Title: Guerdon.
Part: VII: Ship Leave. Turned tables offer some new perspectives.
Author: D'Alaire M.
VII. Ship Leave
The ping opened his eyes.
The Guerdon had come and gone from Miga, where they had a small cargo drop, a little pay and five hours to poke around the nearby floating scrap yard to pick up as many parts as could be possibly refurbished. They didn't get much. It was seven and a half light years to Kytrel, where they'd be taking on more cargo, some of which was expected at Sicira. After that, they were expected back at Deep Space Nine for a large drop off and refueling. Backtracking like that was unusual for them, but nobody was complaining. It was big shipment and they would gladly waste their time if it meant getting a solid payment. Also, being at a Federation base meant they could pick up some cheap parts, plus all the newsfeeds and newly published technical reports. B'Elanna, who had taken over all of that downloading without asking not long after they left Andal, read both feeds voraciously.
All of that was a month away, though. For the moment, they had the puddle jump between Miga and Kytrel, during which the ship became so quiet, Tom's eyes closed and he all but fell asleep. It'd been a long time since they'd had such an uneventful run, and he'd been having periods where he really felt like he needed to catch up a few years of bad sleep. Thankfully, he'd been able to start on that. Whatever Torres was doing was working for the moment, because they'd not had a malfunction since getting to Miga. Despite knowing why they weren't being bothered by external forces, it was a welcome respite. Then he heard the ping.
"Tom, we're receiving an incoming message," Maryl said.
Tom looked at his console. They were still about two light years away from Kytrel. "The message is encrypted," Savan added. "I will require a minute to unscramble it."
His eyes closed again, not needing to guess, now, who it was. Drawing a breath, rolling his back a little to stave off the soreness, he waited for Savan to do her work. He forced the sounds of the humming engine to fill his ears, tried not to think about what he'd gotten them into this time, and tried not to think how he'd screwed Jerod's memory to save their butts.
Finally, the viewscreen activated, scrambled, pixilated, then re-knit the signal. The tan, tattooed Maquis captain filled the screen. He looked directly at Tom; his mouth remained straight. He looked just like he did every other time Tom had seen him.
"You're en route to Kytrel," Chakotay said, not asking.
"Yeah," Tom answered.
"There'll be an agent called Marcetti there, in section dikati-moro. Have your liaison meet with him and accept his deal. You'll find your directions there. You have a week upon leaving Kytrel to deliver your shipment."
"Thanks," Tom replied, holding the other man's stare until it re-scrambled and disappeared into the black. "You got that, Maryl?"
"Marcetti, dikati-moro." She pursed her lips. "Nothing to it."
"Yeah, just a quick violation of everything I didn't want to get into. No problem at all."
Maryl snorted. "Yes, but there's no sense in complaining about it now, is there?"
"Sooner we get it done, the better it'll be," Tom agreed and pushed himself to stand. He groaned tightly as he straightened, but rolled at the waist again before turning for the step. "I'm getting some coffee."
Savan followed him with her eyes, but said nothing.
"Thank God you're here! Finally!"
"I knew he'd keep his promise! Please, welcome! Welcome to Ovar!"
"Thanks." Trying not to look too shocked as he recovered from the blast of cold air, Tom nodded back through the deck four aft dock to Ridge, who with B'Elanna had loaded up the first flat of supplies onto their anti-grav. At his signal, Ridge pushed the flat out onto the cold, gray dirt of Ovar-Three, where a crowd of hungry faces in well-worn thermal gear awaited them. Obviously Federation, mostly Human, they descended on the rations and medical supplies like locusts, tearing into each shell as soon as it was unlocked and offloading it to the correct group of people. Beyond, at the edge of the landing site, a few small faces in thick hoods peeked out over the lower walls.
Tom's stomach sank.
"Thank you so much, Captain," said a woman, looking up as she pulled open a medical crate. Her face was clean and gaunt, her eyes a little wild above her thick collar. She looked pregnant. "We didn't know what we'd do without this shipment."
A quick nod was his only reply. Beyond the landing site was a typical Federation colony center, cleanly lined architecture in plate stucco and fabricated rock, some firs and a filtered yellow sun. The housing was burrowed in that constructed town, he could tell. There were laser blasts in the façades and the lights were flickering. Very little grew outside the community. It seemed too cold to grow anything of use and the gray dirt looked hard as stone. Any growing would probably happen inside heated greenhouses. Solar arrays on a world like that could go only so far. They'd always had to rely on outside support and obviously hadn't been getting it.
Three colonists were already running back to a central building with a crate of power packs. Tom guessed by the layout of the place that it was their medical facility.
Glancing over, Tom caught Ridge's attention. "Get the rest," he ordered quietly.
The technician snapped up. "Yeah. Going right now."
B'Elanna took another look at the thankful throng before hurrying back to join him, rubbing her hands to ward off the hard, dry cold. Her eyes quickly scanned over the labels. "This one first," she said briskly.
"Good idea," Ridge agreed, no more enamored by the weather.
Tom remained planted on the gangway, leaning against the lift strut as the other flats were brought out, one by one. Each was cleared within a couple minutes. Beside him, he heard a sigh escape Maryl. He couldn't blame her at all, there. She'd grown up with far worse, on a mining moon somewhere around Bajor; she probably never knew what relief meant until Ridge and a few young misfits from Felis snuck her and two others off that world beneath the Cardassians' noses. She spent her entire exile smuggling supplies back to her siblings and aunts via the Zarilari agent who'd captained the escape ship. She paid him to relocate them to Bajor, too, when the occupation finally ended, and had since been largely supporting them as they settled and were reeducated.
