The Lost Voyages
The "Star Trek – Voyager" that could have been
by Soledad
CARETAKERAlternate 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. Yes, some dialogue is still taken from the pilot episode. Yes, those lines still don't belong to me.
Rating: PG-13, for some rather disturbing images and implied m/m relationship.
Beta read by the generous Brigid, whom I owe eternal gratitude.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE HUNTWhen Tom reached the Bridge the image of the Badlands was already filling the main viewscreen; all angry flashes and serpentine ribbons of plasma fire lashing and flaring against the background of far-away stellar constellations and shadow-like nebulae. It was a terrific sight for those who didn't know the perils hidden behind that violent beauty.
Tom knew it all too well. He'd never forget the moment when he'd first piloted that battered Maquis ship – originally a light frigate, mustered out of Starfleet at least forty years earlier – into that untamed maze of raw energy. He must have been a little green in the face, because Chakotay became infuriatingly amused, saying, "Don't worry, Paris, no Maquis ship has been torn apart by these storms – at least not recently."
He got the ridiculously-named vessel (who came up with the grand idea to call it Thor's Hammer was a question nobody could answer) through the storms safely. And at least the Badlands protected the Maquis from Starfleet. The ships that were powerful enough to take out the fast but out-gunned Maquis fighters were too big to get safely into this area. And the smaller ships were just no match for the Maquis.
Until now, Paris thought bitterly, contemplating the irony of fate that had put him onto the bridge of the very ship that Starfleet had built to hunt down their own people. People whose only crime was not being ready to give up their homes for Federation policies; for a treaty that, in the end, would not work anyway. Those desk-jockey admirals who made the deal with Cardassia were nothing more than a herd of dumb grass-eaters, trying to outsmart a pack of wolves, not realizing that no matter what, in the end they would lose. It was the sheer mass of the Federation alone that kept Cardassia at bay – barely.
Tom was surprised by how much his short time in the Maquis had changed his view of Federation politics. No, he'd not committed himself to "the cause", but he'd learned a great deal among these people. That, and he'd had enough time in jail to think over all the things he'd learned.
He'd learned what thinking like a predator meant. And that this way of thinking was what kept the Maquis fighting against impossible odds, against a whole empire of larger, more vicious predators. And now even against the federation of narrow-minded bureaucrats that had sold them to their enemies.
And now Tom Paris was expected to turn what he had learned from the Maquis against them, so that the brass, including the man he would never call his father again, could celebrate themselves for keeping the treaty that had caused the whole mess in the first place..
Well, it was not likely to happen.
Janeway was standing at the tactical station when they entered the bridge. She looked back when the door whooshed, as if scrutinizing the face of Tom now that the reason for his presence became important. Tom put up his usual carefree expression – no reason to raise any suspicions – and met an equally neutral face. He had no doubt that Janeway disliked him deeply (quite frankly, the feeling was mutual), but she was careful enough not to show her feelings in front of the entire bridge crew.
The captain waved him over to the tactical console, pushing a reluctant Cavit (who glared at Paris as one would at a dead rat) out of the way and tapping at one of the tactical displays over the bent shoulder of Lt. Rollins.
"Plasma storms were measured at levels three and four," Rollins was saying. Janeway nodded.
"The Cardassians gave us the last known heading of the Maquis ship," she explained. "And we have charts of the plasma storm activity the day it disappeared. With a little help, we might be able to approximate its course."
With a little help, Tom thought, resisting the urge to snort. Yeah, Captain, I am going to help all right – but not you.
He stepped closer to the console for a better view of the readouts. The screen marked the plasma discharges with blinking little lights that flickered up and retreated again in a random patter, while the jagged line of the Maquis' course glowed steadily, drawing a seemingly crazed path between them. Nevertheless, Tom recognized the work of an excellent pilot – the ship had flown so close to the discharges that with a less capable man at the helm it would have been destroyed a dozen times.
And since Tom himself was not on that Maquis ship, it could only mean one person: Chakotay. No one else in the Maquis would be able to fly that path and still be alive. They had truly found him and his crew.
