came to his side. "Good morning. How are you feeling?"
"Nothing." He smiled at her look of confusion. "The nothing is good."
Kes nodded and ran a medical tricorder over him. "You're doing better."
He lifted his left arm and looked at his hand. It felt bizarre to see it and not feel it. He tried to lift the right arm, but couldn't. He looked down and it looked normal, no burns, and no evidence of any damage. "How's the shuttle?"
Kes turned away. "You need rest."
He watched as she prepared a hypospray. "I'm not tired." He heard the hiss of release as she pressed it to his neck and the comfortable nothing turned to darkness.
The darkness allowed his subconscious to surface and with it memories.
Patients do not normally wake up in stasis while being moved to a more advanced medial facility.
He remembered the distinct feeling of the rusted metal crumbling in his hand and he remembered falling. When he woke up he thought he was still on the space station. He couldn't move, he couldn't see, and he couldn't feel any pain. Tommy Paris, a boy the of age twelve who once dreamed of sailing Earths oceans, believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he lay dead at the bottom of the turbo lift.
"Mr. Paris."
He opened his eyes and the dream faded.
"How are you feeling?" The Doctor asked.
He considered that for a moment while he tried to focus on reality and push the images from his dream as far back into his mind as possible. Tom stretched experimentally. "Good." He made a fist with his right hand. It felt strange.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "You required major re-constructive surgery to the nerves in your arm. Thanks to my skill and expertise however, you should feel sensation return to your hand within the next week. Until then you are on medical leave."
"So, that means I can go?"
"No. You've just woken up from thirty-three hours of recovery. In that time I managed to repair the neural damage to your forearm, numerous broken ribs, a fracture to your femoral neck, and a shattered aceatabulum. You've recovered from anaemia and severe damage to your lungs due to the toxins you breathed for five hours while you waited to be rescued. You won't be going anywhere until I am completely satisfied that you've reached a sufficient level of recovery." He waited for his lecture to sink in, although he doubted that his most frequent patient ever paid any notice, but at least he tried. "I have for you a list of exercises and stretches that must be completed each day, I'd like to go over them with you."
Tom accepted the padd in his left hand. It detailed thirty pages of therapeutic exercises. "Sounds thrilling."
"I am glad you think so. Now, if you could access page three you will see a diagram of-"
Tom tuned the Doctor out, and could only hope to gain that sufficient level of recovery as soon as possible.