THE LOST VOYAGES
The "Star Trek – Voyager" that could have been
by Soledad
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: G, for this part.
Author's notes: The true form of the Caretaker was inspired by the "Frogs", the ultimate bad guys of the 1964 German sci-fi series "Raumpatrouille", also known as "The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion" – a short-lived show, placed in the 30th century. It was the first sci-fi series I had ever seen, at the tender age of 10 (it came on Hungarian TV a little late). Though in hindsight it was a pretty silly one, it got me hooked on the whole genre. For the record, I had the first chance to watch the original Star Trek in the late 1980's. But I wrote my first sci-fi story (which, fortunately, ceased to exist soon afterwards) when I was 11 years old. You do the math. ;)
So, here is a homage to "Raumpatrouille" and the unforgettable "Frogs". They were cool.
Beta read by the ever-generous Brigid – thank you.
Chakotay, Ayala and Tuvok were waiting in icy silence for Janeway and Paris to join them in the transporter room. The transporter technician, a nervous young man named Martin, shot them uneasy looks. The tension was almost tangible between the two Maquis and the Vulcan, and the fact that they were all carrying compression phaser rifles didn't make the whole situation particularly relaxed.
Finally the captain stormed in, with a rather subdued Tom Paris on her heels and stepped onto the transporter platform immediately.
"Stadi is going to make it," she told her crewmen while picking up a rifle from Tuvok. "Let's go, gentlemen!"
The others followed her example. Tom felt the familiar tingle of the transporter beam, and seconds later he rematerialized on the hard surface of the Array. It was composed of some strange alloy that no Federation database could identify.
They had chosen the same coordinates that the board computer had stored as the location of their first, involuntary visit, and yet it seemed now as if they had ended up on a completely different place. Gone was the idyllic, earth-like landscape – the "waiting room", as Tuvok called it. Now they stood in a cavernous room of the same light grey alloy as the Array's surface, yet here it was not shiny but dull, almost white.
The only piece of furniture was a long, angular console that looked like a slab of white stone, in the middle of the circular room. The walls were lined with huge viewscreens, all of which showed nothing but empty space, as if they were some blind windows to an alien cosmos.
The ever-efficient Tuvok got out his tricorder and moved slowly around, in widening circles, scanning for their missing crewmen. The alloy didn't seem to interfere with the little device.
"There are no humanoid life-forms indicated, Captain," he reported after a while, closing the tricorder and pocketing it again. "Ensign Kim and Miss Torres are not within tricorder range. They may not even be on the Array."
"Didn't you find anything useful at all?" Janeway asked, her frustration clearly showing. "What about this room?"
"This has to be the control room of the whole Array," the Vulcan replied without hesitation. Paris gave him an unbelieving look.
"This empty cavern?"
"It might look empty," Tuvok admitted; "however, according to my readings, it is not. The equipment that is undoubtedly all around us, must be holographically screened. We will not see it, unless the entity in charge allows it."
"That is absolutely correct," and oddly disembodied voice said, and as if stepping from behind an invisible curtain, a vaguely humanoid figure appeared at the farther end of the control panel.
The entity might have been seven or eight feet tall – it was hard to tell. It went through subtle changes all the time, flickering in and out of solid form. In fact, it looked like a human-shaped hole in the fabric of space, filled with liquid light. Its luminosity changed from a bare, dim flicker to the equivalent of a bright golden flame and back again; and it seemed to have six appendages attached to its upper body and two more on the lover part of its torso, serving as legs.
"What do you want here?" it asked, laying one of its upper limbs on the surface of the control panel. It ceased mimicking a roughly-hewn stone immediately. Multi-coloured displays flickered to life, diagrams and complex, aesthetically beautiful symbols that might have been numbers or letters. But for the eyes of the humans and the Vulcan everything seemed strangely… wrong, out of focus, out of balance – the colours just a little too bright, the patterns of their flickering just slightly arhythmycal…
"You have no business being here," it added, and only when he saw the Vulcan wince in pain did Chakotay realize that he had not really heard the entity's voice. He had heard its thoughts. It was nauseating enough for a mere human, being violated this way; he could imagine what the Vulcan must feel.