"The Cardassians have inserted a black marker at the point where they've been forced to break pursuit," Rollins pointed out the place in question, "and this dotted line shows how far their sensors have tracked the Maquis after that."
All eyes turned expectantly to Paris. He made what he knew was a very convincing show of thinking – showing only what they wanted to see.
"I'd guess they were trying to get to one of the M-class planetoids in the Terikof Belt," he mused out loud.
He could give them that much without giving away anything of importance. Everyone with basic knowledge about the Badlands knew that the Maquis had their repairing stations scattered all over those planetoids. He needed to stay as close to the truth as possible for Janeway and her people to believe him. And it seemed that they did.
Cavit shouldered his way over to the big security officer and bent over the screen, too. "That's beyond the Moriya system," he said, pointing at one corner on the upper side.
Rollins nodded, watching the flickering lights on his display with a frown.
"Then the plasma storms would have forced them in this direction," he replied, tapping a few controls and correcting the dotted line accordingly.
Janeway nodded her agreement. "Adjust our course to match," she ordered Cavit.
"Aye, Captain," the grey-haired man acknowledged and left the tactical console to hurry down again to Stadi's side.
To Tom's surprise, Stadi glanced back over her shoulder, directly at him. The look of her Byzantine eyes was unreadable. Was it pity? Was it disappointment? He couldn't tell. It lasted only a fleeting moment, then she turned back to her controls, concentrating on Cavit's orders.
"The Cardassians claimed they forced the Maquis ship into a plasma storm, where it was destroyed," Janeway noted, settling back into her command chair in her usual, stiff manner. "But our probes haven't picked up any debris."
"A plasma storm might not leave any debris," Tom pointed out, knowing first hand the destructive powers of those discharges. Besides, if he could make Janeway believe that the Maquis had been destroyed (together with her precious spy on board), she might call off the hunt.
Of course, she was not dumb enough to buy such a cheap excuse.
"We'd still be able to pick up a resonance trace from the warp core," she riposted.
Touch, Tom admitted, refusing to offer any further suggestions. The woman was many things, but stupid was certainly not one of those. Well, not as long as practical aspects of spacefaring were concerned. But at this time the Fates decided to intervene on Tom's side, for a change – in the person of Harry Kim.
"Captain…," the ensign bent over his console, working frantically. "I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us."
Tom stiffened, knowing that the Maquis could not possibly have any such technology. It seemed that while chasing the fox, the hounds woke up something bigger. Make that a lot bigger.
Janeway frowned, forgetting her less-than-helpful guide at once, "Origin, Mr. Kim?"
Harry concentrated on his readings, his insecurities momentarily forgotten, and showing his true abilities for the first time. "I'm not sure," he admitted, actually surprised, as if he'd expected to be able to identify the source. Damn, the kid must be good. Strong fingers danced at the controls for a moment, then Harry looked up, clearly worried. "There's also a displacement wave moving toward us."
Janeway paled, raising to her feet. As a science officer by trade, she probably could calculate the approaching danger more accurately than anyone else present. "Onscreen."
Kim brought up the image, and Tom had the impression of a tsunami racing toward them in house-high, angry waves. It looked eerily like the cheap shock effects of 20th century disaster movies – only that this thing, whatever it might be, was real. He involuntarily grabbed the back of the command chair, as if bracing for impact, and wasted a fleeting thought about the irony of coming here to possibly die, just because he wanted to get out of prison.
Janeway stepped closer to the viewscreen, staring at it with the morbid curiosity of a born scientist who is ready to ignore any danger in face of a new discovery.
"Analysis," she said in a clipped tone.
"It's some kind of polarized magnetic variation," Kim reported vaguely. Whatever it might be, it obviously wasn't recorded in the Starfleet database.
Cavit turned back, leaning over the rail near the tactical station. For the first time since Tom had come aboard, the first officer's face showed not the usual scowl but the keen intellect he usually hid behind it. "Captain, we might be able to disperse it with a graviton particle field," he said.
Janeway nodded absently, unable to turn her eyes away from the gigantic wave of destruction that was racing toward them at high speed. "Do it."
