Get your own Free Home Page Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager/Deep Space Nine and Characters are the property of Paramount. This story does not intend to infringe on that copyright.
Kath's Notes:
Episodes cited/sighted in the following: Worst Case Scenario, Learning Curve, Investigations, Meld, Caretaker, Scorpion, Basics, Alliances, Unity, Coda, Time and Again, Distant Origin, Maneuvers, Resolutions in no particular order and kudos to the reader who can spot allreferences because some of them are rather subtle.
Tl'juk, Antram, Gareth, Patrick Borland, 'Anastasia', Zatzi, Gul Somik, Nomisite, Lamok III, Alan Shipley, Devlos, Kari, and the old woman are my own creations but don't let that stop you from reading about them.
Many many many thanks to Vicki and to Simon for editing this as thoroughly as they did, even if they disagreed on nearly every point. ;-) And thanks to Sheena for her input as a Draft Reader as well! :-)
Please remember this was written in the summer of 1997 - so there is no Seven of Nine character and Jadzia Dax is still alive. Also, the ongoing Dominion/Cardassian war with the Federation has been, er, modified for the purpose of this story.
*****
Prologue
The sun was setting on Tl'juk. Sunsets were always beautiful on Tl'juk, as the light reflected off the space station, in fixed orbit directly above the main community, sparkling down into dusk like fairy dust. Walking up to the main lab, old Gareth paused to breathe in the fresh air and wonder at the sight of the station. He stopped about here every night on his way to the lab, and every night he felt the same a sense of awe.
Old Gareth worked in the lab, making sure that the night crew had everything they needed, from working replicators to comfortable environmental controls. If the power failed, they called Gareth; if the communications link went down, they called Gareth. When things were working smoothly Gareth passed the early hours of the day tinkering with a variety of AI projects. Some day, he promised the young scientists, he was going to be replaced by an android. A machine who could interface with the main computer and run diagnostics internally would not only be able to repair broken equipment more quickly, but also prevent many failures with an early warning system. The young lab workers, mostly students at that time of night, just laughed at Gareth, confident that he would live forever and as long as he was living he would be there for them.
Tl'juk was a haven for students and scientists. It had begun with a small group, in orbit around the uninhabited planet. As the need for living space outgrew the confines of the station a community had formed on the planet's surface. Soon the families of the scientists joined their spouses. After that the population swelled to include shopkeepers, farmers, teachers, and doctors. All the time more scientists arrived to work in the lab. No one worked on the station anymore, not since the large main facility had been built. It remained in orbit as more of a symbol of the beginnings of the community than for any other purpose.
Tl'juk had a reputation of being a haven for the best of the best scientific minds in the Federation. People came from all corners of the Alpha Quadrant to study at Tl'juk or to conduct experiments or to collaborate on theories with other top scientists. There was something for everyone here, from Astrophysics to Geology. Gareth always chuckled at the dedication plaque outside the main entrance to the lab. "From the heavens to the earth..." Of course, the plaque said a lot more than that, but that was all that Gareth read.
When Gareth entered his office this night he was surprised to find a small group of people already in there. It was surprising for many reasons, not only because the door was locked. He figured he knew all the "kids" in the lab these days and he didn't recognize any of this crew. The leader stepped forward hesitantly. How he knew this was the leader Gareth couldn't say. But it was obvious nonetheless.
"Who are you?" asked Gareth gruffly. "How did you get in here?"
The man looked decidedly unhappy. He looked ragged; he looked tired.
"I am Patrick Borland," he replied. "And I am sorry."
"Hmph, sorry!" snorted Gareth. "Sorry for what?!"
The other man merely hung his head. Gareth noticed that his group were watching, waiting expectantly for something. Some of them were holding hands. One of the women was crying. However, Gareth didn't have a chance to make further enquiries because at that moment an explosion ripped through the lab, killing him and Patrick Borland and the others instantly.
From space you cannot see the sun setting as you can from Tl'juk. That evening a massive wave of light shot over the surface of the planet, leaving nothing but death and destruction in its wake. When the sun rose again, it was to light up a burned and dead planet; one which no longer held the light in sparkles and shadows, but in harsh fire and poisonous gases. The last sun had set on the community at Tl'juk.
*****
Janeway was positively glowing, Chakotay decided as he watched her from his carefully withdrawn eyes. And so she should be! After all they 'd been through, after all they'd done together, she had finally made good her promise to guide them back to the Alpha Quadrant. Technology from friendly Deltan natives had shortened their journey from a lifetime to a span of a few months. Now they were going to be home in a matter of days.
Kathryn was speaking to him in an animated way, her hands accentuating her point as they flew about her with excess energy. She paced in circles around him while he remained quietly seated on his chair. She wasn't able to remain on topic very clearly either, as though she had a million thoughts she wanted to share with him and had decided she needed to express them all prior to reaching Deep Space Nine. It wasn't helping that she would stop occasionally just for the sake of a smile or a laugh.
It was truly a joy to watch her so excited, Chakotay decided. So much so, that he'd long ago stopped listening to what she was saying.
Janeway watched her first officer struggle to keep up with her. Admittedly, her train of thought was a bit erratic today, but she felt he wasn't paying as close attention as he usually did. Well, that was to be expected, she supposed. Everyone on the ship had one giant topic on the brain. Home. Chakotay seemed to be a lot more subdued than most, Janeway realized, stopping abruptly.
"Chakotay, what on earth is the matter with you?" she asked bluntly. After more than four years of working together, she thought she could read his moods pretty easily and something was definitely bothering him.
"Huh ... what?" he asked, clearly distracted. She perched herself on the corner of her desk to stare down at him.
"Everyone else on the ship is having a party, and you look like your best friend just died. What is wrong?"
What could he say to her? That he was unhappy to be home? That would be a lie. But there were certain aspects of being lost in the Delta Quadrant that Chakotay found oddly comforting. For a man who made his home wherever he happened to be he'd become strangely attached to the far side of the galaxy. There was always the constant unknown that kept them on their toes. Here, back in the realms of familiar places, Chakotay had begun to fear the unknown. It was not expected here in the Alpha Quadrant, and that is what made it all the more dangerous.
"I'm a little concerned about what's going to happen to the Ma ... the former Maquis crew members, Captain," he admitted truthfully.
Janeway tossed it aside with a wave of her hand like a non-issue. For someone who'd kept them together through so many hard times, the potential problems for the Maquis must seem like a very small obstacle. Unfortunately, Chakotay hadn't forgotten the perspective of the Alpha Quadrant natives. They did not know all that had happened on Voyager during the last four years. How could they understand?
"I wish you would consider it a bit more seriously, Captain," he stressed, his concern plainly evident. "After all, you began this mission with the goal of incarcerating us."
"Surely, Commander, you don't believe that Starfleet will be interested in prosecuting you after all this time? Why, for all we know the Cardassian/Federation treaty has been abolished and the Maquis are legendary heroes!"
"I sincerely hope that is true," he told her. "But it could just as easily be that Cardassia has joined the Federation and the Maquis are all dead."
"Highly unlikely," she said, standing and walking around to sit at her desk.
"Kim to Captain Janeway!" beeped her badge. Even over the comm link Harry's voice held a quivering note of enthusiasm. Janeway smiled.
"Janeway here."
"I have an incoming transmission, for your eyes only, from Captain Sisko of DS9."
"Captain Sisko is it now. Well. Patch it through to my ready room please, Ensign," she told him, pulling the console towards her.
"Er, he did say for your eyes only, Captain," Harry repeated, hesitant.
Chakotay stood, his eyes turning sad despite the aura of excitement everywhere.
"Sit down, Commander!" Janeway ordered lightly, waving him back to his seat. "Ensign Kim, the commander and I have been running this ship together for a long time now. I have no problem receiving a private transmission in his company. Please patch it through."
"Yes Ma'am," squeaked poor Harry, whose good mood could not be squelched even by a reprimand.
Chakotay sat back down silently. The computer console was turned away from him so he could not see Sisko, even though the captain's baritone voice soon filled the room. Chakotay had no use for Sisko, and he suspected the feeling was mutual. DS9's captain had a well known dislike of the Maquis.
"Captain Janeway!" Sisko's face smiled out at her.
"Hello Captain Sisko," she responded, thinking that there had been far too many times when she'd doubted she'd ever see another Starfleet officer, besides those serving under her, again.
The two of them exchanged pleasantries well enough for people who only had Starfleet in common. They were more acquaintances than friends. Janeway did her best to try to feel out the political situation without being rudely blunt. She wanted to put Chakotay's mind at ease, if possible. But Sisko remained close mouthed about the current relations with Cardassia so without asking outright she wasn't going to get any information from him.
"Captain, I look forward to greeting you in person when you arrive," Sisko was clearly signing off. "Oh, one more thing. What is the status of your mission?"
Chakotay stiffened slightly in his chair, holding his breath. Janeway completely ignored him, her eyes fully on the computer console.
"The status?" she asked, surprised.
"You were sent into the Badlands to round up some Maquis rebels, were you not? Did you get them?"
"Yes," Janeway bit the word off, her expression becoming stiff. "Yes, we 'got' them. They have been serving as valuable members of my crew ever since we were taken into the Delta Quadrant."
Sisko did not respond to this, he merely wished her a safe journey as they narrowed the gap between an unexpected four-year deep space journey towards home. The link was cut. Janeway pushed the computer aside so that she could see Chakotay's expression. It hadn't improved.
"He would not have asked you if it wasn't important," Chakotay told her, standing once again and leaving her to ponder this.
*****
Chakotay caught up with Torres as she fairly danced around Engineering, checking systems and shooting light-hearted comments to her crew. Like Janeway, Torres found the return to the Alpha Quadrant to be personally satisfying, like the culmination of long hours of hard work finally paying off.
"B'Elanna." His voice was quiet but it got her attention. She strode over to him, a grin on her face. He couldn't help but smile back, the happiness was infectious.
"What can I do for you, Chakotay?" she asked, feeling like she would give him a moon and six stars, if he had asked for them.
"I need to talk to you about something. Something serious."
"What is it?" she asked, her grin fading immediately. He half-turned to walk them towards the entrance of Engineering, away from the ears of the others.
"We're getting close to DS9. I want you to ... I need you to promise me something."
"Of course, Chakotay. Name it." She couldn't fathom what had him so black when everyone else was walking on air. Perhaps he was worried about the captain?
"If we get separated, I want you to look out for the others." His dark eyes regarded her seriously.
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Torres was confused.
"The captain offered to let off any Maquis crew members before we get to the station. No one has asked to go, so far. If we get to the station and we are arrested, I want you to keep everyone together. The last thing that we need is for someone to do something crazy as soon as we get back!"
"Chakotay," Torres said slowly, "you are more suited to ... I mean ... you are our leader, not me."
"But they will listen to you. You have been leading them for years now, in your role as Chief Engineer. I don't know that I'll be there." Chakotay laid a hand on her shoulder. "Please, make sure that they just go along with what ever happens. Passively. You know that Captain Janeway will fight tooth and nail for us. It won't help her if we misbehave."
"Where are you going to be?" asked Torres in a whisper.
"I don't know. Maybe they'll keep us all together, maybe they won't. I just want to be prepared."
Chakotay exited Engineering leaving B'Elanna in a much more subdued mood than she'd been when he'd entered. She felt like he'd pulled the floor out from under her.
Chakotay strode quickly down the corridor towards his quarters. He still had one more detail to take care of before they arrived at the station.
*****
Janeway left the bridge in Mr. Tuvok's hands while she fairly flew up the steps to the turbolift. Chakotay followed her. Once inside the lift he felt strangely shy around her and tried to shrug it off.
"Whatever happens, it's going to mean change," he said. "I just want you to know that I ... I mean, that we ... It was an honour serving with you, Kathryn," he finally finished awkwardly.
She reached over and squeezed his fingers warmly.
"Chakotay, you have become such a dear friend to me. Don't talk as though this is an ending. It is a beginning."
Before he could respond to this, the lift doors opened and she was off like a rocket again. He did not match her pace, and so he arrived at the airlock just as it was opening, aided no doubt by her fingers tapping impatiently on the wall. He stood behind her.
"Captain Janeway!" greeted Sisko, who was waiting on the other side of the airlock, looking equally as impatient.
'They ought to cover dealing with impatience in command school,' thought Chakotay, 'not only for the captains, but also those who have to serve under them.'
Next to Sisko stood his Chief Constable, Odo, a changeling. Chakotay had never met Odo, but he knew him by reputation. Apparently the knowledge was mutual, as Odo fixed Chakotay with a cold stare. Behind Odo were several other security officers. To the constable's right stood Admiral Necheyev, looking even less friendly than Odo.
"Constable," she said, pointing towards Chakotay. "He is the Maquis commander."
Chakotay did nothing as Odo stepped forward to arrest him. Perhaps the constable was expecting something more chaotic than Chakotay's stoic acceptance. He seemed confused to meet no resistance.
"Just what is the meaning of this?!" demanded Janeway, pulling herself up to her full height. Even so, she had to look up to Sisko who coolly glanced down at her.
"We are taking your prisoners into custody for you, Captain," Admiral Necheyev told her.
"These people are not my prisoners they are my crew!" Janeway informed her with a cold tone. It had no effect on the other woman, who merely gestured to the rest of the security team to board Voyager and find the others.
Seeing the attitude of the security detail Chakotay was glad he'd had a talk with his old crew. Even though he'd felt pessimistic about Starfleet dropping all charges, he did believe that Janeway could eventually convince the admirals that the Maquis on Voyager were not criminals. If they came to prison passively, then it would add power to Janeway's argument. Without a word he held up his hands to Odo and didn't flinch a bit when he felt the cold manacles snap around his wrists.
*****
Tom and Harry walked somberly back onto Voyager. Tom considered all that they'd learned. That Ferengi bartender had been only too happy to fill them in on all the details, and when a Ferengi will give you something for nothing, you know it has to be a momentous occasion.
In the corridors of Voyager they kept passing the station security officers who were confiscating personal materials and computer files on the orders of Admiral Necheyev. Harry paused as they passed the first officer's quarters. The doors were open so the ensign could clearly see two security officers inside, turning everything upside- down. The results were chaotic, making Harry angry.
"Hey!" Without thinking he stepped into Chakotay's quarters. Tom, who hadn't noticed his friend's distraction, took a moment to backtrack. The officers looked up at Harry in a bored way, but did not stop with their investigation. "HEY!" shouted Harry now, oblivious to Tom pulling on his arm.
"Harry, come on, there's nothing we can do for him here."
"How can you be so disrespectful?" demanded Harry, bending to pickup a smashed wooden carving that had been discarded on the floor. "How can you treat him like this? Commander Chakotay deserves better!"
"Har-ry," coaxed Tom, pulling again. But Kim had gotten his stubborn streak in gear and he wasn't moving until he'd vented a bit.
"Tom, look what they've done to his quarters! Look how they're treating his belongings! We owe him so much - how can you just stand there and not be upset by what's happening?!"
Tom was not unaware of the looks Harry was getting from the officers in the room. He knew that whatever was said here was going to be reported back to someone, and no doubt twisted around to make Chakotay and the others look bad. He had to get Harry out of here as quickly as possible.
"Harry, I'm upset, you're upset. It's been that kind of day. Let's just go and ... "
"They shouldn't be allowed to do this!" insisted Harry.
"Senior officers to the briefing room," intoned Tuvok's steady voice through their badges. Tom blessed him for his intervention.
*****
Chakotay's anxiety at being separated from the others proved well grounded as he was isolated from the moment he stepped off Voyager to be escorted past a horrified Janeway and into the safe keeping of the DS9 security brig. Janeway had looked as angry as he'd ever seen her, but he couldn't help but feel a bit angry as well. Angry at her for not really believing this might even be possible.
But then, it was Chakotay's name on the arrest warrant, not hers.
Surprisingly, he didn't remain in the cell for very long before he was transferred yet again to a transport ship for Earth. There was still no sign that the other crew were with him, even though he was certain they had been imprisoned as well.
"Where are we going?" he asked of the officer assigned to escort him from the DS9 brig to the ship. The man fairly oozed hatred towards Chakotay, which he found to be surprising. But then, so close to the Demilitarized Zone, the DMZ, people were generally firmly on one side of the fence or the other. Obviously, this fellow was not sympathetic to the Maquis cause.
He wasn't really expecting an answer so he was surprised when the man hesitated. He was caught completely off-guard to have the officer's baton strike him soundly across the temple, the force of the assault enough to knock him to the ground. Stunned, he barely had enough reflexes to bring his hands up to his head to ward off another attack, this time from a boot.
After a time he was left on the floor of the tiny cell, bruised and bloody, feeling his sense of unease begin to grow into fear.
*****
Janeway looked positively grim, Tom thought as he slipped into his usual seat. Tuvok, who always looked somewhat grim, was on her left. The seat on her right remained empty. Neelix and the Doctor were already there by the time Harry and Tom arrived, but the chair for the chief engineer was also empty. Tom wouldn't even look in that direction.
The Delta Quadrant native was completely perplexed by the turn of events. In a matter of moments, it seemed, the happiness of the crew's homecoming had been shattered by the arrest of the Maquis crew. Many of the Starfleet crew, Tom Paris included, had formed close attachments to their Maquis shipmates. To have them suddenly taken from the ship and imprisoned put a big cloud over the sunshine of their return.
"Mr. Tuvok and I met with Admiral Necheyev, Captain Sisko and some of his staff for several hours this afternoon," began Janeway. "I believe we now know why such strict measures were taken with our crew."
"Captain," interrupted Tom, "Harry and I sniffed around the bar on the promenade, and all they are talking about in there is this massacre."
"Massacre?" inquired Neelix. Janeway turned her sad eyes on the Talaxian.
"It appears, Neelix, that we could not have timed our return home at a worse moment. A few months ago, a Federation scientific outpost named Tl'juk was attacked by a Maquis cell and completely destroyed. Over 30,000 people were killed, including the families of the scientists. The only good thing, in the words of Ben Sisko, is that the Maquis were also killed in the explosion."
"How horrible," stated the Doctor, with a guardedly neutral tone.
"I agree," said Neelix, nodding, "a tragedy without doubt. But what does that have to do with our crew?"
"Prior to this massacre, the Federation and Cardassia were working on a shaky truce after a brief but brutal war. As is often the nature with such hostilities, public opinion swayed to be very much against the Cardassians," Tuvok put in. "As a result, the Maquis, being freedom fighters against the Cardassian empire for some time, became something close to mythical heroes. When the fighting ceased, and another treaty forged, it was difficult for Starfleet and the Federation to turn once again to hunting the Maquis down. In fact, had we arrived in the Alpha Quadrant just months ago, our very own crew would have been hailed as heroic. However, after the massacre on Tl'juk opinion swayed very much against the rebels and now even those who might have remained neutral before are committed to imprisoning as many as possible."
"All those people," muttered Janeway, her eyes cast downward on the table.
"I'm sorry, I'm still confused," Neelix said, looking around the table to all the somber faces. "I don't mean to diminish the loss of the people on Tl'juk, but our friends were not even in the quadrant at the time! How could they possibly be held responsible for that massacre?"
"I'm afraid it's a little bit of guilt by association, Neelix," Janeway told him sadly. "We all know that they are not guilty. And we all know that their actions since have more than made up for their crimes four years ago. But right now, in Starfleet, indeed in the Federation, the attitude towards the Maquis is very harsh. As illogical as it seems," Here Janeway cast a glance at Tuvok, remembering his speech to Sisko earlier; it had fallen on deaf ears, "any Maquis is being held responsible, at least partially, for those deaths just by being Maquis."
"If the Ferengi wasn't exaggerating then they are the first Maquis prisoners caught since the massacre," Tom informed the group. "So Starfleet is just itching to prosecute them. To prosecute anyone just to make them feel better about what happened."
"Are you saying that Chakotay and the others are going to be charged with the murder of 30,000 people?" asked the Doctor, horrified.
"Not precisely," Tuvok told her. "Where normally their crimes would not be considered very significant, now they will be prosecuted as heavily as possible. In this manner, Starfleet hopes to soothe the wounds being felt because of the Maquis raid on Tl'juk."
"It's not fair," stated Harry, thinking of all his friends, thinking of B'Elanna with manacles around her wrists, thinking of the broken carving on the floor of Chakotay's quarters.
