Chapter 11 – Paying the Price
"Captain, your statement? I presume you have one now?"
"I do. I have no wish to pre-empt our counsel's legal argument, but I want to state for the record that I believe it is time for the law to change. We know that it can, when it is so patently wrong, and that this court has the power to declare void a law that is inconsistent with what the Federation stands for. Our legal system is not just based on rules, it is also based on equity. And equity is based on doing what is right. That in turn must shape the law, and our interpretations of it.
In my time as an officer in Starfleet, I have seen the law change a number of times, and always for the better.
Just a few short years ago, my best friend, the late Commander Data, was told in a court of law that he was a machine, without rights, without right to self-determination. I know this because thanks to some … rule … I was the one made to prosecute the case against him.
Luckily, I failed and my then-Captain, now Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, convinced the judge that it was time for the law to change. That the human rights norms and standards on which the Federation was founded were meant for all sentient life forms, including artificial ones, sentient life forms not yet discovered or in existence when the law was written.
And that … man, my friend, whose positronic brain would have been considered unworthy of being called 'alive' had the law been upheld, continued to serve in Starfleet with unparalleled distinction, ultimately sacrificing his own life to save the Romulan Empire and thereby setting the Federation on a path of peace with a race once considered among its worst enemies. This incredible step forward for all of us would not have been possible but for a change in the law that permitted Commander Data to become who he was, who we needed him to be.
Likewise, the Doctor who served on Voyage for seven years, saving countless lives, and who joined us on the Enterprise on our last mission, was recently declared to be a sentient being and a person in his own right by the Supreme Court of the Federation. He will soon be teaching what he learned in the Delta Quadrant to students at the Academy, teachings that will have a profound effect on our understanding of medicine.
The law can change, your honour, and it must, when change is for the better or when failure to change breeds injustice.
I do not consider what Commander Paris and I did to have been a breach of the Prime Directive. I consider the Prime Directive to be a breach of everything the Federation and Starfleet stand for. It is time for change."
+o+o+
Tom banked the Flyer around the asteroid belt, following the coordinates of their last landing, but with radiation shields only this time, and without stealth. This time, they wanted to be found. He looked at Deanna.
"Anything yet?"
"I'm not sure," she replied. "I'm reaching out, but I don't seem to be getting anything back."
"Harry?"
"Nope. Still having a hard time getting sensors to cooperate out here, even if we have a better idea now what we're looking for."
Tom sighed. It was an unfortunate fact, if somewhat ironic, that it was often easier to communicate through artifice and technology than it was to do so directly, thought-to-thought, face-to-face. The K'rikians had responded to the Enterprise's hails within minutes and a delegation was on board even now, speaking with the Captain, B'Elanna and the EMH.
Hailing the Lumen was a different matter.
"Wait a minute. Tom, I think I've got something. Looks like a warp signature, leading to the asteroid where you found the kids. Could of course be the Flyer's, from the last time you were out here. As usual, I can't tell." Harry's frustration was evident in his voice. He was beginning to take his inability to rely on his systems personally, a reflection of his value as an officer, and he was not happy about it.
"Relax, Harry. Nobody is holding it against you. If I thought every time we got sucked into a space anomaly or got flung around in a plasma storm was a reflection of my piloting skills, I'd have half the ego I do."
Deanna laughed. "Yes, and if I had decided to give up on empathy every time some alien menace invaded my mind, I'd be out of a job now."
"Fine, thanks guys. I take your point. But it is frustrating, to say the least."
"Let's set down," Tom announced. "They asked for our help; if they want it, it does stand to reason they would hang around some place familiar, so that we can actually deliver it." He angled the Flyer to follow the readings Harry had sent to his console.
"At least we know already this place isn't mined," Harry said. "If the K'rikians had left a charge here, you'd have found it." Tom snorted in response, unconsciously rubbing his rib cage. "Hey, at least my talent for mine sweeping is more reliable than your sensors."