Unlike Maryl and her family, though, those colonists had every opportunity to get out of their situation. Sure, he'd be sore if someone told him he had to give up his house and living. If someone told him one day he had to give up the Guerdon and go back to Earth to find something else to do, he would never just comply. But that was his own life he was looking after. That the colonists would let their children endure that and the potential horror of starvation when they didn't have to disgusted him without excuse.
"Yeah, he's good," Tom nodded.
"Who?" Maryl asked, not looking at him.
"Captain Chakotay." He too continued to watch the people eagerly dig in to the crates as Ridge pushed them out of the hatch and B'Elanna unlocked them. "Remember what I said at Irtrin? He gave us a humanitarian run to make us pity these people, make it easier to do the other deals...make it seem worth it, maybe do some recruiting."
"Well, we knew we didn't mind helping these people when you pitched it to us," Maryl shrugged.
"Yeah, but you're not really feeling it over a channel. You know that as well as anyone. He bet that we'd feel it once we got here, make us more willing to ship his weapons, help the cause. He's played us as easily as he did at Hugora, just this time with our sympathies." Tom snorted humorlessly. "He's probably got a whole stockpile of explosives for us to smuggle. They know the Guerdon's hold specs by now; he knows we have great smuggling potential. He just needed to warm us up to it. He's a pro."
Stepping back as Ridge set a large case onto four thinly gloved hands, B'Elanna caught the comments. She blew a breath to ward off the resulting crush in her chest. It'd worked on her. Glancing back and seeing Tom's face, despite his cynicism, she could tell it'd worked on him, too.
"That bastard," she growled to herself as she continued to unhook the flat supports. She worked quickly as her hands grew clumsy with cold and distraction. She couldn't look at those colonists, now, who'd been used as handily as she and the others had been. At least those vultures managed to get them some of what they needed in the bargain, she reasoned to herself, frowning, just like us. Letting that thought process only served to anger her more.
"You need a hand?" Ridge asked, seeing her pause.
"No," she responded, moving quickly to free the rest of the crates. "I just want to get off this ball, get back to what we won't get arrested for."
"We can do that now," Tom said as the last of the supplies were carried off the flat and towards the town. He motioned to Ridge to grab the anti-grav as he signaled a couple of older men on the platform. Though busy, they seemed a little surprised to see the ship packing up to go already. "Good luck," he told them, meaning it, though he didn't bother with much else as he turned away from the view.
He slapped the lift as soon as Maryl had come all the way in and breathed deeply as the warm air re-circulated. Reaching over to a comm panel, he tapped it and said, "Savan, we're done. Scan for activity and start us off. I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Scanning now," she replied.
"B'Elanna, you know the plan."
She nodded, busying herself with securing the anti-grav truck. "Yes, memory wipe as soon as we're back on our trajectory. I know what to do."
"Dump it twice, just in case," he told her, heading across the bay towards Nadrev, who he knew would help her with that job. He wasn't halfway there, however, before his engineer's curse bounced back at him.
"Damnit! Now this piece of junk is blown, too!" She glared at the sizzling platform and might have kicked if she felt like having Savan chase her down yet again. "Don't these things ever work for more than a few months?!"
Ridge, standing with Maryl nearby, drew a big sigh. "Not really, but I do." He offered B'Elanna an encouraging grin. "We might be able to fix it, anyway."
"With what?" she demanded. "Everything that might produce an anti-grav field is locked up in the deflector assembly right now! And we barely have enough for that!" She threw up her hands and stalked back to the deck lift. "It'll be a good wipe," she said across to Tom.
Tom looked over at Nadrev. "You want to play with it?"
"I'll try," he answered, his eyes widening once the idea became a practical concern.
Tom shrugged off the Bajoran's uncertainty. "It can't get any worse." With that, he started off toward the ladders, calling behind him, "Let me know what parts you need and I'll see if we've got it in scrap in fifteen-forward."
"Okay, thanks," he acknowledged as he went the other way to follow B'Elanna.
Continuing starboard, Tom rounded a bulkhead for the aft access ladder. Reaching up to a rung, however, he suddenly had to stop then grab the rung with both hands as it hit. He pulled a long breath between his clenched teeth and set his forehead on the metal bar, swallowing hard against his rising bile. The pain spread throughout his midsection that time, radiating out into his arms and inner thighs. His heart began to beat hard, partly for the pain, partly for fear.
He honestly hadn't expected the fear, but it was there, and it was genuine.
It was another twenty-three days to Deep Space Nine if they didn't break down again. They had a drop off at Sicira, then a straight shot to the Federation station with a supply of krellide cells and sonodanite, among other regular bio-transfers. They had a five-day cushion.
Like most outside the Federation, Sicira had relatively limited medical facilities, but he started thinking they could contact Deep Space Nine, have the doctor there walk them through whatever needed to be done. Procedures had been done before like that. The Sicirans weren't primitive. He knew the new doctor at Deep Space Nine was adept. All Tom knew was that there was no way he'd be able to take another few weeks of that. The throes were getting worse and Savan's analgesic cocktail was increasingly futile.
Dragging another lungful of air, his limbs grew hot, his chest quivered with stress, and he knew for a fact he was dying.
He suddenly realized exactly how he felt about that.
B'Elanna could have sworn within another day that the anti-grav truck had somehow been hooked up to the Guerdon's systems.
Almost as soon as she completed the memory wipe and they were back on their previous trajectory, the entire shield array collapsed, leaving secondary deflectors just strong enough for general debris repelling. Then power grids failed on deck four, leaving it on emergency power and its forward section deck three's self-contained hold section black, cold and nearly airless. Unfortunately, the main control assembly was in one of the affected areas of deck four. B'Elanna shook her head to think some idiot Bolian had thought to put it there. Finally, the IPS tanks froze up, forcing her to abandon the other repairs for the grease bucket she'd now rebuilt three times.