Without acknowledgement, Cavit ran up to the tactical console, waving Rollins out of his way. The man was only a replacement, and such a delicate operation demanded the highest level of expertise. Janeway, her eyes still fixed on the viewscreen, raised her voice over the noise of frantic bridge activity.
"Red alert." Then, touching Stadi's shoulder lightly, "Move us away from it, Lieutenant."
Stadi flinched – Betazoids, like Vulcans, generally disliked being touched by anyone but family and close friends – but reversed their speed immediately, racing Voyager back into the direction they had come.
"New heading," she confirmed calmly. "Four-one-mark-one-eight-zero. "
"Initiating graviton field," Cavit added, launching the powerful burst of energy on its way – a burst powerful enough to shake the whole ship, beyond the abilities of the inertial dampers to compensate.
It won't work, Tom realized, watching that incredible wave of destructive energy rolling towards them, unstoppably. As an experienced surfer, he could see that no matter what they threw into its way, the anomaly would overrun them by sheer momentum.
"The graviton field had no effect," Harry reported, confirming Tom's estimate.
"Full impulse," Janeway commanded, not yet ready to accept the futility of their efforts. "Turn her into the wave, Lieutenant Stadi!"
It won't work, Tom repeated for himself, but Stadi's only answer was a sharp nod, working with amazing calmness (just a little bit slower than Tom could have done it, really), and the ship hummed with power as she brought it about to a position that might prove slightly less disastrous in the impact.
Watching her, Tom balled his fists. Dammit she was good, but he could have been better! If only the captain had allowed him to fly the ship through the Badlands in the first place! Sure, he never intended to lead her to Chakotay's trail, but maybe, just maybe, his superior reflexes could have saved Voyager. Regardless of what people might think of him, this wasn't about arrogance. He was simply better, and he knew that. Even Chakotay admitted never having seen a better pilot, including himself. And nobody could accuse Chakotay of liking him.
He looked back at Harry with regret. Poor kid, his first assignment, and he's going to die… Harry, however, was still watching his readouts with the stubborn determination of every green newbie who wants to prove himself, regardless of the costs.
"The wave will intercept us in 12 seconds..."
Janeway glared at the viewscreen as if she could stop that cosmic monstrosity by sheer willpower. "Can we go to warp?"
Unfortunately, cosmic phenomena seldom respected the will of mere humans, no matter how strong that will was.
"Not until we clear the plasma field, Captain," Stadi replied with a calmness that was positively eerie. Tom knew that Betazoids were able to clamp down their mental shields with brutal force, detaching themselves from all emotions, even their own, in times of acute emergency. Obviously, Stadi was making use of that handy ability right now.
For some reason Harry felt the need to count down the remaining seconds of their lives. "…five seconds…"
Janeway hurried back to her command chair, slapping at the intercom switch on its arm, shouting. "Brace for impact!"
"… three... ," damn it, Harry was still counting. What for?
And then the tidal wave crashed down on them like the raised fist of some enraged deity that had hold back its fury for too long and now finally released it. Stadi felt a wash of killing heat as the helm panel exploded into her face with a blooming roar, and a hard wall of violently compressed air tore her seat out of its holding clamps and threw her across the lower bridge level. The impact was hard enough to mercifully knock her unconscious before her spinal column snapped. The last thing in her blurring field of vision was Tom Paris, jumping over the bride railing from the upper deck, not necessarily of his own free will…
Landing among the debris of the crushed ceiling that had buried Lieutenant Commander Cavit mere seconds earlier, Tom Paris made a rather hard contact with the deck himself. It seems that the hunt is off, he thought with morbid satisfaction, before darkness engulfed him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
According to the miraculously still working on-board computer, it took 22.7 standard minutes until those of the bridge crew who were still alive started regaining consciousness – more or less.
"Report!" Janeway barked, and Tom, jerking back to awareness with a rotten headache, was actually grateful for that scratchy voice. As much as it grated on his nerves otherwise, he had to admit that it was designed to wake everyone who hadn't been dead for at least three days. As he opened his bleary eyes, he found himself lying face-down on the lower command level, smoke spiraling all around him. And on the edge of his vision, something seemed to be burning. Several somethings, actually.
