The Neutral Zone

by Alpha Flyer

In a place beyond the reach of law and justice, where compassion is but a memory and the truth lies hidden from view, whose face will you see in the mirror? Strong TNG element.

5. The Package

Chapter 5 – The Package

"So we are just … leaving? No investigation of whoever sent that distress signal, or what happened to them?"

Disbelief coloured Beverly Crusher's voice as the away team headed back to the Flyer and she mentally calculated all the time she and her staff had wasted getting Sickbay ready to receive unknown numbers of casualties.

"There was no way Talar would have let us inside the facility, and when the people in charge of the place where a distress signal originated tell you there's no emergency, we have no standing to pursue the matter. Here in the Neutral Zone, challenging that principle is particularly inadvisable," Riker responded.

"So we're doing nothing." B'Elanna Torres echoed the doctor's indignation.

"Oh no, there will be an investigation. But we'll be doing it our way," Riker's voice was firm and determined. "In a way that will give us answers the Romulans are unlikely to want us to have."

"So what, exactly, are you planning, Captain?" Jorak inquired as Henley opened the hatch from the inside. "I assume you are thinking about a course of action already. How can I be of assistance?"

"I would like to discuss my idea with Commander Paris first, if you don't mind, Jorak. If he considers it viable, you and the other senior officers will be briefed, and asked for your input and contributions. If he does not, we will be on our way."

Jorak entered the shuttle with as close to a shrug of acquiescence as his Vulcan heritage permitted. Private discussions among the command team on sensitive issues were commonplace, and gave him no cause for concern, even if it seemed odd that Commander Paris appeared to be given a veto over the decision to proceed. "Of course, sir. Understood."

B'Elanna cast a questioning look at the Captain, but did not pursue the matter. If whatever the Captain had in mind didn't pan out – or even if it did – she'd worm what it was out of Tom in due course. And why his vote was so important to Riker.

Throughout the short return flight, Riker sat in quiet contemplation as the enormity of what he was about to ask his XO to do sunk in. According to Deanna's reaction on the bridge and what little she had been able to tell him afterwards without violating patient confidentiality, Tom's response to just seeing the prison from orbit had been visceral. Even Riker, not the most sensitive practitioner of interpersonal relations, had noticed him recoiling instinctively from the sight. Tom's acceptance of the mission was clearly not a foregone conclusion, and it was not something Riker could order him or anyone else to undertake.

Whether Deanna would permit Tom to go was yet another question - one that might require finesse. Or subterfuge.

And even if everything fell into place and Tom Paris agreed to be sent into the Mokan detention facility in what amounted to an undercover operation, the Enterprise team would need to put in place an airtight extraction plan in case the deception was discovered, or even just to retrieve their XO, once he had gathered all the intel required. Something in which B'Elanna's assistance would, in turn, likely be indispensable … Would she be prepared to give it, if doing so put her mate in danger of his life?

This was not a question to which Will Riker knew the answer. He knew his own difficulties in sending his imzadi into high-risk situations, but he simply did not know the Torres-Paris dynamic well enough yet. Their past history, if their file was any indication, showed a near-reckless willingness on both officers' part to risk their lives on behalf of others, and each other. Could that have changed, with the presence of a toddler in their quarters?

Questions, questions, questions. And he had to obtain answers to all of them in under four hours: Talar had indicated that his officers would create a five-minute transport window at 20:00 standard time. Only very reluctantly had he agreed to the delay Riker had requested, under the guise of needing time to create the necessary paperwork for his former crewman's unscheduled "transfer". The Romulan had made it clear that such administrative niceties were a sign of the Federation's contemptible weakness in its approach to law and order, and that his indulgence of them was a rare gift to the good Captain.

While Riker mused in silence, the other officers, familiar with the closed look on their Captain's face, knew better than to disrupt his thoughts and simply went about their usual business. Beverly Crusher, with no particular task now that there were no casualties to prepare for, took the opportunity for a power nap in one of the Flyer's bunks.

As soon as Henley docked the shuttle in its bay, Riker hit his comm badge. "Riker to Paris. Tom, can you meet me in my ready room please?"