One of his requests to the Captain had been to get the K'rikians to provide a detailed map of the places where they had placed their insidious charges, as well as an undertaking to remove them should the Enterprise's efforts be successful. If their actions did manage to result peace between the two races, the last thing either side needed was to have more children – or unlucky alien explorers - die inadvertently as a result of unexploded remnants of the conflict.
Harry looked at him with a visible shudder. He had been shocked by the damage done by the K'rikian's seismic trigger when he had visited Tom in Sickbay; the memory still made him wince.
Tom decided it was time to lighten the mood a little. "Hey, did you guys know that for purposes of Starfleet personnel records and compensation claims, hitting a mine is considered an 'incident' rather than an 'accident'? Makes little difference in my case, but something to keep in mind when you're running into one with a Starfleet shuttle. They can't hold it against you. Much."
Harry snorted. "Should tell that to Chakotay, in case someone ever lets him behind the helm again."
"They're here." Deanna's voice, firm and definitive. Harry and Tom exchanged glances, all professional again.
Show time.
Once they landed on the asteroid, the decision to return to the cave where they had had their previous encounter was easily made; neither Tom nor Harry much appetite for inviting the Lumen onboard the shuttle, given what had happened to the Enterprise. The only question that remained in Tom's mind was whether to have Harry stay with the Flyer, but now that they knew the aliens were benign, such precaution seemed unnecessary. More to the point, Tom thought it might be useful for his friend to meet the beings who had abducted his son. There was something to be said for the closure he himself had found in seeing the Lumen, understanding their plight.
"Alright, everybody. Let's go meet our misguided friends."
The cave was unchanged, although this time Tom found that he was almost able to appreciate its translucent beauty. He smiled as he heard Harry gasp at the rainbow refractions their wrist lights threw off the crystals that were lining the walls.
They turned the corner into the main cavern, familiar now to both Tom and Deanna. It was filled with the pulsating light of two of the Lumen; Tom assumed they were the same ones they had previously encountered, but he had to admit to himself that he had no way of knowing.
He nodded to Deanna, who approached them with her hand outstretched, inviting the touch that would join part of her consciousness to theirs. She turned back to her companions, her face radiant with their joy. "They know," she said simply. "They know we have come to help. They are very, very grateful."
"That's great, and I'm glad to hear it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We need something first. Deanna …?"
They had discussed at length what images Deanna would be sending the Lumen, and in what sequence: An emerging Lumen child. Drops of light from the birth falling on the K'rikian worlds, raining death. Small ships flying sorties to lay charges in the caves; emergence, detonations. More death. The Enterprise, warp core glowing, drawing a blackened border between the Lumen and a dying K'rikian world. A Lumen entering the Enterprise, the ship stopped dead, its warp core dark and silenced. The border dissolving again, death and destruction resuming. The last three sequences run again, before the entire series would start from the beginning.
He hoped they would get it, somehow, would understand what they were asking. We can help, but only with our engines. Undo what you did.
Deanna remained still for a long time, her face a study in concentration; both aliens were pulsating brightly, listening, with whatever senses they used. Suddenly, the light that had enveloped her hand was drawn back into the being that had touched her. She staggered a little at the loss, disoriented, until Harry caught and steadied her.
"Do you think they understood?" Tom asked softly. "That we need their help, if we are to help them – and the K'rikians?"
"I believe they did. There was … a sudden brightness. But then, at the end, they seemed to be talking to each other, not to me. The one I touched kept repeating one particular message to the other, as if he needed to convince her. I heard it over and over when we were still connected. Of course I can't be sure because their thought patterns are so different from ours. But I believe what he was conveying was … an absence, something they had to give back, like …"
"… a debt that had to be paid?"
"Yes, yes I think that's right. Or a price, to get something they need. And then I sensed a deep sadness from one of them. I'm not sure whether that means they can't help."
Before the three officers, the two light beings seemed to merge. Tom noticed that their pulsing slowed, as one darkened perceptibly. Even without Deanna's empathic powers he could see it for what it was – the universal colour of mourning, of sorrow, of despair.