"No, it's not," agreed Janeway. "So we have to be sure that we do everything possible to make the tribunals see that these people are not murderers and that prosecuting them will not bring back the dead of Tl'juk."
"Captain, may I ask, what were the crimes on the original arrest warrant?" Tom asked.
Janeway shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Her hesitation caused Tuvok to respond to Tom's question.
"Chakotay was wanted for acts of terrorism against the Cardassian Empire, including damages to supply and arms depots, trespassing, theft, disruption of trade routes, disseminating misinformation, collection and redistribution of weapons for the purpose of attacking the Cardassian Empire ..." Tuvok listed.
"Thank you, Mr. Tuvok, I think we get the idea," interrupted Janeway, holding up a hand.
"Oh geez," muttered Tom.
"And the others?" asked Harry, "Or were they all wanted for the same thing?"
"No," Tuvok told him, "the others were wanted for the lesser charge of aiding and abetting Chakotay."
"What sort of justice system does this Star Fleet have, anyway?" asked Neelix suspiciously. The Talaxian's only contact with Starfleet had been limited to the people of Voyager. It was coming as a sudden shock to him that they were only a small part of a very large, complex organization of planets and peoples.
"Under normal circumstances, had Voyager returned with the Maquis in the brig four years ago, Commander Chakotay could have expected to serve between ten and twenty years at a minimum security facility, much like the one Mr. Paris was in." Hearing Tuvok's words Tom looked uncomfortably at the floor. "The others would most likely have served a lesser sentence, probably between five and ten years."
"But with the service records from the last four years aboard Voyager, I had hoped that the charges might be completely dropped. For everyone, including Commander Chakotay," Janeway added.
"And now?" asked the Doctor softly.
"Now," Tuvok hesitated, not able to demonstrate as clearly as Janeway his aggravation at the situation, "now it appears that Starfleet is going to prosecute fully, which could result in the commander serving a life sentence, or worse, being extradited to serve a sentence in a Cardassian prison."
Janeway rubbed her temples in a vain attempt to ease the headache which had assaulted her in Sisko's office. She did not want to see the shocked faces of her staff, but forced herself to look at them. Neelix was remarkably silent, not knowing but understanding somehow that a Cardassian prison was a very bad sentence indeed. Tom had gone positively white. Janeway feared he might faint.
"And the others?" Harry asked again.
"I remain optimistic, as does the captain, that we will be able to procure their release based on their Voyager service records. At worst, they may have to serve some time at a minimum security facility."
"We have to do something!" insisted Tom, breaking the silence.
"Do you have any suggestions, Tom?" asked Janeway softly, "Because I'm open to anything right now."
"We could break them out of the New Zealand prison easily," Tom blurted out without thinking.
"And then what, Mr. Paris?" asked Tuvok. "This is not the Delta Quadrant anymore. We cannot simply strike and make a run for it. We are no longer alone, we are part of a society. A society that has very strict rules and regulations!"
"Unjust rules and regulations when they will send people to prison just because popular opinion has swayed against the Maquis!" blasted Tom, nearly coming to his feet.
"Tuvok is right Tom," Janeway said gently to diffuse him. "This isn't the wild frontier. We have to get used to being back in the Federation. Maybe I bent the rules a bit too far, a bit too often. It was survival out there, we were alone. Now we are not."
"What about Chakotay's survival, captain?" asked Harry, timidly.
*****
Captain Janeway and her crew, her Starfleet crew, stepped down the walkway and into the bright sunshine of San Francisco. The sunshine of welcome, the sunshine of happiness, spilled onto her shoulders while she surveyed the crowd of people gathered to cheer them. The Federation was in need of heroes right now. The people had lived through an ugly war with the Dominion and Cardassia. Then, while still licking wounds, Tl'juk had slammed into them leaving them stunned and grieving.
Timing was everything, Janeway thought.
She wasn't feeling as good about being in San Francisco as she would have thought. She almost felt like she'd left half the crew in the Delta Quadrant. She was determined to tackle Starfleet headquarters with as much as she could to prove that the Voyager Maquis were not criminals. She had to make them see that they'd locked up the wrong people.
"Harry! Harry! Harry!"
Ensign Kim ran forward from his captain's side to throw his arms around his mother, not caring about protocol or decorum. He felt himself get swept away in the hug of his parents. He'd thought he would never see them again. It was an amazing moment, tinged only with the sorrow of not being able to introduce them to his friends, to B'Elanna, to Ayala, to Gerron and the others ... to Commander Chakotay.
Around Janeway, the crew were finding themselves swamped by friends and family, tears and laughter, joy and disbelief. She wondered how easily they would be able to slip back into the Alpha Quadrant lives they'd put aside for four years. It was an adjustment. As for herself ...
"Kath!"
Her name called, she jerked her head around to see Mark, standing awkwardly to the side, a dog's leash in his hand. Without being aware of her direction her footsteps moved towards her old friend.
"Mark, I didn't expect to see you here, I ... " Feeling self-conscious she concentrated her attention on the dog, who sat patiently in the sun, not at all bothered by the noise of the crowd. "Molly ..." Janeway sank to her knees to pet the dog, seeking comfort in the familiar animal that she could not take from Mark. His hand reached out to grasp her shoulder.
"I guess we have a lot of catching up to do," he said, with a grin. "Your sister should be here any moment; I spoke with her this morning."
Janeway stood again, feeling foolish for not facing him and what he represented to her. She had long ago given up on the idea that she would get home to him and had focused only on the idea of getting home. But Mark had been her friend for more years than she could count and he deserved more than a cold shoulder greeting. She held out her arms and they embraced.
Tom found himself standing alone, no longer walking in any particular direction, watching as his friends were swept away by loved ones. He listened to the sounds of their reacquaintance, his eyes noting the people of the crowd. That must be Harry's mom and dad, oh and there was Rollins's sister, and Carey's family, and my God, those must be Tuvok's daughters ... the captain's boyfriend. Now there was weird sight! Tom tried to keep his eye on Janeway without blatantly staring at her. He could be wrong, but she didn't look all that comfortable with the man. Certainly not like some of the other greetings that were happening all around her.
Tom suddenly felt very alone, standing on the end of the platform, witnessing the chaos of homecoming around him. He hadn't thought it would be like this. Whenever he pictured returning home he saw himself taking B'Elanna up the coast to that old fashioned winery, or the two of them skiing in the Rockies, maybe even going back to his family home for dinner ... Tom had thought about facing his father, having the old admiral finally give him respect, maybe even show a little pride. The scene in Tom's mind had B'Elanna shaking the old guy's hand, his gruff voice acknowledging that maybe, just maybe he might have missed his son for all those years lost.
"Tom." When the voice finally came, Tom almost didn't recognize it. He turned.
"Dad." His stomach turned in knots. It had been a long time since he and his father had spoken and the words that had been flung at each other then were words of anger, of resentment, of frustration. They faced each other now with some discomfort. Tom realized suddenly that his homecoming daydream was just that: a dream. B'Elanna was in jail and the admiral was not going to profess his fatherly love any more than Tom was going to apologize for being who he was.
The silence and the distance between them was hurtful, yet Tom could not walk away. Both of them seemed to be waiting for the other to do something. Reaction rather than action.
"Admiral Paris!" Janeway had come along to stand beside Tom, her dog sniffing around his ankles. Mark hung back, out of place.
"It's good to see you safe and sound Captain," Tom's father said stiffly, then added, "you too, Tom."
"Thanks," shot Tom sarcastically, not really sure how it was that they'd fallen into their old roles with such ease. Hadn't he had four years to prepare himself for this? Hadn't he practiced what he'd say, what he'd do? Hadn't he promised himself that things would be different?
"We never would have made it back without Tom," Janeway said, her pride glowing as she rested a hand on his arm. He felt himself blushing, irrationally resenting the pride she was showing as it made his father's coldness stand out all the more starkly. He looked at his boots and idly reached down a hand to pet the dog. Like Janeway, he felt it safer to demonstrate affection towards the animal rather than face the man before him.
"I'm glad you made yourself useful, son," his father was saying, awkwardly. Tom's head snapped up, his eyes blazing with resentment. But before his mouth could catch up and say something truly scathing the captain smoothly intervened.
"I'm sure once you've read the report you'll understand more clearly just what a key player Tom has been to our crew," she said. "And then I know you'll be curious about all of his experiences. Some of them were truly extraordinary."
"Thanks Captain," he mumbled. She smiled at him.
"Are you coming home, Tom?" the admiral asked.
"I don't think so," he replied after a pause. "I think I should give you some time to read those reports first."
Admiral Paris did not respond to this, merely nodded curtly to Janeway and took his leave of them. Tom hung his head.
"Lieutenant?" Janeway's voice was commanding, but not sharp.
"I'm sorry Captain. Maybe you think I'm being unfair, but I just couldn't face spending the evening with him. I just couldn't face feeling that way again ..."
Janeway searched his face for answers but didn't get any. How was it possible that Owen Paris could have so swiftly dismantled the cloak of self-confidence that Tom had been wearing just moments ago? His confidence had been a long time coming; now it seemed completely wiped away.
"I think I'll just spend some time by myself, you know, get reacquainted with the town, see what's new." He was already pulling away from her, heading in the opposite direction of the crowd. Janeway let him go, watching with sad eyes as he sought solitude and anonymity.
"What was that all about?" asked Mark, stepping closer to her. She had forgotten he was even there.
"Tom and his father don't have the best relationship. I was hoping that perhaps the time apart had been enough to bring them closer but I guess not." She sighed. "Admiral Paris is not the easiest man to love, and he doesn't show his affection openly. Tom deserves to know how much his father cares." She turned with Mark and they made their way through the crowd, into the city.
*****
Chakotay sat with his back to the wall staring out of his cell into the darkness beyond. He knew there was at least one security guard staring back at him, even if he couldn't see past the force field anymore. Earlier in the day there had been two of them, hostile and contemptuous. The lights had been at full strength, giving Chakotay a clear view of not only the guard's station, but also the video monitor on which the news was broadcasted. The guards had wanted him to see the media vid, Chakotay was certain of this. Allowing him that access was no concession to freedom, but rather an exertion of power over him. They wanted him to be hurt by the situation. As they could no longer beat him with their fists or clubs, they chose to exact a psychological punishment.
Voyager had returned home.
Chakotay watched. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen, even knowing that his reaction was being carefully observed by the malicious guards. A large crowd had turned out to greet the crew, cheering as they marched proudly with Kathryn in the lead, as always. They were heroes. There was sunshine and laughter. The footage gave Chakotay a glimpse of Harry Kim sweeping his mother into a bear hug. He saw families and friends of his former colleagues; people he recognized from photos and long talks. He saw Kathryn with her dog, and Mark.
He did not flinch. As with their physical abuse, he would take anything they threw at him but he would not give them the satisfaction of knowing how much they hurt him. Perhaps the truth was that seeing Kathryn with her arms around Mark was more painful for him than the dark, swollen bruises on his cheek. He would never let them know.
The coverage shifted slightly from the happy homecoming to the upcoming trial. An old photo of Chakotay was flashed on the screen and a list of the charges brought against him rattled off by the over- cheerful announcer. Chakotay's expression remained closed. A mention of Tl'juk, and the Maquis connection to it, ended the broadcast. Against his will Chakotay's face darkened with anger.
After the media vid had ended, he had tried to meditate but found it nearly impossible to relax. His spirit guide would not come to him here; she tended to shy away from cages. Well, he could hardly blame her for that. After all, he tried to stay out of cages as much as possible too. But he was aching inside for some comfort and frustrated that peace was eluding him.
Now, staring into the darkness where he knew the video monitor was he tried to draw some strength from Kathryn's words as she'd been interviewed shortly after disembarking.
"In the Delta Quadrant there were no divisions between the Maquis and the Starfleet officers. We were one crew, united in a single purpose: to come home. Now that we have achieved that goal, the only criminal activity that should be punished is that all my crew are not acknowledged for their heroic efforts."
'Oh Kathryn,' Chakotay thought to himself, remembering some of the great divisions within the crew, 'how easily you lie!' But her tone of voice, her expression, her whole mannerism, spoke with a no- nonsense attitude that her crew recognized. She'd faced some daunting enemies as the only Starfleet captain in the Delta Quadrant. Now she was having to face friends with the same steel resolve.
*****
Kathryn Janeway sat at her table not really eating her dinner, not really listening to her sister. She appeared to be doing both of these things, but in reality her thoughts were on her former first officer and the warning he'd tried to give her.
She had offered to put them off the ship and no one had gone. But was it enough to offer? Janeway had felt there was no need for them to go into hiding; she believed she could make everything alright with Starfleet Headquarters, with Admiral Necheyev. Had her confidence swayed them from making a rational decision?
Chakotay had believed in her too. Despite his own misgivings about the situation, despite his own doubts, his own fears, he had allowed her optimism to sway his judgement. More than anything else it cut her to know that she had let him down.
"Kath? Kath?" Phoebe was waving a hand in front of her face. "You haven't been paying any attention to me all evening. What's up?" Her sister tried to sound casual, as though she had no idea. Well, maybe she didn't.
"I was just thinking about ... about Chakotay, and the others," Kathryn confessed after a moment. "I'm afraid of what's going to happen to him."
"What was it like to work with the Maquis?" Phoebe asked, clearing the table of their dishes and Kathryn's half-eaten meal.
"I stopped thinking of them as 'Maquis' a long time ago," Kathryn said. "I don't really remember ... "
"C'mon," Phoebe pushed a little, "it can't have been easy. I mean, you went out there to arrest them all for crying out loud! And then suddenly it's all sweetness and Starfleet light? I don't believe it."
Kathryn creased her forehead in thought. So many memories, so many experiences ... She and Chakotay had spent nearly every day together for over four years. Now suddenly he was gone from her life, perhaps forever, and she could do nothing about it. Was it any wonder she felt so out of sorts?
"We did fight a bit, at first but it wasn't what you think, Phoebe. I mean it was for survival that we came together and ..." Her voice trailed off as she remembered. "Chakotay fought my decisions at the beginning but not because he disagreed with me. He wanted me to see the Maquis as something more than a group of criminals. He wanted to ensure they would have a place in the crew; that they'd feel useful. I wasn't ready to see that until he pointed it out to me. But he also fought with them, in a way, to get them to cooperate with us."
"Could he have taken your ship from you?"
Only Phoebe could ask such a question and make it sound like she was discussing the weather.
"At first, maybe I thought he could. Certainly Tuvok considered him a threat, and he had served under Chakotay. But I didn't feel threatened for very long. Chakotay was Starfleet for a lot longer than he was Maquis." Kathryn smiled, thinking back on some of Chakotay's more unorthodox advice.
"If you'd returned four years ago, you would have thrown him in jail and not given it another thought," Phoebe told her. Kathryn faced her sister and looked at her with puzzlement.
"How can you dismiss all that happened in those four years? He saved my ship, he saved my crew, he saved me. He brought those crews together to work as a team." Kathryn sensed the disbelief coming from her sister. It was the same feeling she got when she'd talked to Chakotay's defense counsel. Yes, yes, let's humour the crazy captain, but get back to reality. And reality was where Chakotay went to prison for terrorism.
His trial had just begun and already it was not going well.
Kathryn stood from the table and walked to the window, her arms wrapped around her shoulders in an unconscious hug. She couldn't put a qualification on the number of times Chakotay had saved her sanity just by being there. Just talking with him, just laughing with him. Having him bring her a rose and handing it to her with eyes filled with caring. She spun back around to face her sister again.
"One time he and I crashed a shuttle on a planet and I was badly wounded. He performed CPR until the doctor could arrive. He ... he held me in his arms with tears on his cheeks ..." Kathryn was no longer looking at Phoebe, her eyes clouding over as she saw the scene in her memory.
"Kath, if you were dying how did you see his tears?" asked Phoebe, made curious by her sister's uncharacteristic emotional display.
"Well, I found out later that I was under the influence of an alien being who was trying to..." Kathryn stopped abruptly. That alien had taken the form of her father, had planted images in her mind of her crew saying their farewells. Were Chakotay's tears just another image? Odd that it had never occurred to her before now that his grief might not have been real. She shook her head. This was intolerable. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she told Phoebe.
Phoebe watched her sister turn back towards the window seeing the thoughtful expression turn sad but unable to see the memories.
"I'm not sure I can ... define parameters," Chakotay's voice echoed in Kathryn's mind.
Both women were startled by the sound of the door. Stirring herself, Phoebe went to answer it. It was a Starfleet man, carrying a box.
"I'm looking for Captain Janeway," he said to Phoebe, who stepped aside to let him in. He put the box down as Kathryn came over. "Some of your belongings got left in the cargo storage by mistake, ma'am. We found them when we cleaned out the personal items of the deceased crew."
"Thank you," Kathryn said, neutrally. The man retreated quickly, disappointed that his curiosity about the Voyager captain hadn't been satisfied.
"What's all this?" asked Phoebe when the door was shut again.
"I don't know," Kathryn confessed with a perplexed frown. "I didn't think I had anything down in the cargo bay. But it has my serial number on it." She keyed in a sequence. The box remained closed. "That's odd."
Kathryn sat back on her heels, pondering. Command codes had, of course, changed many times in the last four years, but she generally kept the same code for storage of personal items like this box. She had no memory of packing or storing such a box though, so the code could be anything. A tiny idea crept into her mind and refused to go away. Tentatively she reached forward again and keyed in another sequence. The code for Chakotay's door. The old code, before he'd changed it just as they reached DS9.
The box unsealed, and opened.
"What the heck is all that?" asked Phoebe intrigued. Kathryn was no less intrigued. It was obviously something that Chakotay hadn't wanted the security officers to find. She reached to discover some computer chips, his medicine bundle, and a small assortment of Delta Quadrant memories. Picking up a chip at random she walked over to her computer terminal and slid it in. It was encrypted, but almost certainly a log.
Chakotay had sent her his personal logs. His logs and his personal belongings. Kathryn's eyes filled with tears as she remembered what had happened to his quarters. There wasn't much left of personal belongings there. And all of his logs, both official and personal, had been downloaded to be presented as evidence at the trial. All of them - except for the ones he'd erased. The security team hadn't been pleased to discover Chakotay had erased most of his personal log files. They'd been even less pleased when their attempts to recover the erased files resulted in a virus attacking their computer equipment. It had taken them days to repair it; they hadn't attempted another recovery.
Kathryn smiled a sly smile. They wouldn't have found anything if they had. Chakotay hadn't erased the files, he'd packed them away in a box marked Janeway, Kathryn - Captain. Kathryn was certain that security had no idea what was in this box or it never would have been delivered to her. These logs were evidence now, they belonged to Starfleet.
He hadn't wanted them read out in court. His attempt at hiding them made her grin. Never underestimate the Maquis cleverness, or resourcefulness. That he trusted her so completely made her frown. What had she done to earn this trust? Now, she was unable to fulfill her promises of freedom for all.
"Just some old holodeck programs," she told Phoebe lightly. Her sister knew she was lying, and she knew Phoebe knew, but neither of them pressed the matter. Kathryn returned the chip from the pile and closed the box firmly.
*****
The courtroom was large with a high ceiling and glass windows around the tops of three walls. The fourth held an intricate design that was partially painted, partially carved into the wall. Something representing justice, Chakotay surmised. He wasn't sure, as he only got to see it fleetingly while entering the room each day. The rest of the time he spent with his back turned to it, facing the sunlight streaming through the windows high on the other walls.
He didn't resent the sunlight, even when the angle tipped to pour it into his eyes. It was the only sign he had that he was on Earth. He hadn't been outside once since returning to his home planet and he sometimes felt he'd sell his freedom just to feel the wind, and smell the ocean, to see the natural beauty of the land just one more time.
At night he would lie on his bunk, listening to the everpresent hum of the prison force field and wonder if it would replace in his life the sound of the warp engine. He had decided that there would never come a time when he wouldn't hear that comforting sound. Some nights on Voyager it had lulled him to sleep, a brief respite in a generally stressful environment. Some nights it kept him awake, while he mulled over events, circumstances and consequences. But he had concluded that it would be a constant sound to hear for the rest of his life.
Now he heard the force field and behind it echoed the voices of the courtroom as he was condemned to his fate as a criminal. The prosecutor's voice, his defense counsel's voice, the judge's voice all rattled around in his brain preventing his sleep. But what kept him awake more than anything else, were the voices of his friends as they were forced to substantiate the prosecution's evidence against him.