…..

"You're kidding me, right?" Tom stared at his Captain in disbelief. "You want me to go into a prison we've never even heard rumours about, that's filled to the brim with Cardassians – Kahless knows what they're in the pen for, they used to run that kind of joint and were damned good at it – and Remans, whose particular in-bred brand of psychopathy you've specifically warned me about."

He paused for a quick breath and barreled on. "And to top things off, the whole thing is run by Romulans, the inventors of the disruptor, who last time I looked based their understanding of human rights standards on Adolf Hitler and Khan Noonien Singh. And you want me to do all that, pretending that I'm a no-good jerk-off whose inconvenient indiscretions warrant his being disappeared? Have I got all that right? Really Will, now I've heard everything."

Riker leaned forward in his chair, taking his First Officer's measure intently. He had been prepared for a blast, and he had gotten it.

What he had not gotten was the word "no".

"Yes, that's the general idea. And yes, I was hoping we could use your expertise at … going undercover for this."

"My expertise at going undercover, or my expertise at being the type of habitual screw-up who ends up in jail? I'm telling you now Will, that's a part of my history I'd rather not revisit. I did it once, for Janeway, and that was hell. And last week on Nardik was … not fun either." His sapphire eyes darkened with unspoken memories.

Ouch. Clearly a sore spot. Or three. Riker briefly wished that Deanna were here to help out, then just as quickly realized he was better off with her remaining unaware of this discussion. But sore spot or whatever, it still wasn't a "no". Riker ploughed on.

"The first. Undercover ops. The fact that you have the tattoo only adds … authenticity to the story I gave Talar. And yes, I have to admit that I'm hoping that your … other experiences would allow you not only to see through the operation down there faster than anyone else, but also not to panic and get into the kinds of inadvertent … difficulties that someone who hasn't been there might."

He paused briefly, putting as much reassurance as he was capable into the next sentence. "But all that said, if we can't figure out the means and a plan to get you out at the drop of a hat, or if you tell me you're uncomfortable with the idea – for professional or personal reasons - we won't do it."

Tom's eyes narrowed, but he made no move to intervene, merely waiting for Riker to continue pitching his case.

"But I believe that there is valuable intelligence to be gathered down there, that might be crucial to the Federation's ongoing rapprochement – or not - with the Romulan Empire. For example, the Neutral Zone has pretty well held for decades, centuries even, as a no-go area for both sides. Even during the time of the Romulan-Cardassian alliance there were no recorded serious violations. And suddenly here we find a well-established facility, which looks like it's been here for a while, and which given the number of Cardassians inside may well exist with the knowledge of the new Government there. So how does that relate to the Romulan Empire? As I said, the answers might be critical to the Federation, and to Starfleet."

He paused briefly to look into Tom's eyes. "And then there are the humans … We have no idea who they are, or why they are there. Someone sent a distress signal looking for Federation help, and my guess, for obvious reasons, is that it was the humans – rather than the Reman, Romulan or Cardassian prisoners. I mean, think about it. Whoever sent the signal was desperate enough to risk death. Probably got it, too, based on the plasma cannons and what the good Commander did and didn't tell us."

Tom took a deep breath and studied his fingernails intently. Without meeting Riker's eyes, he said, "Help you think we might be able to provide, through this crazy plan of yours."

"Yes. And I also think we need you to do it, Tom. Someone down there needs us. Needs you, frankly. I wouldn't ask if I didn't believe that."

Silence. Riker waited, wondering whether he had overplayed his hand with that last comment, wondering what was going through his now completely inscrutable XO's head.

Another deep breath, accompanied by a little shudder. Finally, Tom looked up, his clear blue eyes suddenly focused on his Captain's like lasers.

"Fine. I'll do it. B'Elanna won't be happy. But we'll need her help, and you'll have to do the asking, because she'll either kill me outright or try and talk me out of it, and it appears we have time for neither. Here's what we could do …"

And before Riker had fully digested the "yes" he had just received, Tom Paris laid out an extraction plan – involving a replica of the emergency one-way transport unit that had saved Jean-Luc Picard's life on the Scimitar, hidden inside his body with the help of one of the small cloaking units from one of the Romulan satellites the Enterprise had pulled in.