Not that Chakotay would feel sorry for the spy. The Vulcan deserved to suffer; to learn that his special mental abilities weren't always an advantage. To meet someone who was stronger and even less scrupulous.
Still, violating someone's mind was something that Chakotay found utterly repulsive. Even if the victim was his enemy. So he took a step towards the oddly elusive entity and glared at its "face", where the eyes should be by a humanoid being, in cold fury.
"We have no business here?" he repeated in a low, dangerously calm voice. "I see that differently. You've made this our business by bringing us here in the first place."
"I have no need of you any longer," the mental voice answered, dismissing him like an obnoxious child. "You don't have what I need."
Janeway put her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing. A thin and seemingly fragile woman she might be, but she also could be thoroughly intimidating when she put her mind to it. And now she was making her best effort.
"I don't know what you need," she replied angrily, "and frankly, I don't care. I just want our people back, and I want us all to be sent home."
So much for a diplomatic approach, Tom thought sarcastically, though he also could understand Janeway's anger. He didn't like others manipulating his life either.
"Well, well…" that mental voice grew coldly amused. "Aren't you a little contentious for a minor bipedal species?"
"This minor bipedal species," Janeway answered with equal coldness, "doesn't take kindly to being abducted."
Her words obviously had no impact. The entity seemed to lose solidity; even its mental voice had been reduced to a distant murmur in their minds. "It was necessary."
Returning to the displays, it touched a few other control surfaces, creating a distinct chirping sound like a melody containing a long row of asymmetric three-tact sequences. Tom wondered if that was its spoken language and wished the Fleet still had communications officers like it used to in the previous centuries. The universal translator had yielded within seconds – the language was too alien for it to match. Tom also suspected, that – just like with the symbols and colours on the displays – his senses weren't quite able to perceive the whole range of those sounds. But an expert like Hoshi Sato or Nyota Uhura, Starfleet's most famous practical linguists, might have succeeded where technology failed.
As the Maquis leader moved forward, Tom was getting nervous. The solid form of the big man positively radiated anger. Tom had never truly seen Chakotay in rage, but according to the other Maquis, it was not a pretty sight.
"Where. Are. Our. People?" Chakotay asked with the deceiving calmness that could only be experienced before the immediate outburst of a particularly violent storm. The entity, however, was not impressed.
"They are not here," it replied with the infuriating self-confidence of someone who knew perfectly well that they couldn't harm him any more than a few ants could harm an Allurian mammoth.
"What have you done to them?" Janeway snapped, but the entity's attention was drifting out of focus again, turning completely towards its displays.
"You don't have what I need," its mental voice was now barely more than an absent-minded murmur. "They might. You'll have to leave them."
Chakotay shook his head, grim determination written in his hardening features. "We won't do that."
"You don't have a choice in this matter," the entity replied in the same, distracted manner. "They are needed elsewhere."
Janeway grabbed Chakotay's arm with what she thought to be a soothing gesture. Tom grinned involuntarily as he saw the big Maquis stiffen – Chakotay disliked being pawed almost as much as a Vulcan.
"Please, reconsider," Janeway said trying to address the entity's better side, assuming it had one in the first place, while holding Chakotay back before he could do or say anything stupid. "We are their commanding officers. We are entrusted with their safety. They are our responsibility. That may be a concept that you can't understand…"
Yeah, great, Tom secretly rolled his eyes at this brilliantly diplomatic approach. Just make Lightbulb nice and mad, both of you. That would certainly inspire it to give us back Harry and Torres and send us home!
To his relief, the only reaction they got was a dry mental chuckle.
"Oh, no," the entity replied, solidifying a little, while all his arms were still working tirelessly on that peculiar control panel, "I do understand, better than you might think. But I have no choice. There's so little time left…"
It drifted off again, out of both focus and solidity. But Janeway was losing her patience with its incoherent mental ramblings rapidly.