Involuntary tears started to stream down the Betazoid counselor's face as they watched one of the beings gradually detach itself from the other, who seemed reluctant to let go. For a long while, a tendril of light from the being that remained clung to the one moving away until at last it could hold on no longer and the connection broke.
The departing Lumen drifted slowly at first, then with increasing purposefulness, until it seemed to streak through the cavern and out the passage that led to the outside. The light reflecting its movement through the tunnel dimmed swiftly until all that was left of the being's presence was its imprint on the retinas of the three officers.
In silence they watched the remaining alien seemingly shrink in on itself, much paler now, but still pulsing regularly. Instinctively, Deanna approached the being and touched it lightly with her hand, trying to offer comfort.
At the touch her eyes widened in distress and she turned to Tom. "Tom, the one who left was her lifemate. He's going to the Enterprise to …" she gasped, unable to continue.
As she tried to find her voice, Tom's comm badge chirped, its incongruously cheerful sound echoing from the crystal walls.
"Enterprise to away team. Torres here. You must have done something right down there, guys - the warp core just came back online. I have no idea what happened, we weren't doing anything we hadn't tried before, but there was this sudden flash into the core from the bottom up … And now the matter-anti-matter matrix is fully re-established and the dilithium chambers have activated. It's … unbelievable. We have full power."
The three officers in the cave could only look at each other and at the darkened and bereft creature before them. They heard B'Elanna's voice drift off in wonder as on the Enterprise the blue light of the warp core - perhaps a little brighter than it had been before - became once more the living, pulsing heart of the ship.
+o+o+
When the away team returned to the Enterprise they were subdued; very few words had been spoken during the return flight. Deanna excused herself immediately from the shuttle bay to debrief the Captain in the privacy of their quarters.
By unspoken agreement, Tom and Harry headed for Engineering. Tom took B'Elanna aside and whispered the explanation in her ear that he had not wanted to provide over an open comm line. Her joy turned to disbelief as he spoke, then to shock and sorrow.
A number of the staff in Engineering observed the scene with detached curiosity. They also briefly wondered at the sight of Harry Kim, standing at the warp core for some time as if paying his respects, staring at it with what seemed like suspiciously glittering eyes before turning away and calling for the turbolift to take him to the bridge.
The curious eyes returned to their duty stations. There was much work to be done. The Captain had ordered a modification to the Bussard collectors, for reasons apparently known only to the senior staff. There was some grumbling, but with the Chief Engineer never far from their shoulder and the XO now touring the room looking grimly determined, everyone put their professional pride on the line to get the job done, and fast.
+o+o+
The next three days flew by with long hours for all, especially the senior officers. Miral spent most of her time with the other children in the ship's little school, sleeping with Libby and Baby Tommy until one or the other of her parents would come in silently, often late, to take her back to their quarters so she could at least wake up to one of their faces.
The ship had reached one of the Trifid's cloud arms at warp, then streaked through its densest parts at full impulse. The modified Bussard collectors performed above expectations. They would go to warp again to reach the K'rikian home worlds, reduce speed to impulse for the dispersal, then head for the wormhole at full warp. Timing would be tight, but the command team was confident they would make it. Calculations had to be precise and tightly plotted for a complex course.
Cran's staff in Astrometrics had done their jobs. If she knew what the detour was about, she did not discuss it with them.
Truth be told, Petra Cran herself was completely in her element, taking samples, calculating and projecting particle densities. She would get a paper out of this mission yet, despite its changed parameters - being the only astrophysicist of her time able to describe how the face of a nebula had been changed should bring her all the peer recognition her heart desired. The fact that the Trifid's "new look" would not be visible from Earth for another 60 years would only add to the allure of her findings.
Amid all the frenzied activity, the rumour mill that churns onboard every Starfleet vessel was eerily silent. By unspoken agreement, the sudden change in the mission objective was not discussed. The tension in the faces of the Captain and his First Officer quelled any attempt at speculation, and soon even the whispers in Ten Forward stopped.
+o+o+
At first, although overjoyed at the idea of the protection the Enterprise would create for their worlds, the K'rikians had been reluctant to accept an end to their campaign. It had been so very long, and the defense of their people had become their way of life.
