Chapter Three
As soon as he got to his quarters Tom Paris went to the lounge area and sat down and buried his head in his hands and began to tremble as the emotions refused to stay buried. God why oh why did they have to pick up that distress call and get there in time to save the pilot. If they hadn't he would have to face this again. Thomas Eugene Paris you stop that line of thinking immediately, he told himself harshly, we saved someone's life. That's more important than it causing you discomfort just because the guy brings back painful memories.
With a sigh he sat up properly and then paused looking at his palms noting for the first time in years the faint almost invisible diamond shaped marks that were the only sign of the shaqarava that had once been there. As he looked at them memories momentarily burst into his awareness.
(Waking up back in his cell after another 'examination' by Dr Rusal. Feeling an itching sensation coupled with a strange warmth in his palms. Looking down and starring in shock and surprise at the blue energy blazing in the centre of each hand like a small star.)
(Later holding up his hands and pointing his palms at Rusal and two Cardassian soldiers. Blue energy blasting from him knocking all three flying to lay dead against the far wall. The energy fading away as he raced over to them and grabbed one soldiers communicator and phaser.)
The sharp bleep of the door chime jolted him out of his memories for which Tom was infinitely grateful. Forcing himself to sit up straight he called out.
"Come in." The door opened and to his total lack of surprise B'Elanna came through - her shift had to have ended a little earlier than he'd thought, either that or Janeway relieved her early - which knowing the captain was by far the more likely option.
One look at her husband filled B'Elanna with concern. The captain hadn't really said anything when she'd called her in engineering just that her duty shift was ending early and that Tom was going to need her, that had been enough for her to hear and she'd raced to their quarters. Immediately B'Elanna could see that there was something very wrong with her husband - so she quickly hurried over and sat down beside him.
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Tom merely took B'Elanna's hand and held it for a moment before letting go and putting an arm across her shoulders and pulling close to her.
"How much did she tell you," Tom asked as he huddled close to his wife. B'Elanna knew immediately that Tom was referring to Captain Janeway.
"Only that you needed me," B'Elanna replied softly into his ear. "She said that it would be up to you to tell me the rest." Tom nodded as if that was what he had expected. B'Elanna gently pulled away from her husbands embrace and turned in place to look at him. "Talk to me Tom," she said softly. "What's bothering you?"
Tom looked down at the floor for a few long minutes. God did he wish that there was away to get out of this - but he'd learned before that talking about it was really the only way to deal with it, trying to deny that it had happened like he had first tried to do didn't work. It had nearly destroyed him. If his father hadn't caught him in time he would have taken his own life at one point so great had been the depression he'd sunk into afterwards. But god talking about it was so hard.
B'Elanna waited patiently for Tom to speak. She could see how hard and how painful this was for him.
"It was almost eleven years ago now," Tom began. "In the last days of the Federation/Cardassian war. I had gone to Risa for a holiday after graduating from the academy. There I was as green and naive as Harry when he first came aboard. While there I met someone - a girl who called herself Janice. We got close."
"One night we went back to the apartment where I was staying," Tom continued. "It was there that she stuck a Cardassian hypospray in my neck and knocked me out."
"She was a Cardassian agent," B'Elanna asked. Tom nodded. "What did they do to you," she growled angrily knowing the things that the Cardassians were capable of. If the Cardassian had done something to Tom then she'd - we'll lets just say that the Cardassians would be glad that she was twenty-eight thousand light years away from them.
"I was going to get to that soon enough," Tom replied. "Please B'Elanna just let me tell you this it's hard enough without having to answer questions." B'Elanna nodded reluctantly. "Okay then. I don't know how long the drug she injected me with kept me out but when I woke up I found myself in a Cardassian lab on a secret military research base under the authority of a Cardassian scientist called Karus Rusal." B'Elanna hissed as she heard that name. Like most people she knew about Karus Rusal - she'd been a ruthless, brutal scientist attached to the Central Command. Rusal had developed a variety of biogenic weapons for the Cardassian military before dying in mysterious circumstances.
"Rusal had soldiers bring me into her laboratory on the base," Tom continued. "She said that they were going to use me as an experimental subject. Apparently a few weeks earlier a highly advanced but unknown alien ship had gone down on a planet in Cardassian space. The ship was destroyed on impact but in the wreckage the Cardassians found an alien survivor badly wounded. It was an energy based life form. From it they took some DNA before it died. Rusal had come into possession of that DNA sample. Their analysis had shown that it was compatible with Human DNA. Rusal injected the DNA into me just to see what would happen."
"I must have been knocked unconscious again at that point. For when I woke up I was back in my cell. Slowly over a period of a few hours I began to feel strange. Then the pain and convulsions started." Tom looked down for a moment shuddering at the memory. B'Elanna gently put her hand on his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"The pain was terrible," Tom went on after a moment. "As though every cell in my body was on fire. I screamed and screamed until my throat was raw. Eventually the Gul Yurad - the officer commanding the troops protecting the base took pity on me and had one of the medical staff administer a pain suppressant. It helped a little. I passed out again. When I awoke I was in Rusal's lab again held down by binders and a force field. Rusal was examining me and she seemed pleased and intrigued by what was going on. You see the alien DNA was integrating itself with mine. Altering me into somekind of hybrid. Anyway she knocked me out again after that."