*****
"Lieutenant Tuvok, you have heard the charges brought against Mr. Chakotay. In your time as a member of his crew, were you witness to these acts?"
"I was witness to all the charges, except for the torture and murder of Cardassian prisoners. Based on my experiences with the Maquis, and afterwards, I would put forth that it is highly unlikely those events took place."
"And why is that, Lieutenant?"
"To my knowledge, Chakotay never had any Cardassian prisoners on his ship. And it would be very much against his character to have either ordered such acts done, or to have done them himself."
"You observed Chakotay spying on communications to and from Deep Space 9?"
"Yes."
"You observed Chakotay attacking Cardassian trade ships?"
"Yes."
"You observed the collection and redistribution of weapons?"
"As I stated before, I was witness to all charges, save for torture and murder."
"Mr. Tuvok, how did you feel about Chakotay becoming your commanding officer on Voyager?"
"I fail to see the relevance of such a question to the charges brought forth against Mr. Chakotay at this time."
"In your opinion, was Chakotay a suitable man for the position of first officer aboard Voyager?"
"Commander Chakotay served Voyager well."
"Please answer the question Mr. Tuvok."
"At the time the Maquis were integrated with the Voyager crew I was ... wary of Chakotay being given a position of so much power. He more than proved me wrong for harbouring such doubts."
"You say you were wary, is that because you believed him capable of taking over the ship from Captain Janeway?"
"I did not think him capable."
"Did you think he would try to mutiny against Captain Janeway?"
"That possibility did cross my mind, yes."
"If I may object, your honour, Commander Chakotay never attempted any mutiny against Captain Janeway, and even worked to prevent such an occurrence by convincing the Maquis to work together peacefully with the Voyager crew."
"Sustained."
"Did such convincing include punching one of his former colleagues in the Mess Hall? Mr. Tuvok?"
"I believe Chakotay was making a point to Mr. Dalby about the futility of perpetual violence."
"Isn't it true, Mr. Tuvok, that Captain Janeway appointed Chakotay as first officer as a concession to the Maquis, but that you and she continued to run the ship?"
"If you are suggesting that he was first officer as a figurehead, nothing could be further from the truth."
"Didn't you and Captain Janeway, with the help of Lieutenant Thomas Paris, work to expose a traitor on board without the collaboration of Chakotay?"
"That is correct. We felt that the reactions of the crew would be more ... real if Commander Chakotay did not know of our plan."
"In other words, you didn't trust him enough to let him in on it."
"That is not precisely what I said. We were hoping for realistic reactions from both Commander Chakotay and the crew. If we lacked confidence in him, it was only in his ability to act."
"It has been put forth to this court, that Chakotay's actions on the Voyager somehow atone for his crimes in the Demilitarized Zone. Would you agree with that sentiment, Lieutenant Tuvok?"
"Yes."
"So you believe that he acted responsibly and by the book, according to Starfleet rules and regulations, at all times while serving on Voyager?"
"Please answer the question Mr. Tuvok."
"Commander Chakotay acted in the best interests of Voyager, at all times."
"But not necessarily according to Starfleet rules and regulations?"
"Not ... necessarily."
"I object to this line of questioning, your honour, Chakotay is not on trial for his actions aboard Voyager, but for his crimes in the Demilitarized Zone!"
"I am merely trying to respond to the suggestion that he has atoned for his crimes by his actions in the Delta Quadrant, your honour."
"Objection overruled. You may continue."
"In fact Mr. Tuvok, didn't Chakotay act recklessly and irresponsibly on more than one occasion? Did he not steal a shuttlecraft to engage an enemy in order to settle an old score with a former crew member? Did he not counsel Captain Janeway to adopt a more Maquis-like attitude to face the enemies of the Delta Quadrant? Did he not endanger the crew by pursuing an enemy to rescue his baby? Did he not reactivate a dormant Borg cube at the request of a former Borg colony?"
"Yes."
"Order! I will have order in this court room!"
"May I speak?"
"Yes, Mr. Tuvok."
"Commander Chakotay did all of those things, as mentioned by proof of the official logs presented in court three days ago. I fail to see the point of seeking my affirmation of these events except for the purpose of grandstanding to the media..."
"Objection!"
"... and without the context of those events it becomes very hard to see the logic behind Commander Chakotay's actions. I could list for you this afternoon the innumerable other occasions when he acted not only within the rules and regulations of Starfleet, but also at great personal risk, in order to save the lives of everyone on board. It is my belief, as a colleague and as a ... friend to Commander Chakotay, that he conducted himself with honour and integrity throughout our journey. Many hard choices were made along the way, but we were alone in an often hostile region of space and those choices were life or death."
"Thank you Lieutenant Tuvok. You may step down."
*****
"Lieutenant Paris, please state your role in Voyager's mission, as you understood it from Captain Janeway."
"I believe my title was Starfleet 'observer.' I was supposed to help Voyager track down a missing Maquis ship in the Badlands."
"Do you know why you were chosen for this mission?"
"You mean it wasn't for my good behaviour?"
"You will answer the question please, Mr. Paris!"
"I was chosen by Captain Janeway because of my experience, such as it was, with the Maquis."
"Did you know Chakotay, prior to the Voyager's mission?"
"Yes. But I think it's a true statement that neither of us knew each other very well back then."
"How did you know him?"
"Our paths had crossed when I joined the Maquis."
"Could you be a little more specific, Mr. Paris?"
"We met at a supply outpost in the DMZ - don't bother asking because I know it's no longer used - and I hooked a ride with him from there to Bajor. It was a long trip, we had to take a few ... detours."
"Is this where you became friends with Mr. Chakotay?"
"No. We were not friends. Chakotay and I had ... philosophical differences that precluded any kind of friendship at that time."
"During that trip did you witness Mr. Chakotay engaging in any illegal activities?"
"You mean like providing starving colonists with food? Or transporting medical supplies? Or defending homes against Cardassian guards looking for women to rape? Yeah, I saw him engage in those activities."
"Mr. Paris! Did you witness Mr. Chakotay engage in battle with Cardassian ships?"
"... Yes."
"Did you witness Mr. Chakotay supply weapons to colonists for the purpose of attacking Cardassians?"
"I might have seen some weapons, but what the colonists did with them is anyone's guess."
"What about attacks on Cardassian supply depot?"
"You know, I really wasn't on Chakotay's ship very long. Like I said before, we didn't enjoy each other's company very much back then."
"And yet, one of the first things you did when in the Delta Quadrant together was to save his life, at no small risk to your own. Are you sure you weren't better friends?"
"Everyone has to be a hero once in a while."
"What was your opinion of Chakotay becoming the first officer?"
"I was ... ok with it."
"You felt he was a good man for the job?"
"Despite our differences of opinion, I could recognize that Commander Chakotay was a good leader."
"Mr. Paris, on one occasion did you not strike the commander, on the bridge?"
"Yes, but ... "
"That doesn't sound like the action of a respectful officer."
"It was part of an act to find a traitor!"
"Oh yes, the Maquis traitor. The second Maquis traitor. Between those two and the psychopathic murderer I'd have to say Chakotay's judgement at choosing a crew was less than exemplary. For a good leader."
"Well, considering that Starfleet chose Chakotay to be a Lieutenant Commander and now he's on trial for terrorism, that doesn't show particularly good judgement on your part either!"
"Mr. Paris! You will show respect for this court or you will be charged with contempt! Is that clear?"
"Yes sir."
"I defer to the defense, your honour."
"Thank you. The defense may proceed."
"Thank you, your honour. Mr. Paris, what do you think of Commander Chakotay?"
"I ... uh, well, I ... I think he's a good man. He's, uh, he's smart, he's a great tactician, an able pilot, ... an inspiring leader. He plays a mean game of pool, can cook like a chef, and is thoughtful of others. He would put himself in danger to save just one crew member. He sought to find peaceful resolutions to conflicts. As a commanding officer he rarely relied on his rank to gain trust or obedience, and he listened to all sides before making a judgement."
"Those are positive words from someone who doesn't consider Chakotay a friend."
"We seem to have overcome our differences in the past four years."
*****
"Captain Janeway, were you familiar with Chakotay prior to being sent into the Badlands to find his ship?"
"Yes, I had been receiving reports from Lieutenant Tuvok and relaying them to Starfleet headquarters. Also, before Tuvok went in, he and I reviewed the information available on Chakotay's cell."
"Based on the information available to you, both from Starfleet intelligence and your own security officer, what kind of man was he?"
"I don't know if I can answer that question. I have come to know Commander Chakotay personally, something that supersedes any impression I may have formed based on reports."
"Do your best, please, Captain."
"Well, I knew from his Starfleet record that he was very intelligent. His teaching record was exemplary. He had many achievements from the academy. He was a skilled tactician. I knew he had resigned from a promising career to defend his home from the Cardassians after the border treaty was signed. He was considered a threat because of the very skills which earned him praise while with Starfleet."
"When your officer did not check in, what did you think had happened to him?"
"There were several possibilities. The ship might have been destroyed, either by the Cardassians, or a plasma storm in the Badlands. They might have been taken prisoner."
"Did the possibility that Chakotay had discovered Lieutenant Tuvok was a spy cross your mind?"
"Yes."
"Did that concern you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Why?"
"I wasn't sure what would happen to Tuvok if he was discovered."
"Did you think Chakotay might kill him?"
"Your honour, I object! What Captain Janeway may have thought what might have happened has no bearing on what actually did happen!"
"I agree. Sustained. Please stick to actualities, sir."
"Yes sir. Captain, when did you first make contact with Chakotay in the Delta Quadrant?"
"When I discovered that one of my crew members had not been returned from the array. I hailed Chakotay's ship and we found that he was missing someone too. We decided to work together to find them both."
"What was his reaction to this plan?"
"Suspicion at first."
"Is this when he discovered that Tuvok was your security officer?"
"More or less."
"And how did he react to that discovery?"
"He was angry, betrayed."
"Captain, at any time were you afraid of Chakotay? Of what he might do, to you or your crew?"
"No."
"Are you certain?"
"If I was ever afraid of Commander Chakotay, it was before I knew him, as once I got to know him it was obvious that any fear was unwarranted."
"Based on the reports filtered by you from your security officer to Starfleet intelligence, is Mr. Chakotay guilty of the charges placed before him today?"
"... Yes."
"I defer to the defense, your honour."
Thank you. The defense may proceed."
"Thank you, your honour. Captain, you stated earlier that you could not recall your impressions of Chakotay prior to getting to know him. Now that you do know him, what kind of man is he?"
"He is a man who balances strength with kindness, who will willingly take on tasks, even the most arduous or tedious, who puts great faith in those he respects. He is a very spiritual man and he has a wonderful connection to his own history. He has a quirky sense of humour, and is often able to find the fun in an otherwise black situation. He is unselfish and patient. He is someone to rely upon, someone to confide in, someone to draw strength from. He feels things very strongly, he believes in things very deeply. He is stubborn. He is proud. He tells beautiful stories ..."
"Thank you Captain. That is all."
*****
Harry and Tom had to beam down to Tl'juk in envirosuits. The explosions had caused extensive damage to the planet's ecosystem making the atmosphere unsafe to breathe. Once on the surface Harry immediately began scanning with his tricorder. His voice kept up a steady stream of comment but Tom wasn't paying any attention.
He was trying very hard not to be sick to his stomach.
The devastation of the community was overwhelming. Tom felt a strange twinge of déjà vu, although he could not recall ever being witness to such complete destruction before. There was no community; there was only void, the burnt out ruins of what was once there. And that's what made it so hard to fathom, Tom thought. Because you could still see where the community had been and yet was no longer. If there had been only blankness, then he could have looked on it with a more clinical eye. But there were the remains of buildings, homes, shops, labs which seemed to echo the remains of the people who'd lived and worked there.
Tom was no empath, and he was glad of it, yet the deaths of those people seemed to be so tangible in the cold light of morning, among the ashes. He felt his stomach lurch and closed his eyes trying to fight it. Being ill in an envirosuit was not a pleasant experience. Just when he was thinking he would have to beam back up to the shuttle the ringing in his ears stopped and he could hear Harry again.
"... can't understand the readings. The computer doesn't recognize it. I wonder if..."
Tom tuned out his friend again, taking a few gentle steps away from him. He had yet to examine the readings from his tricorder, which he held in a loose grip before him, more from habit than anything else. He was watching the fires burning in the distance. The explosion that had ripped through the community of Tl'juk had ignited gases below the surface of the planet. Those fires would burn for a long time.
"... don't remember if the official record was showing anything about this ..."
Harry had moved to be beside him. The younger man was silent for a moment, watching as the destruction of the planet continued, even now, long after the initial blast.
"I wonder why Starfleet didn't send a crew to extinguish those fires. It wouldn't have taken much of an effort. But then, the regeneration of the ecosystem would be nearly impossible, given the high level of ... Tom? Tom? Are you ok?"
Harry noted the beads of sweat that were dripping off his friend's forehead and the paleness of his skin. But Tom shook his head, as though to clear out the cobwebs, and took a deep breath.
"Yeah, yeah I'm ok. I was just ... it's just so horrible to actually see it, you know?"
"Yeah ..." Harry's voice trailed off.
They turned away from the view of the fires to continue with scans of the blast only to face two men, in similar garb, with phasers raised. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin to see them there.
"What are you doing here?" asked one of them, the one standing slightly forward.
Tom, with hands lifted to show he had no weapon, took a tentative step towards the other man.
"Hey, now take it easy. We're just here to get a few readings of the explosion."
"This is a restricted area," stated the other man, the one with the phaser rifle. "Do you have clearance to be here?"
Harry cast a nervous glance in Tom's direction and decided to let him answer the questions.
"What sort of clearance would that be?" asked Tom, cautiously.
The first man looked disgusted, even through the helmet of his envirosuit. He gestured with his phaser.
"Come on, come on, let's have them."
"Have what?" asked Tom, deciding to play the fool.
The other man stepped swiftly forward to grab Tom's tricorder roughly from his grasp. Tom felt the pressure of the phaser's nose pushed into his chest.
"No need to get rough, pal," Tom said, stepping back again. Harry handed over his tricorder without protest. "Harry, I think we've overstayed our welcome here. Let's go home."
Once inside the safety of the shuttle, Tom quickly shed his suit and stepped over to the computer console.
"Who were those guys?" asked Harry, who was slower at climbing out of the bulky suit. "Do you think they'll come after us?"
"Not unless we give them reason to," murmured Tom. "What I want to know is why they would take our tricorders, but not be interested in the scans we've done from the shuttle?"
"It must have something to do with that mysterious substance," Harry said, sitting in the copilot's seat. His forehead creased in thought. Tom glanced back at him, waiting. When no further explanation came, Tom cleared his throat to get Harry's attention.
"What mysterious substance?"
"Weren't you paying any attention to me?" Harry shifted slightly to access Tom's console. As he didn't seem to expect a response, Tom did not provide one. "See? This is our scan from the shuttle. And this. This is the scan from the tricorder."
"Harry," Tom was perplexed, "we handed over our tricorders to those goons. Where is this data coming from?"
Harry looked a little sheepish.
"I was downloading our scans directly into the shuttle's computer as a backup."
Tom was so stunned he had nothing to say. Obviously Harry had spent too much time with B'Elanna over the course of their voyage. He was glad of it. A sly grin spread across his face.
"But Tom, what I was trying to tell you is that I detected the presence of a substance that I couldn't identify and it didn't show up on our initial scan of the planet. See, there." Harry pointed it out on the screen. His fingers lightly tapped the console. "Even more surprising, the computer doesn't recognize it either. Whatever it is, it's not in Starfleet's main database. And more than that, it wasn't included in the official report of the massacre."
Tom watched the data drift by on the screen, absorbing Harry's words.
"Tom, do you think that those guys were trying to prevent us from finding out about this ... this whatever it is?"
Tom shook his head slowly.
"I really don't know. Is it some kind of fallout?"
"I don't think so," Harry told him. "I'm pretty sure that it was somehow involved in the cause of the explosion, rather than the effect."
They were silent for a moment pondering the information. Harry was thinking of the substance and wondering where it had come from and what it could do. Tom was wondering just who would be so concerned about people finding out and why.
"Whatever weapon was used to do this ... Harry, it just doesn't seem like something the Maquis would have. Unless things have really changed." Tom gave a short, bitter laugh. Harry looked up sharply.
"That is the one thing I've noticed since returning home. Everything has changed."
*****
"Go away!" Neelix snapped impatiently at the crowd of media reps and photographers that clustered around him. They hesitated a brief second, and then moved forward to follow him. It seemed to Neelix that they moved as one, a giant collective of press vultures. He picked up his pace slightly, but they matched him step for step, shouting questions, each one louder than the last. He turned back to them once more.
"I have nothing to say to you. Nothing! Now leave me alone!"
He ducked around a corner, the press in pursuit.
"Is it true that Chakotay openly countermanded Captain Janeway's orders?"
"Did Chakotay ever try to take control of Voyager?"
"Can you confirm that he recklessly disobeyed Captain Janeway?"
"Did you ever feel in danger from him?"
Neelix was reaching the end of his considerable patience. So far his impression of the Alpha Quadrant was not a favourable one. He could not for the life of him understand why the Voyager crew had been so eager to get back to this place! He had not mistaken the longing for home amongst the crew and had thought it reasonable, under the circumstances. Now, he found it perplexing.
He'd been besieged by these media people almost since disembarking the ship and he found them pushy, rude, intrusive, not to mention outright liars! He'd been misquoted more times than he'd care to count.
The last mangling of his words had caused Captain Janeway to seek him out. She'd told him sternly that he was not helping Commander Chakotay by playing into the hands of these slanderous scavengers.
He'd noticed how tired she was, and how upset. Oh she could hide it well! But Neelix knew. He knew. He was aware of her efforts to free the Maquis from the New Zealand institution. She had also been fighting for the life of the Doctor, if one could call his existence a life. Researchers of holographic technology wanted to purge the Doctor's program, and Janeway had been forced to intervene. She was also at the courthouse every day, watching the evidence pile up around her former first officer, condemning him.
To Neelix, the evidence was not merely being collected, but flung at the commander, quite viciously at times. And these incessant media people ate up every nasty word, every lie, every negative point. They splashed the vids and press with a picture of Chakotay that was so far removed from the man Neelix knew, that the Talaxian wondered whether he'd stepped into a fantasy realm.
Now, he was determined not to say any words that could be used against Chakotay, be they spoken in the court or in the media. The commander was his friend, his colleague, and he deserved some support right now.
"Is there something wrong with the translators?" he snapped back at the crowd. "Do you need me to explain the words 'I have nothing to say'?"
He was almost there. Just a few more steps and he'd be inside the building where he'd been given some quarters. Then he could shut them out. The crowd followed him right up to the door, so close that some of the forward bodies pressed into the wall. They reached towards him with their recording devices, and snapped still vids right up until he shut the door behind him. His only regret was that he couldn't have slammed it in their faces. Poor door design, in Neelix's opinion.
After pausing a moment to catch his breath, Neelix turned to go down the corridor towards his quarters.
"Mr. Neelix?" a timid voice asked.
Neelix nearly jumped he was so startled.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What do you want? You shouldn't be in here! If you don't leave I will contact security! Why do you people insist on hounding me and the others? Can't you just leave us alone? Isn't it enough that you're lying to the public about Commander Chakotay? Do you have to chase us ALL THE TIME?!"
Neelix advanced on the young woman throughout this tirade until she'd retreated to the far wall, looking very much as though she'd like to dissolve into it. The Talaxian stopped abruptly, suddenly realizing that he'd gone past his vow to say nothing to the media and that his outburst could be twisted around and used in a very unflattering way. This realization deflated his anger instantly and he sighed, turning away from her.
"Wait!" she called. "I'm sorry, I truly am. I think what they are doing is ... is disgusting. They shame the journalism profession!"
"They certainly do!" snapped Neelix, then he took in her words. "You think so? You think so? But aren't you one of them?"
"I'm a cadet at Starfleet Academy. I work for the student press on campus. But after watching the way the media have treated the Voyager crew, I'm ashamed to be lumped in with them." Distaste was plainly evident in her tone.
