Chapter 10 – Whither the Dangled Carrot

The three officers stared at the shrumpled, slightly pathetic-looking carrot-like root sitting on the table in the First Officer's office. The Enterprise's Chief Geologist, Dan Johansson, squinted at it through the magnifier that was covering his eyes like a visor.

"I think there might be enough soil residue left on the thing for a usable sample. Your Romulan kitchen squad seems to believe in rinsing their veggies rather well, and whatever else has been in your pocket isn't exactly helping matters, sir. But you're right, if we had a comparative sample from the surface, base spectral analysis would allow us to extrapolate geological proximity and would make it easier to locate or verify the potential origin of this … whatever it is."

Tom swore softly. "Shit. The away team went through shuttle bay decontamination, and when the Captain dropped me off he came back through the transporter pattern buffers, so they're all clean. And I threw out all my prison clothing, including the flip flops. They'd have been coated in Mokan dust. LaForge's one-way gadget doesn't come with dry-cleaning."

Something occurred to him. "Wait - what about Nyere and the others?"

"Who?" the geologist asked.

Harry explained. "The Hiroshima survivors Tom brought back from the surface. You telling me this ship's grapevine is that slow? Or you scientists don't gossip? But you're right, Tom - maybe they haven't gotten rid of their stuff yet."

Tom hit his comm badge. "Paris to Sickbay. Are our guests still there?" Beverly Crusher's voice sounded tired, but pleased with herself. "Yes they are, and doing very well, all things considered."

"Have they thrown out their prison clothes yet?"

"What?" The CMO's puzzlement was obvious. "No, but we were just about to. They've all been given new uniforms. Their old ones are … kind of fragrant, and I don't think they're the subject of sentimental attachment."

Tom pumped his fist in quiet triumph. "Tell me something I don't know. Don't touch the stuff. We'll be right there." He nudged Harry and Johansson onward with his chin. "Let's go."

The picture that presented itself to him in Sickbay was not one Tom Paris would easily forget. He had been in such a hurry to leave earlier that he had completely neglected to check up on the officers he had brought with him; now the reality of their return, and what it might mean to them, struck him with a forceful blow.

All four of his former cell mates were there now, showered, shaved, and with fresh haircuts, their eyes in almost constant motions as they were taking in sights that were so different from the vistas they had endured for the last ten years – sights they had not expected to see again.

Arno Schmidt somehow looked at least an inch taller than he had appeared in the pod, and was determinedly chatting up Nurse Ogawa – apart from the more intimidating Doctor the first woman he had seen in a decade, wedding ring be damned. His facial expression kept changing from stunned disbelief to a grin that split his face. Nyere was fingering the brand new Starfleet uniform he had been given, shaking his head at the grey fabric – a feeling with which Tom sympathized deeply, having only rather recently experienced the same bafflement at what he still considered a wholly unnecessary change.

Toller was still stretched out on the biobed recovering from the repairs to his jaw, while Karsgaard was standing in front of the replicator and examining it with a beatific smile. Judging by the rows of cups arranged neatly in front of him, the Ensign had apparently ordered one exotic blend of tea after the other, and Beverly Crusher, just as clearly, hadn't had the heart to stop him. He turned to Tom excitedly. "They have your favourite, Earl Grey, Tom! Want some?" Tom shrugged with a smile and accepted the cup graciously, causing Karsgaard to scrunch his shoulders in a happy shiver.

At the sight of Tom Paris in uniform, Commander's pips in place, Nyere and Schmidt came to full and somewhat awkward attention. The news that their rescuer was the flagship's First Officer had barely registered in the camp, but had been confirmed by the Sickbay staff and was beginning to sink in.

Tom nodded at them, a small smile quirking the corners of his mouth. "At ease, Lieutenant, Ensign." The familiarity of the Starfleet structure had helped him overcome some of the lingering effects of Auckland and given him something to which he had anchored his recovery when he had come onboard Voyager; there was no reason to believe that it wouldn't help these men too. Addressing them by their rank would be a useful reaffirmation of who and what they were, he figured; eventually, it might even help coax Karsgaard back out of his shell.

"I trust Dr. Crusher is looking after you well?"