"No, don't tell me about the oysters!"
Ridge chuckled, holding the transfer bracket back as B'Elanna growled and sank into the deuterium line controls. "You really aughta' try them sometime, B'Elanna. They're good!"
"I'd beam the new replicator into a scrap yard sooner," she returned, willing away the turn in her stomach as she cut off, then pulled the fried line housings. "How in the hell did these just blow out?" she wondered aloud, then scanned the line itself. "We weren't even using the..."
Ridge looked curiously down at her face as she thought out the jigsaw, then turned her head up to stare at the coolant tubes on the other side of the impulse drive coils. "Yeah?"
"They wouldn't have..." she mumbled, stopping again as it came together in her mind. Blinking, she looked up at the tech. "Ridge, is there a way to secure that? You shouldn't be wasting your time there and I need to look something up."
"What's up?"
"Another bad configuration. I'm surprised I hadn't seen it until now, considering how many times I've been down here."
Ridge grinned. "I'm not." Letting her get out of the pit, Ridge gently lowered the bracket. "Yell when you need me back," he said. "I'll go see how Nadrev's coming along with the computer."
Wiping her hands on her jumpsuit, brushing the hair out of her eyes, B'Elanna nodded and moved forward to her console. She tapped into the revised power configuration tables. Since coming on board, she had been regularly updating them, mainly so she could remember what had been botched up since the ship had been built, if it wasn't badly planned to begin with. There was just so much of it; she knew why Tom's wish list had been so painfully detailed.
Angling into the impulse drive, she added the routing pattern she'd just suspected and ran a few tests to make sure her fix wouldn't burn out another power relay. There was no guarantee it wouldn't, but it was good to check.
"*How's it coming, B'Elanna?*" It was Tom--barely. He sounded like he was talking in his sleep.
Torres' stare didn't divert from her readings. "I'm running a solution. Do you need the impulse drive now?"
"*No,*" he answered. "*I'm getting some strange power fluctuations in the GNS and wondered if they were connected.*"
She scowled and stepped over to her other console to pull up the system. "Are you on manual flight control?"
"*Not yet, but...*" He coughed, then cleared his throat. "*But I can see us going there and down to impulse if the computer can't figure out where we're going.*"
"Hold on, it's coming back now." But the diagnostic spit back precisely what she didn't want to see. She growled under her breath. "When do we arrive at Sicira?"
"*Three more days at this pace.*"
"Then it's three days," she told him. "We're not going any faster. Keep your eyes on the input and let's hope it doesn't fail before we get there. I'll try to buffer it before we get there."
"*I can do it,*" Tom offered.
B'Elanna's brow furrowed to consider that. Of late, Tom seemed in no condition to be squashed up under navigation control again. She'd wanted to somehow find out what was going on with him, but knew Savan wouldn't say anything. She wasn't about to ask Tom herself. Either way, she didn't want to have to pull him out of there. "Ridge is headed down that way now. It won't take him long to get it in shape. Besides, if it has to go to manual, you should be at the controls."
"*You're right. Let me know how that--*"
Suddenly, B'Elanna's panel died. "What the--" A moment later, the warp drive groaned to a stop, followed by what looked like a shipwide power failure. As though a switch had been flipped, everything stopped. Only the hissing coolant pipes and groans of a quickly cooling warp core echoed through the grates.
For several seconds the whole ship went pitch black.
"What the hell now?!" she spat in the dark. "And where are the secondar--"
As if on cue, secondary power petered on. Her station remained black, but she felt a welcome gush of air and had enough light to see where she needed to go. Torres moved quickly to the main engine room corridor. "Ridge!" she called astern.
"Right here, Cricket!" he called back from far into the back access walks. Without any engine noise, his voice echoed clearly forward. "Got Nadrev with me! What happened--besides the obvious?"
"I don't know yet. Do you have your tricorder?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Stay there, then, and see if you can get anything out of the computer," she ordered. "None of my consoles came back up. I need to get to the bridge and see if theirs did. Secondary power defaults to their command center."
"We'll be waiting!"
Growling to herself at that latest thing she'd have to repair--whatever it was that time--B'Elanna moved carefully back to her console, then across to the access stairway. The lights were only on at half power, so she reminded herself to be careful. The last thing she needed on top of everything else was yet another knee injury. Meanwhile, she furiously tried to picture what she'd been looking at when the power went out, the navigation control readings as they corresponded with the impulse fuel control lines. Neither--or even both--should have made the ship suffer a full power failure.
At least the secondaries are working...for now.
"Still a piece of junk," she said under her breath as she came to the upper deck. Striding across the overhang, she came to the half-lit center corridor and turned quickly to get into it.
"Oof!" she coughed. She bumped straight into someone's chest and felt two strong hands brace her arms. She looked up and squinted at the outline of a head. Then, the smell hit her. "Tom?"
"You're okay?" he asked in a breath, letting her go.
"Yes," she responded, cursorily brushing off her arms as she backed off from him. Tom was a lean man, but his grip had memory. "Is there any control on the bridge?"
"Savan's panel is operational," he told her. "Everything else is dead. She's trying to get the subspace comm online."
B'Elanna set the pace when he turned to walk back to the bridge. "I might be able to reroute the system through an emergency power relay. It's behind Maryl's station."
"We were counting on that," Tom said, sounding relieved and angry at the same time. "Any guess what happened this time?"
"Not yet."