"I woke up back in my cell god knows how long later. The pain was still there but no where near as bad. It didn't take me long to realise that Gul Yurad's medic had administered another pain suppressant. It was then that I noticed a strange itching sensation in the palms of my hands along with a warmth. When I looked down I received the shock of my life. My palms were glowing with this weird blue energy. When I flexed my fingers it faded away and then I saw the marks. These marks." Tom gently removed his hand from under B'Elanna's and turned it so the palm was facing up. He also showed her the palm of his other hand. B'Elanna's eyes widened when she saw the faint diamond marks in the palms of his hands. "The marks were once a lot more prominent than now. Now there just like birthmarks then they were actually organs."
"I sat there in my cell for awhile after that," Tom continued. "Wondering what these things in my hands were. And that's when I started to hear the voices in my mind. Distant at first speaking a language I didn't understand, at least at first, but slowly I began to understand and I learned from the voices that the things appearing in my hands were called shaqarava. I was knocked out again at that point and once more experimented on by Rusal."
"When I awoke in my cell again I knew enough about the shaqarava to plan an escape. I knew from overhearing the guards talking that the block where I was being held wasn't far from the shuttle bays. So when Rusal and two soldiers came for me again I turned the shaqarava on them and god knows how I made energy bolts shoot out of my hands. All three were killed instantly. I took the one guards phaser and communicator and made a run for the shuttle bay."
"With the communicator I was able to avoid the patrols searching for me and get to the shuttle bay. I stole a long range fighter and made my escape heading straight for the Federation boarder. Gul Yurad persued me with the three Galor cruisers that he'd had in orbit. They were gaining on me despite my best efforts at evasion. After about four direct disruptor hits the shields on my fighter were down and the warp drive was out. Gul Yurad was about to beam me over to his flagship to take me back when help arrived."
"An alien cruiser just appeared from nowhere - I guess that it must have been cloaked. I'd never seen anything like it before but somehow I knew it meant me no harm. It opened fire on the Cardassian cruisers. All three were blown out of space in less than two minutes. I was tractored aboard the cruiser, where I was met by a group of Humans in blue jumpsuits and willowy aliens in identical jumpsuits. They took me to their medical bay where they promptly put me unconscious."
"When I woke up I was still in their medical bay but I was no longer hurting and for the first time in nearly four weeks I felt normal. The alien commander came in then. He identified himself as Ju'su of the Taelon Empire. He told me many things - that they were an energy based life form, that they had once been to Earth and interacted with us, that the Humans on board were actually Human/Taelon hybrids who'd come with them when the Taelons left Earth and Humanity to grow into our own destiny. He told me that I had almost become a Taelon/Human hybrid myself but that they had been able to stop it and return me to normality. The only signs of what I had nearly become remaining were the shaqarava marks in my hands. The told me that some Taelon DNA remains in my system but that it's now completely dormant and no longer interacts with my Human DNA."
"They then returned me to my father. Crossing the boarder into Federation space they sought out and intercepted my fathers ship. After returning me to him they gave him a file of information on what had been done to me, while also telling him that one day they would actually come to Earth again in the hopes of establishing a relationship with us but that that time had not come. A copy of the file the Taelons gave my father is here on Voyager in the Doctors database - Captain Janeway put it there she knew because at the time she was my fathers science officer. Anyway my father returned to Earth at top speed."
"It was almost two years before I was able to return to active duty. My first assignment back on duty was Calidik Prime and we both know what happened then and what followed after."
B'Elanna had listened with rapt attention to the whole of Tom's tale. She could tell by looking at him that telling it had been very hard on him.
"I haven't thought about it in years," Tom finished. "Until a few hours ago now when the captain called me to sickbay. You see the survivor that we beamed over from that ship before it exploded is one of the Human/Taelon hybrids. They wanted me to see him first before he recovers enough to move around the ship rather than have me just bump into him in the mess hall."
"I see," B'Elanna said softly taking his hand again. "Seeing him brought the memories flooding back." Tom nodded.
"The memories and the pain," he replied feeling tears at the memories come to his eyes. Noticing this B'Elanna immediately pulled him close to her as he broke down and cried on her shoulder.
As she held her husband B'Elanna found herself wishing that Rusal was still alive and in easy reach of her. So she could kill her painfully for causing Tom so much pain, for violating him so badly. With effort B'Elanna contained her fury at what had been done to her husband, she could work it out on the holodeck later. For now she just held her husband reassuringly as he wept out the reaction to the painful memories of imprisonment and experimentation that had been brought to surface once again after so long being buried.