He struggled to his knees, taking a still hazy look around, his sluggish brain still not quite able to take in all the damage. I must have hit my head pretty hard… He searched for Harry and found that the kid, amazingly enough, had already made it back behind his panel and was scanning through screen after screen for information. His face was badly bruised and his sleeve scorched, revealing burn marks all over his forearms, but they didn't seem to slow him down a bit.
"Hull breach on Deck Fourteen!" Kim called, working with grim determination. "Comm lines to Engineering are down. Trying to reestablish…"
The mentioning of engineering finally shook Tom out of his haze. Engineering – they must have been hit hard, too. Was Mendon all right? Were pregnant Benzites more resilient than pregnant humans? Would his babies survive the trauma?
Realizing that he couldn't do anything for the Benzite at the moment, Tom looked around to see who else might need his help. He found Stadi sprawled, unmoving, beside her shattered helm console. Still dizzy, he crawled over her on his hands and knees, barely aware of the captain kicking aside debris from the collapsed ceiling and barking orders somewhere behind him.
"Repair crews," Janeway shouted above the sirens and the clanging of metal pieces she was kicking out of her way. "Seal off hull breach on Deck Fourteen..."
"Aye, Captain," a female voice, shaken but determined, answered from somewhere.
"Casualty reports coming in," Lt. Rollins called from the tactical console. The big man was pale as death itself, but otherwise unharmed. "Sickbay is not responding."
Wonderful, just wonderful, Tom cursed inwardly, pulling on Stadi's shoulder. Her upper body rolled over limply in a most unnatural angle, revealing a badly burnt face and unseeing eyes. Tom reached for the pulse in her neck, not truly expecting her to have survived an explosion the size of what destroyed the helm console, but not willing to give up on her just yet.
"Bridge to Sickbay," Janeway called, giving up her fruitless efforts to get her first officer's broken body out from under the ceiling's crushed remnants. "Doctor, can you hear me?"
There was still no response from sickbay, and with a frustrated sigh, Janeway moved toward where Stadi lay on the lower level's floor.
"Paris, how's Stadi?" she asked with impressive composure. "Is she dead?"
Tom reached for the pulse again – and looked up in amazement. "Not yet. But she will be, if we don't get her to sickbay soon."
"I see," Janeway looked up to Rollins. "Can you initialize a site-to-site transport from your station, Lieutenant?"
The big man nodded. "Things seem to function from this side, Captain. But sickbay is still not responding."
"It doesn't matter. Beam Stadi over; if the doctor is incapacitated, we can still activate the EMH."
"Aye, Captain."
Stadi's body shimmered briefly and disappeared. Janeway coughed, the bridge was still full of smoke, although a female crewmember had been able to quench the small fires on the consoles and was now working to get the environmental system back online.
"Ventilation system is coming back, Captain," she said apologetically. Janeway nodded, twisting back a long tress that has come loose from her priggish bun.
"Thank you, Andrews. Come now and help me to free Mr. Cavit. We can't leave him lie here, even…"
Even if he's dead, Tom finished inwardly, agreeing with her for a change. The body had to be freed from under the crashed ceiling and beamed to the morgue. There was a grim chance that the late first officer wouldn't be alone there.
"What about Engineering?" Janeway asked, starting to push aside parts of what had been the ceiling once. Rollins shook his head, still struggling with his console.
"No contact so far. Auxiliary helm control seems to be functional, though."
Janeway frowned, coming to a decision she clearly didn't like. "Very well. Mr. Paris, bring us to full stop and engage autopilot. We need to regroup."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied flatly. Just like anyone else, he was sorry for the wounded and the dead, but having the helm controls under his fingertips again, even only for the short time needed to stop the ship, hurt in a different, more profound way. Especially because he knew it wouldn't last a nanosecond longer than absolutely necessary.
Slipping into the seat behind the auxiliary helm control panel, he touched the smooth surface lovingly. Sure, the configurations were slightly different, but he had watched Stadi long enough to know what to do. Voyager obeyed his touch beautifully – like his old sailing ship on a nice day over the waves.
