A/N: I'll be on vacation for the next few days. A bunch of us are going to Monument Valley and climb the needles. I'm giving you TWO chapters to make up for my absence. Reviews required. Happy 4th of July.
Acknowledgment: Part of this chapter deals with a special skill Sheldon has acquired. Taken from SpaceAnJL's wonderful The Paladin Protocol and when you finish reading and reviewing this chapter, go read it. It's great!
Reparata
Taken – Chapter 7split
Sheldon threw himself into any duty he could scrounge up. He was always willing to take someone's shuttle run or pull a shift in any department he'd been qualified in simply to fill his hours. His sleep was fitful and his appetite was nonexistent. Food was fuel, nothing else.
He avoided Seven and Astrometrics for days and finally got his chance to go planet-side on an away mission with Neelix and Harry Kim. The profile called for trade and barter for foodstuffs and anything of value. The crew had donated personal effects that might be of interest to the locals, a humanoid race known as the P'ruul and who, according to Neelix, were peaceful farmers and tradesmen functioning on a pre-Industrial Revolution level.
Seven of Nine slipped aboard at the last moment and took a seat beside Harry Kim. Sheldon ignored the way she grabbed Harry's hand when she noticed him nod to her in polite greeting. Sheldon went through the mundane chores of prepping the shuttle and then getting clearance from 'Shuttle Traffic Control'. Why have such a function when there was never any shuttle traffic to control?
Planetside
Sheldon brought the shuttle in to a soft landing near a town Neelix had visited previously. The Tellaxian seemed to have been to every world the Voyager passed. Sheldon was fascinated by almost everything he saw. He was like a little kid in a candy shop. He was standing on an alien world!
Trouble started when a delegation met the crew in the city marketplace and started bartering their wares. There were slaves shackled together for sale as well as food items and jewelry and trinkets. Sheldon stood off to the side, disgusted with the crew's indifference toward the plight of the slaves. He thought that 'noble Star Fleet' would denounce slavery but apparently the Prime Directive forbid any actions that might disrupt the locals.
Neelix stood and shook his head and waved his arms around and then walked over to where Sheldon stood. "Sheldon, these are not the same people I met when I was here last. These are tribesmen, the Croom, from the plains. I think we're in trouble here. The Croom are not willing to barter or trade. And I recognize some of the people in those chains from my last visit – they're townspeople."
"Don't talk to me. Talk to Harry. He's the Star Fleet rep on the ground. I'm just the ship's sideshow freak, Neelix. Maybe Harry will call a halt to this and we can get airborne and back to the ship – that is if he can keep his hands off his girlfriend and his mind on ship's business!"
Neelix slapped Sheldon on the shoulder in sympathy and Sheldon frowned. He didn't like to be touched and being surrounded by filthy P'ruul and the Croom made his skin crawl. He like Neelix and considered him a friend but he still didn't like to be touched.
The Croom were very taken with Seven of Nine and offered to buy her for all the barter goods they'd brought from the small city.
"I would have this one. Her hair is like the sun and surely she would bear me many sons." Sheldon frowned to himself and thought that the man was an idiot since breeding between species was highly unlikely although he didn't fault the Croom's taste.
The Croom grabbed Seven by the wrist and she reacted by breaking his arm and throwing him to the ground. Not a wise move as it turned out that he was the son of the leader and a whining bully who took after his father in all the wrong ways.
"Take the woman and kill these off-worlders. We will take their sky boat and rule the world!"
He couldn't stop himself and before he knew it he was standing between a pissed off Croom and Seven of Nine. He wasn't authorized to carry a phaser and he doubted that Harry Kim would open fire to save him or Seven without written permission from Janeway. He'd shied away when the Croom had grabbed Seven.
"She is mine. I will fight you for her and once I kill you, we will leave you in peace." He felt like he was going to vomit but he just mouthed words from Age of Conan and prayed he could intimidate the Croom leader.
He couldn't. They laughed at him. "Okay, if you don't have the honor of a turd, go ahead and kill me." He hoped they had the honor system here.