Neelix still wasn't ready to trust her. He'd been burned by sweet talking reporters too many times in the past few weeks for him to open up completely. He was aware that the media used tactics to gain an audience, and this kind of duplicity wouldn't be at all unlike them. But he was intrigued by her attitude. She seemed sincere enough.
"What do you want?" he asked, more gently than before.
"I'm interested in your opinion of the Alpha Quadrant and the Federation. You've travelled a great distance from your home, things must be ... different to what you know. Or maybe not. That's what I want to know."
"I know. You'll listen and nod and smile and then print whatever you please, taking my words and editing them to make it sound like I hated Commander Chakotay, or I feared him, or he was cruel to me. Well it won't work!"
She smiled, a little shyly, holding up her hands. She held only a PADD.
"I'm not recording this. But I will point out to you that if I had recorded it, and if I were capable of doing what you accuse me of, then I have you stating 'I hated Commander Chakotay.' 'I feared him.' 'He was cruel to me.'"
Neelix's jaw dropped. He whipped around to look at the front door, where a crowd of media were waiting for when he next left the building. Could they have heard that?
"Mr. Neelix, I promise you, I only want to hear the truth. I think it's time we all heard the truth, instead of rehashed garbage and lies. I won't record our conversation. I won't film it. I produce written stories. I want your opinion as a visitor to our corner of the galaxy and I want your opinion of the trial and I will print what you say and what you mean. I will not edit your words to mean something you did not intend. I promise you."
"The truth is that Commander Chakotay is a good man who shouldn't be in prison," Neelix said bitterly.
"That doesn't surprise me at all," she told him, softly. Neelix led her down the corridor to a quiet place where they could talk.
"You know, I'm a bit of a journalist myself ... " he began.
*****
Paris sat uncomfortably on the bench while he waited for her. He didn't want to admit, even to himself, that he was disturbed to be back in this place. The wind was blustery, but warm, blowing through the trees with a rustling sound. After spending so much time in space it felt good to breathe the fresh air and feel the sunlight on his face. He'd forgotten the feeling of being on Earth. He just didn't want to be in this particular spot.
Filled with worry and restless energy he sprang from the bench to pace up and down in the waiting area. He'd made arrangements with the prison personnel to have her brought to him. Unlike Janeway, who'd entered into the grounds of the prison to seek out Paris for the mission, he had no desire to get too far into the complex. Now his impatience was making him wish he'd just walked in to find her himself. What was he afraid of anyway? He was a free man now.
Was it fear? Or guilt?
He saw her coming from a distance and stopped his pacing to watch her approach. She was walking with a slow gait that seemed unlike her usual energetic personality. And she was limping. The wind, gusting across the prison grounds, blew her hair in disarray around her face. She did nothing to stop it, allowing the black strands to fully block Paris's view of her face. He saw the ankle bracelet loosely linked around her right foot, a symbol of her imprisonment and felt another emotion sweep through him.
It was shame.
She stopped a short distance away from him, holding herself stiffly. Tom suddenly felt shy with her, as though he hardly knew her, as though they hadn't spent the last four years becoming close friends. And she seemed ... unhappy to see him. As uncomfortable as he was with their surroundings.
"Tom," she finally said, breaking the stillness.
"How are you doing?" he asked, mentally kicking himself for such a stupid question.
She didn't respond right away, lifting a slow hand to pull her hair away from her face and tuck it untidily behind her ear. His mouth opened with a gasp to see the dark bruises on her cheek and he was suddenly consumed with yet another familiar emotion from this place. Anger.
"How do you suppose I'm doing?" she asked him coldly. "When I've been thrown in prison after doing everything possible to bring us all home? How do you think I'm doing, Tom?"
"B'Elanna," he whispered, reaching out to her face, but she pulled away, glaring at him. His arm dropped down.
"Why did you come here?"
He took a deep breath.
"I've been worried about you, and the others. Some weird stuff is happening ..." He shook his head with disbelief. "It's like the whole world has turned upside-down."
"Chakotay?" she asked, tentatively. When he said nothing she raised her voice with some of the spark he was used to hearing from her. "Tell me what's going on!"
"It's bad," he told her, his voice quiet by contrast. "I think they want to hold him up as a symbol of the dead Maquis on Tl'juk. It's as if by prosecuting him they will get justice for the massacre that took place there."
"That's crazy!" she spat out, her eyes filled with worry for her friend.
"Yes, it is. No one should have to defend Chakotay. Captain Janeway is doing all she can to make them see he is not an enemy. Unfortunately, I think they've already made up their mind on that one," Tom said. "They've got him in a maximum security facility in San Francisco. I doubt they'll move him here now."
"What about our hearing?" she asked after a pause.
"The tribunal is going over the logs now. The captain is more optimistic that you and the others will not be given long sentences. It's possible that she may be able to procure your release by the time the tribunal is finished."
"There are some damning things in those logs," Torres said softly.
"But there's also a lot of positive evidence," Tom insisted. "Harry and I went to Tl'juk," he added.
Her eyes flashed up at him with alarm.
"Why would you go there?"
"I have this feeling that something is not right about what happened there," he explained.
"That much is obvious!" she snapped. She gave a little laugh that held little joy. "We may have been gone a long time, but I can't understand why ... I just don't understand anything anymore."
"It was ... awful," he told her, "After seeing it, I can appreciate now why tension is so high. And if Starfleet is looking for a scapegoat then we couldn't have returned at a worse moment."
"Did you find anything that would explain why they might have killed all those people, and themselves?" she asked bitterly.
"Not yet, but Harry and I are working on it. I left him in San Francisco pouring over all the data we collected. No one is more thorough than Harry," he spoke with more confidence than he felt. "Except maybe B'Elanna Torres," he added, with a small smile. She didn't return the look.
*****
Tom found Janeway sitting in the empty court room staring up at the artwork imbedded in the wall. But for the legal surroundings she might have been kneeling before an alter in a church. The sunset was casting a rosy orange glow around the room and creating long shadows. He was reluctant to disturb her; she seemed completely lost in lost.
"Captain," he said, quietly to alert her to his presence. He sat beside her.
"What do you think that is supposed to mean?" she asked, still clearly distracted. He eyes followed her gaze to the mural on the wall. He'd not really paid it much attention before.
He'd been too busy watching the judge, whose reaction he'd found to be less than sympathetic to Chakotay's case. He'd been busy watching Chakotay, whose tight expression revealed nothing about what he must be feeling. Tom wasn't close to Chakotay, but he figured he knew the man well enough to know how much this whole sham was upsetting the commander. He watched the prosecutor take an extraordinary amount of glee presenting his overwhelming evidence. He watched the defense, who looked defeated before even beginning his argument. Tom had even been watching Janeway, whose eyes never shifted from Chakotay, whose lips formed a tight line, whose expression was so forced he was afraid she might crack.
Now he looked upon the artwork for the first time, studying the colours and contours in the fading sunlight.
"I don't know," he confessed after a moment, too impatient to give it much thought. "I've never been very good at interpreting art."
Janeway tilted her head slightly to get a different angle. She sat up straight again and faced him.
"It's called 'Merciful Justice.' I was just sitting here wondering how Justice can even show her face in this room without shame." Tom was surprised at the naked bitterness of her tone.
"Strictly speaking, Captain," Tom said softly, "he is guilty of the charges."
"One thing I learned out there, Tom," she replied, her quiet voice echoing in the empty hall, "is that nothing is that black and white. When I took you and went after Chakotay and Tuvok it was quite clear to me. Duty was clear to me. Guilt was clear to me. Now, both of those things are very ... fuzzy. Neither seems to mesh as well as it used to. Perhaps I ... perhaps I became too close to Chakotay. Perhaps I allowed our friendship to affect my good judgement. But I don't think so. No, I think it more likely that he taught me that my good judgement wasn't as good as I thought it was. Chakotay is guilty of nothing more than defending his home and family against the threat of destruction and annihilation. For that he should be commended, not condemned."
Throughout this speech Tom could hear the emotion she'd been holding in throughout the trial begin to seep out. He was a little afraid she might cry, in which case he had no idea what to do. Janeway always seemed so in control, so in charge, so unafraid. It disconcerted him to see her helplessness so closely.
"You and I know that," he agreed with her, "but this court is only looking at the black and white."
Janeway let out a short humourless laugh.
"I never thought I'd ever support the Maquis case. I never thought ... you know, I never thought I'd have to defend them. It never occurred to me that Starfleet would go through with the prosecutions. After all that happened, after all we went through, after all that ... just to die in a Cardassian prison. I can't believe it."
"It's not over yet," Tom told her, trying to look for something positive. She gave him a weak smile that thanked him for trying.
"How was B'Elanna?" she asked, veering off the topic of Chakotay for a moment.
Tom somberly considered his visit to New Zealand. He thought of the resentment he'd felt from his friend, the bruises on her cheek. His heart ached to have to leave her there while he roamed free. He couldn't believe that reality any easier than Janeway could accept Chakotay's fate.
"She's holding her own," he said, then added, "she looked like she'd been in a few battles."
Janeway's shoulders slumped further down, accepting one more burden to bear. Her expression reflected Tom's worry.
"Will she be alright? Should I make some kind of appeal?"
"Captain," Tom hesitated, "I think it would be better for her if you didn't. If I remember prison dynamics ... well, let's just say she's better off defending herself."
The court room was almost dark now, with the shadows far outnumbering the last streams of light filtering down from the windows. Janeway took a deep breath and prepared to go.
"Captain," Tom began, causing her to pause, "Harry and I aren't getting very far with our analysis of the Tl'juk debris. But something there isn't right. I was thinking, well maybe, I mean, perhaps I should, if you think ..."
"Spill it Tom!" she ordered, her weariness making her tone sharp.
"I want to go into the DMZ, find some of the Maquis and see what they know. If Patrick Borland planned this massacre he had to have some reason for targeting Tl'juk. There is something going on here besides Maquis versus Cardassian differences."
She sat back down, considering his proposal.
"Tom," she started, not wanting to shoot down his idea without some thought, "the Maquis have never been that easy to track down. And since Tl'juk they've all but disappeared underground. How do you plan on finding anyone to talk to you?"
"I don't know," Tom admitted, shaking his head. "But I have to try something! I can't stand all this waiting. I can't stand it! I thought maybe you might ask Chakotay if he has any ... contacts. If you tell him I'm going to see 'Anastasia,' he'll know what you mean. It may be an old code word, but he'll recognize it."
Janeway was silent.
"It can't hurt to try," urged Tom. "It can't hurt to make the effort."
"I don't want to lose you too." Her voice was so quiet he almost didn't catch the words. But when they registered he felt a warm glow he hadn't felt for a long time. Not since they were all back on Voyager and something had gone right. It was the feeling of community, the feeling of family, the feeling of acceptance.
"You won't lose me," he promised. In the cold darkness of the hall he offered his hand to her as they left together. And if she chose to lean on him for some support, well, he was willing to offer that too.
*****
The first thing Janeway noticed about the cell was that it was brightly lit. The outer chamber, where the security team had its post, had soothing lighting that was easy on the eyes. The cell, beyond the force field, was filled with harsh whiteness, illuminating everything with cold bright light that made her squint.
Chakotay lay upon the cot on his back, with an arm draped over his eyes, but she doubted he could block out the invasive light. She wondered if he was asleep, and hesitated to wake him if that was the case. But her security escort showed no such reluctance as he rapped hard on the wall with his weapon, the clanging sound echoing harshly in the quiet of the cell.
"Hey! Get up! You have a visitor!"
Janeway had no doubt that had her presence not forestalled him, the security guard would have punctuated his order with darker words, words meant to sting, to hurt, to demean Chakotay further. She glared at him coldly until he withdrew.
Chakotay lifted himself up stiffly, blinking rapidly in the light to try to see who was standing beyond the force field. All he could see was the faint glimmer of blue light that told him the electromagnetic field was in place and ready to burn him, should he care to make an escape. He remained seated on the cot, on the far wall, not speaking, preferring to wait until he knew who had come to the cell.
"Chakotay?" came the sound of her voice. It was Kathryn, then.
He stood and walked the short distance slowly, until he stood within centimeters of the field. Fuzzily through it, in the darkness of the outer chamber, he could finally see her. Up close it was evident, even in the bad light, that she was tired and strained.
"Captain," he said, his voice softly neutral. He was beyond thinking she could do anything for him. Whatever was going on was bigger than Janeway. It was bigger than he'd ever thought it might be.
"Commander," she said, formally, then stopped, as though she wasn't sure what to say next.
"You forget Captain," he told her bitterly, "that I no longer carry any rank."
"I didn't forget!" she flashed out, angry, not at him, but at the system that placed him in a cage and stripped of rank and self-respect.
"It's almost over, and then you can go back to Indiana for a rest. You look like you could use a holiday." His voice remained soft, so soft she could barely hear him over the crackle of the field. She leaned in a little closer, feeling the power of the field raise goosebumps along her skin.
"It won't be over until you are free," she told him.
"Kathryn," he whispered, "promise me you'll let it go."
"Absolutely not!"
They glared at each other, their noses so close they might have been touching, but for the distance of the electricity between them.
"I thought you might want some news of the others," she finally said, breaking the tension. He merely nodded.
Janeway spoke of her efforts to free the other Maquis, who remained in the New Zealand penal institution. She neglected to mention Paris's report on the physical abuse he'd seen when visiting Torres. No need for Chakotay to add that to his burden of worries.
She purposely did not speak of Tom and Harry's trip to Tl'juk to collect evidence from the site. Their efforts were thus far inconclusive and even though she was optimistic that this avenue was going to be the one to get Chakotay freed, she didn't want the prison's surveillance equipment picking up any details of their plan. But there was something she needed from Chakotay.
"And Tom," Janeway chuckled slightly, surprised to have it catch in her throat. She coughed lightly. Chakotay turned questioning eyes on her. "Tom, just back in the quadrant and already chasing down old girlfriends."
To his credit Chakotay recovered quickly. His initial reaction was of surprise followed by confusion, but his expression remained calmly neutral. Chakotay believed that Tom's affection towards Torres was real, so he strongly doubted that Paris was off after past loves. Therefore Janeway must be trying to give him a message. Well, ok, he'd play along to see what it was.
"That Paris is some loverboy," he commented dryly.
"He seems to be a bit worried about tracking her down, so he asked me if you might be able to help. Apparently, she's a mutual friend."
Now thoroughly intrigued, Chakotay smiled without joy.
"I doubt that. Who is she?"
"I think her name is ... Anastasia. He's heading for Bajor tomorrow."
Many questions went flying through Chakotay's mind, the most prominent one being: why? But he curbed his curiosity by pretending to think about it.
"It's been a long time since I've seen her," he said, slowly, "so I don't think I could help him find her. She always was one to ... move around."
"Well, Tom will be disappointed that you couldn't help, but he's persistent so I'm sure he'll go ahead anyway. I think hanging around here is driving him crazy, maybe the change of scene will do him good," Janeway said lightly, wondering if he'd understood and really didn't know, or if he hadn't a clue what she was saying.
They looked at each other for a moment, a lifetime of words hanging unsaid in the small space between them. Space that might as well have been as vast as the entire quadrant, for all it was keeping them apart.
"Speaking of Tom," continued Chakotay, after a pause, "I was thinking of that holoprogram he created after we found that planet with all the tropical plants ... do you remember that one? I think Kes filled the hydroponics bay after that day. Paris made a program of the jungle area. He is a whiz of a programmer. I couldn't hold a candle to him. I wish I'd ... I wish I'd told him that. Tell him good luck on Bajor and not to be disappointed if Anastasia isn't there anymore. She's like Sandrine in that she has no one love in her life."
"I will." Her eyes held his for a moment and she knew he'd understood. He was trying to give her the answer but she wasn't sure she completely understood the message.
*****
"But I never made a program of a tropical jungle!" protested Paris, running a frustrated hand through his hair.
Janeway and Paris were walking along the beach on the outskirts of the Academy. The afternoon was overcast and threatening rain, which matched with both their moods. Janeway had pulled Paris out of the tiny quarters he'd been given while staying in San Francisco, begging need of some fresh air.
"Do you think they are watching you?" he'd asked.
"I know they are," she'd replied.
When she told him of Chakotay's cryptic message Tom's forehead had creased with confusion. He remembered the planet in question, but to his knowledge no one had created a holoprogram for it, and even if they did, what did that have to do with finding a Maquis contact on Bajor?
"I'm sure he understood my meaning," Janeway insisted, "and I'm sure he was giving us an answer."
"What does a holoprogram of a Delta Quadrant planet have to do with our situation?" grumbled Paris. "Maybe he was just trying to praise my programming skills after all ..."
"No!" Janeway interrupted, her eyes glowing as she suddenly saw the message. "He was talking about a program he created. He said he couldn't hold a candle to your programming ... What if Chakotay made a program about that jungle? I know that he did some programming of places we stopped at in the Delta Quadrant. Places he thought were particularly intriguing, or beautiful."
"If we were still in the Delta Quadrant I might be able to see how this could be useful. But as we are not, I'm still in the dark!" snapped Tom, the weeks of strain showing plainly in his tone.
"Don't you see Tom?" Janeway picked up the pace as she headed back in the direction from which they'd come. "He was pointing us in the direction of his programs. There must be something there that could help you."
"Aren't his programs part of the evidence collected by Starfleet?" asked Tom, shifting gears as he saw where her train of thought was going.
"Yes and no," she replied vaguely. "Chakotay, well, he ... he was a little wary of our reception at DS9 and so he gathered together some of his personal belongings and stowed them under my name and authorization serial number in the cargo bay. As a result, they were delivered to me unmolested by security. Included in the container were his personal logs and some of his programs. To the security team who removed those items from the ship, it looked like Chakotay had simply erased them."
"So that's what happened to his logs," murmured Tom.
"He was clever enough to leave some part of his files behind, so that they wouldn't keep looking for them. Most of his holodeck programs are probably still in the main computer. Just the personal ones, or the damning ones, were removed."
"He must have a lot of trust in you, to send them to your keeping," Tom said, without thinking. She looked sharply over to him. "For all he knew, you would have brought them to the trial."
"Do you really think I would do that, Mr. Paris!" Tom realized too late his mistake.
"I just meant, that you might have felt they contained evidence that would help to free him. In his personal logs there must be items that could help to defend his character," Tom explained.
"And no doubt there are a lot of items that are intensely personal. I know I wouldn't want my personal logs played out in an open court room," Janeway added.
They reached the barracks building. Just before entering Janeway stopped and dropped her voice to a low pitch.
"Not a word about this while we're inside, is that clear Mr. Paris?"
He nodded silently.
*****
Tom was feeling frustrated and beginning to think he'd been crazy for attempting such a maneuver. If the Maquis were as underground as he suspected, there was little chance he would be able to hook up with them based on Chakotay's old contacts. Contacts that Tom had only been able to surmise from an old holoprogram. His journey had taken him off Bajor, onto a small, remote outpost named Antram, and into a dark, dingy bar. He sighed, decided to finish his drink and call it a night.
"Tom Paris?!" The tone was partly questioning, partly hostile. Tom didn't want to turn around. Slowly putting down his drink he stood to face the speaker. He barely got a chance to see her before she planted a fist heavily in his face knocking him to the floor. He remained there a moment, evaluating the damage done to his jaw and tasting blood from where he'd bitten the inside of his mouth. The crowd thinned out around him, barely noticing the conflict. That was the kind of place this was - people really kept to themselves.
He looked up at his assailant with some admiration for her strength. Even B'Elanna had never decked him so hard, and Torres was not one to hold back her fists when provoked. Certainly Zatzi felt provoked.
"Glad to see you too, Zatzi," he said, rubbing his face.
"They finally let you out of prison Paris?" she sneered at him, standing over his sprawled body with her hands on her hips. Tom scrambled to his feet so he could look down on her. She was not a tall woman, but she was strong. "I can't believe the first place you'd come running would be here! But then, you never did have a lot of brains in your head."
"You're out of touch, Zatzi," Tom remarked coolly, trying not to let her words sting. "I've been out of prison for years now. In fact, I've been in the Delta Quadrant for the last four years."
The expression on her face was simple disbelief, mingling with parts of disgust.
"Yeah, right. And I've been chosen to command the Starship Enterprise!"
He was a little afraid she might haul back and punch him again, and he had no desire to take another blow. But he was also at a loss on how to diffuse her anger and get her to talk to him about the Maquis.