"Left for what?" she snapped, fighting the urge to grab the entity and shake it hard enough to rattle its teeth – assuming it had teeth, of course. It was hard to tell with someone whose form was teetering on the edge between solid and liquid.
The entity kept working on its console. The movements of its six upper appendages were like nothing that Tom had seen before, and he had seen his share of unusual aliens. Those limbs bent at any possible place, as if it had been made of a substance akin to quicksilver. They practically poured across the controls.
"I must honour the debt that could never be repaid," the mental voice came from afar, as if the entity were continuing some inner monologue that had been going on for too long. "But my search has not gone well."
"Tell us what you are looking for," Janeway insisted, in the desperate hope that she might talk the entity into cooperation yet. "Perhaps we can help you find it."
The mental laughter that answered her suggestion was cold and full of contempt. It was like a slap into their faces, dealt by someone with a power so superior to their own that they couldn't even imagine it.
"You?" the entity repeated with what could only be described as the mental equivalent of a derisive snort. "I have searched the galaxy for five hundred local cycles, with methods beyond your comprehension. There is nothing you can do." Its attention switched back to the displays, and it added in its earlier, absent manner. "You're free to go. If your people turn out to be as useless for my purpose as the rest of you, I'll send them back."
"That's not good enough!" Chakotay growled angrily. "They are sentient beings. You can't use them for your… experiments."
"I can and I will," the entity replied without remorse. "That might not seem very ethical to you, but at times we have no choice. This is one of those times, and I can't be hindered by ethical considerations when so much more is at stake."
"It seems that you won't let yourself be bothered by ethics at all," Janeway said, her voice icy. "You've taken us seventy thousand light years from our homes. We have no way back unless you send us – and we won't leave without the others."
"I can't send you back," the entity answered, its attention focused almost entirely on its displays. "It would be too complicated… and my resources are needed for more important tasks. I don't have the time to deal with your petty problems… not enough time…"
One of its appendages sneaked out and touched a previously neglected control surface. For a moment, everything went dark – then the away team found themselves on Voyager's bridge again.
"That went well," Tom commented sarcastically – a little louder than he had actually meant.
Janeway shot him an irritated look. "It's not over yet. Mr. Paris.
Tom raised a pointedly skeptical eyebrow. It was a very good parody of the customary Vulcan gesture, and he could see Greg Ayala grin behind Chakotay's back, though the burly Maquis tried to hide his amusement.
"Is it not?" he asked with false innocence. "Harry and Torres are obviously not on that Array. They could be anywhere in this sector. So, how do you intend to find them… Captain?"
He knew he was pushing his luck, and he didn't really understand why in seven hells did he taunt her, but some silly, childish part of him wouldn't leave her alone. Chief Mendon had been right. His attitude would get him in great trouble again. If the dark looks that the bridge crew was giving him were any indication, it had already started.
Memories of the friendly Benzite – the only person on board aside from Stadi who had treated him as a human being – overwhelmed him all of a sudden, so that he didn't even listen to the spontaneously arising debate about how the y might still find their missing people. Before beaming over to the Array, he hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of the little fishheads, he had been so worried about Stadi. Poor things, how would they be able to grow up without their father?
He shook his head in sorrow. It had been hard to have a father like the Admiral, but having no father at all, and with their mother seventy thousand light years away, the Benzite babies had it a lot worse.
Janeway, not knowing what might be going on in his head, interpreted his gesture as a sign of protest.
"You see it differently, Mr. Paris?" she asked sweetly.
Tom shook his head again. "No, Ma'am. Whatever you are planning, I'm in."
"Assuming I want you with us," Janeway replied. Tom shrugged.
"You might need a field medic. I'm the only one available."
"On this ship perhaps," Chakotay said. "We, too, have a trained medic on the Crazy Horse. We can take her with us instead. At least her I can trust."
"Do what you have to, Chakotay," Tom answered tiredly. "With your permission, Captain, I'd like to go down to sickbay now. At least I can be useful to T'Prena. And Vulcans don't suffer from paranoia."
