Disclaimer: Star Trek: Voyager and all characters therein are the property of Americans who are not me. No infringement of copyright is intended.

This story is set approximately around Season 3-4, but no particular spoilers other than this happens before Thirty Days. Rating M/15 for mature themes. Thanks to Star Trek Voyager: Lower Decks for all factual/technical information pertaining to the layout of the USS Voyager, and Star Trek: Technobabble for the correct spelling of "Jefferies Tube".

FEEDING THE FURY

Chapter 7

"Tuvok?" Captain Janeway queried.

"A Class J Nebula, Captain," Tuvok responded with his perpetual calm, "Nothing of interest."

"Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt," Chakotay muttered the old Earth saying at sufficient volume to raise a titter, most delighted as always when his Captain grinned at the pun.

Tuvok raised an eyebrow but instead said, "However, there is a lot of ion activity at the leading edge of the nebula that it would be prudent to avoid."

"Right," Chakotay agreed, "Tom alter our heading by 10.7 –" the ship moved slightly under his feet as with a casually airy "'Aye'" of acknowledgement, Tom flawlessly put them on the new heading that Chakotay had wanted…

…and hadn't had the chance to finish requesting. They continued on for several minutes – ten, twenty, thirty. This section of space, however, seemed to be the epitome of cosmic déjà vu. It contained nothing they hadn't already seen and nothing of use in sufficient quantities to make a detour worthwhile.

But Chakotay was extremely nervous, and he knew it had nothing to do with what was outside the ship. He was half-convinced that Tom Paris was becoming part-Betazoid. Either that or some freaky psychic link was forming between them. Paris seemed hyper-aware of his every twitch and for the past half-dozen duty shifts had demonstrated an accurate anticipation of Chakotay's wishes that had gone through uncanny to downright scary. Chakotay exchanged a glance with Captain Janeway and her eyes showed her agreement; at this rate he would only need to flick one eyelash and Tom Paris would be implementing his commands before he'd even thought them.

At the helm, Tom Paris smiled in the knowledge none of those behind him could see his savage grin. Come on, Chakotay, he formed the thought clearly in his head, letting the anger flood unchecked through veins and sinews, all I need is for you to come a little bit closer. I've had enough; damn the brig, damn Captain Janeway and her execution permissions. I'm going to hit you hard enough to snap your neck right here and right now…come on, get up and walk up behind me…

At that moment, Tuvok spoke, his voice incredibly carrying perhaps a hint of pleasure at having something of faint interest to report, "Captain, I am detecting a faint anomalous energy signature in the vicinity of Voyager."

"Source?" the Captain asked.

"Indeterminable." Tuvok checked his instruments, "It is extremely faint and intermittent…it is highly unlikely to be anything more than spatial background noise."

"Still…" she mused. "Chakotay?"

"Is it in visual range?" Chakotay asked.

"Affirmative," Tuvok changed the angle of the view screen, but there were only stars ahead.

"Magnify." Chakotay stood up and moved a few steps forward, but there was still nothing to see. "Try maximum magnification." He stepped forward again and to one side, so as not to make Tom uncomfortable by breathing down his neck -

Tom suddenly surged up out of his chair and lunged past Chakotay, shouldering the other man aside; he slammed his hand down on the console and the pulse wave activated; the ship didn't jolt but the flash of the pulse momentarily blinded everyone on the Bridge including even partially Tom who had had his eyes closed the entire time.

Not to worry, he had integrated an automatic Force 7 containment field into the pulse wave command to form around his calculation of the alien's position, and hopefully…

"Intruder alert," announced Tuvok as if delivering the weather report, ignoring his own teary eyes and smoothly aiming his phaser at the left-hand vertical rim of the view-screen, where a suddenly visible tall, leathery-skinned alien creature hissed malevolently at Paris.

It looked vaguely like an alligator on legs; Tom didn't give a damn as he aimed his own phaser at it. His though, was set to 'kill'. "Gotcha!"

"What are you?" Captain Janeway demanded of the creature sharply, outwardly unfazed by the sudden turn of developments on her Bridge.

It hissed again, ignoring her utterly as its angry eyes glared at Tom. "You managed to expose me, then. How extraordinary for such a primitive being…"

"You did it to yourself," mocked Tom, his phaser never wavering, "You're some kind of emotional vampire. You project hallucinations to provoke extreme emotions in your victims and then feed off those feelings."