"It's true. I was on Voyager when it was lost in the Delta Quadrant. I've actually been serving under an old pal of yours ... Chakotay."
Zatzi's eyes narrowed.
"Why don't we sit calmly, and have a drink together like rational people, and I'll tell you all about it."
"Why should I even waste my time breathing the same air as you?" Her voice was lower now, but still filled with disdain.
"Because," He lowered his voice as well, "Chakotay is in prison right now, being used as a pawn for a crime he had nothing to do with, and would never have condoned even if he had been in the Alpha Quadrant at the time."
Tom turned back to the bar to collect his half-finished drink and purchased another. He almost thought when he swung back around that she would be gone, but she stood just where she'd been, her body fairly quivering with anger.
Ushering her over to a booth, where they'd have a little more privacy, Tom handed her the drink. She took it suspiciously. His patience finally snapped.
"Would you like me to drink from it first?!"
Roughly he grabbed the glass back from her, taking a swig and slamming in onto the table. The amber liquid sloshed over the sides and onto his hands. He shook them, absently, and sat heavily opposite her, his anger gone.
She regarded him thoughtfully. Tom sighed.
"I'm telling you the truth. I was taken out of prison to do a job for the Federation and on the mission we were pulled into the Delta Quadrant. We only got back home a few weeks ago."
"You don't have much luck with your assignments, do you Paris?" she shot at him sarcastically, finally taking a sip from her glass.
He said nothing.
"Why are you here?" she asked bluntly.
"Well," Tom hesitated. If he was wrong about her then he was heading for prison again, and Chakotay would be facing a Cardassian extradition. But somehow he could not see Zatzi being pulled over to the other side. She hated Starfleet and Cardassia too much. "Voyager's mission was to arrest Chakotay and his cell. Despite their service record during our four year voyage home, Starfleet is committed to prosecuting them, quite severely. Janeway - she's our captain - she thinks, and I agree, that it has something to do with the Tl'juk massacre. We happened to arrive back in the Federation at a very bad time for Maquis."
Zatzi did not react. Tom was surprised. He thought that the mention of the massacre might get a rise out of her. He pushed on.
"I don't think it's right that Chakotay bear the blame for someone else's crime. Some of the Voyager crew and I have been investigating the massacre. Something isn't right about what happened there. I was hoping ..." Tom paused, "I was hoping that if I could talk with some of the Maquis who are left, I could find out more."
Zatzi started to laugh. It was so unexpected that Tom stopped talking and blinked slowly at her. Something was amusing her?
"You find this funny?" he snapped. "Because I don't!"
"Paris!" she cried, leaning over the table to lightly slap his sore cheek. He pulled away, annoyed. "Do you honestly expect me to fall for something like that? Delta Quadrant? Chakotay in prison? Investigating Tl'juk???" She sat back in her chair, positively giggling. "You are creative, I'll give you that."
"I'm telling you the truth," he insisted. "If you weren't so cut off from Federation communications you would know that everything I've told you is true."
"By your own admission you would sell out the Maquis to Starfleet, why should I believe this little charade is any different?"
"What can I do, what can I say to convince you? One of your old friends is about to be handed over to the Cardassian authorities when he should be welcomed home as a hero."
"Chakotay's been dead for ... "
"No! He didn't die, he was taken to the Delta Quadrant too." Even to Tom's ears the story was taking on an unbelievable tone. He sighed with frustration and tried a different approach. "B'Elanna Torres and I became very good friends."
"You know Torres?" Zatzi smirked. "I bet she knocked you down too."
Tom was desperately trying to come up with something about B'Elanna that Zatzi might know, but that wasn't a matter of public record.
"I know her very well. Ask me anything about her, anything about Chakotay ... these people are my friends Zatzi! I'm trying to help them."
"Ok hotshot, if B'Elanna's back as you say, and not dead as we've all believed, then where would she go to see her family?"
"Nowhere," Tom replied quickly, "because she hasn't seen her father since she was five, and she and her mother haven't spoken for years. The Maquis were her family, and then ... then Voyager became her home."
Zatzi still looked skeptical.
"What else? What else?" demanded Tom. "Go ahead! Do you want me to tell you about how she likes Klingon romance stories? Or detective holonovels? Or how ashamed of her forehead she was as a child? What about her reprogramming of Dreadnaught, the Cardassian missile? Did you know that she programmed her own voice into the computer of it?"
"You are showing a lot of emotion here Paris," Zatzi said slowly, "and I'm wondering why."
"Do you want to hear about how I fell in love with B'Elanna? That would make for an interesting tale, but I doubt it would convince you of anything!" he snapped.
There was silence between them for a moment. Zatzi calmly sipped her drink while Tom tried to get himself under control.
"Let's try this," she said with a grin, "why don't you tell me the most unbelievable thing you know about Chakotay's cell. I'm very curious to hear what you'll come up with for this."
Tom was silent. His mind was blank. So many things had happened to the Voyager crew, so many of them quite implausible when taken out of context. He wasn't even sure he could remember who was Maquis and who was Starfleet anymore.
"Did you know Seska?" he asked quietly, finally coming up with something. Zatzi nodded. "She was Cardassian, not Bajoran."
Zatzi's eyes grew wide for a second, then she looked away.
"For being put on the spot, that was good," she murmured.
"Please help me," he urged softly, "please."
Zatzi didn't look at him, her eyes darting around the crowded tavern as though looking for someone.
"I don't know anything. But if I did, I'd have to say that Borland and his group were not responsible for the massacre on Tl'juk."
Tom relaxed a bit. He and Harry had come to this conclusion as well, but they had no proof. He sat back, talking casually as thought they were discussing the weather.
"Why not?"
"There was nothing on Tl'juk that would have been useful to the Maquis and by policy they only raid Federation outposts to gain supplies or materials. Also, it would have been very unlike Patrick to take on a raid that might endanger civilians, particularly children. Totally unlike his personality."
Now Zatzi caught Tom's eyes and her look was cold.
"And I knew him very well," she said.
"I'm sorry," Tom whispered, casting his eyes down.
"But the most telling reason is that no one in the Maquis had access to the kind of explosives that were used. If they had them, they wouldn't have wasted them on a Federation science outpost, that's for sure!"
"Harry and I found traces of a substance we couldn't identify. Do you know the origin of the explosives used?"
He thought for a moment maybe he'd pushed too hard but then she said abruptly and with venom:
"Cardassian."
The implications of her information were not lost on Tom. He'd travelled a long way to have his own suspicions confirmed. He still didn't have the kind of proof it would take to confront a tribunal, but every step was taking him closer. Zatzi stood. He grabbed her arm.
"Thank you. I mean that," he told her. "I will clear his name."
"See that you do, Paris," she said coldly, "because it might just redeem your past sins."
She left him before he could say another word. He remained where he was, not taking any pleasure in the drink he finished. Paris knew in his heart that his past sins had been cleared by actions taken while alone across the galaxy. Even Chakotay, who was at first even more hostile towards Paris than Zatzi, acknowledged that. So why did he suddenly feel as though all his good deeds would be wiped away if he failed in his current quest?
*****
Chakotay was led through the silent corridor of the prison by two security guards who looked so young he could hardly believe they could have graduated yet. The building was designed for function, not beauty; the corridor was a dull gray colour, the doors they passed were unmarked. Their destination was unknown to him, and he had not bothered to question the guards. While they hadn't used their fists or batons on him since his trial began, he didn't really expect to get any information from them.
The door opened to the guard's keyed in commands, revealing a small interrogation room. Chakotay was shoved in with some force and he sat at the table without waiting for the encouragement by his guards' strong arms. Sitting still his eyes examined the room but found nothing of interest. It was plain. It reminded him of the room at the courthouse where he conferred with his defense counsel. The only difference was that at the courthouse one of the walls was glass, allowing the unwelcome intrusion of watching eyes from the outside.
The doors slid open abruptly and Admiral Necheyev walked in, unattended. With a magnanimous sweep of her hands she dismissed the guards. They left reluctantly, but without protest. She sat opposite Chakotay, her dislike showing plainly on her face.
Chakotay tried but failed to hide his surprise. He really didn't know the reason for this conference, this late in the evening. The last person he'd expected to see was Necheyev though. She had signed the warrant for his arrest; it fell under her mandate to prosecute the Maquis criminals. But she maintained a distance from the trial and he hadn't seen her since his arrest on DS9.
Necheyev eyed the man before her. She hated him. She hated the damn stoic neutral expression he always wore. If she didn't know better she'd swear he was Vulcan. In court, Chakotay had spoken passionately, and with anger, demonstrating that he did, indeed, possess an abundance of emotions. However, he rarely showed expressions on his face and for this she resented him. He should show emotion, he should show remorse, regret, sorrow, damn it! He should be apologizing for what he'd done!
She was ambivalent towards the crimes in the DMZ. She had no love for the Cardassians, nor any moral belief in the Federation treaty. But Chakotay had been Fleet! He had turned his back on all that was right, and used his training and his skill to fight for an enemy. For this she could not forgive him. For this she resented him. For this she would see him suffer the consequences.
Chakotay could sense the tension in the room. He was not unaware of the Admiral's animosity. He could even make a reasonable guess at its foundation. There was nothing he could do to change her opinion of him. He was who he was and although he had regrets, resigning from Starfleet was not among them.
"Admiral," he said, when the silence became too thick.
"Chakotay," she responded, with thinly disguised distaste.
"How nice of you to drop in," he added, when she did not continue. She ignored his attempt at humour.
"The trial is almost over. You are about to be pronounced guilty," she told him. His eyes narrowed slightly while he tried to see where this was going.
"The presumption of innocence is a wonderful foundation for the judicial system, don't you think?" he asked, rhetorically. He'd known of the outcome of this trial before he'd even left DS9. He was just surprised it was taking this long.
"It is," she agreed. "Too bad you're not innocent."
He said nothing. She resented his calm all the more.
"All that is left now is the sentencing. That is why I came to see you."
"I wasn't aware that either of us had any influence over the sentence," Chakotay said softly.
"We don't. Your sentence is most likely going to be handled by the Cardassians, as they have submitted an extradition order."
"Why bother with all that paper work?" he asked, bitterly, "Why not just hang me at dawn in front of the media teams?"
She took some satisfaction in his bitterness but not much. The Cardassians were too good for him.
"After your trial has ended there will be more time for the tribunal on your accomplices," she continued. "You know that Captain Janeway has been petitioning endlessly for leniency."
"I didn't know," he told her, "but that doesn't surprise me."
"She is most persistent, that Captain of yours," Necheyev said, leaning back slightly, gauging his reaction. She didn't get one. Disgruntled, she pushed on, "I could give her some support. I'm sure between the two of us, we could come to some kind of agreement. Perhaps a sentence equal to the time they've already served? They have been waiting quite some time while we've been dealing with you."
Chakotay lowered his eyes from hers to stare at the blankness of the table. She was offering him their freedom. Janeway had persistence and the Voyager experiences on her side, but all of that meant squat if the tribunal was out for blood the way his trial had been. With the support of an Admiral, and Admiral Necheyev the warrant-signer at that, there's no telling what might happen. What Chakotay couldn't figure out was just what he had to offer in return. A condemned man, about to be handed over to the enemy for punishment ... what on earth did she want from him?
"That would be very fair minded of you," he stated, his tone neutral. She could tell he didn't believe her to be fair minded and that irked her. Who was he to sit in judgement of her?
"Of course, if you appeal the sentence, that could drag out your trial for many weeks, even months. Paper work can be so tiresome, and the judicial system gets so bogged down with things. It's hard to say how long it could take to free your crew." Necheyev shrugged. Her cold eyes pierced into him; he resisted the urge to shiver.
There was silence in the room while they regarded each other carefully. Then Chakotay drew himself up with a deep breath.
"Let me see if I understood you correctly, Admiral. If I don't appeal my sentence, and go willingly with the Cardassians, then you will help Captain Janeway free the Voyager Maquis crew based on time served. Have I got it right?" he asked.
"You have such an intelligent streak in you, Chakotay. It's a shame you didn't use it more often," she said harshly, her resentment for his betrayal finally surfacing. "You've got it right."
Chakotay didn't want to let her see how much her barb had stung him. Her obvious dislike for him made it hard for him to trust her.
"How do I know that you'll carry through with your promise? I'll be on Cardassia, away from the possibility to appeal."
"I know it's hard for a man like you to understand the meaning of a word like honour," she said, nearly sneering at him. He gave a little snort of disbelief. "But you are just going to have to trust me. I have no wish to imprison Janeway's crew. They have an impressive record with her. Some of them, like Torres for example, show tremendous promise for careers in Starfleet. We need good people like her. No, Chakotay, you were the one I wanted; you were the one I got. The others are just a waste of the court's time."
He believed her. He wasn't sure why, because he didn't trust her as far as he could throw her, but he believed her. He was the only one she wanted, his name was the only one on the arrest warrant. The others were only being held by their association to him. He could go meekly like a lamb to the slaughter and they would be free. Or he could try to fight her, and they would remain in New Zealand until the tribunal got around to dealing with them. Who knows what kind of sentence they might get? Could she arrange for them all to be extradited to Cardassia? He didn't doubt it.
No matter what Janeway might do, this was the woman who had all the power. He nodded slowly.
"Okay," he agreed, "Okay, I won't appeal."
She stood, looking down on him with some satisfaction. It was the satisfaction of the powerful over the powerless.
"Well, Chakotay, perhaps there's hope for you yet. That was a very honourable gesture towards your friends."
He didn't look up, keeping his eyes lowered, his expression closed. Waiting a moment more, she left the room quickly before his calmness upset her even further.
*****
Tom was finishing a meager morning meal and contemplating his next move when she found him. He'd been weighing the benefits of trying to seek out more information, or just returning to Earth with what he had so far. All he had was hearsay and common sense, nothing that would sway the tribunal. Certainly nothing that would help Chakotay at this point.
Zatzi came up from behind, startling him out of his thoughts.
"Hello there," she purred into his ear, causing him to sit stiffly with confusion. This woman was a far cry from the hostile, violent enemy of the night before. Before Tom could respond, or even react, Zatzi planted herself in his lap and, taking his face in her hands, began to kiss him longingly.
It took a few seconds for Tom to catch his breath when she pulled away slightly. A seductive smile still upon her lips she murmured,
"We are being watched ... my love."
"My love," he responded, with a hint of humour, then he bent over to kiss her gently. Foreheads together, lips nearly touching, arms around each other, they had a conference. It was unlike any meeting Tom had ever attended, although the thought of adopting this style to the senior staff briefings caused a faint smile to flit across his face. He could think of someone else who might enjoy this as well.
"You need proof?" she asked, then nibbled at his nose. Tom shifted her in his lap slightly. If they continued in this charade he was going to be put in a very uncomfortable position.
"Do you have proof?" he countered, his mouth finding her ear. He was trying very hard to keep his attention on Zatzi, but his concerned eyes couldn't help but scan the room looking for enemies. He saw nothing but a few travelers, like himself, eating quietly in the predawn.
"What's it worth to you?" Zatzi asked, her fingers lightly trailing down his chest. She was really enjoying doing this to him, he could tell. The little sadist. He gripped her upper arms with more force than love, causing her to laugh and attack his neck with her mouth. Good thing she wasn't a vampire, thought Tom, or I'd be a goner.
"I'm trying to save my friends. I could clear Patrick's name in the process. That's worth something, don't you think? Hmmm, Zatzi, love?"
"You help me, and I'll ..." Now she lifted a finger up to his cheek, tracing the bruise she'd caused by her blow the previous evening. "... I'll help you."
"I doubt I have much that you need," Tom hedged, not wanting to commit himself too deeply. The last thing he needed was to explain to Janeway how he managed to get arrested for terrorism again.
"I think you're selling yourself short, Paris," she murmured casting a knowing look into his eyes. Zatzi's eyes were green. They were nearly glowing in the first light of day. But they weren't revealing much; she had learned long ago to hide her feelings and she was nothing if not a good actress. She must be, to be pulling a stunt like this in the lap of someone she hated as much as Tom Paris.
"What's the job?" he finally asked, knowing, as did she, that his back was to the wall.
"Some ... associates of mine are being held against their will on Cardassia II. I think it's about time they came home, don't you?" Her fingers tapped lightly across his lips, her other hand ruffling his hair.
"Zatzi, I'm just a pilot, I've never done a jail break before ... " he began, thinking that the last place he wanted to be was on Cardassia II.
"Perfect," she purred, "because we could use a pilot for this job. But, love, don't even think about getting caught this time."
Tom was beginning to feel beads of sweat form on his forehead. Pressing their cheeks together he spoke into her ear.
"Oh, don't worry, love, I won't get caught, but I need to know what's in it for me, aside from the risk to life and limb?"
"These prisoners were miners on Lamok III," she told him. "So they know all about Nomisite and just how dangerous it can be." She looked down and giggled delightedly. "Why Mr. Paris! I do declare you are attracted to me!" she told him mockingly. "Meet me in the shipyard at 18:00 hours. The name of the vessel is Phantasma."
She stood, holding his hands in hers by the fingertips, then leaned over to kiss his lips once more. There was no love in her gesture, merely urgency. She left him without a look back and Tom remained seated for quite some time before he was able to follow her exit.
*****
Harry sat on the bench passing the gift back and forth between his hands to try to calm his nerves. He'd nearly lost it when the guards had insisted on scanning his parcel, but they had found nothing. They probably wouldn't have even known what they found, had they seen it. Harry wiped a hand across his forehead. Was it extraordinarily hot here? More nerves. He took a deep breath.
In his mind he saw the court room. He'd sat next to Janeway, who was so formal and stiff she might have been an android. He'd looked across the room to the figure of Chakotay, standing tirelessly in the accused box, his expression revealing nothing. To many, Chakotay appeared cold, unrepentant, with his image portrayed in the media as mean, even cruel. To Harry, he seemed despondent, wary, even defeated.
Harry was having a hard time reconciling these images of his commanding officers with the people he'd known in the Delta Quadrant. Out there the pair had been so full of life, so confident, so in control. Back home the manacles had been placed on more than Chakotay's wrists, they were on his spirit.
"Harry?"
Kim nearly leapt off the bench with alarm. It was B'Elanna but he hadn't heard her approach; he'd been too wrapped up in his thoughts. She sat next to him and placed a light hand on his arm.
"Geez Harry, I didn't mean to startle you. What's up?"
To her shock, and Harry's surprise, tears began to fall down the young man's cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak but his lips only trembled. He shut his mouth with a snap and squeezed his eyes closed, willing the tears and all the weakness they represented away.
Torres stroked his arm gently, far more gently than was her nature, but Harry was special to her. A coldness hit her stomach as she wondered what had happened to upset him so much. She could think of a lot of bad things. Chakotay ... oh god, Tom ...
"I brought you something," he said, finally getting some control. He handed her the gift, so recently scanned by security. She took it from him slowly, letting go her caress to do so. It was a photograph of the Voyager crew. It had been taken at a party organized by Tom and Neelix on the holodeck just after they had found their way home.
"Thanks, Harry," Torres said, a bit confused.
"He lost," Harry whispered, looking away.
"Who?" Unconsciously B'Elanna brought the photo close to her chest as though she could hold them there in her embrace.
"Chakotay. He lost the case. He's going to be given to the Cardassians for punishment."
B'Elanna let out a low curse, one filled with helpless rage. Harry looked up at the cloudless sky, two more tears falling unnoticed onto his cheeks.
"Will they kill him?" he asked.
"They will break him," B'Elanna told Harry, bitterly, "and then they will kill him."
"Janeway wanted to appeal, but he refused. He must have felt it was a lost cause. They're going to transport him in a few days, but no more."
"Tom?" B'Elanna asked, her voice breaking a little. She cleared her throat to steady it and asked more forcefully, "what about Tom?"
"Tom's in the DMZ. I haven't heard from him since he left. I don't know what he's doing." Harry's voice held some part of envy for his friend who was a least still trying to have some effect on the outcome of the Maquis' fate. Harry felt helpless with inactivity. He wished he'd been able to convince Tom to take him along.
"The DMZ? What the hell is he doing out there?" B'Elanna asked more sharply than she'd intended.
"He went looking for the Maquis," Harry told her slowly. He'd assumed Tom had mentioned this plan to B'Elanna on his visit to the prison.