"Know where Ridge and Nadrev are?"
"They're back in the subprocessor grid. They know I'm here. Who's with you?"
"Savan," Tom answered, managing a grin, there. "Maryl's sleeping through all the fun this time."
She pursed her lips for want of a smile. Tom was probably quite glad the Bajoran was nestled in her blankets just then. Considering where she'd have to be working, B'Elanna had to agree with that sentiment. She considered Maryl a friend, but the woman could crawl up anyone's nerves when she was inconvenienced.
Looking around at the barely activated lights and feeling the chill of the half-powered heating system, Tom said, "Guess I had to pay for thinking we were getting back on track."
"This is no one's fault," B'Elanna told him flatly.
Tom gazed down at her, slowing his pace a little. They arrived at the bridge before he spoke again, however. "We might not need to seal the decks off after all," he said to Savan as he moved to the other side of her station.
"I would not be able to perform it remotely regardless," replied the Vulcan.
"So I gathered. Go help her. I'll keep my eyes on your board."
As he neared, Savan immediately vacated her position. Tom leaned against the console and let his eyes fall across the half-dimmed panel with a long sigh. Why do I bother? he asked himself as B'Elanna pried off the partition behind Maryl's station. I'm sure there's a scrap clause somewhere in that damned contract.
Savan came out briefly to retrieve the tool set from behind Jerod's station... "Nadrev's station," Tom corrected himself quietly between his teeth. He listened to B'Elanna rattle off a list of technical fixes he wasn't going to bother understanding as long as one of them worked. It was bad enough they'd have to call for help, particularly from the Sicirans. For once, he'd be avoiding the bar. He'd catch nothing but hell there. For that matter, the game room was lousy.
Bending his head, Tom killed the distraction, much as he needed it. He'd worry about the station hacks when--if--he finally got there...much as they would be right about his ship. It was falling apart.
Everything was falling apart.
"I've almost got it," B'Elanna said from within the bulkhead. "Savan, reconnect the one-fifty-two in junction gamma."
"That is the primary power intake relay for the system you were attempting to repair."
"And it's not coming up any sooner than our subspace transceiver," B'Elanna replied coolly. "Reconnect it."
Several seconds passed, then suddenly the bridge's power grinded up to full emergency status. Tom felt blood return to his limbs. "That did it," he announced, quickly scanning what systems the computer was reading as it reinitialized. "Engines are down, shields--damn, the whole deflector is offline." He tapped in a request. "The comm's coming back up." He nodded tightly. "We're still in it deep, but we can make a call."
At least the main computer isn't toasted--yet, he silently added.
He moved away as Savan returned and B'Elanna came out to check the comm console. Leaning over his station, he tried to see where they were without success. He had been studying the navigational array before the blackout.
Then Tom heard the ping and immediately blew his breath. "Goddamnit, he can't be contacting us now!" he snapped.
"We are receiving an incoming message," Savan confirmed.
"Tell him to go to hell."
"That would not be wise," Savan replied. "However--"
"If you won't, I will," B'Elanna grumbled, still working the power distribution.
"It is not Captain Chakotay," Savan informed them. "It is a Starfleet signature."
Both Tom and B'Elanna's heads popped up. The former felt his chest shrink with dread; the latter hissed something otherwise inaudible. "Just as bad," Tom rejoined and shot a look back to his engineer. "You dumped us twice, right?"
"Yes," she responded tersely. "That's what you asked for, right?"
"Just making sure." Tom's mind flew back to their diversion to Ovar. They'd scanned the hell out of the surrounding sector in all directions. They'd covered their tracks, killed their warp and comm signals. He knew they were clean going in. Savan had made sure of it. It wasn't even Federation space, but Starfleet might have set out a mine...
"They are hailing us, Tom."
Bracing his breath, he moved around to his seat and looked at what the standard scan was managing to pick up. "Excelsior class," he noted glumly. "I needed that." Indeed, as an exterior visual came into focus on his screen, he felt like he was looking at his father's old command. Things left far behind him were pouncing on his grave.
"Would you prefer audio or visual?"
Tom blinked. "We have the viewscreen up, too? --Yeah, go ahead." He leaned back. "Not like making a good impression matters at this point."
The viewscreen powered on, revealing a crisp, clean bridge in gray and red, with a straight-backed crew situated around a wise-eyed captain of about forty-five. He wore a pleasantly concerned expression in contrast to a grave-faced XO. The ops and conn officers peeked curiously up, yet were otherwise wallpaper. The security officer frowned appropriately. The whole array looked like every Starfleet ship he'd known since he was a toddler. Some things would never change.
Though something's going to on this end.
Cursing again under his breath, Tom waited for the captain to introduce himself. Starfleet never failed in courtesy: He fully expected to be politely arrested, a light spanking to prepare him for another trial by ritual humiliation. Tom had the next two months of his life memorized before the other man opened his mouth.
"I'm Captain Lon Dokaru, of the Federation Starship Berlin. We caught the power fluctuation in your warp signature shortly before your ship lost power. May we be of any assistance?"
Tom exhaled sharply, feeling his blood vacate his head. "You could say that, Captain," he answered. "We were just putting enough wires together to call for help." Catching up with his nerves and thrumming heart, he added, "This is the UI Freighter Guerdon. I'm Captain Paris. This is my science technician Savan, my engineer, B'Elanna Torres."
The XO's eyes narrowed with recognition and the ops officer looked up again. Tom steadied his stare at the captain.
"I'm sorry for your trouble," Captain Dokaru said. He seemed sincere. "We're en route to Starbase 310, but have no fixed ETA. What is your destination, Captain?"