"Yes sir, thank you, sir," Nyere stammered. "I just wanted to say, thank you for getting us out and I'm so sorry …"

"For what? Punching me in the gut? Forget it. I ordered you to, remember. If you hadn't done it, none of us would be here. That was a damn fine reaction, all things considered. Commendable speed, too."

"No, I meant … for us not treating you with the proper respect, sir. Especially … Toller."

Tom looked at Nyere thoughtfully. No point stating the obvious: it wasn't as if he had brought his pips into the prison. Instead, he offered reassurance. "You did just fine with what you had to work with, Lieutenant. Just fine. Be proud of yourself. I know Starfleet will be more than proud of you."

Tom looked around, taking in Schmidt and Karsgaard with his gaze. "Of all of you."

Schmidt, who had been watching the exchange, relaxed his stance a little and walked over to Tom, hand outstretched. He pumped Tom's, when held out in turn, with vigour and sincerity. "What you did sure took guts, sir," the Ensign said simply, his eyes more full of life than Tom had seen them before, and now filling with tears. "I am sure grateful. It sure feels great to be …" he choked back the words. Tom gripped his shoulder in understanding, nodding silently as Schmidt broke into an embarrassed half grin and wiped his hand across his eyes.

Toller, who had remained motionless on the biobed, harrumphed a little, his eyes shifting as he raised himself on his side to look at Tom. "Those pips real?" he asked sourly. "Guess in that case I should probably say I'm sorry. For calling you scum, and all."

Tom gave him a long hard stare, finally sighing and shaking his head. Screw the niceties. "You know what, Toller? I'm not your commanding officer, and for both our sakes I hope I never will be. So since we have no official relationship, I feel perfectly free tell you that yes, you suffered horribly in the last ten years, and yes, I'm glad I helped get you out. But that doesn't mean you're not a complete and utter asshole. So you can take your so-called apology and shove it."

Schmidt grinned appreciatively and shrugged at Harry, who seemed a bit taken aback by Tom's lack of sensitivity, not to mention scandalized by his rather unprofessional language towards a subordinate. "Toller had it coming, Lieutenant. He really is an asshole, your boss is right. Was before we went down. Probably born that way." He sighed. "It's sure been a long ten years."

The business of marking the survivors' return done for the time being, Tom was eager to get on with things, now that he had the Captain's consent to carry out further investigations. Six hours max, Riker had said. Enough, hopefully, to get out of the Neutral Zone before any war birds could be expected to turn up after the escape - which Talar almost certainly had reported.

Tom started firing off questions in every direction. "So, one of you guys still got your shoes? Can we have them? Beverley, can we borrow your spectrometer for a minute? We can do this here and save some time, rather than go back to the geolab, right, Dan? Harry, you still have my carrot thingy?"

Schmidt handed Johansson one of his flip flops. "Sorry about the smell," he said wryly, and Tom marveled silently just how much the man had changed in the last few hours. Alert, thinking, reacting, talking, showing emotion. Humour, surfacing again. He'd be fine, eventually. Nyere, too. The other two … He hoped Deanna would be able to work with them, although Toller was probably a lost cause, at least in the personality department. Some things even the most enlightened therapy couldn't cure.

Johansson scraped a bit of dirt from Schmidt's flip flop onto the glass plate, and placed the vegetable beside it under the instrument's lens. He manipulated a few instruments, made a few adjustments, and a split image came up on the screen in front of him. The geologist scrunched his eyes and studied it for a minute, removing some of the images from one of the screens, before breaking out in a broad smile. "Yess," he said softly, pumping his fist a little, albeit discreetly.

"What exactly are you doing?" Nyere asked curiously. He hadn't been a science officer for a decade, but Tom noted with approval that the instincts still seemed to be there, and the muscles eager to be flexed. Johansson, smelling a kindred spirit, waved him over. Tom and Harry crowded around the screen as well; even Schmidt took a peek over Harry's shoulder.

"Here, see these lines? That's the spectral analysis reading of the soil residue from the Commander's … veggie. I had to eliminate the pocket lint first, which is what I just did. Luckily that was all textile and fibre, so it was easy. Soil and sand is fascinating stuff – for example, no two beaches in the universe are the same. But if they're close to each other, multispectral remote sensor systems can establish similarity among soil types, based on major soil constituents like iron oxides, nitrates and organic matter."

