The Lost Voyages

The "Star Trek – Voyager" that could have been

by Soledad

CARETAKER

Alternate pilot episode

Disclaimer: All Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry and Viacom or whoever owns the rights at this moment. I don't make any profit out of this – I wish I would, but I don't, so suing me would be pointless.

Rating: PG-13, for some rather disturbing images.

A/N: Referring to a question asked in a review: my dislike of Janeway the character has nothing to do with the actor who plays her. Actually, I find Kate Mulgrew rather charming, especially when she smiles. But that's a different matter entirely. :))

As always, heartfelt thanks to Brigid for beta reading.

CHAPTER THREE: SMALL TALK ALONG THE WAY

He sat through the long trip from Earth to Bajoran space in silence. Before Caldik Prime, he'd have made friends in the first hour and would have been the center of the merry crowd in the second. Not that it would last longer than the journey itself – none of his acquaintances ever had, with the exception of the three people who died at Caldik Prime because of his error – but at least the journey would have been fun.

After Caldik Prime, of course, no one in a crew transporter would even talk to him. Two years were too short a time to allow people to forget his face – it had been all over the news, for months: his court martial, his captivity, the Admiral's theatrical act of disowning him. He was branded for life.

Consequently, he sat alone all the way, reading an old-fashioned novel from the late 20th century: one of the adventures of Perry Rhodan. Reading a real book instead of a PADD novel earned him a few bewildered looks, of course, especially the ridiculously-coloured cover with its primitive holographic pictures, but he didn't really care. He had a secret passion for real books. They were – well, real. They had a weight, a scent, touching them felt almost sensual. There was nothing that could be compared with them.

Of course, real copies – even replicated ones – were expensive. But he had bought his assortment of Perry Rhodan adventures before the Admiral froze his accounts. And though they had no real literary value, they were the only possessions he had kept from his former life. He'd read them in Marseilles, finding some pleasant distraction in the ridiculous ideas 20th century people had about the future – it helped him forget his own misery. When he was hired by the Maquis he put the books into storage, and there they waited for him patiently while he was in prison. His only remaining friends.

He took the time to get them before boarding the crew transporter. If he truly got another chance at life, he wanted the only important things with him. If Janeway saw through his game, well, they could always go back to storage. Or go down with him.

He was not going back to prison. That much was sure.

"Mr. Paris?"

A low, sensuous female voice coaxed him out of his thoughts. A small, but pleasantly trim woman stood next to his seat, her exotic accent, high brow and large, midnight eyes giving her away as a Betazoid. She wore a command section uniform, with a full Lieutenant's pips on her collar, and her lush, raven-black hair wound into a loose knot at the nape of her long, graceful neck.

"Lieutenant Stadi," she introduced herself. "I'll be your pilot. We'll part company with this transporter in ten minutes and continue by shuttle to DS9. If you'd follow me…?"

At the same moment he felt his mind being touched by a wordless mental greeting. He had met enough Betazoids to know that thy didn't share the Vulcan's reluctance to read other people's thoughts (without an invitation, at that), but he was surprised nevertheless. Most Betazoids simply invaded one's head to take a look around with the same casualness other species entered an art gallery or an information center. They never bothered to com in just to say hello – figuratively speaking.

"What was that for?" he asked, slightly confused by that soft mental touch. Stadi gave him a soft, mysterious smile as if she would see something other people couldn't.

"For you," she replied with gentle amusement. "You looked like you needed it."

"Needed what?" Tom asked in surprise.

"Encouragement," Stadi keyed in the code, and the huge doors of the hangar deck opened with a quiet wooooooosh. "There we go."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The shuttle was the sort that cadets at the Academy called  "a Type-2 claustrophobia" – fast and easy to handle, and not very comfortable. But Stadi had been a shuttle pilot for years before signing up for Voyager – her first deep space assignment. She knew the journey to Deep Space Nine would be a long and boring one – seven hours are a long time – but she looked forward to it nevertheless. If this particular mission was accomplished, Voyager could count on a scientific mission, and that was exactly what Stadi counted on, too. She wanted to qualify herself for a scientific career instead of sitting at the helm all her life. A lengthy mission in the Gamma Quadrant was potential heaven for someone with a strong interest in xenobiology.