"Of all the stupid ideas Paris has ever had!" Torres stood abruptly and paced. She stopped in front of Harry and jabbed a finger in his face. "Is he trying to kill himself? Is this some sort of weird suicide plan?"
"He's trying to help!" Kim stood too, immediately defensive of his friend.
"Harry," B'Elanna began, then gave a short laugh, "don't you remember how popular Tom was when the Maquis first came on board Voyager? If it weren't for Chakotay he'd have been killed within a week. The Maquis in the Alpha Quadrant don't know Tom the way we do. And there's no Chakotay out there to keep him alive this time."
"Look, we know that the Maquis didn't instigate the massacre. We just need some proof. Tom went to get us that proof."
The two friends were silent, each lost in a myriad of worry and sorrow. Harry's brow creased as though he was trying to figure out a particularly perplexing problem. Torres rubbed her eyes. She bent to pick up the photo. It hardly seemed real anymore. Had they really been that happy? Why?
"Do you remember when Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay were sick and we had to leave them on that planet?" Harry asked.
"Yeah," mumbled Torres.
"Do you remember how bad everyone felt because there was nothing we could do? And how rotten we felt that Tuvok wouldn't let us try the only avenue of hope that we saw for them?"
B'Elanna nodded. She remembered all too well.
"This is worse. Did we go back and save them from that fate, only to condemn them to this one? Chakotay killed by Cardassians, and Janeway blaming herself for the rest of her life? I can't believe it. I can't believe there's nothing we can do. B'Elanna," Harry's voice was soft, "do you ever think about getting out?"
She glanced up sharply to his face, not sure she'd heard him properly.
"Walk with me Harry," she commanded curtly. They ambled down the path, the bracelet around her ankle the only reminder that they were not just taking a walk in the park. "What the hell kind of question was that?!" she asked him.
"When you were first imprisoned, Tom suggested we could break you out of here easily. He was right. I've been thinking about it. I could get you the frequency of the ankle bracelet so you could disable them, or construct a dampening field for them. If we had a ship then ... "
"Harry!" Torres interrupted him. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear more of his plan. "I promised Chakotay to keep the group together, to keep them sane. That meant no jail break. How are we supposed to convince the Federation that we're not criminals if we start acting like criminals?"
"Chakotay is as good as dead unless we can stop his transfer to Cardassia," Harry said bluntly. "We tried justice and it didn't work! The Federation made up its mind on this issue before we'd even re-entered the Quadrant!"
"Starfleet isn't just going to let us go, Harry. We can't just turn tail, go to warp, and make tracks for home. We ARE home! This Quadrant is a lot more crowded than the one we've been exploring. The Federation takes up a lot of space."
"That's sort of what Tuvok and Janeway said to convince Tom it wasn't such a good idea," Harry confessed.
"Well, they were right," B'Elanna agreed.
"Not anymore." Harry's expression became grim. Gone was the unhappy ensign from the bench; in his place an angry young man. "Sisko is in San Francisco for the hearing. That means the Defiant is in the shipyard. It has a cloaking device. If I can somehow get past the shipyard security, maybe pose as a maintenance technician, I could take her while her crew is on Earth."
"That would mean the end of your career, Starfleet!" B'Elanna snapped, resorting to the use of her old nickname for him.
"I'm not interested in a career in an organization that treats people the way you've been treated," Harry told her coldly. "I'm not interested in defending the honour of an institution that would hand a man to the enemy because of a treaty of expediency! That is what Starfleet has become for me. I'm not helping them anymore."
"We would be running for the rest of our lives," Torres implored him, "Harry I don't think you understand what that would mean. Your family, your home ... "
"I've been living with the idea I may never see them again for over four years. I got lucky. I saw them."
Harry took her hand and looked intently into her troubled eyes. He had to convince her he was serious about this.
"There's a gift for you in that photograph. Maybe it will help you plan something for Chakotay. If we can, we'll move the day he gets transported; it'll be the only time he's out of the prison facility. I need you to get the others prepared. If any of them don't want to come, you'll have to get a message to me somehow."
"Harry," B'Elanna whispered, her fingers lightly touching the photo's surface. He placed a hand on top of hers.
"I can make my own decisions. I can choose my own path. And I choose to help you, and the others, and Chakotay."
*****
B'Elanna stood looking out the small window of the room she shared with five other inmates. They were all in the Mess Hall. B'Elanna had left early, not feeling like she could stomach the dinner. After eating Neelix's cooking she could consume just about anything, but Harry's words alarmed and saddened her. She was worried sick about Tom and she didn't know what to do about Chakotay.
She'd studied the photograph in great detail, but found no clues to help her plot a rescue attempt. Why would he be so cryptic? Frustration welled up inside of her and before she thought about it she found herself throwing the picture across the room where it smashed as it hit the ground.
Shocked and upset with her inability to control her temper, B'Elanna slowly crossed over to the pieces. On her knees she began to pick them up, wishing for a moment she could give in to the tears that had flowed down Harry's cheeks today.
In amongst the pieces of the frame Torres found two items that she hadn't expected to see. Holding them with gentle awe she began to understand what Harry meant. She sat back on her heels, thinking. They needed a plan.
*****
Paris thought that he'd just lived through the worst two days of his life. The fact that he'd lived through them was the only redeeming feature. He'd come as close to Hell as he ever wanted to see and looked forward to a long life getting further and further away from Cardassia II.
He sat in the pilot's chair staring at the Phantasma's controls. The ship was darkened, power off; she was resting back in the shipyard on the Antram outpost where he'd boarded her two days ago. He and Zatzi had flown into a prison camp and liberated the Maquis being held there and they'd flown home. It sounded so easy when you looked at it from this side.
One of Zatzi's "associates" had been shot down by the Cardassians in the middle of the break. Another had died en route to Antram. A third was so ill that Paris would be surprised if she lived through the night. The fourth had spoken at length to him about the mining operation on Lamok III. This was gratifying, but even with the proof he'd been so desperately seeking Paris was left feeling sickened by the experience.
He just wanted to go home. He was tired of the DMZ, tired of the Cardassians, tired of the Maquis, tired of the Alpha Quadrant in general. Life had been much simpler back on Voyager. Funny how you never realized what you had until it was gone. He shook his head again and stood to leave the ship.
"Feeling better now, flyboy?" Zatzi's voice was cold in the darkness of the ship. She stood in the doorway to the cabin.
"I won't feel better for a long time, Zatzi," he answered her, equally as cold. She had used him and she had no problem admitting it. They had shouted resentment towards each other on the voyage back, Tom finally giving into his anger.
"Did you get your proof?" she asked, stepping closer to him.
"Yes. I know that Borland did not attack Tl'juk and I'll go back to Starfleet command and make them listen to me."
She seemed to visibly relax slightly at his words. Tom's anger flared again. She had not only used him to get to her friends on Cardassia II, but she was using him still, to clear the name of her lover.
"You know what really perplexes me, Zatzi?" he asked, coming to within a foot of her. He looked down at her slight frame. "If you were a member of Borland's cell, why weren't you on Tl'juk with him? Why didn't you die along with the rest of them? How come you were spared?"
He should have seen it coming, knowing her volatile nature and tendency towards violence. He was taunting her, after all. But still the blow surprised him, knocking him back into the wall where his head hit the bulkhead with a loud crack. He saw stars, and not the constellations of the Alpha Quadrant. One of his hands reached up to touch his cheek. It was already swelling.
"How dare you!" she hissed with rage. "How DARE YOU!!!"
"Just a question, Zatzi. No need to get hostile on me," he shot at her, sarcastically.
She swung at him again but he was ready for her this time. He grabbed her arm by the wrist and held it just inches away from smacking his face again. Their arms trembled in the air, like some weird kind of wrestling match. Tom had arm wrestled with B'Elanna on many an occasion. She always beat him. Zatzi, not having the benefit of Klingon DNA, dropped her arm after a few moments.
"I think you owe me a few answers, after what I just did for you and yours," Tom said, his voice pitched lower and without the heated anger of before.
"Patrick and the others disappeared on their last run to Bajor. I ... I assumed they'd been taken, or even killed, but I couldn't find any evidence either way. Then the massacre happened and Starfleet started a massive crackdown on the Maquis. We went underground, we were disorganized, there was chaos ... The reason I wasn't with them on that last run was because I was on Antram ... having a baby."
"What happened?" he asked softly.
"She died. No medicine. Patrick had gone for medical supplies. He never came back."
She glared at him but her words deflated Tom's hostility more than any show of force she'd demonstrated thus far. He slumped back down in the pilot's seat. Was there any end to the sorrow of these people's lives?
"Go back to Starfleet, Paris. Make sure the truth gets known. Otherwise they died for nothing. All 30,000 of them." Without looking at him, she turned on her heel and left him sitting in the dark. He never saw her again.
*****
Harry was glad of the sunshine that shone relentlessly down on the Starfleet shipyard. It gave him an excuse to have the perspiration forming on his brow, just under the fringe of his hair. He took a few deep breaths before entering the office, reminding himself of all the advantages he had. In his mind he could almost hear Paris in his most coaxing of tones,
"Harry, Harry, Harry ... "
It was comforting to him, until he was reminded that he didn't know where Tom was and if B'Elanna was correct he may never see Tom again. Even if Tom was successful in his mission Harry wouldn't see him again. And if he wasn't, well, Harry would never know that either.
Harry had many points in his favour, entering the shipyard office. One was his rank. Being an ensign meant little when surrounded by lieutenants and commanders, but here in the depths of lowly grunt work, even a crewman had respect. In fact, Harry suspected that crewmen got a lot more respect here than anywhere else. However, an ensign was still an officer, which meant someone not to be questioned. His lucky star was that he'd spent a summer's vacation from the Academy working in the shipyard, and so he knew the procedures. This was assuming they hadn't radically changed their processes since Harry graduated. He doubted it. The shipyard was the kind of place where nothing ever changed.
Whether by chance or skill or just being blessed with having learned so much from Torres in the last four years, Harry had managed to hack his way into the shipyard's manifest and he'd discovered another lucky star. The Defiant had put in for some minor repairs, a slight fluctuation in the forward shields. So while the officers were off on leave, or at the courthouse, the shipyard technicians were supposed to be fixing this problem.
Harry had "fixed" it so that the technician on call for the Defiant never got called. He'd smiled grimly, wondering if maybe he didn't have a career waiting in the Maquis after all.
The supervisor for this shift looked up at Harry's approach. Thankfully he wasn't someone Harry knew from his short work experience. He appeared bored with his job, bored with the day, bored with having to deal with Harry.
"Ensign?" he queried tonelessly.
Harry passed him a PADD, noticing his hands were trembling slightly. He swallowed to get a grip on his nerves.
"I'm here to do some work on the shields of the Defiant," Harry told the supervisor. "Some kind of minor fluctuations?"
The supervisor sat up a little straighter, reading the PADD and eyeballing Harry with suspicion. For a brief second Harry considered pulling out a phaser and stunning the man, then he dismissed this plan as foolhardy and stupid. He'd never get to the Defiant that way, the ship was more than halfway across the yard.
"We don't see many officers on repair crews," the supervisor commented.
"Yeah, well, I'm between assignments. I'm hoping to go back to DS9 with Captain Sisko, so I thought I should make myself useful, you know, maybe get on the good side ..." Harry was just winging it, making up his story as he went. He tried to remember all that Paris had taught him about lying. Keep it simple stupid. The supervisor seemed to accept his explanation without any further details and handed Harry back his PADD.
"Get a toolkit from the ..."
"From the storage locker to the left," Harry finished for him. He wanted the other man to know he wasn't a stranger to the shipyard. The supervisor merely nodded and went to enter something in his computer.
"What's your name again, Ensign?"
Harry was just about through the doors when the question drew him up short. He hadn't thought he'd make it without giving some ID, but then he didn't offer it either.
"Kim," he said clearly, "Harry Kim."
No point in lying. They would know soon enough.
There weren't many others around as Harry collected his kit and proceeded down the tarmac to the Defiant. The yard was maybe three quarters full, but most of the ships were just putting down, not in for repairs. Even the Defiant could have waited until her return to DS9 to have her shields remodulated. But why not take advantage of the down time?
The sweat dripped down Harry's face now, and not just from the heat of the noon day sun. He remembered dinner at his parents' home last evening. His last supper with them. His parents were still fawning over his return. It was hard to take; it would have been hard to take even if he had shared their good mood. As it was, with so many of his friends imprisoned and his commander facing an execution, he was hard pressed to share their joy. It burned his heart to leave them again, so soon, and without any explanation. He left no communication for them, no apology, no reasons for his actions, nothing that Starfleet could use against them.
He'd left them with stronger hugs and kisses than he normally might have given, but they hadn't noticed. He loved them dearly but they would never understand his choice and would have done all they could to persuade him not to go. They might have even gone to Starfleet to turn him in, rather than allow him to ruin his career.
Harry hadn't been able to face Captain Janeway. He knew she felt helpless. He felt more helpless. He also knew she wouldn't approve of his methods. She might have ordered him not to go. He didn't want to have to disobey her. She meant too much to him.
Caught up in his thoughts of his family and captain, Harry hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings. He'd walked up the rampway and into the ship thinking that he'd gotten past the worst of it by entering the yard and fooling the supervisor. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a commanding and unfriendly voice behind him.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Harry slowly turned around to see the disgruntled face of a Klingon officer. His mouth went dry. Truth be told, this was the closest he'd ever been to a full Klingon and he felt more than a little intimidated. He would have felt the same even if he had been sent to do repairs. Desperately trying to breathe normally and recover his confidence he swallowed hard. He swung the tool kit up by way of explanation.
"Repairs. Forward shields," was all he managed to get out under the angry glare of the Klingon.
Harry had assumed all the officers from the Defiant would be off the ship. A very big assumption, but somewhat justified, considering that Starfleet provided quarters for all crew. The shipyard wasn't located in a very convenient place for people visiting Earth. The ship was locked up in the yard, the only access through the technicians' supervisor. There was no need to leave anyone on the ship so he'd felt confident that it would be empty.
He wondered now what it was about Klingons that made them look perpetually pissed off. Thank goodness for B'Elanna's human DNA, he thought. She might have a temper, but she knew how to laugh as well. Harry could not believe the big man standing before him possessed a sense of humour. It seemed impossible.
The Klingon nodded with a jerk of his head as though to say, 'well get on with it then,' and followed Harry to engineering. Harry ran some routine diagnostics to locate the problem with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling, all the while under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Commander Worf. Harry had every intention of repairing the shields. He needed the ship to be in top shape if it was going to be useful to them. He wiped the sweat off his brow with irritation. Even in here, out of the sun he was feeling hot. Hot and anxious. He was sure that Worf could tell. It wouldn't take an empath to know Harry was nervous.
"Dax to Worf," beeped the Klingon's badge. He stepped back from Harry's console for some privacy.
"Worf here," was his gruff response.
"Worf, what are you doing still on the ship? You were supposed to meet me 30 minutes ago! Benjamin is tied up at the courthouse, but we were going to . . . ." Harry couldn't make out the rest as Worf covered his badge with a large hand to muffle the sound. "Remember?"
"I got ... distracted," Worf explained, "by the repairs to the shields."
"Worf!" Now the voice was truly exasperated. "That's why we put in a requisition at the shipyard. Let the technician handle it!"
Worf glanced back at Harry who was doing his best to appear completely absorbed in his task. He was close to finishing. If Worf insisted on supervising him right to the bitter end then his plan was sunk. The ship's shields would be in top shape and he would have lost his window of opportunity.
"Yes, you are correct," Worf said, slowly. "I will join you shortly. Worf out."
Harry pulled off the door to an access panel and reached to his kit for the right tool. To his surprise the tool appeared in his hand, passed from Worf.
"Thank you sir," Harry managed, looking up at him for the first time since entering engineering.
"You are doing good work," Worf told him.
"Thank you sir," Harry repeated, blinking stupidly. He hadn't been expecting a compliment.
The lieutenant commander nodded curtly and abruptly left the room. Harry let out a deep breath and nearly dissolved in a pool of nerves and sweat. He scrambled to finish his repairs, after checking with the internal sensors to be sure the Klingon had left the ship.
There was a moment of silence. No one was around. All other technicians were either aboard their ships working, or in the office mess having lunch. Harry drew himself up. After this maneuver there would be no turning back. He didn't hesitate, but worked swiftly to start the pre-launch sequence.
*****
Chakotay was brought out of the prison facility to greet chaos. The prosecutor was holding forth with media members about the preservation of justice. Protesters and supporters alike were gathered in angry crowds, shouting at each other, and at any of the media personnel who would listen. Starfleet's presence was low key. Janeway was dressed in civilian clothes, her hair down and loose, like she was hoping no one would recognize her. Chakotay recognized her. He saw her almost immediately after his eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine.
He was flanked by three guards, who nudged him along the path with their phaser rifles. Chakotay didn't know why, but they seemed a bit more alert than they had been during the trial. He sensed that something had them on the edge.
They were following the back of Gul Somik who couldn't wait to get back to his ship. The Gul regarded the scene with disgust. Humans were so weak and emotional. All this fuss over one insignificant man!
Chakotay strained his neck back around to watch Janeway. She was trying to follow, but was hampered by the crowd. He wished he could talk to her. Not here, not like this, but alone in some quiet place so he could tell her to let it go and move on with life. She was home now, she shouldn't be caught up in the useless struggle to free him. He'd be dead soon anyway.
Their eyes met and he nearly called out to her. Suddenly an anti- Maquis protester broke free the barrier and ran screaming towards him.
"Murderer! Murderer!" she cried, barreling into him before anyone could react. As his hands were bound by the iron shackles, Chakotay lost his balance easily and fell over on his back, the crazed woman pummeling his chest with her fists. One of his guards hauled her up to her feet and shoved her back towards the barrier. Another one reached down to help Chakotay roughly back to his feet, his disgust at becoming a protector, rather than a jailer, showing plainly on his face. The woman was not returning peacefully, trying for another attack. The second guard shoved Chakotay in the direction of Gul Somik, who'd paused to watch the scene with an expression of amused impatience, and then he went to help his partner.
B'Elanna watched the scene from a short distance. She was walking beside the third guard, carefully measuring her paces so that she couldn't be detected. In one hand she held a phaser, in the other another Vothian cloaking device. She hadn't counted on all these people being here. It was going to make things a lot more complicated. She, too, had spotted Janeway and felt ashamed for what she was about to do. Janeway had done her best for Chakotay, done her best for all of them, but it wasn't enough. So now they had to take matters in hand. Still, B'Elanna wished that Janeway wasn't here to witness it.
When the second guard moved down from the path to assist his partner in restraining the protester B'Elanna saw her chance. Now there was only one guard and the Gul. She stepped forward, right to Chakotay's elbow, and grabbed it.
Chakotay nearly jumped right out of his skin when he felt B'Elanna's hand grip his elbow. He thought for a moment it was the third guard, but that man was still walking behind. As if out of thin air B'Elanna materialized. She came into sight suddenly, not like the delay of a transporter beam. She shot the third guard before anyone could react to her appearance. Chakotay didn't even have time for his jaw to drop with amazement as she slapped the second cloaking device on his chest and they both disappeared. Chakotay caught a fleeting glimpse of the shock on Janeway's face, feeling quite stunned himself.
As they watched their prisoner fade out of view, the other guards dropped the screaming woman to raise their rifles. B'Elanna yanked on Chakotay's arm and he fell for the second time. The phaser fire skimmed above their heads.
"We've got to move!" she ordered him, as reinforcements were being called, and the tracking device that would spot the bracelet on his ankle easily was being engaged. Chakotay just stared at her blankly. "MOVE!!" she blasted.
They scrambled up, ducking past the stunned Gul and running in the very direction they'd been headed all along. At the far end of the prison building, B'Elanna swerved around the corner but did not slow down. She disengaged the cloak and hit her comm badge at the same time.
"Torres to Kim! NOW!"
The guards, who were running almost on the heels of their former prisoner, barely had enough time to register the fading in of two bodies before a transporter beam dematerialized them again. They were gone.
*****
Dalby worked on freeing the manacles from Chakotay's wrists with a small laser. He was a bit worried he might burn his former captain, but Chakotay stood absolutely still, holding his hands before him rigidly. Dalby did not make eye contact with him, feeling the glare coming off Chakotay burn more painfully than the laser.