But the humans were not easily dissuaded, C'ro'Tak found. A journey to the asteroid that had become the unofficial meeting place for humans and Lumen – Tom's third - had convinced the K'rikian captain, now by default the ambassador for his people, of the rightness of the peace offered and the desire of the light beings to do no harm.
C'ro'Tak had been deeply skeptical of the possibility that he might find something in common with the demons that had wrought such destruction upon his home. But Tom Paris had told C'ro'Tak on the way to the asteroid, "A great man of my planet's history once said, you don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies." And the words, although unfamiliar, and the thought, although new, had rung true for the K'rikian captain.
The meeting was tense at first. Three of the Lumen came to meet the killers of their children; in turn, the victims of those same children's birth had come to see the beings responsible for the death of three worlds.
Deanna Troi provided the bridge for the two races to speak with one another and although necessarily limited, the images that flowed through her showed shared pain, shared sorrow, and shared hope.
It was a beginning, and an understanding was reached how to turn that beginning into more.
Of course C'ro'Tak had to ask on the way back what had become of the wise leader whose words had touched him so, and had made it possible for him to enter the cave. "He died at the hands of a man who did not believe in peace," the fair human had told him. "A man of his own people. And although his bitterest enemy mourned his death, peace didn't come for a long time afterwards. Because both their peoples had forgotten how to let go of war. It's a habit not easily broken."
C'ro'Tak would hold this simple tale close to his heart, and tell it often in the coming years.
Not long after the K'rikians' first meeting with the Lumen, Captain Riker offered them passage back closer to their home world, given how long it would take their much slower ships to make the journey.
But C'ro'Tak declined, with great dignity and a bowing of his head. A bargain had been struck, and his ship was the closest to many of the seismic charges that had been laid. He would honour this bargain and remove the unexploded mines, regardless of when, or whether, he would see his home world again.
C'ro'Tak had been, after all, tasked with protecting his people. And this was how he would fulfill his duties – by protecting his adversaries' children, and thereby ensuring the peace.
The K'rikian did, however, finally accept the Captain's offer of letting the Enterprise's medical expertise be brought to bear on his crew's illnesses, caused by their long exposure to radiation.
And so it was there, in Sickbay, that the last piece of the puzzle slid into place.
+o+o+
Tom looked at Riker and the Doctor thoughtfully, over the head of the unconscious K'rikian Captain, who was having surgery for the removal of a heavily infected tertiary organ. The EMH had summoned his former assistant because he – rightly – thought the latter would find the organ equally as fascinating as he had, from a purely physiological point of view.
Riker sat on the adjacent biobed having just finished a round with a dermal regenerator, administered by his XO following a brief and embarrassing moment of inattention with an 'extra hot' coffee in Ten Forward. He glared at Tom, daring him to make a facetious comment about drinking too fast, but found that the Commander's mind was elsewhere entirely.
Finally, Tom spoke, giving an indication what he had been thinking about. "The K'rikians could probably use some help to assist them with recovery. They're medical knowledge is about as far behind ours as their propulsion systems."
"A worthy sentiment, Mr. Paris." The EMH injected, as he temporarily stilled his laser scalpel over the K'rikian's chest cavity. "Unfortunately, the Enterprise does not have enough vaccine or anti-bacterial agents, let alone the personnel, the hypo sprays or the time, to help the inhabitants of seven worlds."
Tom chewed his lower lip. "We could provide some help if we gave them a couple of replicators programmed to make vaccines and hypo sprays. It would take a long time, of course, but it could be done. We do know they have the energy sources necessary to power a replicator …"
He let this thought trail off, knowing he was pushing the envelope, and glanced warily at his uncharacteristically ill-humoured Captain.
Riker, who had been holding his breath at the exchange, exhaled loudly. "Forget it, Tom. We've already stuck our necks out way too far here. Giving Federation technology away to a non-warp capable civilization would be beyond irresponsible. You know that … No. Just forget it. I can't authorize that." Out of a sense of fairness, he added, "Nice thought though, don't get me wrong. But the answer has to be no."