The geologist was clearly in his element, with Nyere nodding excitedly at every word. "Here, these spectral lines are from the sand that came off Ensign Schmidt's shoe, which we know hasn't been anywhere but in the Mokan detention facility. The lines are very similar to the bits of leftover dirt I managed to scrape off the carrot, with some slight variations in calcium content. This suggests proximity, likely across a body of water where the conditions are essentially the same, but different currents might have deposited slightly different quantities of calcium-rich crustaceans that then got ground into sand, and eventually soil."

"Translation?" Tom asked impatiently. The last thing he needed was two science geeks comparing soil components. He needed actionable information. "Can we now use our sensors to pinpoint the exact location?"

Jansson grinned broadly. "Yep, and it's not very far from your penal institution, Commander. Just across a body of water, in my estimation. Is there one?"

"The other side of the Bay," Harry chimed in excitedly. "The Captain said something about seeing some boats when he was down there. It all makes sense."

Tom clapped him on the shoulder. "Feed Dan's data into your sensors, Harry, and give us some usable coordinates." He hit his comm badge. "Paris to O'Reilly and Ayala. Please join me in Shuttle Bay Four in ten. Mike, bring one of your better guys and equip for standard defensive posture. Lieutenant Kim will be joining us as well."

Nyere looked at him with puzzlement in his eyes. "You're going back down there? Why in all the hells would you do that?"

Tom turned to him slowly, his response measured and articulated carefully, as if to convince himself. "To find who and whatever else they're hiding."

…..

Installing one of the cloaking devices on the Flyer had taken B'Elanna, Vorik and their team less than an hour, the work having started as soon as Riker gave the go-ahead for another trip to the surface. Vorik had initially questioned the legality of the move, but after the Captain informed him in no uncertain terms that the Treaty of Algeron expressly only prohibited the development of such devices by the Federation, but not their use should they … happen to come across one in the field, he had given one of his Vulcan shrugs and set to work.

B'Elanna, much to Tom's relief, had expressed no reservations about this new mission. This one involved a state-of-the-art Starfleet shuttle she herself had helped design, competent team members and functioning phasers, and beyond noting privately that her mate should have taken more time to rest in between away missions she apparently did not feel entitled to give him a hard time about it. More to the point, the possibility of Federation corruption having played a role in the detention of the Hiroshima survivors had fired up her own warrior spirit, and she mostly regretted that there was no immediate need for an engineer on this mission.

"Just remember you owe Miral a Pooh story," she had reminded him over their private comm line as he boarded the Flyer. "So no heroics this time, understand?"

The cloaked Flyer approached the island on which the detention facility was located from the Southern Ocean and at a low arc, with O'Reilly barely skimming the waves during the last couple of thousand kilometres. Tom noted with satisfaction that the pilot handled the control system with apparent ease; obviously he had been logging time with Henley in the sims.

Harry was operating the sensors with his usual focus. "Coming close to target," he announced. "And I think … yes, I've got something. On screen."

The Flyer's view screen resolved into a vista of blue water, ending in a small landmass beyond which more water and further land could be seen. "The Southern part of the claw," Tom remarked, recalling the primary feature of the island as it showed from orbit. "Marc, slow to 200 kph and prepare to hover."

"Aye sir," came the clipped response from the helm.

"There. You see that? Harry, talk to us."

"It looks like a settlement. Primitive, rural. Virtually no energy signatures and very little by way of metal, which is why we didn't detect it from orbit through the cloaking interference, I guess. Also," he admitted a little self-consciously, "to be quite honest, I think I kind of stopped looking when we found that prison …"

Tom shrugged. "Didn't we all. Don't fret yourself. Life signs?" They were now directly above the settlement, and O'Reilly set the controls for hover mode.

Harry's fingers danced across the console. "Approximately five thousand, sir." He looked up from his console. "Mostly human, but some … Bajoran, a few Bolians. Bolians? Plus livestock."

Of course, the unreplicated-tasting cheese.

"Wait – there's something else. Very thin line, cutting off that end of the claw from the main part of the island." Harry looked straight at Tom. "Probably another one of those lethal force-field perimeter fences. It's another jail, just bigger."