"You shouldn't believe the whole Vulcan mythos, Paris," said Ayala slowly. "After all, the guys aren't supposed to lie, either…"
Janeway's jaw tightened for a moment, but she displayed remarkable self-restraint. "Permission granted, Mr. Paris."
Tom turned to leave, but right at the door he turned back for a moment.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Greg," he said to Ayala. "This was not what I have planned."
Ayala nodded slowly, almost reverently, his obsidian eyes unreadable. "Wasn't your fault, Paris."
But the fact that he didn't call Tom by his first name as had always been his wont, delivered the rest of the message unmistakably, This time.
Tom nodded, expecting the inevitable with a bitter aftertaste and left.
Barely had the door closed behind Tom when Ensign Baytart, Stadi's replacement, looked up from his console.
"Captain, the Maquis ship is hailing us."
"And the call is coming through your console, instead of through Ops?" Janeway asked a little bewildered. Baytart shrugged.
"All systems are acting crazy, or so Lt. Carey has reported."
"All right, Ensign, put them through."
Baytart touched a few controls, and the gentle face of a young, blonde Bajoran woman appeared on the big screen.
"This is Sito Jaxa from the Crazy Horse," she said in a soft voice that matched her face. "May I speak with my captain, please?"
Without waiting for Janeway's permission, Chakotay stepped into the imaging focus of Voyager's comm system.
"What's up?" he asked in the clipped tone of an experienced officer, used to giving orders and being obeyed.
"We have a problem, sir," she answered in the same practical, officer-like manner. "Two problems, actually. Gerron and Tamal. Their condition took a sudden turn for the worse. And I just don't have here the necessary equipment to treat them."
"I see," Chakotay clenched his fist. "Suggestions?"
"That's a newly built Fleet ship over there, sir," the Bajoran said. "They would have the means to save our people."
"And then throw them in the brig," Chakotay replied darkly. The Bajoran nodded in understanding.
"I know that we might not free them again, once they are healed. But sir, if we don't take the risk, they'll die. Tamal certainly; and Gerron's chances are slim, too."
"And there's absolutely nothing you can do for them?"
"Other than hold their hands and watch them die? Nothing, sir." She paused, her eyes haunted; then she spoke again, but now she was addressing the other captain. "Captain Janeway, may I have a word with you?"
Janeway blinked in surprise. "Certainly, go on."
"Captain, I used to be a Starfleet officer. An eager one and not a bad one, according to Captain Picard anyway. I know the ideals of the Fleet – and I know what little politics leave intact of those ideals. You told Chakotay that we should set our differences aside while in the Delta Quadrant. For my dying friends' sake, I'd be willing to do that. Are you willing to give me your word as a Starfleet officer that you'd let them go again?"
The true question behind those polite words was clear enough. Can you be trusted, Captain? Unlike her leader, the young Bajoran was obviously willing to give a Fleet captain the benefit of doubt. Despite the fact that this very captain was the one who had placed a spy among them and been sent out to hunt them down. Janeway was impressed.
"I give you my word that your people will be treated to the best of our abilities," she said, "and that they may go free, once healed. But let me also tell you that our doctor is dead. All we have is an emergency medical hologram and a Vulcan nurse."
"The EMH is offline," Rollins informed his captain. "Its system got affected by the board-wide problems."
"Oh, great! Just what we needed! Now all we have is the nurse."
"But you do have the equipment and the medical supplies," Sito said. "All I have is a medkit, and that, too, is almost empty."
"You are welcome to beam over with your patients, of course," Janeway nodded; then, turning to Chakotay, she added. "Commander, we should continue our discussion in my ready room. I'm not willing to give up on our abducted people just yet."
After a moment of hesitation, Chakotay nodded.
"Ayala, go down to sickbay and check on Tamal and Gerry," he ordered. "After that, beam back to the Crazy Horse and take command while I'm here. Seska is good during emergencies, but a little too trigger-happy."
Ayala nodded. In fact, he was glad to have the chance to talk to Paris in private. "Will do, Cap."
T'Prena looked up from her monitors in surprise when she saw Thomas Paris walk into the doctor's office.