Silence reigned for a long few minutes until someone across sickbay cleared his throat. A hesitant voice.
"Would it be 'giving away technology' if … a Starfleet officer … stayed with it and operated it? On behalf of Starfleet?'
All three turned to look at the speaker. Dr. Jeremy Fincher, unofficially relegated to being the EMH's assistant – second even to Nurse Ogawa - since he had emerged from quarantine, was now working on cataloguing the bacterial samples used in the Doc's experiments. He squared his narrow, slightly sloping shoulders against the scrutiny of his superiors.
Riker let out a long, deeply felt sigh. He exchanged a long, meaningful, glance with his First Officer through carefully hooded eyes. Riker sensed where this was going, and wasn't sure whether he was being dragged, pushed or moving on his own volition.
"I'm not a lawyer, but …"
"…you could argue that the technology was still in Federation hands, if it's operated by a Starfleet Officer." Tom completed the Captain's sentence, a thoughtful smile forming on his face.
"You would of course need a volunteer," the Doc injected in his most acerbic tone, intent on dragging the conversation back to reality. "A volunteer who would be stuck out here in the Trifid nebula without human companionship until the next time the wormhole opens, whenever that may be. And that is provided the Federation decides to risk losing another vessel to some new, highly hazardous and utterly frivolous exploration mission at that time. In other words, Commander, that hypothetical Starfleet Officer very likely will never come home. I am positive the recruits will be lining up outside your door."
"I'll do it." That same soft voice, low but sure.
Riker's mouth opened, and closed again. This was going way to fast, spinning out of control. Too stunned to speak, the Captain, First Officer and EMH just stared at Fincher.
Tom recovered first. Gently he asked, "May I ask why, Dr. Fincher? Why you would consider such a thing?"
Noting the respectful use of his title and the fact that the XO did not appear to be questioning his sanity but rather seemed to want to be convinced that he was serious, Fincher mustered his courage. Looking down at his hands, he spoke in a low, deliberate voice, gaining strength as he went on.
"We all know – it's pretty obvious – that I'm not a particularly good physician. I scraped by at the Academy, and I get hopelessly intimidated by all the … the competence that I see around me here on a daily basis. The real reason I'm doing short-term stints, replacing real Starfleet medical officers for a few weeks at a time, is … that way, I hope no one has to deal with me long enough to find out just how unsuited I am to serving on a ship like this. And I don't have to stick around long enough for people to see me as the … fraud I feel like most of the time."
Fincher noted Riker starting to protest at this sudden outburst, but waved him off. His voice was gaining confidence now.
"Don't bother being polite, Captain. We all know I'm right. I mean no disrespect, but Commander Paris here got his certification in emergency medicine as an afterthought, and even he is a better doctor than I ever will be. If it hadn't been for his recognition of a potential epidemic onboard and calling out for help, most of the crew would have gotten sick and ... ." He didn't finish the sentence, allowing the possibilities to dangle before his audience.
Then, with determination and defiance, Fincher locked eyes with Riker. "But I can operate a replicator, I can replicate hypo sprays, and I can administer a vaccine and train others to do it. I can do this, and it may be the only useful thing I may ever be given the chance to do. I got into medicine because I wanted to help people, even though I knew I wouldn't be very good. Here's my chance to make a difference. You don't need me here, sir. Starfleet sure doesn't need me. But the K'rikians do."
His voice took on an almost pleading tone. "Please, Captain, let me do this. Please."
Tom Paris felt those words like a punch to his gut, an echo from another day, another time. Please, Captain, let me make this flight. Please.
The Warp Ten flight, almost taken away from him. His plea to Captain Janeway, to let him do this one thing, to prove to himself and others that he could do … something important with his life. Please, Captain, let me make this flight. Please.
He had gotten his wish, been permitted to take the flight - and while it had not brought him the redemption he had sought, a door was opened that day for him, a door that showed him the way to find himself.