"Close enough," the alien agreed, "though I find it incredible that a species as backward as yours could have seen through my hunting mechanism."

"Well a word of advice for future reference," Tom retorted, "arrogance and stupidity are not a good combination."

The creature hissed again, spittle gathering at the corners of its mouth as it snarled in rage; it was toothless with vestigial gums, indicating that its species probably only 'ingested' emotions, instead of feeding on physical nutrients.

Ignoring the display, Tom goaded, "Me seeing B'Elanna and Chakotay together in Cargo Bay One enraged me beyond reason; liked that didn't you? But your little attempt to feed my fury in hydroponics overplayed your hand."

"Lt Paris, explain?" Captain Janeway demanded.

"Long story short, Captain: this…creature…knew I was checking on B'Elanna and Chakotay, so it projected a hallucination of them together in hydroponics. But your hallucinations had com badges on, and I'd already checked with the computer that Chakotay was on Deck 4 at the time," Tom taunted the alien, "once I started thinking instead of reacting it was obvious that either Chakotay had come up with an undetectable way to fool the computer as to his whereabouts –"

"Unlikely," Tuvok commented with no discernible concern over the current situation.

"- or else what I'd seen wasn't real." Tom ignored the interruption as he focussed his whole attention on the alien. "Which made me start to wonder who or what could want me in such a state of uncontrolled fury? Once I started fantasising about ever more brutal ways to kill both of them for their adultery I realised someone was trying to artificially magnify my feelings of rage and vengefulness. Could that someone have also instigated them? Crewman Jurot is now the only living Betazoid on Voyager to generate those kind of empathic impulses, and since she's no Lon Sudor, that someone was far more likely to be some kind of alien intruder."

"Similar to that telepathic pitcher-plant thing," muttered Harry.

"Very clever," sneered the alien. "Pity, your rage was truly immense in magnitude when you believed your mate was faithless to you with the other male of your kind. You would have been delicious and nourishing for many days. Still, perhaps we'll see another time…"

"I don't think so." Tom denied flatly. "You see, there's an extremely important difference between me and him," he gestured towards Chakotay with his free hand without ever taking his eyes off the creature, "that you didn't take into account. You see, as soon as I actually thought about it, I knew what I was seeing had to be fake, because Chakotay has a lot of pesky principles and ethics that often make him very irritating…but which also stop him being a liar and a cheat and a traitor." He raised the phaser to point directly at the alien's head, his eyes turning to chips of pale blue ice set in a hard-jawed face, "Chakotay is a man of honour and integrity, while I on the other hand am a lying, cheating, unscrupulous, amoral bastard who has no qualm about simply killing you – right now."

"Tom!" Janeway exclaimed.

The alien's eyes widened as it hissed and jerked to one side in anticipation, but Tom just smirked as it collided with the containment field barrier and was halted. As he had intended, it was just one giant fish in a barrel.

"Captain," Tuvok declared, "I believe emitting a high-resonance Polaron pulse on wide-spectrum dispersal would be sufficient to drive the alien entity from within the ship." He paused and then added with perhaps just a soupcon of warmth in his voice, "It would, however cause the entity considerable physical pain in the process."

"Tom," Chakotay urged quietly, his tone strangely pleading, "you're better than this."

"'Considerable physical pain'?" Tom repeated the phrase slowly.

"Indeed," Tuvok confirmed. "I would categorise it as probably excruciating."

For an eternal heartbeat nobody moved; Tom found his whole focus had narrowed down to his finger on the phaser's fire button. All he had to do was twitch, but… "I can live with that," he decided, smiling cockily at the alien.

As the words left his mouth, Captain Janeway made a gesture and Tuvok pressed the command key. Another flash enveloped the bridge and the alien let out a high-pitched shriek of rage and pain before it abruptly disappeared.

Tom realised that his arm was trembling and then a bronze hand plucked the phaser from his own freckled one and turned it off. His eyes a mystery, Chakotay handed the phaser back and stepped away as Tom automatically grasped the object, consciously absorbing for the first time that he had been about to simply cut the creature down regardless of whether it was armed or not.

As if the action had been silent permission the Bridge tableau was broken. Seven stepped forward, "I will re-modulate Voyager's shields to continuously emit a low-level Polaron particle wave whilst we traverse this sector. They should be unpleasant enough to repel any more of the entity's species who might otherwise consider Voyager's crew to be a food source."

Continued in Chapter 8…

© 2005, Catherine D. Stewart