Torres kept throwing glances in their direction from her station, where she was monitoring the pursuit, such as it was. As the Defiant was cloaked, the other Starfleet ships, and the Cardassian warship were at a loss to track her. They were only guessing at the general direction of the fleeing Maquis, and doing not too bad a job.
"What I would give to see Sisko's face!" Gerron was jubilant. He did not seem to sense the atmosphere in the cabin, made oppressive by Chakotay's glower.
Harry was much more subdued. He was glad it had all come off the way he'd planned, but they weren't in the clear yet. They would never be, he realized suddenly. There would never come a time when he wouldn't feel as he did now. Hunted.
Dalby pried the last of the metal away from Chakotay's wrists and threw it to the floor where it clanged loudly.
"There you go!"
Chakotay rubbed his wrists absentmindedly, still taking in the scene. He walked towards Torres, who immediately began scrutinizing the sensors.
"Torres." His tone was clipped. She looked up to him, hesitantly. "What the HELL did you think you were doing? Didn't I tell you to keep everyone together? Didn't I ask you to promise me not to do something stupid like this?!"
"Chakotay ..." she tried to start but he wouldn't let her speak.
"This has got to be the craziest stunt you've ever pulled Torres! You and the others were nearly home free! Janeway and that court had the tribunal convinced that I was the bad guy here and you were only following me. They were going to let you go B'Elanna! Now you are an outlaw for the rest of your life!"
"Don't blame her! It was my idea," burst in Harry, with venom. "She didn't want to go along with it, but I convinced her."
Chakotay swung around to stare at Harry with an incredulous look on his face. Harry flinched slightly, expecting the reprimand. It didn't come.
"Harry, you've just thrown your life away," Chakotay said sadly, shaking his head. "For what?"
"For you, you ungrateful toad!" snapped Torres. "We did this for you! Because none of us, not Harry, not Gerron, not Dalby, not ME - none of us could stand the thought of them just handing you over to the Cardassians."
"How could we be free when you were gone that way?" asked Gerron, somberly.
The cabin was silent, but for the sound of the computers and the quiet hum of the engine. Chakotay looked at his feet. He said nothing.
*****
Janeway wrapped her arms around herself in comfort. The wind had picked up but only a little. The fog held a chill that made her shiver slightly. She was sitting on a log on the beach staring out into ... nothing. The weather had obscured the view to blankness. Much like she felt.
She had done what she'd promised. She had brought them home. And now? Half her crew were outlaws, the other half were shunned, and she was facing pressure to resign. It was a hell of a homecoming. He'd asked her to let it go, to go home to Indiana for a holiday, to get on with life. She'd promised him she'd see him free first.
How does one define freedom? Could it be measured in degrees? He was free now compared to where he'd been going. But he would never be truly free. So what of her promise? Could it ever be realized?
"Captain?" The voice, coming so suddenly out of the misty air, frightened her. Goodness Kathryn! What is wrong with you? She blinked, hardly recognizing him for a moment. He was in need of a bath, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in weeks. Or slept, for that matter, judging by the dark circles underneath his blue eyes. There was a multi-coloured bruise adorning his left cheek. But despite his scruffy appearance, there could be no doubt as to his identity.
"Tom?"
He knelt on the rocky beach beside her, as shocked by her appearance as she was by his. He hadn't taken the time to get caught up with the latest news vid. He'd tracked her down immediately.
"Did 'Anastasia' do that to you?" she asked him, touching his sore cheek with cold fingers. He brought up his own hand to pull hers away, squeezing it lightly.
"Actually, her name was Zatzi, and she felt she had a good reason." Tom was beginning to feel uneasy, watching the captain. She seemed distant; he'd never seen her so unhappy.
"What happened?" he asked, finally.
"They," Janeway hesitated, "they are gone."
"Who's gone? Gone where?"
"Our Maquis," she told him, "with the help of Harry Kim, stole the Defiant, escaped from prison, snatched Chakotay from the arms of the Cardassians, then ... disappeared."
"What?!" Tom was shocked. He wasn't sure which part of her words surprised him more, the escape or Harry's involvement. Janeway merely nodded sadly. Tom thought about the ship. "Sisko must have been hopping mad!"
"That would be a fairly accurate description," Janeway agreed. "He didn't need another excuse to hate the Maquis, and he lives on their doorstep," she added softly. "They returned the ship to DS9, with the navigational and transporter logs destroyed."
"They won't be found," Tom said, thinking of his recent experiences trying to track down some Maquis.
"I don't know what scares me more," Janeway admitted, "that they will or that they won't."
"I have some good news," Tom told her, after a pause. She looked up from her hands, grateful for something good to grasp. "I was able to determine without a doubt that the Maquis could not have been responsible for the explosion on Tl'juk."
"You have proof?"
Tom shifted his weight to sit on the log next to her. He began to explain.
"The explosives were created with a substance unknown to the Federation databases. That's because it can only be found on a Cardassian colony world, Lamok III, where it was briefly mined for a new weapon they were developing. But the Cardassians soon discovered that the substance was more volatile and unpredictable than they thought. It is highly unstable. They determined that using it would most likely prove more deadly to them than their enemies and the mine was closed."
"Couldn't the Maquis have acquired some of it?" Janeway asked, not seeing where he was going with this.
"Certainly, it's possible," he allowed, "but if so, they would not have been so stupid to try to transport it halfway across the Quadrant to blow up a group of Federation civilians. Even if you believe that they didn't care about killing themselves, something I'm still not ready to accept, why not just turn the explosives onto Cardassia Prime? Imagine the death toll if they'd hit a major city! The community on Tl'juk is small potatoes, not a worthy target for so great a risk."
"Tom, are you suggesting that the Cardassians are responsible for the Tl'juk massacre?" Janeway asked, sitting up a little straighter. He looked away briefly, then turned back to her speaking with an intensity that took her breath away.
"It's the only explanation that makes any sense! They knew about Nomisite, they had been developing a weapon to use it, they are known to be far more ruthless than any Maquis has ever been! Think about it Captain, they fight a war with us and strike a treaty. But they are still dealing with the terrorists in the DMZ, and worse this time, as there are many more Federation citizens who have reasons to hate the Cardassians now than before the war. What better way to turn the tide against the Maquis than to have a brutal massacre blamed on them?"
Tom stood and walked a short distance away from Janeway. With the grey fog swirling around him and his harsh tired voice, his words began to have a surreal effect. But then, nothing about this whole situation had seemed real.
"The scientists on Tl'juk had nothing that would interest the Maquis. There were no weapons, or weapon's designs. There were no ships, or components that would be useful on ships. There was only enough food to feed the colony there. There were no medical supplies. Attacking them would be like attacking one of the Maquis's own home colonies! It goes against all that they stand for, all that they fight for - it doesn't make sense! But the Cardassians had the means, the motive and the twisted psychopathic nature to pull something like this off. Zatzi told me that Borland would not have used children as a target. I believe her. It would be like ... like Chakotay pulling a stunt like that. Could you see him doing it?"
"No," whispered Janeway, thinking of all the crimes that had been hurled at her commander in the court room. Even the most brutal of those crimes could not come close to the cold cruelty that had killed the people of Tl'juk.
"Now all we have to do is get someone to listen to us," Tom stated, his hands on his hips in an unconscious imitation of his captain. She stood, grabbing his arm.
"I know who," she told him, feeling more animated than she had for days.
*****
There was a chill in the air that was carried by short gusts of wind which whipped across Harry's face. He shivered slightly, watching as B'Elanna and Chakotay negotiated for some supplies. He thought back to last night when Chakotay had held a meeting of all his former crew, and Harry. The former Starfleet ensign felt out of place in the group. They had been thrust back, reluctantly, into a lifestyle they thought they'd abandoned. He, on the other hand, was experiencing something he'd never thought possible.
Chakotay's purpose was to convince the group that sticking together would be a mistake. They had a better chance to evade recapture if they spread out individually. Many amongst them had friends and family still in the DMZ who would be willing to hide them. Some were keen to find the Maquis in hiding and rejoin the fight. But Chakotay found himself having to sell the idea of splitting up, as most of them wanted to stay as one crew.
They'd been together for a long time and in that time they'd done some amazing things. Chakotay had managed to group them, lead them, keep them alive and even brought them to an understanding with the Starfleet crewmembers on Voyager. They weren't keen on just abandoning him; however, he was adamant. As a target for Starfleet and the Cardassians, he was the biggest prize. Anyone sticking with him was at a great risk.
Harry had watched as they reluctantly left Chakotay, one by one, that morning and that afternoon. The group had whittled down until there was just Harry and B'Elanna and Chakotay.
Harry didn't want to admit to anyone, not even to himself, that he was terrified. Somehow, the thought of hiding in the DMZ, staying one step ahead of Starfleet and Cardassian pursuers for the rest of his life seemed a lot worse now that it was actually happening. Even exile in the Delta Quadrant for 70 years would be preferable. At least there he hadn't been alone.
On that thought, Harry suddenly wondered what had happened to Tom. He took a deep breath to try to keep the panic at bay.
Torres glanced over at Harry while she and Chakotay stowed some supplies they'd acquired. She was growing increasingly worried about him; he'd hardly spoken all day. There was only the three of them left now.
"Chakotay, I don't think Harry's going to make it on his own," she said, her voice low. Chakotay looked up with sad eyes.
"He's a big boy, B'Elanna. He can take care of himself."
"Not here," she shot back. "Not like this."
Chakotay said nothing. He wasn't entirely convinced of his own ability to survive this situation.
"I think we should stay with him," B'Elanna added.
Chakotay sighed. He looked at her defiant expression and sighed again.
"Torres, I thought we went over this last night. It doesn't make any sense to ..."
"If you think I'm leaving you now you are crazy!" she interrupted. "I didn't take you from the Cardassians just to walk away out here."
"I'm a fugitive ..." he began again.
"Well so am I!" she snapped. "And so is Harry. Now the others, it was different for them. They had places to go, people to help them. Harry is alone. You are alone. I don't have anyone but you."
"B'Elanna," Chakotay started and then stopped. He didn't know what to say to her.
"Chakotay, you have been looking out for me for so long now. You are my best friend, you are my family. I'm not leaving you. And I can't leave Harry like this. So ... we stick together?" She worded it like a question and watched for his reaction, but she hadn't really left him with any choice but to agree.
"Harry!" called Chakotay, which brought the younger man over. "B'Elanna and I were just discussing where we should go from here."
"We?" managed Harry, weakly. His relief was so obvious that Chakotay's arguments for splitting up completely dissolved.
"Ever thought you'd join the Maquis?" asked B'Elanna, joking.
"No," admitted Harry. "But I've done a lot of things I'd never thought of doing since I met you."
"I think we should avoid the Maquis," Chakotay said quietly. "They are also targets and they are fighting. I'm not sure I want to fight anymore."
"So now what?" asked Harry, glad he didn't have to make this decision himself.
"Let's go," Chakotay said softly, lifting his bag of supplies and walking away. His two companions followed silently.
*****
When the door opened to reveal Admiral Paris, Tom felt his muscles stiffen with tension. He hadn't seen his father much since returning, although their brief encounters hadn't been quite as bad as the initial contact. Tom couldn't help but feel a little defensive, even before his father opened his mouth to speak.
"Admiral," Janeway said, as they were ushered into the Paris home. "We have some information about the Tl'juk massacre that I think you should hear."
Owen Paris was a bit surprised, even if he didn't show it. He took them into his private office. His features remained neutral as he wondered why Kathryn and Tom would be coming to him about Tl'juk. He knew that Kathryn had been campaigning - that was really the only word to describe it - for the release of her Maquis crew and had even tried to sway the trial of Commander Chakotay with an eloquent plea. He wasn't aware of her interest in Tl'juk. As for Tom, Owen had no idea what his son was doing.
Janeway was signaling to Tom to speak, but he seemed reluctant to begin. Something about being here, in his father's office, was affecting Tom's behaviour.
Janeway was exasperated with Tom. Where was that passionate outpouring from the beach? He might as well have been mute.
"Well, ah," Tom began slowly, feeling about 10 years old.
"What is it?" asked Owen, with some impatience. Tom's mouth snapped shut. He physically withdrew, all his psychological defenses up.
"This was a mistake," he said to Janeway. "We shouldn't have come here."
"Lieutenant!" barked Janeway. "There are a lot of people relying on you right now. Report!"
Her commanding tone jolted Tom out of his childish feeling of inferiority in the presence of his father. He drew himself up to stand stiffly at attention.
"Sir, we have reason to believe the Cardassians were responsible for the explosion on Tl'juk," he stated.
Owen said nothing for a moment. At first, he did not even seem to react, but then a flash of concern in his eyes revealed his true feelings.
"At ease, son," he said quietly. "Tell me what you know."
As Tom filled in the details of his trip to the DMZ Owen sank into a chair. Janeway could see the shock plainly on his face now, just as she was sure he could appreciate the ramification of the news. When Tom stopped talking the room was quiet, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock. Tom suddenly recalled the feeling of being a child in this house and listening to the sound of that clock. Strangely, he felt comforted by it.
"We'll have to tell Alynna," Owen said, nodding as he mulled over the information. "And Shipley." He stood and paced for a moment. "In fact, we should have a meeting with several others."
"Dad," Tom stepped in front of his father when the older man moved to contact his peers. "Dad, what will this mean for the Maquis on Voyager?"
"Chakotay is still guilty," Owen replied gruffly. "And the others escaped from a Federation institution, stealing a Starfleet vessel along the way. Apples and oranges, son. That has nothing to do with Tl'juk."
"That has everything to do with Tl'juk!" burst forth Janeway, cutting in-between the two men. "If it weren't for Tl'juk my crewmembers might never have been prosecuted at all! Chakotay was judged harshly based on the unfortunate timing of our arrival so shortly after the massacre. Admiral!" Janeway grabbed his arm when he would turn away, dismissing her statements. "What happened at that trial was not justice, it was vengeance. It was an eye for an eye, without enough eyes to pluck out!"
"She's right," spoke up Tom. "Chakotay and the others were instrumental in bringing Voyager home. They deserved a lot better than this supposed justice!"
"Even if I agreed with you, I don't have any way of changing what happened. The fact that we don't even know where they are doesn't help them very much either!" Admiral Paris's voice was harsh. He bitterly resented not having the power to help Kathryn and Tom. Alynna had been very clear about him staying out of the matter. The prosecution of the Maquis was her business.
He looked back and forth between them, noting the silent pleas in their eyes.
"Dad," Tom said softly, not without some feeling. "These are good people. They're not criminals."
"Like you, Tom?" asked the Admiral. There was no bitterness or malice in his voice and it took a second for Tom to realize his father was not flinging a barbed arrow at him.
"I made a mistake and I paid for it dearly," Tom admitted. "Their only mistake was trusting a system that blamed them for a horror they did not commit. In the Delta Quadrant, we were alone, we were outnumbered, we were facing unearned hostility ... we survived because of them. They knew what it was like to be the underdog, to have no support, to have no supplies. Dad, there were days when we didn't know if we'd have enough food to last the week, if we'd have enough power to keep moving. Starfleet didn't prepare us for that. The Maquis had already lived that."
*****
Tom and Janeway sat in the corridor outside Necheyev's office awaiting the arrival of the others. Tom's father was already inside, coaxing Alynna to listen to what Tom had to say. Owen Paris could be very persuasive when he wanted.
Janeway could tell Tom was nervous. His anxiety in this office was something different from the feelings he'd had in his old home. Memories of his childhood would haunt him there. Memories of a court martial would haunt him here. She reached out a gentle hand to stop the twitching of his leg. He looked at her gratefully, seeking strength as well as comfort. She didn't have a chance to offer anything, as the others entered at that moment. They were ushered in without ceremony.
Janeway was not encouraged by Necheyev's sour glance at Tom. The admiral was notorious for her dislike of the Maquis in general; Starfleet officers who'd defected she held as traitors. Obviously she was choosing to forget that Tom had left Starfleet in disgrace prior to his short Maquis experience.
When Tom opened his mouth to tell them his theory about the Cardassian's involvement at Tl'juk it was like a bomb had gone off in the room. He didn't even get a chance to explain before he was defending himself from the attack.
"That's preposterous!" spluttered Admiral Shipley.
"It seems highly unlikely," added Admiral T'Lara.
"Considering our recent treaty I find it very hard to believe," put in Necheyev.
Owen Paris put up his hands to stop the torrent.
"Please! Let's just listen to what Lieutenant Paris has to say!"
Feeling a little like he'd just been given a nudge closer to a cliff, Tom started to explain again.
"It's actually very clever on their part. They get to test a weapon, and have the destruction blamed on a group that continues to harass them. The Maquis are the biggest thorn in Cardassia's side since the Bajoran Resistance. Because of Tl'juk, Starfleet is hunting the Maquis down with great enthusiasm and they've been forced underground."
"They've disbanded," Necheyev stated boldly.
"No, they haven't." Tom faced her, feeling more confident. "They may be in hiding, but they are still there."
"How did you come by this information?" asked Shipley, suspiciously.
Tom thought of Zatzi, and the others, in hiding on Antram. He thought about her baby, dying for want of some simple medicines. He thought of her comrades, sick and dying in a Cardassian prison.
"I spoke with someone who'd recently spent some time as a Cardassian guest, " Tom said. "He, and some other Maquis prisoners, had been used in the mining operation on Lamok III."
Necheyev eyed Tom shrewdly, as if sizing him up as a potential witness. She did not pursue the matter, coming to the conclusion that he would not be very cooperative. And he was Owen's son, after all.
"The Federation is not prepared for another war with Cardassia," said T'Lara bluntly.
"You can't mean that you're going to ignore this?" asked Janeway with amazement. "Just because it's not politically expedient?"
"Captain," replied T'Lara, "surely you don't expect us to return to hostilities based on the story of your Lieutenant? The Federation is larger than one man."
"Admiral," Janeway's voice was cold, "if the Cardassians attacked Tl'juk then Patrick Borland and his Maquis were innocent of that crime. They were prisoners and used as pawns to manipulate you and you," Janeway pointed at Necheyev, "into hunting down the terrorists with more vigor. And the Maquis who served aboard Voyager were also used by you as an example!"
"This weapon is massive," Tom cut in on the heels of Janeway's words. "It could destroy Earth as easily as it killed Tl'juk. Or Vulcan." He looked pointedly at Admiral T'Lara. "Or any other Federation world."
"I think we're overreacting here. Even if Nomisite was used at Tl'juk, that doesn't mean that Borland didn't set the explosives," Admiral Shipley commented. Tom missed the look of shock expressed by Janeway as he turned from T'Lara to face Shipley. He also missed the puzzled frown that crept across his father's face.
"Think about it!" he snapped. "If Borland had control of that weapon he would have made a beeline for Cardassia Prime."
"Admiral, how did you know its name?" asked Janeway slowly. "Tom hasn't mentioned Nomisite yet."
"I read all the reports of the massacre, Captain," he replied coolly.
Tom blinked, glancing between his Captain and the Admiral. The implication of her accusation hit him in the pit of his stomach. His father looked quite pale. The others were silent.
"Nomisite isn't mentioned in the reports," Tom stated. "In fact, there is no mention of the substance at all."
"Alan?" questioned T'Lara. For the first time Shipley looked a bit uncomfortable.
"Actually," added Tom, "there are some people on Tl'juk very keen on ensuring that no one finds out about Nomisite. Yet there was no mention of it in the Starfleet reports ..."
"My God, Alan," breathed Owen, "My God! You knew about it?"
"Alan, please tell us that you are not responsible for the deaths of those people," Necheyev said softly. Her expression was sad.
Shipley stood up abruptly to pace the room. When he spoke his voice was harsh, his eyes were cold.
"We needed to reign in the Maquis and that wasn't going to happen if everyone was crying hero over them!"
Tom felt ill. His father looked as bad as he felt. Janeway had covered her face with her hands. No one spoke; it seemed as though they were all in shock. Shipley leaned over Necheyev's desk to face her alone.
"Alynna, you can appreciate the situation. We weren't having any luck shutting them down. Popular opinion was too much in their favour! We needed to stop them! We needed to ... "
"We did NOT need to kill anyone to do it!" interrupted Necheyev sharply. "Don't think for one moment that you have an ally with me, Alan. What you have done is cold blooded murder. Murder that you framed on someone else."