"Full stop," he reported all too soon, and rose from the seat before she could order him out of it. "Autopilot engaged."
"Captain," Harry interrupted, "there's something out there!"
She looked up with an exasperated scowl from the grim work of digging out her first officer from the debris. "I need a better description than that, Mr. Kim."
"I don't know," Harry blushed, working desperately to get anything useful from his skittish equipment. "I'm reading... I'm not sure what I'm reading."
"Can you get the viewscreen operational?" Janeway demanded.
"I'm trying…"
The viewscreen sputtered to life in the exact moment when Tom finally got around the auxiliary helm panel and stepped up to the bridge railing to get a better look at it. The image was slightly blurred, with surges and hisses of static flaring across the screen's surface, but it cleared up little by little, revealing the most unexpected sight that any of them had ever seen.
At first sight, the structure hanging before the background of star-spotted darkness reminded Tom of the crappy 3D-covers of his beloved Perry Rhodan novels. It looked like some sort of orbital platform, with peculiarly shaped rings reaching out in every direction from a central segment. 'Perry Rhodan Against the Floating City', the absurd title idea of yet another crappy novel came to Tom's mind. It would have been a big hit some three hundred years ago.
Abruptly, he recognized the small speck near the underside of the huge array as the Maquis ship. Realization hit him, and all of a sudden, he didn't find the whole thing funny anymore.
They had found the Crazy Horse. Despite all his efforts to prevent it, despite the cosmic interference of whatever higher powers were in play, they'd found them. Meaning, that Greg would go to prison, and it would be Tom's fault.
He had failed. Again.
Fragmented memories of his first weeks on the Thor's Hammer flooded Tom's brain, as he watched the smaller but equally battered Maquis ship floating dead in space. Those were not easy times. He'd been a wreck when he came aboard, brain fuzzed by too much booze and drugs. Chakotay had put him up with Greg, telling his best friend to take care of the stray pilot he'd found them and to see that Paris got dried out and taken down from the stuff he'd been poisoning himself with, because they needed a pilot who had all his senses together.
Afterwards (mostly in prison, where he'd had too much time to think) Tom often wondered how Greg had managed to achieve what Uncle Nick never could: bringing him through those first weeks and keeping him clean. How he was still able to fly while going through withdrawal was a test of his fortitude. It was brutal – he'd never have made it through it without Greg's patient strength and gruff kindness. That burly man had a heart as big as a solar system and as soft as cotton.
Fragmented memories. Greg, holding his head over the loo while he puked his guts out for what must have been the sixth time in a single night. Greg, washing his face with a damp cloth. Greg, forcing him to rinse out his mouth and clean his teeth every time after he'd thrown up – and the strange feeling of dignity it gave him. Greg, forcing him to eat something the next morning, so that the acids wouldn't eat holes in his empty stomach.
Greg, holding him safely in those big arms when the nightmares came. Greg, murmuring comforting nonsense into his ear in that rough voice of his. The big, solid body of Greg, spooned up behind him, warming his chilled bones, protecting him against the rest of the world. The gentle roaming of those calloused hands all over his body. The easy acceptance when he asked for more. The wonderful feeling of exquisite fullness when they joined their needy flesh to keep out loneliness for a short time.
It had little to do with the actual sex and nothing with romance. Tom had always been a ladies' man, and after his time in prison he doubted that he'd ever lie with a man again. As for Greg, he was just recovering from having been divorced by his wife because of some obscure religious belief that only Bajorans could understand. But he had never felt so safe in his entire life as he had in those nights with Greg – a good friend, the only one he had actually made in that dark period of his life.
And now he was about to bring this only friend into captivity. Was he really destined to destroy everyone who had the bad luck to get close to him?
"Captain," Harry's numb voice jerked him out of his rapidly deepening self-pity, " if these sensors are working, we're over 70,000 light years from where we were."
There was a sudden silence on the bridge. All eyes turned to Harry, too stunned to react, and he added lamely:
"We're on the other side of the galaxy. "
TBC