If Thomas Eugene Paris, habitual underachiever, convicted criminal, drifter and screw-up, deserved such a door, then so did Jeremy Fincher.
Tom turned to Riker. "I believe we should let him go, Captain. If he is willing to stay here, on what amounts to a mission of mercy, there is no end to the amount of good he can achieve, in the name of the Federation and of Starfleet, its so-called 'humanitarian armada'. And his presence would give us a contact, an outpost here. Like we have in the Delta Quadrant, on New Talax. An early bridgehead for future expansion of the Federation. Even the bureaucracy might like it eventually, once they get used to the idea."
Fincher shot him a surprised and grateful look, while the Doctor opened his mouth in protest – only to close it again after a sharp warning glance from Tom, delivered in full First Officer mode.
Riker closed his eyes for a moment. This was a decision for life, he knew. Easier than sending a man to his death, perhaps, but just as momentous in its consequences. But he, too, had heard the pain in Fincher's words, and more than that, the man's genuine desire to become the gift of hope the K'rikians needed and would cherish above all things.
The Captain turned to the young doctor. "I'm not saying no. But before I say yes, I want you to talk to Counselor Troi. I want to be sure that you know and understand what you are in for, that you are mentally equipped and ready for it. I need to be confident that you are fully prepared to live with this decision." He took a deep breath and continued.
"We'll be arriving in the K'rikian cluster sometime tomorrow. If you and Deanna have confirmed your decision by then, we will contact the Commonwealth and arrange for your transfer to whichever of their worlds they consider in most immediate need, together with two replicators. The Doctor will program them and assist you in putting together the necessary medical supplies."
He turned to Tom. "Commander Paris will assign a couple of supplies specialists to put together whatever other materials and equipment you might need for a long-term mission and your own … personal purposes." Tom nodded, and mentally started to make a list. Perhaps he could access the data banks from Voyager, see what they had left Chakotay and the Captain with on 'New Earth' … His portable holo programmer, which he didn't need onboard ship, might be nice for Fincher to have …
Riker looked thoughtfully at the physician, who had remained strangely silent as his superiors discussed his fate, but was starting to look increasingly confident and energized. He added, "I admire your determination, but I must confess to having my doubts. It will get lonely out here, and we cannot promise regular contact with Starfleet. So think about this very, very carefully. You have twenty-four hours." After patting the young man on the shoulder in a rare gesture of familiarity and appreciation, the Captain turned on his heel and left sickbay.
Tom lingered for a moment. His interactions with Fincher to date had been limited to professional disagreement, and he had made little bones about his disdain for the man's qualifications and competence in private discussions with B'Elanna and Harry. But having himself in the past frequently been the victim of 'first impressions', Tom had made it a habit to be ready to re-evaluate those he had judged in the light of new information. Fincher's pained acknowledgment of his professional shortcomings elevated the man considerably in Tom's esteem, possibly even more so than his actual offer to stay behind in the Trifid.
After confirming that the EMH was still focused on closing up his unconscious patient's chest, Tom motioned Fincher to join him in the Doc's office. He waved off the young man's attempt to open his mouth.
"Don't thank me for the support, Jeremy. Before long, you may curse me for it. But there's something I wanted you to know. Not so very long ago, I was exactly where you are now. Low self-esteem and self-doubt, dressed up in arrogance, looking for a way to turn things around for myself." He smiled reassuringly at Fincher, who was clearly non-plussed at what to all intents and purposes sounded like a major put-down.
"No, Jeremy, hear me out. This is no time to be diplomatic; we need to understand one another here. What I want you to know is this: For me, the golden chalice of redemption turned out to be just a flight, a footnote in history. It wasn't the end of my problems, and it sure as hell was no holy grail, but it was a beginning. By contrast, you will be saving real lives, making a future for thousands of children, and for a while that will be enough. In many ways, it should be enough.
"But the way to redemption, especially in your own eyes, won't ever be perfect, and it'll never seem finished. There is no miracle cure. I'm not there yet myself, and some days I think I'm farther than ever away from getting to where I think I need to be. There will be days, trust me, when you'll still feel like a fraud, like you're going to be found out and sent back to square one, and you will question your sanity and your decision. So let me tell you this from experience – the road itself will be worth it, and it's up to you to set the milestones along the way and measure yourself by those. Hang on to that thought, and you'll be fine."
