Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all characters therein are the property of Americans who are not me. No infringement of copyright is intended.
NB: This story is set approximately around Season 5-7, but not particular spoilers other than this happens after Thirty Days (but after Tom re-makes it to Lieutenant again) and before Drive. Rating T/PG14
OF RYALS & RELATIONSHIPS
Chapter 6 – Unanimated Suspense
Chakotay was deeply, deeply suspicious. He wished Tuvok were here at the Tactical station. For all the Vulcan's imperturbability got to him, he would only have to glance at the man for Tuvok to have raised one eyebrow in a silent agreement that confirmed, 'yes something is going on here'.
However, Tuvok and the Captain, along with Seven, B'Elanna and most of the senior bridge staff were down on Ryzak. Captain Janeway had been the only person aboard not to take advantage of the chance to have a break on the surface, and Chakotay had instantly known why – she would never take the risk of leaving Voyager vulnerable even in the most friendly and safest seeming of places; it was exactly the credo Chakotay had followed in the Maquis and it had saved his ships and crews more than once.
She had therefore resigned herself to missing out on the fun. Chakotay had enjoyed his time on the planet's surface, but his meditation and vision quests enabled him to cope better with long periods in the 'giant tin can' than most. So he had determined his Captain would have a break. The problem was that she couldn't go alone. Kathryn Janeway would not leave Voyager vulnerable, and the Voyagers would not tolerate their Captain being at risk. Other than himself, the one person Chakotay trusted absolutely to put Kathryn Janeway's safety above any and all other considerations including their own life was Tuvok, so he had explained the situation and suggested that Tuvok accompany her.
Double-teamed by Chakotay and Tuvok, the two people she trusted most in all the universe, she had given in, but the ease with which they accomplished their goal demonstrated explicitly to both men – as Tuvok had admitted to Chakotay later on in private – just how tired and worn down the captain was. She needed this break as desperately as the rest of the crew, probably more so.
As it happened, Chakotay was 98 unconcerned. Once she'd embraced the idea, the Captain had been positively ebullient about being pampered at one of Ryzak's spas for a day or two and hadn't kept it a secret. Besides Tuvok, nearly three quarters of Voyager's crew complement were currently on the surface, and funnily enough, nearly all of them seemed to been using the same recreational facilities as the Captain. Lt Ayala, who had been Chakotay's trusted second in the Maquis, had taken aside one of the city's blustering and posturing civil security types and explained in that quiet but chilling manner of his exactly why so many of the Voyager crew happened to have some sort of hand-weaponry with them, and had had the being quaking in it's boots after painting a terrifying word-picture of the catastrophic consequences of the Voyager's revered captain being harmed in any fashion. In the olden times it used to be termed a 'ring of steel' or a 'bubble' of total protection, but Chakotay was confident it would be effective now.
Which brought him to his current certainty that something was up; the Bridge wasn't just awash with 'undercurrents', it was a flash flood of seething emotion, all of it emanating from the one constant irritant in his life, Tom Paris, currently at the helm. If there was anything that wound Chakotay up or resulted in him almost developing stress-ulcers, you could bet that Tom Paris would be in the thick of it somewhere. Chakotay was half-seriously convinced that Paris's primary mission in life was to drive Chakotay nuts.
But right now, Tom was being good. In fact, he was being positively angelic. No sotto voce com-chatter with Harry that incrementally increased until he goaded Chakotay into being the 'killjoy' who ordered them to quiet down. No witty commentary on the planet, its populace, or their current situation. No barbed idle musings to get a rise out of Chakotay. With the repressing factors of both Janeway and Tuvok removed, Tom should have been in his element engaging Chakotay in the next battle of their ongoing war of wits. Chakotay wouldn't admit he sort of enjoyed the love-hate relationship between himself and Paris even under Cardassian torture, but he had to admit to himself a certain…level of concern.
Whatever the issue, Harry Kim was also in on it. That young man stood at his Ops station, diligently monitoring readings, but he kept a weather eye on Paris's rigid back with an expression of amusement mingled with exasperation.