"The trade base orbiting Sicira-six," Tom informed him. "We're expected there in a few days. I'd like to try to keep that deadline."
Dokaru peered down in thought for a moment and muted to share a few words with his security officer. Then he returned his attention to the screen. "We can tractor your ship into our docking recess and take you there. It's not far out of our way. In the mean time, you can set about repairs."
Stifling his groan--he would be a fool in more ways than one to ask for parts instead--Tom dipped his head once. "Thank you, Captain Dokaru."
"We're glad to help."
I'm sure you are.
A minute later, as the Starfleet issue tractor beam shot out and locked on across the Guerdon's stern, Tom closed his eyes.
"I'm going to hate this," he said under his breath.
Six years ago, Cadet Tom Paris enjoyed the honor of traveling on the USS Dinar during his summer holiday, a reward for winning the Sakatuine Prize. He spent a month learning ship procedures, working with the technicians, even flying the ship. The latter, he realized immediately, was the least exciting, though he didn't have a problem with everyone else in his class knowing he had been allowed the privilege. Shamelessly, the charismatic twenty year-old prowled the female market and joined in with some holodeck programs, gladly staying behind with a pretty ensign not three years his senior. It was a great month that gave him bragging rights for a full year afterward. He caught a ride back to Earth on the USS Berlin.
Captain Dokaru was a new captain, having taken the command from Captain Nidlita four years ago. Tom remembered reading about it not long after he left home. Nidlita and her husband had both retired early to finally start a family outside the demands of Starfleet, who sent them off with all the honors they could unfurl. The XO, Commander Barnes, remained in her position--which could mean a great many things. By the look on her face when he introduced himself, Tom could tell she remembered him, or at least his name. She wasn't the only one who knew all about him.
Not that he'd been living in complete obscurity, even out there. In his early months on the border, people who decided to care about what he'd done--and hadn't done--liked to heckle him. He took it: They weren't lying after all, and he wasn't about to put up a phony defense just to get them off his back. Within a year, he saw those people eventually sink back into the woodwork, tough he still met one from time to time who were stupid enough to ask if he was that Tom Paris. In their recent dealings with Starfleet, he'd noticed the stares of a few who apparently remembered, too, though they had the good sense to leave it at that. Then again, they were just passing by.
Direct contact for three days was not something Tom was looking forward to. The last full contact he'd had with Starfleet was the day they ousted him. Tom could still see with painful clarity their starch expressions as the JAG closed out her console and the councilors left the room. He remembered the long walk out of Starfleet headquarters, still wearing his reds but stripped of his insignia and even his comm badge. Those unaware of what happened had stared at him; those who knew had felt free to make a comment. As if they'd known what happened out there, as if he'd done it on purpose.
"Those poor families will rest better now, knowing there's been justice," one had said, a lieutenant.
Tom had paused in the hall to look at him, but no words, no snappy responses, came to mind. What could he have said to something like that? The man hadn't known him, but had looked at him, like many others now, with such hatred or distrust. Such reactions were opposite to what Tom had known throughout his life. He'd felt it for the first time there and continued to, even while he had avoided any contact with Starfleet. After Starfleet took over Deep Space Nine, the Guerdon could do business there and immediately did, but Tom had chosen to avoid the bar but for business, prowl through the promenade just for what he needed, sign off and leave immediately. When they returned to the station, he planned to repeat that procedure.
But that was another couple of weeks away at best, and he had Starfleet right then and there to deal with, and there'd be no avoiding them this time. Thankfully, Tom had plenty to do aboard his own ship. Within only a couple hours of being sucked up into the Berlin's hindquarters, he knew they all did.
"They've granted you full access to their engineering replicator," he told B'Elanna as he poked around at his soup with a spoon. He gave up the idea of eating it and reached for the other liquid on his table. Looking around the lounge at the others with their nicely filled plates before them, he briefly wished he had half their appetite. He knew he needed to eat. "You can contact their engineering department as soon as you're ready."
"It won't give us everything we need," she replied, then caught Maryl's glance. "Well, it won't. We can at least get our bundles and small parts and replace our burnt isolinear chips." B'Elanna then turned her frown down to her own uneaten meal. "Otherwise, we're going to need every minute of our lift to Sicira just trying to get what we already have working right."
Ridge regarded her. "It's a good thing they're able to take us."
"It is," B'Elanna allowed. "I'll just be glad when they unlock us and we can go our own ways again."
"Then what's on the top of the list?" Tom asked, not looking up from his glass.
"You and Savan can start on repairing the CDR bundles on deck three center," she answered. "Ridge and Nadrev are going back to the impulse drive once Nadrev's back on. --I've rerouted the secondary power coupling so it flows directly back into the PTC, so we shouldn't have the same problems again. I'm going to keep working with the main computer to try to figure out what happened in the first place."
"When do you plan to work on the deflector?" Savan asked.
"That's the last on the list. I want our power issue solved before trying to bring it up again. I'll let you know when that comes up."
Tom nodded. It wasn't his domain, and honestly, after seeing the whole list of things they needed to do to first time, he was glad she was keeping it simple. "A couple of engineers from the Berlin are bringing some diagnostic equipment over. I can ask them to replicate some bundles when they go back from the second transfer."
"That'll save some time," B'Elanna nodded, then eyed him. "Your idea?"
"They have plenty to go around. Might as well use it."
She coughed a half-laugh then looked at her PADD again. "I will."
Tom looked over at Maryl. "You're still working on where we're going after DS-Nine?"
"Yes," Maryl answered. "Commander Banes offered to let me use one of the offices to send some communiqués."
"Yeah, I got a message about that. Don't get spoiled."