"It should work, provided the cloak also serves to neutralize the dampening field over the prison, assuming they have put in the usual precautions against people transporting in and out. The multi-phasic technology of that one-time gizmo of LaForge's should enable transport right back to the ship, through the cloaking network up here as well. But that's the first thing we need to verify. Then …"

Tom was all business now, plotting and planning at warp speed, as if his earlier misgivings had never been voiced or thought of. The sudden transformation left Riker nearly breathless. Admiral Janeway had told him about her former helmsman's chameleon-like ability to mask and set aside his emotions, but it was quite another thing to watch the process in action – almost like flicking a switch, Riker mused.

Clearly, the man was perfect for the job.

…..

"So, which of my husband's buttons did you push to get him to agree to this crazy scheme of yours, Captain?"

B'Elanna Torres' tone of voice was so full of anger, in anyone else it would have warranted a reprimand for insubordination. In this instance, Riker was prepared to make allowances, both for the speaker's innate Klingon fire and the understandable worry for her mate's safety, and he decided to cut her some slack. Especially as she continued to work at the miniature cloaking device in her hand while she vented.

"The ship needs you, Tom? That was Janeway's favourite, when she needed a patsy for a suicide mission. But that can't be it, not this time. We could just fly the hell out of here at Warp Nine and go home." She demonstratively put a curled finger on her lips, her ridged forehead creased in a mock-thoughtful frown that made her look more purely Klingon than Riker had ever thought possible.

"Oh, I know. Starfleet will greatly benefit from whatever intel on Romulan doings you can gather down there, and future lives will be saved. Or was it the Grand Daddy of them all – There are people down there who need your help, Tom?"

She stopped to take a breath and glared at Riker, who was taking a sudden interest in the small parts salvaged from the Romulan satellite that were spread over several of the consoles in the Engineering research lab. B'Elanna gave a short nod, having found the confirmation she was looking for.

In a corner of the room, Harry Kim was conducting the necessary tests on the miniature cloaking devices and the impact of their presence on secondary dampening fields. He scrunched his shoulders and did his best to remain as unobtrusive as possible, even as he took in every word of the conversation, his own unease growing by the minute.

"That's it, isn't it. You're not the first, nor the last to do this to him, Captain. He's the kind of guy who'll take a phaser blast in the chest for a kid he's never met before, or who'll offer to have his organs ripped out so that someone else can live one more day. And you … you people are just happy to take advantage of that, regardless of the risk to his life and his sanity. All in the name of 'getting the job done'."

Her voice rose ever higher. "It's for the greater good, Tom. Take one for the team, Paris. Fucking Starfleet. Sometimes I wonder why I ever …"

"B'Elanna." The soft voice came from the entrance. Neither Riker nor B'Elanna had noticed Tom's entrance, but it was clear from the tautness in his features that he had witnessed at least part of his mate's outburst.

"Captain, will you excuse us for a moment?"

Riker nodded and fled the vicinity - not even bothering to cloak his departure in command dignity - relieved that he would now have some time to formulate answers to his Chief Engineer's accusations.

"Bee, I thought we went through this at the briefing. Yes, the mission is not free of risk. But you and Harry," he looked up at his best friend across the room, giving him a small nod, "you're both doing your damnedest to minimize that risk. As you've done countless times before. I have complete faith in your ability to get me out of there. And yes, I know you'd rather I didn't do this, and yes, frankly, so would I. But we both knew when we signed up for this job that there'd be times like this. So let's just get on with it and focus on getting ready."

B'Elanna stared back at her mate, long and hard, before hissing out her anger, for his ears only. "Yes. Fine. Whatever. I know I can't talk you out of this. But I won't pretend I'm happy with it, or with you for that matter. I was hoping you'd be laying off that voluntary hero bullshit now that you're a father, pull those stunts only when there wasn't a choice, like last week. Guess I was wrong."