"You insult me. I will enjoy spitting you on my sword and watching you whimper and die. Get this K'vat a sword!"
Sheldon had two things going for him. First, the gravity on this planet was only 80% of standard and he knew how to fence. While lecturing at Heidelberg in Germany he'd taken a course called 'academic fencing' (he thought was an aggressive form of debate) simply to fill the time. Boy, was he wrong! He did surprise himself and his instructor by learning the saber and foil well enough to compete in a tournament or two.
The sword used by the Croom was about a foot too long and far too heavy and relied on the point to kill. Sheldon spotted a blacksmith and walked over and told him to cut of a foot and then sharpen the blade on both sides. The P'ruul thought he was crazy but Sheldon took off his watch from Old Earth and handed it to him. The work was done quickly and was first rate. The basket hilt was familiar to him and he wielded his new rapier with ease.
"All right. Here's the deal. I kill you and then we all leave. Oh, and you guys," he waved his sword to include the armed Croom, "release the slaves and go on about your business." He sounded confident and he hoped he'd given them pause for thought.
The Croom made the equivalent of their laugh – a hissing sound and a rapid clapping of their hands. Sheldon fought down the thoughts of Seven being pawed by one of these alien Neanderthals and stood his ground.
"Agreed. But when I kill you, I will add your companions to the slave coffle and your sun-haired woman to my stable. On this you have my word."
The fight started slowly, each circling, feeling the other out. Sheldon decided to start off using his left hand to see if fighting a southpaw would knock the Croom off his stride but the brute adjusted easily, switching hands himself.
"Does he even know what he's doing, Seven?" Harry was undecided about what to do. He was the only one armed and he had the Prime Directive to contend with . He could only fire in self defense.
"I don't know. Sheldon Cooper is a constant surprise to me, Harry Kim. Would you have challenged the Croom as he did?"
"Seven, the Captain's orders…"
"Never mind, Ensign Kim. I understand." She understood that Kim's oath to Star Fleet outweighed any feelings he might have for her. Even though he was angry with her (and she didn't have a clue why), Sheldon still stood with his collective.
The air on the planet was thinner than he was used to and this effectively negated his advantage with the lesser gravity. He was gasping for breath while the Croom was standing a sword's length away smiling, his rotten teeth and fangs showing remnants of his last feeding.
The Croom suddenly lunged and Sheldon was caught off guard and flatfooted and an inch of the Croom sword buried itself in his left shoulder. He heard the slaves give a sighing wail while the Croom laughed and hissed and his fellows banged their swords on their scabbards in appreciation.
Sheldon switched hands and whirled the sword around in a quick figure 8 and laughed like a madman and lunged, catching the Croom just under the breastplate. He danced forward and extended his arm until the basket hilt touched the breastplate. He withdrew the sword and with a flick of his wrist the greenish blood flew at the remaining Croom. He plunged his sword into the dirt more to steady himself that as an act of bravado.
"Free the slaves and leave. He is dead and you must honor his word. Take his body with you." Sheldon turned and grimaced. His stomach was heaving and he felt lightheaded from lack of oxygen. He had killed a man and it was like nothing he'd ever experienced. He felt revulsion but an underlying sense of triumph and redemption.
"Neelix, gather up our stuff and let's get the hell off this turd. Next time, my friend, make damned sure we don't land in the middle of a war. Man, Janeway is going to be pissed we didn't get anything." He glanced at Harry Kim and Seven and shook his head, trying to come to grips with this new conundrum and…
His next thought was that the dirt on this turdball was definitely going to give him some exotic disease. He could taste it and smell it and he dragged open one eye and he could see it.
He had no idea how he ended up face down in the dirt but there he was, probably crawling with incurable pathogens. If he survived, he promised to mind his own business and keep his big mouth shut. He was done being anyone's Paladin. His body seconded his decision by vomiting.
Janeway was pissed, but not at Sheldon specifically, but at the entire away team. Harry caught the brunt of it since he was the Star Fleet officer and he was technically in charge.