"You are remarkably efficient for a human, Mr. Paris. I have only sent my request to the captain's terminal 12.3 standard minutes ago, and you are already here. This is rather unusual."
The human, too, seemed surprised.
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," he admitted.
T'Prena raised an eyebrow. "Have you not been sent here by Captain Janeway, granting my request to assign you to sickbay as temporary medic?"
"Afraid not. I doubt that the captain had the time yet to read your request at all. I've come to check on Stadi and the little Benzites."
"I see," T'Prena knew that disappointment was counterproductive and illogical, yet she could not help feeling so.
"But," Paris added unexpectedly, "I'll be glad to help, wherever I can. It's not as if I had anything else to do on this big and shiny ship."
The human's emotions were intense and close to the surface, but T'Prena blocked them easily. Used to the short temper of Dr. Fitzgerald, it was relatively easy.
"Very well," she said, "you may start with the babies. They need to be turned onto their other side. And check the feeding and breathing tubes, please."
That was more than all right with Tom. What's more, it was something he was actually qualified to do. With great care he turned the little fishheads onto their other side, almost afraid to touch them. They were still so tiny that he could have held all four in one palm, and his hands were more used to handling the heavy tools of the motor fleet repair bay in Auckland. He hoped he'd still be able to deal with a control panel, should he ever get the chance to fly again.
"Nurse," he asked quietly, "may I use one of your computers? I'd like to check out what the database has on Benzite physiology."
"Certainly," the Vulcan nodded. "I would suggest Dr. Ransom's study, that is the most detailed source about the species. You will find it in the Xenology Section of the Virtual Library of Starfleet Sciences."
Tom thanked her, and in the next few minutes – while his respect for the aforementioned Dr. Ransom, now apparently the captain of the USS Equinox and missing with his ship and some 80 crew, steadily grew – he learned the most extraordinary things about Benzites. Among others the little detail that gender specifications didn't develop until they reached the age of the equivalent of a six-year-old human child. And that they learned to swim and sing before they learned to walk and speak.
That gave him a lot to think about. Obviously, the babies will need a specific environment, as soon as they left the incubator units. Maybe a basin in one of the empty quarters or the cargo bays will do the trick. But how are they going to learn to speak? Would their ability to hear develop without the native sounds of their own species at all?
Getting an idea, Tom quickly searched the musical database of Voyager. As expected, it didn't contain any Benzite melodies – Benzar being a non-Federation world that had been rather unlikely. But it had several files of the songs of Terran whales, filtered through deep water and underpainted with the murmurs of the sea. It was incredibly soothing, even for a human, and Tom assumed the little fishheads would like it, too. He asked for those files to be played inside the incubator units, at the lowest possible volume that the babies could still perceive.
T'Prena's Vulcan ears, of course, still heard it. She walked over to Tom and gave him a questioning look and the perfect Vulcan eyebrow. Tom explained shortly his ideas. And the nurse nodded in agreement.
"Excellent thoughts, Mr. Paris. In fact, I will ask the captain's permission to turn one of the smaller cargo bays into a nursery. Until then, we will have to spray them regularly, so that their skin will not dry out." She paused, her eyed darkening with concern. "I wish we could do something for Lieutenant Stadi just so easily."
"Does she know…?"
"Negative. She was conscious for a short time and asked about her eyes. But she fell asleep again, right after that. She had no time to ask about her spine."
Tom sighed. "Better for her to hope a little longer. She'll have to live with the ugly truth long enough. Is there nothing the Doc could do for her?"
"There is not much the EMH could do for anyone, currently," T'Prena replied and explained in her usual short, logical manner the nature of the problem. Tom sighed again.
"I see. Is that why you want me to work here?"
"Not only you, though at the moment you are certainly the best-qualified crewmember. However, I intend to start a course for other possible candidates, in order to train them as replacement nurses and medical technicians."
"So, you don't believe that we'd get home any time soon either?" Tom asked. The Vulcan gave him an unblinking look.
"You have been on the Array. You tell me."