But she had to deal with first things first – ferrying the Starfleet observer to Deep Space Nine where Voyager was currently being prepared for the immediate, short-term mission: hunting down that particular Maquis vessel. Flying into the Badlands, if needed to be. So she could do nothing else but pilot the shuttle, no matter how monotonous and boring the job was.

Fortunately, her aunt Adah – one of the more powerful telepaths in the family – had taught her early on how to distract herself while fully concentrating on some dull work. So – while she quietly and efficiently piloted the shuttle, just as she had done hundreds of times before – she turned the part of her attention that wasn't needed to the nervous young man sitting in the co-pilot's chair.

For Tom Paris was undoubtedly nervous. Most people wouldn't have recognized it, as his mental shields worked surprisingly well for a human, but Stadi knew anxiety when she saw it.

First of all, he seemed uncomfortable in his rankless Starfleet uniform – something that Stadi could understand all too well. When might he have worn a uniform the last time? Most likely when he had been transported to his court-martial, after Caldik Prime. In a Starfleet shuttle. With manacles on his hands. And guards on both sides.

Why could they not allow him to wear civilian clothes, she wondered. It was unnecessarily cruel to remind him of what he had lost. Of Caldik Prime. Of the court-martial. Of all that came afterwards. Oh yes, Stadi had done her homework and gathered all available information about her passenger.

Which was surprisingly little, considering Tom's rather… colourful background.

I guess, being the son of an admiral – one of the most influential in Starfleet – does enhance the protection of privacy, she thought wryly, while flying the small ship and continuing the friendly banter with the young man at the same time.

She had to admit that he'd surprised her. After Captain Janeway had given her this assignment (and a short description of a cocky, arrogant, self-centered young man with an infuriating attitude), Paris turned out very different from the man she'd expected to meet.

Oh, sure, he played his role very well. Too well for his own good, Stadi thought, while answering his coy feints and thrusts with brief, well-aimed ripostes. So well, indeed, that anyone who lacked some basic empathic abilities – or didn't care enough to dig deeper – would have bought the show. Captain Janeway certainly had bought it, Stadi mused, remembering her commanding officer's cold, dismissive words about Paris. Not at all like his father, Janeway had said, and Stadi mentally shook her head at the mere memory of those words.

How could she be so close-minded? Stadi wondered about her CO. The expectations to fill the shoes of someone from an earlier generation were one of the worse things that could happen to a young person. She knew that first hand. Everyone in the family had expected her to go into counseling – as the most gifted of a respectable number of gifted siblings and cousins, she was supposed to follow the path of Aunt Adah and become a therapist.

She'd chosen a different path, and her family, though not happy about her decision, had allowed her to follow her own, chosen path – albeit after much fruitless discussion. She wondered now what Tom Paris might have dreamed of before his father pushed him into cadet school without even asking.

There was no doubt that the Admiral had chosen his only son's career. Tom's personal file proved it to anyone who could read between the lines. Still, he had achieved outstanding results at the Academy – which meant that he either accepted his father's choice or very much wanted to prove himself to the Admiral. Either way, according to those results, he had to be bright.

Obviously, the silence between them had become too long for Tom's taste, because he shifted in his seat and launched into prattle again.

"Stadi," he said, "you're changing my mind about Betazoids."

She raised a fine eyebrow. What was Paris trying to accomplish through this constant chatter? To keep the conversation from turning to personal things? Or was he actually making a pass on her? That would have matched the cocky, slightly cynical persona he broadcasted very convincingly. But Stadi felt something else beneath all those layers and personas and masks the young man was hiding behind – something she wasn't quite able to name yet. Not without invading his mind – and that was the last thing she'd ever do to him. Somehow she had the unpleasant feeling that Tom Paris had been violated enough for a lifetime already.

So she only nodded with unsmiling amusement and replied, "Good,"

That earned her an exasperated look.

"It wasn't a compliment," Paris said, clearly annoyed now. "Until today, I always considered your people to be warm and sensual…"

Stadi resisted the urge to roll her eyes… barely. Ever since Deanna Troi had joined Starfleet, people had kept expecting all Betazoids to behave as she did. Or her mother. As if a whole race could have been judged by the eccentric behaviour of one family. Granted, Lwaxana Troi was the matriarch of one of the five leading Houses of Betazed, and as an ambassador of the Federation well-known throughout the Alpha Quadrant. Still, she was only one person, and she was considered an eccentric and a free spirit among Betazoids.