Tom frowned. "Surprised they even bothered. Based on what I saw of the landscape, it presents its own form of security. Long walks are definitely out, and who knows what's swimming around in that bay."

"Besides, where would they go?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Well, I think we've found your mythical Ulak Six, Tom. Minimum security facility, it looks like. The one Talar suggested you might graduate to if you were a good boy."

"What are these?" O'Reilly pointed at a number of dark lines that criss-crossed the settlement. They were outlined in green and interspersed with wider nodes. Tom squinted at them.

"Rain basins, wells, ground water collectors and irrigation channels, I would suspect. If that's who's growing the produce for the camp, they'd need to collect water whichever way they can, preserve it and disperse it into the fields. One of the guards mentioned a rainy season."

"Why wouldn't they just pump it in from the bay?" O'Reilly wondered.

"High saline content. You need considerable machinery to turn salt water into reliable stuff that you can pour on your fields without killing everything. Doesn't look like they have that." Tom turned to the speaker, Celim, in surprise. The security officer had adopted his superior's silent mode as his professional modus operandi, and Tom had almost forgotten he was there. Celim shrugged. "Grew up on a farm on Talas IV. By the ocean."

"You sure there are no Romulan life signs, Harry? Or Cardassian, for that matter?"

"Nope, just humans, Bajorans and a few Bolians, and a bunch of cows. Or things like cows, that don't need as much grass to survive, I'd imagine. Basic rural settlement structure, small central square surrounded by small dwellings; based on spectral analysis they're made from the same soil as the rest of the environment."

"Mud huts?" Disbelief and indignation coloured O'Reilly's voice. "What the fuck … Sorry, sir. But I mean, really. This is the twenty-fourth century and they have people living in mud huts?"

Tom took a deep breath. The economics of efficient oppression and of warehousing the inconvenient were easy to understand, less easily explained. "Minimal cost. No external raw materials or resources required. Can be built by … the labour force. It's what the Cardassians did in the Bajoran displacement camps, and in all their forced labour facilities. Looks like the Romulans are quick studies."

He looked at Ayala, the former Maquis, who had been listening with his usual dispassionate attentiveness, although his eyes had flashed briefly at the mention of Cardassian labour camps. Measuring his words carefully and keeping the tone of his voice deliberately flat, Tom added, "If they're stuck behind a force-field-reinforced fence, and the Romulans put them there and are keeping them confined, I think we can assume they'll be … well-disposed towards Starfleet uniforms."

Ayala's shrug was eloquent in its diffidence. In the days of the Maquis, Starfleet would in some quarters have been greeted with only a little less enthusiasm than the Obsidian Order, both being blamed equally for the treaty that resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of colonist. But whoever these people were, what he had learned about Mokan so far would probably make the Federation look good by comparison.

"We're beaming in?" he asked simply. Tom nodded. "That's my thinking. You Mike, me and Celim." The extra officer Ayala had brought with him, Kamil Celim, was almost as big and dark as the Lieutenant. Tom looked at his best friend apologetically. He knew that Harry would want to come with him, but it was equally clear that the mission would be better off with him in charge of any potential tactical response that might have to be given by the Flyer if the Romulans showed up. What he needed down on the ground was basic close protection – and the bigger and meaner-looking, the better.

"Harry and Marc – you'll stay here, cloaked, keep a transport lock on us ready to pull us out. Eyes open for company both here and in orbit, just in case, and on the other side of the bay. Use the opportunity to grab whatever additional data you can on that set-up, too."

Ayala nodded his confirmation and picked up his phaser rifle, motioning his subordinate to do the same. He'd go where he was told; he had his gear, he was ready. And if it was a forced labour camp he was about to enter, he'd know what to expect. He had liberated one or two before he put on the uniform he was wearing today - but he suspected his XO had known that when selecting him for this job.

Tom turned to O'Reilly and Harry. "You heard what we need from you. Any shuttle traffic will likely be coming from the North. Consider potential marine approaches. I assume the Romulans use the boats the first away team saw for their grocery runs. Oh, and please give a sitrep to the Captain, in case he has views on what we're about to do."

He paused, and gave a lop-sided grin to his best friend. "After we've beamed down, 'kay?"

…..