"The entity threw us out like bothersome children," Tom admitted," and if you ask me, we can be grateful that it didn't do anything worse. It plays way above our league – and if it wouldn't be dangerous to make guesses about an alien so vastly different from us, I'd say it was a little mad, too. Or at least obsessed with some peculiar task that didn't seem to go too well."
"That could be dangerous indeed," the Vulcan agreed. "If all the alien is interested in is a particular task…"
The chirping of the comm system interrupted her. "Bridge to sickbay."
She turned to the nearest comm unit, "T'Prena."
"Be prepared to accept two patients in serious condition," Janeway's voice said. "We'll be beaming them over from the Maquis ship, directly to sickbay, together with their medic."
"Acknowledged," T'Prena walked over to the examination room. "Everything is ready here."
"Good," Janeway's voice became somewhat muffled, as she probably turned away from her comm unit. "Energize, Mr. Rollins."
"Aye, Captain," the voice of the bridge officer answered, and the golden shimmer of the transporter beam solidified into two motionless shapes on the prepared biobeds and a third one standing between them.
"The patients have arrived, Captain," T'Prena reported. "I will send the details to your terminal as soon as we have run a few tests."
"Good. Keep me informed. Janeway out."
The connection was broken, and T'Prena turned to her attention to the blonde Bajoran, clad in the usual rough garb of Maquis fighters – obviously their medic.
"I am Nurse T'Prena, currently in charge of Voyager's sickbay. Can you provide me with any details considering the status of your patients?"
But the young woman didn't listen to her. She was staring at Tom in stunned disbelief, her mouth literally hanging open.
"Nick?" she asked hesitatingly. "Is that really you?"
Tom felt his chest tighten. Here it comes, he thought in resignation. My past has finally caught up with me. Completely. Of course he recognized her. Jean had kept the holopictures of the Nova Squadron in her room all the time.
"I'm very sorry, Sito," he answered quietly, "but Nick is dead. He took his own life, a year after he was thrown out of the Academy. You are the only one of the Nova Squadron who's still alive."
"What about Crusher?" Sito asked tonelessly.
"Has been missing with the Equinox for some weeks now," Tom replied. "And you probably know what happened to Jean."
"I've heard of Caldik Prime, shortly after the Maquis freed me," Sito said. "And so you are…"
"I'm the one who killed her," Tom answered simply. "Her and Oriana and Jake. All three of them."
Sito's eyes narrowed with realization, "You are Tom Paris…"
"Yeah," Tom nodded with a bitter smile. "The liar. The pariah. Everyone's favourite traitor."
"Try not to feel so sorry for yourself," Sito said dryly. "After all, you are at least alive. But how come you look so much like Nick?"
"He never told you?" Sito shook her head. "Well, I can't blame him for not wanting to be connected to the oh-so-mighty Paris clan. But we are… were first cousins. His mother was – well, she still is – a Paris. My aunt Vanessa."
For a moment Sito watched his face in amazement. Then she shook off the whole thing and turned to the Vulcan.
"Nurse, I have here a human patient in his early thirties with six broken ribs, a punctured lung, a spinal injury and severe inner bleedings. And a Bajoran one, age nineteen, at least in standard, with a head trauma, a concussion and probably a crushed liver. My instruments aren't even capable of a decent diagnosis."
"Fortunately, the biobeds are still working at one hundred per cent efficiency," T'Prena answered. "Assist me while I stabilize your human patient. In the meantime Mr. Paris can prepare your fellow Bajoran for treatment."
Tom braced himself for a heated rejection. Why should Sito entrust him with the care of this young boy? If anyone, Sito had every reason to hate him. But to his surprise, the Bajoran simply nodded.
"Jean had sent me messages, even after the Academy," she said, looking at him over her shoulder. "I think we should talk – after our work here is done."
Tom nodded, grateful that she was willing to hear his side of the story, and yet dreading the memories that telling it would doubtlessly trigger again.
"Whenever you want, he answered quietly, and called for the diagnostic arch to be raised over the battered body of the young Bajoran.
TBC