Tom took his wife's shoulders with both hands, and looked into her eyes, willing her to understand something he himself did not, not entirely. "Look, Bee, there's something down there that I need to do. And it's not because I want to be a hero, or because I have this irresistible urge to do insanely stupid things. At least I don't think so."

He paused and looked down at the floor, as if for reassurance. "No – this time it's for … me. I fee this need to know whether what's down there is real, or whether the people inside are like I was in Auckland, rotting away thanks to somebody's lies. The fact that they're behind a cloak seems to suggest that someone has something to hide here. And if that's the case, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do something about it, or at least look and report. Do you understand?"

Her flashing eyes softened a little at his pleading tone, but her resentment had not diminished and she resolutely suppressed her earlier resentment when she had thought that Captain Riker was simply leaving the planet without carrying out further investigations. "I'm not sure I see the difference, frankly. You still end up on a crusade and facing the business end of a disruptor, or worse. And Miral might end up growing up with a wall full of commendations and medals, but no father to read her the next chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh."

Tom squeezed his eyes shut at the mention of his daughter, but opened them again, unable to hide a certain amount of umbrage from seeping into his voice. "That's a bit rich, Bee, coming from the woman who refused medical treatment for a principle, and who insisted on being killed for the sake of some form of … spiritual enlightenment."

She glared at him, no longer interested in keeping her voice down. "That was before we had Miral, Tom."

"Oh, so it's okay to be heroic and stupid when all you're leaving behind is your mate, is it?"

"You promised you wouldn't turn into your father and put your duties ahead of your family."

"That was in the context of assignments and postings, but we made the decision to serve on the Enterprise together, and this comes with it, B'Elanna. You knew that going in."

He paused for breath, forcing his voice into a calmness he did not feel. "But here's the deal. I promise I'll push that button you and Harry are building for me at the first sign of trouble; I won't wait until the last minute like I usually do. Kahless knows I'm not a fan of prisons, so having a get-out-of-jail-free card is something that I won't hesitate to take advantage of. Okay?"

She held his eyes with hers for what seemed like an eternity, sinking into them for the intimate connection they sometimes shared. Knowing who they were, what could be changed about the other and what could not, had been a long time coming; even then, understanding had come long before acceptance. At times, it still did.

"Fine," she said again, with resignation this time. "You do what you think you have to do, Thomas Eugene Paris. You always do anyway. And in the meantime, I don't have to be happy about it. I'll probably yell at you about it when you get back, and I will feel perfectly free to give the Captain a hard time whenever I feel like it. He has it coming, and he knows it."

Tom smiled down at her gratefully. "Just leave Deanna out of your revenge plans, okay? I have a feeling she'll be laying into him on her own account, and won't need extra motivation from your end." B'Elanna harrumphed a little at that and muttered something unintelligible as he hugged her reluctant and slightly stiff body to his; finally she relented and leaned into him, accepting his embrace, if not exactly reciprocating warmly.

Tom buried his face in B'Elanna's hair for a few moments before looking over at Harry, whose attempts at becoming invisible during his best friends' argument had failed spectacularly - despite the cloaking device in his hands.

"How's it coming over there, Har? Any chance this thing will actually work? I don't think the Chief will let me off this ship if it doesn't."

Harry suppressed a little sigh. A considerable part of him had been whispering into his ear that if he simply announced that the cloaking device had no effect on dampening fields, the Enterprise would be on its way without anyone the wiser, and his best friend safe and sound. But he was a Starfleet officer and, as they kept drilling into people at the Academy, his first duty was to the truth.

"According to my tests here, the interaction between the cloaking device and the various dampening fields we put around them results in the cloak cutting right through them. I suppose it would be useless otherwise – I mean what good would a cloaking device be if you could neutralize it by flicking a switch on a dampener? So, yeah, I think this thing we're building will serve both to shield your … internal transporter from detection and enable you to use it to get out."

He paused, unhappily. "I even think B'Elanna and I can enhance the transporter to widen the field, enough so you could take other people out. Provided they're real close."