He turned, then remembered something. "Oh, and good luck with Counselor Troi. Tell her I said the lizard says hello." And with that enigmatic last remark, Tom clapped Fincher on the back, nodded a farewell at the Doctor who stared after him with a bemused expression, and followed his Captain out the door.
As he walked down the corridor, Tom's memory was still ringing with the discussions he'd had with Captain Janeway, before the Warp 10 flight. The inspiration, the seduction of hearing her say that future historians would mention, in the same breath, the names of 'Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, Zephram Cochrane – and Tom Paris'.
He chuckled ruefully, remembering the rather unfortunate aftermath of that particular attempt at immortality. A miracle cure it sure wasn't. But it had been a beginning for him, that much was true – if only the start of the realization that it was his own opinion of himself he needed to improve before he could rise in anyone else's, and before he could – and would - become what he once had thought he could never be.
Nonetheless, if Fincher insisted on going on this one-way mission, he could probably use some lasting inspiration of his own, not just some well-meant words from a guy who once counseled himself out of a bar in Marseilles and into hell in a jail in New Zealand. Tom made a quick detour to the ship's store. After a bit of research, he found the reference to he was looking for: Three old-fashioned books. He smiled and authorized a debit to his replicator account.
Much later, when Jeremy Fincher would open the boxes with the supplies packed by his former colleagues from the Enterprise, he would find, near the top of a box labeled "personal effects", the biographies of two 20th century physicians: Albert Schweitzer and Norman Bethune, and the history of an organization called Médecins sans Frontières. Inside one of them was a small note, signed by Tom Paris, in which he wondered whether someone, somewhere, one day would add to those names that of Jeremy Fincher.
+o+o+
"Commander Paris? I presume you have a statement as well?"
"Yes, I do. And I will be as brief as Captain Riker, but probably not as eloquent. What I have to say is quite simple, really.
My former Captain once said to me, after she had demoted me and sentenced me to a month in solitary for trying to save a planet that now no longer exists, that I had to 'learn how to honour the responsibilities of command'. That I needed to learn how to fit into the Starfleetcommand structure, when to follow orders. And she was right. She usually was.
"But then we came across the Equinox and the holocaust that Captain Ransom was carrying out onboard that ship, and we were all reminded that following orders isn't always the right thing to do. That when you're asked to obey an order that you know to be unlawful, you have a duty to refuse. The members of the Equinox crew learned this the hard way. Having failed to listen to their conscience when they could, none of them were allowed to remain in Starfleet when we returned to the Alpha Quadrant.
"'I was following orders' is not a valid defense, when you know that the order is wrong. It hasn't been for hundreds of years.
"And so I must ask this Court, if obeying an order that leads to the death of a number of aliens is wrong, how can refusing to obey one that would lead to the death of millions, possibly an entire species or two,also be wrong? Maybe I'm being simplistic, and I'm certainly not a lawyer, but to me that just doesn't make any sense.
"I've made a few mistakes early in my life as a Starfleet Officer. But through those mistakes, and in the course of events over the last few years, I've come to believe that the responsibilities of command, more than anything, include acting on your conscience. When following the letter of a Starfleet Directive means massive loss of life, the destruction of a planet, or the death of a species, I believe that as a commanding officer I have the responsibility to disobey that Directive, and a responsibility to protect those who do not have the means to protect themselves.
"And if that means relinquishing any claim I have to this uniform, which I have very proudly worn until today, then I am willing to pay that price. Because if Starfleet expects me to blindly follow rules that cause the deaths of millions, rather than follow the moral compass that points me towards saving their lives, if that is who and what Starfleet wants me to be, then I cannot remain in Starfleet any longer.
"Compared to what was gained, and compared to what others have sacrificed to stop the dying in the Trifid, the price I would be paying by surrendering this uniform would really be nothing all."