"No chance of that," she snorted.
Glancing around the room, Tom gave them another nod. "Guess that's it, then?" Polishing off his drink as everyone got to their meal, he pushed himself to his feet and crossed to dump his tray in the reclamator. Without looking back, he left the lounge and headed aft. He needed to meet the engineers, among the other borrowed tools.
Were it operational, he'd have taken the materials lift down to the bottom deck--not that it did too well in the first place. The lift groaned, creaked and often felt like it'd come apart every time it crossed a cross-pylon. No one ever took it unless they absolutely had to. Tom was tempted to check it again, but by the time the thought came to him, he was already in the main engine room and heading back for the midship port ladder, mentally sorting out his own duties outside the repair list.
He knew at some point soon he would have to follow one of those Starfleet people back to their ship, though the idea of strolling down the Berlin's crisp corridors wasn't very high on his long list of priorities. He needed to patch in to their contacts on Sicira and get their drop off and payment protocols, so if their systems weren't up yet, he'd need to borrow one of their comm stations.
Grabbing the opposite rung of the ladder, Tom stepped out and started down when suddenly a wave of fatigue hit him, that followed by an onset of pain he knew would get worse. He thought first to step back onto the deck, but then knew he'd never move up. Down, he told himself. Go down, nice and slow...
The pain began to radiate, starting in his gut and spreading...
...Which reminded him to contact the Siciran medical facility and have them research his disorder before the Guerdon's arrival. It'd save time. He'd already thought of availing himself of the Berlin's CMO, but he knew he wasn't that much of a masochist. He only needed to find--
His hands slipped off the rungs.
"Shit!"
Grabbing desperately, Tom slapped the rungs, but his grip had no purchase and he kept going down. Finally, his foot caught a rung only to flip him out from the ladder. Another shot of pain prevented him from thinking to put out his hands. He turned sideways instead in the last couple of meters and flew down full speed. His outer thigh and hip smacked the metal grate with a heavy thud.
"Aaagh! Damnit!" Heaving for breath, Tom rolled off it and onto his back, suddenly unable to gauge which hurt more--and wondering why he cared at all. Pain was pain, and he was a big ball of just that. Breathing again, trying to get a grip on it, he felt a wave of numb begin in his head and chest, then a swelling nausea, welcoming unconsciousness lest he...
"Hell no," he grunted and forced himself to turn again so he could get up. "Walk it off...walk it off," he hissed. "It'll go away. It'll go away."
Unsteadily upright again, Tom stumbled forward a few meters to the deck four ladder, but he didn't mount it yet. He backed up to a nearby storage chest and let himself lean back on it as he breathed through the pain in his gut and rubbed his hip. Forcing his head to stay up, he played everything he needed to do before dinner over in his head, rehashed all the other things he should get to before arriving at Sicira. He swallowed, inhaled, swallowed again.
It'll only be a couple more days, he told himself. Just a couple more days...
Several minutes later, he slowly stood again, feeling the many sensations in his body ebb a little, enough for him to grab a rung and hold on good that time.
Just a few more days...
Easing himself down to deck four, clutching as if with vertigo to every rung, he could hear the Starfleet people had already begun to transport the equipment into the center bay. Their technicians would follow soon after. Tom puffed a little laugh to himself. He hadn't said anything about that to B'Elanna. Outside their occasional work on the junker, she remained outwardly brusque towards him, but he figured she'd have a harder time turning down the extra workers when they were already there.
He just hoped the Berlin's chief understood what Tom meant by, "My engineer suffers a lot of frustrated pride here, so don't send your best and brightest, okay? Just your very competent."
Finally reaching the deck, exhaling the effort and leftover pain through his teeth, Tom uselessly brushed down his coat and made his way out to the control pad. Accepting the final transport, he soon was looking at two engineers, one plain young ensign and an older lieutenant--fresh and settled, Tom interpreted in a glance--in front of the small pile of parts and portable diagnostic units.
They looked up at him, dumbly at first, wondering who he was. "Welcome to the Guerdon," Tom told them. "I'm Paris."
The lieutenant blinked with surprise. "You're the captain?"
"Yeah," Tom answered shortly.
"Oh, I'm sorry sir. I...I admit I was expecting someone different."
"That's okay," Tom smirked. "So was I." With that, the two officers both stared and avoided his attention, and Tom couldn't tell whether it was his name or his appearance that was causing it. Either way, he wanted to think about other things. "The main engine room is on deck two. The internal transporters somehow stayed online--though I don't recommend we use it for anything but the equipment. We'll take the ladders."
"Your turbolift is down?" the ensign queried. Her stare had become recognizably curious.
"We have a flat lift, but it's mainly for loads," Tom informed her, narrowing the coordinates on the pile, though her stupid question tempted him to broaden the beam to her, too.
"I could use the walk," the lieutenant said, not very cheery, but upbeat all the same.
Tom nodded. "Yeah, you'll do fine." He tapped a few commands into his panel and transported the pile to the upper bay. Stepping off the platform and back onto the deck, he forced himself not to limp, wince or curse as he motioned back towards the corridor. "It's just two decks up. This way."
"You've got to be kidding me."
Tom shrugged as he lowered himself to a knee before an issue crate.
Leaning against the newly repaired anti-grav in the hazy, half-illuminated center of deck two, B'Elanna's dark eyes grew solid; her glare did not waver. "You didn't say anything about Starfleet poking around my engine room."
"They offered to help and I said yes," Tom told her. His side slowly lighting on fire, he wasn't quite up to arguing about it. He popped the lid on a bundling crate, checked the ID tags and continued, "We'll never get the ship running in time without a couple extra hands and it's not like you have any trade secrets hidden in here, right? They're in your room. Tell them what you need."