Harry watched Tom's interest flare up like a supernova. Shit. So much for talking him out of this. "So we can use it for extraction? Not just for me, but for whoever else I get to know and like well enough to let them hug me? Cool."

Harry did not suppress his sigh this time. "Yeah, you should be able to get three or four of them out with you. Provided the good folks they're keeping down there aren't a bunch of deranged serial killers or nutcases that you wouldn't want to get close to. Also, I hear that Remans and Cardassians aren't particularly cuddly."

B'Elanna had tried and failed, but maybe if they both chipped away at the guy … "Look, Tom," Harry said, the tone of his voice making clear that this was the best friend speaking, not the Lieutenant offering operational advice, "you know as well as we do that this mission isn't necessary; it's the Captain's personal idea of excessive diligence – or maybe adventure. Who the hell knows. We've done our bit, we've checked out the distress signal, been told there was no emergency and now we could be on our way, with reams of useful intel about an unlawfully constructed prison in the Neutral Zone. Should be on our way, frankly, given where we are."

He took a deep breath, and ploughed on. "I mean, it'll be nice to have the detailed scoop on this place, but we didn't even know it existed 24 hours ago, and I suspect the Federation will go right on ticking if all we do is go home and tell everyone about it. We do not need to be the ones who take a magnifying glass to it. Let those so-called infiltration specialists from Section 31 earn their money doing something useful for a change."

Tom had started to pace up and down the lab during this impassioned speech, his mind busily developing potential extraction scenarios based on what he had just learned about the transporter's capabilities. Only half of what Harry had been trying to tell him was registering, but something finally sank in. He stopped in his tracks to look first at his best friend, then at his wife, then back at Harry, with the same measure of exasperation.

"Guys, I appreciate what you're trying to do here. Really, I do. But honestly, I'm not that psychologically frail that I'll fall apart at the first close-up view of razor wire. So knock it off already, both of you, okay?"

Harry stared at him in disbelief. "Who said anything about you being psychologically frail? You're Tom-bloody-Paris. If you fall apart, you'll do it afterwards, on your own time, when no one's looking - in your quarters or mine, and with the door closed. I'm talking about the chances of there being an afterwards, you idiot. The chances of you getting killed by hordes of angry Romulans. Get your priorities straight, man, and start worrying about the big picture! Like getting out of that bloody jail alive. You almost didn't make it back from that Kazon ship either, remember?"

"Thanks a lot, Harry. Like I needed the reminder," B'Elanna growled from her end of the lab.

Tom walked over to his best friend and slapped him on the shoulder while locking eyes with his mate across the room. "The big picture - I leave that to you two geniuses, as always. I'm just the Bear of Very Little Brain, as my wife and daughter like to call me. You and your gadgetry haven't let me down yet, so why would you start now? Especially if Libby is serious about that godfather thing? And B'Elanna, we've already established, will kill me if I screw up."

He looked up at the chronometer on the wall, determined to end this conversation before it got out of hand. "Okay, we've got less than an hour, and I have a date with Dr. Crusher. So whaddya say, we all stop the collective fret fest and get on with it, shall we?"

More softly, he added, "And don't force me to make it an order. Please."

…..

The procedure Tom had referred to as a "reverse appendectomy" took a mere ten minutes, once B'Elanna and Harry had completed their work and produced a device little bigger than a human thumb. A couple of scans confirmed that, with the cloak engaged, it would not be detected by standard sensor equipment or metal detectors. And, as Tom had noted, "if they point a fish finder at my gut, all they'll get is pictures of Paris."

The Chief Medical Officer had inserted the device carefully into his abdominal cavity, after, as she put it, "moving a few things aside a bit". The surgery was not complicated, except for the fact that Beverley needed to make sure the button that would activate the device faced outward, and could still be palpated if Tom ran his finger over the layer of skin and musculature that covered it. Nonetheless, she felt a profound sense of unease as she finished running the dermal regenerator over her handiwork and watched her patient swing his long legs over the biobed.