The away team materialized, backs to each other, in the centre of the largest open area Harry had mapped out in the settlement – something approximating a town square, in Tom's estimation. Ayala and Celim's phaser rifles were set to stun and ready to fire, but pointing down to the ground for now, at his express command.

Defensive posture, he had reminded them. Let's assume for now that these people will be happy to see us, if a tad surprised.

The ground they were standing on was hard-packed dirt, similar to what Tom had seen inside the prison camp, but subject to the pressure of far more feet. The day's heat continued to radiate mercilessly from the yellow sand and from the similarly-coloured walls of the buildings that surrounded their current location. Mud huts, O'Reilly had called them, and that was indeed what they were – mud, caked over what appeared to be frames woven out of the reeds and shrubs that grew on the hills around the settlement.

Clotheslines ran between some of the buildings; many were hung with non-descript cloths that, like the walls supporting the lines, seemed to have acquired the colour of their environment. In the clothes' case, the effect was probably due to the dust blowing in on a hot evening breeze – a breeze that carried only the remotest hint of the waters of the near-by bay - and the daily bleaching effect of a merciless sun.

There were few people in the square, but they all stopped in their tracks and came to something close to frozen attention at their sudden appearance – obviously a trained, if not expressly ordered, behaviour. Tom suppressed the ridiculous urge to say something like, "We come in peace", or, "Take me to your leader".

It took the away team a few seconds to internalize the fact that many of those present in the square in what was now early evening were women and … children, of assorted ages. One of them, a tall, lithe woman with ebony skin whose innate beauty was eroded only slightly by hardship endured but not surrendered to, was the first to regain her composure, to understand that these were not the people who would usually come and present a threat. Nonetheless, she hissed something at the young boy by her side; he obediently hid behind her, allowing her to shield him with her own body against the phasers the away team had brought.

Tom looked at her in saddened recognition of a universal constant – a mother, protecting her young. "We mean no harm," he said, softly. "Your son is safe from us. We are here to help."

The woman, who was dressed in a very basic shift of indeterminate colour that had seen considerable wear, lifted her chin at that and took his measure with bright, suspicious eyes. "Then what took you so long?" she said simply, in a voice coloured by a mixture of fear, disbelief, exhaustion and rage.

At the same time, Tom heard a shout, probably from one of the other people who had remained stockstill around the square: "Thomas!" His eyes flew over to the caller, a man of indeterminate age whose left hand was twisted, as if it had been broken once and improperly set, or perhaps not at all. Did anyone here know him, to call him by name? Tom felt Celim twitching perceptibly beside him; Ayala's breath was coming a little faster.

"Steady," he hissed at his team, realizing the call had likely been to someone else. Thomas was, after all, not an uncommon name. "Until there's a threat, don't move. And do not raise your phasers."

The door to one of the larger buildings opened, and a man emerged. Tall, solidly built, but a bit stooped and almost painfully thin – the product of hard labour, merciless weather, and mental burdens Tom did not want to imagine. The man approached carefully, slowly, arms held apart from his body and fingers spread wide, in the gesture that said, 'I am no threat'.

Unhurriedly, steadily he approached the new arrivals, as if postponing an unwanted encounter, but heading straight and unerringly for Tom. A leader, instinctively recognizing his counterpart, paying no heed to the two men with the phasers - not because he was not afraid of them or unaware of what they could do, but because he had seen so many like them. As if he knew, from long experience, that they were unimportant, relevant only if he made them so - with a wrong move, or a wrong word. And the reason he was still here, still walking, was that he knew what such a move or such a word would be, and who among those facing him would be the judge.

With the setting sun directly behind the man, surrounding him with something absurdly like a bright orange halo, Tom couldn't see his face. But as he approached, Tom was struck by the familiarity of the man's gait, his height, the way he held his shoulders – one of them pulled up a little, head slightly cocked to one side.

Where have I seen this man …

"You're Starfleet," the man said, simply stating a simple fact as he came to a halt before the away team – too tired to wonder, to exhausted to care. "Not C&B. What gives?"

Even the voice was familiar, although Tom had never heard that tone of angry defeat in it before.

And Tom Paris knew, even before the light permitted him to look fully into the tanned face before him, that he would find himself staring straight into the eyes of his Captain.