"Mr. Kim, why didn't you intercede and take charge and leave when these Croom became aggressive? You were armed with a phaser, after all, and set to stun, you could easily have egressed and returned to Voyager."
"Ma'am, Dr. Cooper went a little nuts when the Croom grabbed Seven and threatened to carry her off. It all happened so fast and the challenge had been made before I – "
"Enough. Perhaps you need to review away mission rules and regulations before leaving the ship again. Since only Dr. Cooper suffered an injury, you got off lightly and the violation of the Prime Directive was his, not yours, and I'll deal with him directly. That is all."
Janeway watched Harry Kim leave and then leaned back in her chair and sighed. Ensign Kim should have taken command and yet he didn't. Ensign Kim should have interceded and yet he didn't. Ensign Kim should not have allowed Seven of Nine to join the away mission yet he did. More training and experience in away missions would improve his judgment.
"So, Katherine, what are you going to do with Sheldon Cooper? Given the situation, Ensign Kim should have taken command but didn't. Looking at Cooper, you'd never know he was capable of such action. Maybe…maybe we should consider a provisional commission into Star Fleet. At least then he'd have to follow the rules."
"Chakotay, his actions were both heroic and stupid. He's hotheaded and a loose cannon. He thinks he's always right and – "
"Excuse me, Captain, but are you saying you wouldn't have fought to save a fellow crewman? Granted, freeing those townsfolk from slavery wasn't adhering directly with the Prime Directive but it was his humanity showing through. I think that was a marvelous example of humanity for Seven of Nine to have witnessed, don't you?"
"Too many questions and you know damned well the answer to both would be 'yes'. So, what do I do with him? He doesn't fit anywhere on board and yet every time something needs to be done, he volunteers for it and gets it done. He's more than qualified to lead away missions and his piloting skills are second only to Paris'. Any suggestions – other than offering him a position of rank on Voyager?"
Sheldon had a suggestion once he was conscious and the infection he'd gotten from either the turdball's dirt or the Croom's sword was finally responding to treatment.
"Transport me back into the Harvester Probe's transport buffer and jettison the probe into deep space and put things as they were before you found me. There. Problem solved. Let Fate determine the outcome. You'll have clean hands and conscience and I'll be right where I was before you picked up the probe, Captain Janeway."
"That's not an option, Sheldon Cooper." Seven of Nine had sat with him during the days he was racked with fever. She left only to perform those few calculations necessary to maintain the Astrometrics function and to regenerate. He had stood by her and she intended to stand with him.
"Seven, I'm sure he doesn't mean it. It's the fever talking, that's all. May I suggest, Captain, that this discussion be terminated and resumed when Dr. Cooper is in possession of all his faculties? He's incapable of making a rational decision given his current condition."
"Dr. Cooper, for the record, I'm not putting you in any transport buffer now or in the future. Get well and we'll discuss your future here on Voyager at that time."
"Seven, a word in the corridor, if you please." The two women walked out into the corridor out of earshot.
Janeway turned on Seven and glared at her. "You should not have been on that away mission, Seven. Harry Kim should not have allowed you on board the shuttlecraft. Dr. Cooper doesn't know the terms of your parole but you do…no off-ship sojourns – period."
"I – yes, you are correct. But I have no intention of returning to the Borg collective. I have established another collective here on Voyager." She looked smugly at the Captain. She'd only gone on the shuttle mission to see how Sheldon would react to her presence with Harry Kim. She had her answer.
"Ah…you and Mr. Kim?" Janeway had heard rumors, gossip, about the pair.
"No, Captain. He is…unworthy."
"Then who? Oh, my…not…"
"Yes. Dr. Sheldon Cooper. He is worthy and heroic and as soon as he gets his cranium out of his rectum, he will see that we are One and Two of Two."
She would have gushed on and on but Janeway waved a hand and smiled and walked to the turbolift. Once inside, she started to laugh. Who would have thought that the Borg and the Old Man…yes, she knew of the nickname but never used it. It was disrespectful even if fundamentally true. 'Cranium out of his rectum?' Her laughter echoed throughout the turbolift shafts.