"I just need the parts--Captain," she snapped. "Parts, Ridge and Nadrev. I don't need people who don't know this contraption in my way."
"I don't blame you," said the lieutenant, moving around Paris and the crate with a small, offhand smile. "Trust me, I don't want to bring the works down on us, either."
She rolled her eyes. "That's a relief."
"I think we're able to take directions," the lieutenant added. "I promise not to be creative."
"It's nothing personal," B'Elanna said flatly, belatedly realizing she'd lied through her teeth.
"I'm not taking it personally," he assured her. "Like your captain said, just think of me as an extra set of hands with a bucket of parts. Honestly, ma'am, that's our assignment here--just help."
Giving the man a long stare, she relaxed a little. "Okay. But really..." she squinted in the foggy room at his collar, "Lieutenant, the way this ship is wired, one failure will bring down the works and some--and we're already down. There's not enough time in the day to get rid of them all right now. Even so, you can probably imagine how I'll feel if that happens."
He chuckled. "I probably could. We're here at your disposal, ma'am. Just tell us where you need us."
She nodded. "Okay then, Lieutenant..." She left it open for him to fill.
"Carey," he supplied.
"B'Elanna." She moved closer to inspect the flats they'd transported up. "Okay, then, Carey. What do you have in that bucket?"
Seeing her attention turned fully off him, Tom backed away and reached into the storage for the tool kit he'd need. Flinching as he straightened, he was ticked all over again that he had another sore spot to hide from Savan, who'd been watching him like a mother bird for a month by then. Stuffing a hyperspanner in his pocket, he caught the stare of the ensign who'd come with the lieutenant. Holding her attention firmly until she turned, a little abashed, Tom pivoted and turned to grab a bundle of relay wiring.
He gladly disappeared in the steam a minute later.
As the Starfleet techs began to unpack the parts flat, B'Elanna knelt down to make a quick inventory of the equipment she wanted to work with first. Waving at Nadrev, she pointed to their anti-grav. "Bring that with you. We'll start on the main computer and work our way out."
"Okay, B'Elanna," Nadrev said, grinning as he activated his pet project and started across the deck. Halfway across, however, a loud buzzing emanated from its engine and the tray flopped onto the grate with a clang. The unit promptly died.
Torres closed her eyes as her nails dug into her palms. "On second thought," she said tersely, feeling her heart start to hammer for lack of anything to hit, "get a hand truck from the side supply room and take that piece of garbage to the scrap room--where it should have been put before you wasted your time. Then, bring the truck back here so we can get the equipment aft. Do it now."
Chagrined, the tech nodded and hurried away.
"So..." started the ensign as they left the engine room together. B'Elanna was breaking for lunch; the ensign was going off duty, but needed to take some parts from Nadrev to replicate before transporting back to the Berlin. A full day in an unfamiliar engine doing grunt work hadn't dulled the young woman's curiosity, however, as they shared the deck one corridor. She'd been given a full rundown from the transporter chief while she waited for Carey that morning. "What's Captain Paris like?"
B'Elanna furrowed her brow. "Why do you care?"
"I don't, really. It's just that with a record like his, with what everyone's saying, I had to wonder..." She left it open, but getting nothing from the half-Klingon, she shrugged. "I'm sure he's fine."
"I'm sure he is, too," B'Elanna returned, casting a glare over at the other woman. "Let's get something straight, since I'm assuming you'll be back for more tomorrow: What my captain's like isn't anything that matters to me. What matters to me is getting this ship going again and getting back to my job as usual. And even if I did give a damn, it wouldn't make me any more willing to gossip with someone like you. Got it? --Good. The bridge is right up there. Don't touch anything you don't have to."
With that, B'Elanna turned into the lounge and went straight for the replicator. Growling off that hit of frustration, she ordered her coffee and sandwich and yanked her tray out of the hole.
"Now B'Elanna," chuckled Ridge, who sat at his usual table by the window, "that poor little thing did nothing to you."
"He and I have some standing issues," she snapped, "but I don't appreciate Starfleet brats trying to chum up on me to get into Tom's old dirt."
"I was talking about your tray," he returned, then motioned her over. "You'll get more of it before they break the tractor. Probably won't see much of Tom until then, too."
She fell into the seat across from him. "I wish I had his luck."
"What's your problem with Starfleet?"
"Their system and I didn't get along," she told him, cutting her sandwich into quarters. "Why do they still ask about him, anyway? It was four years ago. Hasn't anyone else made news since then?"
"Not any high ranking sons with shining records and good looks to boot." Ridge shrugged. "Tom was one of those 'had it all' sorts, you know? Upstanding Starfleet family, famous father, all that. If it could happen to someone like him, it could happen to anyone. And then, some are just nosy and annoying." Chuckling, he dug his fork in his pasta bowl. "Probably just more of the latter."
"So he crashed a shuttle and a few crewpeople died," B'Elanna ventured. Jerod never did tell her everything, and after Jerod was killed, she didn't get around to asking.
"One was a friend from the Academy," Ridge confirmed between bites. Chewing and swallowing, he chased it down with a big gulp of milk, then wiped his mouth. "Worst about it was that he had to sit there and wait for a rescue team in a powerless shuttle while she bled to death all over him. Poor guy."
B'Elanna stared at her tech as Tom's hard, solid expression filtered through her memory. She could see his face as he poured his glass, his mouth set with determined straightness. She could see his glare when he kicked her off the bridge at Andal. The she recalled his steady sadness as he pulled shuttle components apart.