Stadi frowned, concentrating on her pilot's console for a moment to suppress her own annoyance. "I can be warm and sensuous," she replied, leaving the sentence unfinished. But Tom seemed to understand anyway.

"Just not to me," he finished for her in the same playful manner they had been bantering all along the way. Still, Stadi could feel some old, bone-deep frustration underlying his tone. A little mollified, she tilted her head to one side.

"Do you always fly at women at warp speed, Mr. Paris?" she asked.

Paris gave her a coy smile that didn't quite reach his blue eyes. "Only when they're in visual range."

Stadi shook her head with a tolerant smile. Paris' smartass manners would have infuriated her at any other time, but right now she was too excited about her first deep-space assignment. Besides, she could feel with a certainty that exceeded logic that this was only one of the many masks the young man wore for his own protection. She'd love to see the real person behind all those layers of self-protection, but for that, even their endless seven-hour-trip was too short. Maybe she'd find the chance aboard Voyager to know Paris better.

Stadi liked complicated cases – they offered a good challenge.

She concentrated on the impulse thrusters, taking their velocity down to half, gently shifting the shuttle's approach, as they were reaching the end of their long trip. All the time she could feel the critical eye of Paris on her hands and had the odd feeling that he was forcibly restraining himself from pointing out half a dozen ways she could have done things faster, better, more smoothly. After all, Tom used to be an ace pilot.

"Tempted to take over?" she asked playfully. "Your hands itching already?"

"Me?" he asked back lightly but couldn't completely suppress the bitter undertone in his voice. "I'm just an observer. The ultimate in look-but-don't-touch technology."

That killed the conversation immediately. Stadi regretted her joke that had obviously hit a little too close to home as Paris fell back into brooding. The next twenty minutes were spent in utter and not very comfortable silence. Then the sensors beeped softly, and Stadi felt the excitement rising in her again. They had come into visual range of DS9.

"We are here," she murmured.

Tom stood and looked over her shoulder. On the viewscreen the slender spiral of Deep Space Nine turned slowly in a never-ending pirouette against the unpopulated background of open space. Its gothically ornate, alien beauty was like nothing he had seen before. The Cardassians might be master architects, but this sweeping, angular style was too dark for his comfort. What vaguely disturbed him was that almost organic look to the grey-green metal; the way the outer docking ring had those long, arching pylons, like ribs sticking out from a circular spine. Or like claws, ready to claw into their unsuspecting prey.

Several dozen ships were docked at the station, few of them bearing a Federation design. But among those few there was a small, sleek one, hanging poised with her nose touching the uppermost docking bay, and he knew at once this must be what Starfleet had specifically built to hunt down the Maquis. This ship was a predator – swift and merciless.

"That is our ship," Stadi said, confirming his suspicion. "That's Voyager."

So, he was right. Tom remembered all those old and battered Maquis ships he'd seen and flown during his short stay with the rebels… how it demanded constant engineering wizardry to keep them in one piece. Sending this sleek predator after them was like sending a cheetah after some old and wounded prey.

Well, I'll have to distract the nose of the cheetah, so that she won't find the prey, he thought, full of sorrow. He'd love to fly this ship… but it would never come to that. No ship in the universe would be worth bringing Greg in jail. Or any of the others. Even that infuriating, arrogant, holier-than-thou Indian.

"Intrepid-class," Stadi continued, dividing her attention between her console and the sight before their eyes. "Sustainable cruise velocity of Warp factor nine point nine-seven-five. Fifteen decks, crew complement of one hundred forty-one, bioneural circuitry…"

That was something new for Tom. "Bioneural?"

Stadi nodded absently, returning her full concentration to piloting. "Some of the traditional circuitry has been replaced with gel packs that contain synthetic neural cells. They organize information more efficiently, speed up response time." She grinned at him with delight. "Want to take a closer look?"

Without waiting for an answer, she swept the shuttle into a smooth arc, lifting it over the top of the station and gliding along Voyager's full length. Tom stared at the ship with admiration and jealousy. Man, he wanted to fly her! But the best he could hope was outsmart this smart little predator, to lead her in circles among the plasma storms. To distract the cheetah, so that the wounded prey could flee and heal.

There was no hope left for him. But at the very least he could spare the others the same fate. That had to be enough.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TBC