She and Deanna had spoken briefly after the briefing, and had agreed that this mission wasn't worth the risk, no matter what intel could be gathered or individuals rescued from a Romulan prison. Yet, despite their misgivings – evidently shared by B'Elanna Torres and Harry Kim, and quite possibly by Jorak, although it was impossible to tell – it seemed as if the Captain and his First Officer were bent on forging ahead, for what reasons Beverly personally found hard to fathom. As for Deanna, she had found it impossible to spend even five minutes alone with the XO to try and discuss the matter with him.

Beverly shook her head as Tom gingerly stood up, running his fingertips over his happily still flat stomach. A brief smile ghosted across his face, without touching his eyes. "Ah, there it is. The 'Easy Button'. Great. Now I'm all set."

"Not quite," the CMO said. "I still have to knock you out again, remember?" Tom rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course. How could I forget?" He settled back on the biobed.

Talar had insisted to Riker that his new prisoner be brought to him in a state of unconsciousness; it "would make his arrival in his new accommodation easier on everyone." Besides, it was part of local protocol. Security reasons. In practice, what it meant was that Tom was to awaken in the Romulan facilities, ostensibly without any idea how he had gotten there from the Enterprise's brig.

Beverly was readying a hypospray on her instrument table when the Will Riker and B'Elanna walked in together. Their proximity was clearly a matter of chance, not choice; Beverly found herself idly wondering what the ride on the turbolift might have been like for the Captain. Riker dropped back as B'Elanna's determined stride – and a casually thrown shoulder - made it obvious that she intended to reach her husband's side first, and alone.

She placed her hands firmly on either side of Tom's face, looked him deep in the eye, and whispered, "You're such an idiot, I honestly don't know why I bother with you sometimes. But you're my idiot, so come back in one piece."

"I will," he responded huskily. "Count on it. And tell Miral …" He left the sentence hanging, unable to say more, willing her to understand.

"I know," she said, simply.

A deep and unapologetically long kiss later, B'Elanna turned on her heels and swept out of Sickbay without another backward glance. She did, however, toss a scowl at Riker in passing and snarled softly, "He's all yours, Captain."

Riker let out a long breath and approached the biobed, where Tom had followed his wife's exit with his eyes. "Now I know why Janeway really kept your undercover adventure with the Kazon a secret from everyone," he said. "Harry and B'Elanna would have killed her if they'd known what she was sending you out to do."

Tom, glad of the change in tone, pursed his lips. "Maybe Harry might have. In those days, B'Elanna was still pretty ambivalent about me. She tried to talk me out of turning back into a jerk, as I had to for the mission, but she also didn't turn up to say goodbye when I left. So what just happened here constitutes a major improvement from my perspective."

Riker smiled, a little uneasily. "You'll be happy to hear that Jorak has determined that if we park the Enterprise in orbit in the layers between the cloaking satellites, she should be concealed against at least immediate sensor detection from both the surface and from space. Thank goodness that grid is three-dimensional. Surprised the Romulans didn't think of that possibility when they constructed it."

Tom snorted. "They probably didn't think somebody would be crazy enough to want to spend a few days sightseeing in orbit over one of their penal institutions. Can't really blame them." He turned to Beverly Crusher. "I'm ready for that hypospray, Doc. Let's get it over with."

Riker swallowed, and laid a hand on his First Officer's shoulder. "Good luck, Tom. See you in a couple of days – or hours. Remember to bail at the first sign of trouble. And … thanks." It was all he managed before being shunted aside, less than graciously, by the ship's medical officer. Neither noticed the clenched jaw and tightness around the First Officer's eyes as Tom willed his breathing to come deep and even and put his head down on the portable gurney.

Tom Paris was unconscious and breathing shallowly but steadily by the time he was strapped down on the gurney, as instructed by the Romulan Commander - "routine security measures for the movement of prisoners". He had privately, and urgently, asked Beverly not to apply the restraints until he was unconscious, without articulating any specific reasons for the request.

At precisely 20:00 hours standard time, and in the presence of the Captain who would be accompanying the prisoner to the surface for the handover, Lieutenant Commander Jorak established the transport link to Mokan.