Chakotay's mental musing was interrupted by a transmission from the surface, namely Crewman Orlando reporting that they were ready to shuttle up the last batch of supplies and equipment purchased from Jeren at Chakotay's order. The spaceport on Ryzak was a bit of a tight fit, and bringing the supplies up now would mean Tom manoeuvring the Voyager slightly to one side to allow the cargo shuttles docking room between it and the huge Wraxllyn freighter in the next docking ring berth. However, Chakotay was not a believer in procrastination, and was ever aware that despite the (for once) complete lack of trouble, there was still the outside possibility that Voyager would be forced to cut and run from Ryzak at a moment's notice.
He had no intention of paying for much-need supplies they might end up having to abandon if they needed to warp it fast out of here, so he told Orlando to send up the shuttles. "Tom, move us the right distance away from the Wraxllyn."
"Aye."
Chakotay's eyes narrowed at the flat, curt monosyllabic acknowledgement but then he raised his eyebrows in astonishment. Tom Paris, for all his faults (and Chakotay was happy to list these in full detail, with annotated sub-sections and footnotes) was probably the best pilot Chakotay had ever seen. Paris didn't 'operate' a ship's controls, he caressed them. His long fingers were like a delicate string concerto dancing, gliding and fluttering over the plastiglas consoles of anything he flew with the genius of any musical composer such as Mozart or Elgar.
Right now however, Tom's fingers stabbed at the key-command lights with the staccato jerkiness of a puppet and Chakotay winced as Tom finally hit one command light with such venom that the commander was amazed he didn't put his finger through the plastiglas altogether or at the very least crack it. About to issue a reprimand, he heard the faintest of sounds and decided to cast a beady eye at a certain Mr Kim instead; instantly Harry's eyes dropped away from Chakotay's cool gaze to his own console, but not before Chakotay had clearly seen the compressed lips and 'sucked-in' cheeks that personify someone who is desperately suppressing laughter.
Holding his peace, Chakotay remained silent as Tom completed the manoeuvre so as not to distract him, aware of its comparative difficulty. Over 85 of all accidents, prangs, collisions and scrapes suffered by spacecraft occurred at docking rings, in space dock, at spaceports, etc. Few people ever saw the outside of a spaceship up close enough to appreciate their tremendous size, even the smaller ships such as the Voyager counted as, being an Intrepid-class. People saw a ship from the surface, then travelled up to the spaceport in a nice comfortable shuttle, straight through boarding control and on board where they wandered around pleasantly decorated corridors no different to any planetary upscale hotel.
Flying a spaceship at Warp 5 in a straight line posed little challenge, but trying to manoeuvre something so huge in tiny increments in a tight space required extraordinary dexterity, total spatial awareness, consummate skill and that indescribable but essential something 'extra' that couldn't be learned, only received via a gift of genetics. Just as a ship's doctor outranked the Captain in medical matters, by Starfleet tradition any situation involving close-quarters manoeuvring, and always when within space dock, was the only occasion when the Con Officer outranked the Captain, so serious was their responsibility in keeping the ship in one piece.
The manoeuvre was executed flawlessly, but then Chakotay had expected no less. But before he could proffer the sincere praise on his lips, Paris turned in his chair and offered, "I'll can go down and help Orlando sort the inventory, so we can be ready to leave by tomorrow morning?"
Chakotay was glad he was sitting in his seat, since for a moment his brain refused to accept the input from his ears. Volunteer? Tom Paris, the original hard-partying playboy, was voluntarily offering to undertake Freshman-cadet level duties that would provoke the breaking of actual sweat? That's it, it's officially the Apocalypse, Chakotay thought to himself, half expecting a huge LED message to flash up on the view-screen: ARMAGEDDON WILL START IN T-MINUS THIRTY SECONDS. YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO REACH MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE, SO LONG SUCKER.
"That won't be necessary, Paris," he managed with heavy irony, "I'm sure Crewman Orlando can cope."
"Fine."
Chakotay stiffened at the insolent rejoinder as Paris swivelled back round in his chair to face the view-screen so fast he almost gave himself whiplash, but yet again, he reconsidered. Every sinew of the younger man's rigid back proclaimed he was a tension convention. Pour a bit of starch over him and you could have used him as a violin-string. Besides, it was the first flash of the real Tom Paris he'd seen, and that brief spark of typically veiled challenge, the patented Paris 'let's-see-how-far-I-can-push-Chakotay' usual operating mode was in a strange kind of way actually reassuring. So – for now – he would let it go.
To be continued…
© 2005, C D Stewart