"Framed an entire group of innocent people," put in Janeway quietly, eyes locked with Necheyev. The admiral looked away, but not before Janeway saw the flickering of guilt reflected in her eyes.
*****
Harry, B'Elanna, and Chakotay walked slowly back towards the shelter they were calling home this month. It had been seven months since they'd parted with the others on Bajor and in that time they'd moved six times. Now they were helping with the harvest in a remote village of the Devlos colony. It was grueling work, but it dulled their senses and made the homesickness easier to bear.
Harry was finding the life as an outlaw much harder than he'd expected. Somehow, out in the Delta Quadrant, the distance between them and home was both a hardship and a comfort. Here, in the Alpha Quadrant, to be so close to loved ones, and yet so far, it was simply a hardship. Without B'Elanna and Chakotay, who'd spent a long time together in a similar life, Harry wasn't sure he would have lasted this long. He wasn't feeling very well these days; he had acquired a persistent cough that racked his body leaving him feeling weak.
B'Elanna felt that her experiences with the Maquis were a lifetime ago. When she thought back on those times, with the crew that was now dispersed, it was almost like looking at the life of someone else. It hadn't taken very long for the fuzzy details to become sharp reality. She was worried about Chakotay, who was withdrawn. She was worried about Harry, who was depressed and lonely. Right now, he was also ill, another cause for concern.
Chakotay wondered how long they were going to be able to keep up this sham that everything was alright. How many more colonies would they see before Starfleet finally got their claws back into them? What had they truly gained by running, except to buy him a few months of freedom from a Cardassian prison? And at what cost? Every time Chakotay looked on Harry Kim's somber face he felt worse. Harry deserved a long a prosperous career in Starfleet; he was a good officer, a talented young man. He didn't deserve to be trudging along a dirt path in the rain, afraid for his life, and hunted by the very people with whom he used to serve.
Chakotay pulled a long strand of wet hair away from his eyes. His hair, no longer regulation, needed to be cut. B'Elanna had offered to take care of it for him, but he told her to leave it alone. It was long enough now to hide his tattoo and he felt it helped with anonymity. B'Elanna was able to braid her long hair back, in a very traditional Klingon way. Harry suffered with longer hair as his was not long enough to be tied back, but certainly long enough to fall perpetually into his eyes.
Just as a gentle roll of thunder accented the gloomy weather, Harry coughed. He had to stop walking to recover. Torres turned slightly, her eyes watching her friend carefully. He shouldn't be out here in this weather. He needed a doctor.
"We have to get Harry some help," she murmured in a low voice to Chakotay. Chakotay paused in his walk to glance back at their companion, then continued.
"There's no doctor here, we already tried," was his response to her. "Besides, he's reluctant to have someone closely examine him."
"I doubt he'd even be recognized and even if he was, it's unlikely that these people would contact Starfleet. I don't know why he's being so paranoid," B'Elanna grumbled.
Chakotay knew. Harry had been with Chakotay when the commander had been spotted in one of the communities they'd worked. Without the intervention of one of the village's leaders that ugly scene could have become a lynching. As it was, they'd been forced to flee.
It was a delicate situation. The people of the DMZ had no love for the Cardassians, and bitterly resented the Federation for its alliance, but the Maquis were no longer the champion freedom fighters they'd been before Tl'juk. So there was a careful balance between those who recognized that without the Maquis running interference then Cardassia would rule supreme, and those who felt Chakotay and all Maquis deserved their prison fate.
Yet for the trio, the DMZ was the still the safest place to hide.
Torres was unhappy with the dampness of their shelter. She lit a fire with trembling hands, hoping to stave off the chill and dry their sopping clothes. Harry lay upon one of the makeshift beds, pulling the blanket over him.
"My turn to cook, I see," said Chakotay, with forced cheerfulness. "Well, give me a few moments and I'll get something hot going ... "
Harry began to cough again. He was forced to sit up, leaning against the wall for support. Torres crossed over to him. She lifted a cool hand to his forehead.
"Chakotay," she said, softly, "he's got a fever. He needs some help."
"I'll be fine," Harry mumbled, brushing her hand away, and lying back down. He resented being talked about in front of his face. Did she think he couldn't hear her?
Later, after B'Elanna had fed him some of Chakotay's soup, Harry slept fitfully, his temperature rising. B'Elanna watched him from her bundle of blankets on the floor. Her mind was racing with the problem, trying to sort out some kind of solution. If only they could have connected with some of the Maquis! The Maquis would hide them without hesitation. They would have medicine, albeit in short supply. They would have better shelter. But their former colleagues were underground, elusive, impossible to find unless they wanted to be found.
Chakotay came over to her and, sitting behind her, put his arms around his friend. She was shivering with more than cold. He lifted up one of the blankets to drape it around her shoulders.
"Don't you get sick too," he told her, sternly. She leaned back on him, grateful for the comfort.
The following day Harry wasn't able to go to the fields to work. Torres was reluctant to leave him alone but Chakotay pointed out that the last thing they needed was to be thrown out of their accommodation, such as it was. So B'Elanna left Harry dozing and coughing, with a phaser tucked under his blanket.
The rain had stopped, which made the day pass more pleasantly, but even so the pair was covered in mud by the time they made their way back to the village. Chakotay was near exhaustion, feeling like he'd been working for two men that day. Torres pushed on quickly, wanting to get back to their shelter, and Harry, as quickly as possible.
"Wait!" He grabbed her arm, stopping her. She pulled roughly out of his grasp.
"What?!"
"Shh!" He now pulled her aside and pointed down towards the hut. "There's someone in there!"
"Of course there's someone in there!" she snapped at him. "We left Harry there this morning, remember?"
He merely pointed again. B'Elanna's eyes, accustomed to the gloom of dusk, peered over in the direction of his finger. There was someone in their shelter. Someone with a light. Someone who was moving around with more animation than was possible for Harry.
"Maybe he's feeling better?" suggested B'Elanna, her voice catching as she knew it not to be true.
"Have you got a weapon?" asked Chakotay. She shook her head. Her weapon was with Harry. Chakotay pulled out his own phaser grimly. "Let's go!"
Torres burst through the door with a cry and launched herself on the back of a figure standing in the middle of the room. The force of her assault knocked the man into the far wall and he fell to his knees with the half-Klingon still on his back. She locked one arm around his throat and with her other hand pushed his face roughly into the dust.
Chakotay was right behind her, firing his phaser at the other light in the room, held by the intruder's companion, extinguishing it. Almost simultaneously there was return fire and Chakotay flinched as he felt his shoulder burn. The two faced each other in the dark, their phasers so close they were almost touching.
Chakotay's heart skipped a beat when he recognized the phaser. Starfleet issue.
"Why have you come here?! What do you want?!" Torres was asking her man, accenting each question with another push into the floor. With her arm wrapped tightly around his throat, the man could only gasp for breath.
Torres snarled and smacked the back of his head once more.
"Easy," Chakotay called to her softly, his eyes not straying from the weapon pointed at him. His eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness of the room he could only make out a faint approximation of the person holding it.
"What, are you crazy?" Torres gasped, breathing hard from exertion and exhilaration. "He's Starfleet, isn't he?"
"B'Elanna," gasped the man, clawing at her vice-like grip on his neck. The light from his wrist flickered over his face for a brief second. Startled, she let her guard down and relaxed her arm a bit. The intruder drew in deep breaths, spluttering and coughing. Now with the light fully on him, B'Elanna could see the man she'd attacked. She recoiled off him quickly.
"Tom? Oh my god, Tom?!"
Without her weight on his back, Paris curled up in pain, still trying to catch his breath. He'd come too close to death that time. His nose was bleeding from the force of being bashed into the floor, and he had a gash above his eye from where he'd hit the wooden bed frame on the way down. Slowly Torres reached out a hand to touch his face. So gentle a touch compared with the force of violence just moments before.
Chakotay's tense muscles relaxed slightly allowing his phaser to drop back to his side. But Tom's companion remained alert and cautious.
"Quite a welcome, Torres," Tom managed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. B'Elanna nearly crumpled into him then, pulling him towards her in a bone-crushing hug. Having just had the wind knocked out of him and then choked, Tom had no intention of having his lungs collapse by her relief or affection. He wanted to hold her, but not get killed in the process.
"Are you OK?" came a voice from the darkness. Chakotay knew that voice. It was one he'd never expected to hear again.
"I'll live," Tom replied.
"Oh Tom, I'm so sorry," B'Elanna was saying, not looking at his face, "I didn't know it was you, I thought ... I thought someone had come for Harry ... I thought..."
"Shh, now, it's OK," he told her, whispering into her hair. "It's nothing that won't mend easily enough."
"So we've found Harry, and we've found B'Elanna, now who is this?" asked Janeway. Tom obliged her by flashing his light in her direction.
Chakotay remained absolutely still as she stepped closer to him, pressing her weapon into his chest. Tom's light flickered over the commander's body, coming to rest upon his face, hidden behind his hair. Chakotay reached up and drew back a few strands, squinting in the light. Janeway gasped with surprise.
"Chakotay?" she whispered. She never would have recognized him. He was so thin, his hair long, his frame gaunt, his dark eyes unemotional. They closed and he let his hair fall back as his hand came away from his face. Janeway dropped her phaser to the floor, placing her hand on his chest palm down.
"Captain, you are a long way from home," he said softly.
"How did you find us?" asked B'Elanna, still in shock over the situation.
Janeway glanced over in the direction of her former helmsman and chief engineer, her hand still on Chakotay's chest feeling the steadiness of his heart beating.
"We've been trying to round up all the old crew. So far, we've found more than half the group, mostly because they spotted the media vids," she told Torres. "Chell told us that Chakotay had sent everyone off in separate directions, so we didn't expect to find you together."
"We got a tip from the doctor who treated Harry on the last outpost you hit," put in Paris. "He said Harry had some companions, but we figured they were just other colonists."
"Why did you attack us?" asked Chakotay, in a low voice.
"Why did you attack us?" countered Janeway, turning her attention back to him. "This isn't exactly a friendly place to live."
"Believe me, we know that," B'Elanna said bitterly. Tom held her closer.
"Why have you come here?" Chakotay put to the captain.
"If you'd seen any of the media vids you'd know why ..." she began.
"Yeah, well we don't get many of them out here," he interrupted, harshly.
"Chakotay," Tom stood painfully, bringing Torres to her feet with him. "The captain is trying to tell you that our crew have been pardoned. All of them. Even you."
"But ... how?" asked B'Elanna, stunned.
"All of them?" questioned Chakotay with disbelief.
His shoulders sagged slightly as though a great weight that had rested there for so long was now lifted from them. All the worry, all the sleepless nights, all the despair of nearly a year as the hunted, the guilty, the one responsible ... these burdens which he'd borne were now washed away by Tom's words. Could it really be over? Chakotay didn't quite believe it. It didn't seem possible that it was as easy as Tom and Kathryn coming to find them in a dark, damp hut in the middle of nowhere and beyond.
Janeway reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. Not an end but a beginning she'd told him on Voyager. Perhaps then it was really happening. In which case, anything was possible. He held out his arms tentatively and gave her a gentle embrace, hoping that she couldn't feel his shaking.
"All of them. Even Harry," added Tom. "It's a long story and not a happy one, but the important thing is that you can all come home."
"Home ..." repeated B'Elanna. "Where's that?"
"That's with me," Tom said firmly, "because I'm not letting you out of my sight again!"
*****
Epilogue
The door opened to an older woman with a kind smile and serious eyes. Unlike the fashion of the day, her hair was very long, hanging down her back in a loose braid. Kari had the impression that it had been braided quickly, perhaps simply for the benefit of a guest. Kari's own hair, which hung to her shoulders, was already flying in the face of the norm for women; she was amazed to see the length on the other woman. And, despite her age, the hair was still quite dark.
"Come in," she gestured to Kari, stepping aside. Kari followed her into a cozy room unlike anything she'd seen outside a holodeck recreation. This woman was a traditionalist in every way, not just her hairstyle. The walls were decorated with paintings, the shelves held many small sculptures, the pillows on the couch were hand decorated with beads. The woman was obviously talented with arts and crafts.
They took theirs seats quietly, Kari still taking stock of her surroundings. Her surprise and wonderment must have been plainly written on her face because her companion chuckled. She made no comment, however, on the young woman's obvious confusion.
"Thank you for seeing me," Kari finally said, recovering her manners.
"I'm afraid I still don't understand exactly why you've come," the older woman said.
"I was told that you are an expert on the Voyager crew. The expert, actually. I've been doing some research for a course and I'm finding it hard to get any real information out of the database or Starfleet records," Kari explained.
"Is your information fake, then?" asked the woman, with an enigmatic smile. Kari didn't quite know how to respond to this. The woman chuckled again. "What is the course, dear?"
"It's on Federation-Cardassian Relations. My term paper was going to be about the effect of the Maquis resistance fighters on the Treaty of ... "
"Forgive me," interrupted her host, "but that seems a little removed from the Starship Voyager."
"Well yes," Kari admitted, blushing. "But I got into Patrick Borland's connection to the Tl'juk Massacre and the discovery that Admiral Alan Shipley was a Cardassian agent. That led me to the trial of Commander Chakotay. As he was on trial for crimes committed while he was a Maquis, I looked into it a bit more. And then ... then I just became hooked!"
Kari's eyes lit up and her expression changed from somber to excited as she tried to explain her interest.
"As far as Maquis go, Commander Chakotay is one of the most well- known to Starfleet, perhaps second only to Michael Eddington. His trial was a media frenzy!"
"Some would also call it a travesty of justice," murmured the other woman.
"Well, he was guilty," said Kari, not dwelling long on that point and not noticing the amusement in the eyes of her audience. "However, the circumstances of his cell's capture by Voyager, and the subsequent time they spent serving as her crew, make for a fascinating story. Yet I'm finding it hard to track down anything in the public record about what happened to those people."
"The Voyager logs from the Delta Quadrant are public domain; they have been since the trial," her host told her.
"Oh, I'm not talking about the logs!" Kari burst out, overtaken for a moment by her own enthusiasm for the subject. "I'm talking about the lives of those people! I know all about the mapping of the Delta Quadrant and the species they encountered there. I even took a Delta Quadrant course last term - which focused entirely too much on the Borg Collective if you ask me - and I know that 90% of that course is derived from information brought back by Voyager. But you know, I think there is something lost in the statistics, and facts, and logs of their journey and that is the human aspect. Fact: Captain Janeway was the first Starfleet commander to successfully negotiate with the Borg. But what did her crew think of that? Were they ... were they frightened?"
"Undoubtedly," responded the woman.
"The logs say that Commander Chakotay fought the Captain's decision for the alliance. The prosecutor at his trial brought this up as an example of his untrustworthy nature. The logs also say that Chakotay was once connected to a Borg Collective! But there is almost nothing about the aftermath of his assimilation."
"That's because his personal logs were ... destroyed before Starfleet accessed them."
"That's very unfortunate, because in my mind that is a more interesting story than any facts or figures!" Kari said passionately. Then she took a deep breath to focus herself. "I've been looking into what happened to the crew. I was trying to find out what the Maquis members went on to do. I haven't been very successful."
"Tell me what you do know," requested her companion.
Kari looked down at her PADD.
"Most of the Starfleet officers stayed in Starfleet and went on to have unremarkable careers. Lieutenant Tuvok was promoted and served on Vulcan as security chief for the Federation embassy until he retired. He wanted to be near his family.
"Lieutenant Paris remained in Starfleet as a pilot for a short time and then resigned for personal reasons. I tracked him down to a transport operation near the Klingon homeworld, but there is very little information on him.
"Ensign Kim did not return to Starfleet after his pardon but he did work as an independent consultant and private contractor on Utopia Planetia, mostly developing new computer interface designs.
"The Emergency Medical Hologram, after successfully battling having his program completely purged, went on to work with Dr. Zimmerman, perfecting the EMH program for other starships. In fact, the information on those two is quite detailed; they didn't get along at all!
"Neelix, the Delta Quadrant native, ducked out of the spotlight soon after the trial and took to exploring the Alpha Quadrant. He's worked as a trader, and occasionally as a free-lance journalist, but contact with him is few and far between. There's been nothing written about him for over 15 years now.
"Captain Janeway commanded the Voyager until the ship was decommissioned in 2380. She then took a position at Starfleet Headquarters where she worked until her retirement. After that, she dropped out of sight.
"The only Maquis crewmember I found anything about was Lieutenant Torres, whose fame stems from the credit she's given for various improvements to her ship during their voyage. The modifications to sensors, shields and transporters have earned her much recognition. But she did not join Starfleet and there is no information on where she is living now. Some sources have placed her on the Klingon homeworld, but others discredit that.
"As for Commander Chakotay ... zilch. I couldn't find a thing!" Kari gave a frustrated sigh. "I know he was found guilty and given to the Cardassians, at which point the famous prison break freed him and the other Maquis. After the arrest of Alan Shipley, Captain Janeway appealed Chakotay's sentence and had it overturned. He was then given a sentence equal to time served and freed. Lieutenant Paris and Captain Janeway found him, and the other Maquis, in hiding in the former DMZ."
Kari paused for a moment in her recitation. She had nothing more to say; she'd come to the end of her research. She looked up from her file.
"Do you think finding out what happened to Commander Chakotay will help you with your course assignment?" asked the woman.
"So much has been written about Chakotay, I need an edge over the other students. The instructor doesn't want to read the same paper a hundred times, after all."
Kari looked down again. She was unable to maintain contact with those dark serious eyes. She'd lied, and not done it very convincingly. The truth was she was just interested. Her paper debating the contention of Admiral Alynna Necheyev that the Maquis did nothing to influence Federation policy, complete with footnotes and bibliography, was already written and waiting to be handed over to her instructor. Her reason for being here today was merely to satisfy her own burning curiosity.
"How did you find me?" her host asked, choosing to ignore the lie for the moment.
"I found an article you wrote for the Federation Free Press on extradition and judicial responsibility. You cited Commander Chakotay's trial in it. I couldn't find out much about you," admitted Kari. "I'm a better researcher with data than people I guess." She sighed.
"What did you understand by my article?"
Kari paused. She had the feeling she was being tested in some way. What was the correct answer? Would this woman help her if she responded with an intelligent analysis? The trouble was, Kari didn't really have one.
"I'm not sure that I understood exactly what you were saying; I don't have a degree in law. What I took out of it was that if we are going to charge and try people for crimes, then we have to be prepared to carry out the sentences and not pass people off. I think you were saying that by allowing the Cardassians to imprison someone who was guilty under Federation law, then the Federation wasn't owning up to the responsibility of having sentenced that person. Is that right?"
"That's it, more or less," agreed the woman. "I was also criticizing a judicial system that turned its eyes away from the people involved, choosing to focus instead on the cold, hard facts. As Lieutenant Tuvok said at the trial, it is hard to see the logic in actions without a point of context."
"Will you help me?" Kari held her breath.
The older woman smiled and leaned back in her chair. When she spoke, her voice was calm and quiet, yet strong. She resonated a great fondness for her topic.
"Commander Chakotay chose not to serve with Starfleet. His experience in a Federation prison made him ... distrustful of the system. He returned to his colony world, what was left of it, and helped the communities there rebuild their lives. He had family still living who needed his strength and support, and yes, his contacts with Starfleet. For although he did not serve with the 'Fleet, he did remain in contact with many of his old colleagues. Then in 2380, he returned to Earth to live with his family."
Kari's face fell with some disappointment.
"So he didn't really have any influence after that."
"On the contrary." The woman shook her head vigorously. "He had enormous influence. He just didn't fight his battles so publicly. He wasn't firing weapons at Cardassians. He wasn't in the press or in the courts. But that doesn't mean he didn't affect numerous people. For many, many years after Voyager's return the crew continued to visit him, or seek his guidance. Later, their families kept in contact with him and his family. He loves his family very much and passed on his experiences to them. He knows the power of tradition, the importance of legend and myth, and, yes, the strength of curiosity. He would applaud your efforts to research his life, my dear, even while being amused that you would choose to do so."
Kari looked around the room once again, slow realization dawning on her. How could she not have seen it sooner?
"Have you known him for a long time then?" she asked, with a smile.
"All my life," was the response.
The End!
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