"But he wasn't pinged for that," Ridge continued. "He didn't quite tell them why the shuttle went down, you see--scared to, probably. He said it was instrumentation or something like that, when he overcompensated in a course correction and knocked them into a spin--or so the feeds reported."
"A pilot error," B'Elanna deduced. "So they found out?"
"That's the funny part about it. He admitted it was his fault a month or so later. So, they court martialed him and said goodbye. The feed writers had a good time. I'm surprised we didn't hear about it until we met him and Hana looked him up. It happened a year before Jerod came aboard, though. We didn't get feeds often, then."
B'Elanna watched Ridge dig into his pasta again, frowning to relay the information, but his appetite otherwise unaffected. "Little wonder he keeps to himself," she said, picking up her sandwich.
"Yeah, and don't expect a warm welcome from the Berlin," Ridge added. "Once word gets around who and what Tom is to them--though it probably has by now--they might be a little snotty."
B'Elanna snorted quietly. "That wouldn't surprise me."
"If anything does by now," Maryl said as she strode into the lounge, "then you've got too many nerve endings." Going to the replicator, she ordered herself a tea and an Ulorsan crepe.
The Bajoran was unusually bouncy as she brought her selections to the table and took the seat by her husband. He glanced over at her. "You know you want to tell us."
"At least pretend to be curious," she scolded.
"Of course I am, dear." He stirred the last portions of his meal before taking another bite. "Can't wait to hear it."
"First off," Maryl said, holding up the blue PADD, "thank you for grabbing this, B'Elanna. I know you had a hundred other things to do."
The engineer shrugged. "I have a separate program to pick it up whenever a new feed is transmitted. We had the same program on Kessik. It wasn't any effort once the main computer came back online."
"Well, thank the computer when you get the chance. Thanks to the feed, I was able to contact some of my fellow Bajorans and hack out a deal to ship their medicinal plants to Ulinas. They're setting up a cross-racial bio-matter exchange. Starfleet's too busy hunting Maquis to drag around samples right now and we've got the right facilities, a science tech and not much better to do."
"That's great!" Ridge enthused.
Her satisfied smile in place as she finally cut into her crepe, Maryl added, "It's a loose deadline window, too, so we have time for a diversion, if you know what I mean. The plants are all in hibernation. As long as the enviro-hold holds and we're there within the twelve-day, we've got a nice twenty-six bars of latinum waiting for us for that shipment alone. With a good delivery, they said they might like to use us for the second run."
"And with any luck, we'll get there the first time," B'Elanna smirked.
"Shut up and eat," Maryl teased, impervious for the moment to the engineer's pessimism. "Get your strength back so you can make your miracles happen down there."
"It'll take a few of those, too," Ridge grinned. "Good hunting, you."
"Nothing to it."
They all resumed their lunch at that, B'Elanna pausing to swirl the last of her coffee in her mug before finishing it. Somehow, the image of a young Paris with a dead woman in his arms and that hard, watery stare had embedded itself in her mind. It was finally coming together for her, his feelings of responsibility, his random disappearing, his bitterness and the drinking, his reaction to Jerod's death.
She just wished having her curiosity appeased was any actual use to her.
Tom Paris hadn't stepped on a Federation Starship since he was dumped off on Earth shortly before his court martial four years ago. When his heel touched the Berlin's gray carpet just outside the transporter room, he steeled his breath and forced himself to move forward. His stomach lurched to breathe that perfect air, hear the slight thrum of the starship's engine below. For all his trying to put it behind him, his entire Starfleet life smacked him hard after only ten seconds aboard. For a moment, it felt as if he'd never left. A moment later, he remembered with painful clarity that he very decidedly had left that life behind.
He wished he'd have come up with an excuse not to visit Dokaru in his ready room. Standard operating procedure and usual good manners, sure, but Tom was feeling paranoid about their recent colony shipment and insecure with his ship dangling from that interstellar tow truck. Even so, he didn't so much as brush his dirty hair aside for the trip. Making his way down the pristine corridor, he suddenly wondered if he should go back and at least wash his face. To his knowledge, he didn't smell bad. But on such a sterile ship, who knew what the crew would pick up?
Not that it mattered... But then, it did matter a little to him. Even about to drop dead, he wasn't totally bereft of pride.
He also knew that his visit there would make it back to his father eventually. That would be an interesting day at the office.
"Captain Paris?"
Tom caught the eyes of a young lieutenant, who seemed surprised at what looked back at him. The officer collected himself nicely a few seconds later, hiding his reaction in a brisk nod and a firming of his posture.
"Captain Dokaru asked me to escort you, since you've never been aboard the Berlin," he said.
Tom didn't correct him, though he was a little relieved. Obviously, that one didn't know about him yet.
"I apologize for not meeting you in the transporter room. I wasn't able to contact you and just found out you'd come aboard."
"I don't wear a comm badge," Tom told him, "and our comm is mostly down. It's not a problem."
Silently falling to the side of the younger man, Tom kept his stare blankly ahead, not glancing left as they passed crewpeople and moved around to the turbolift. He let the other man lead the way in, call for the bridge and step appropriately back when they began to move. Tom didn't divert his attention, though he could tell the officer was fumbling subtly at his charge's silence. Thankfully, the young man, well bred and trained, didn't try to initiate small talk, but stuck to his job. When they emerged on the lower deck of the well-appointed bridge, Tom's gaze fell only where the lieutenant went, which was directly around to a nearby door. In the few seconds it took for the lieutenant to press the bell and the door to open, Tom could count the number of eyes pinned on him in his peripheral vision.
Thankfully, he was not required to pay them any respects. He was there to take care of the niceties and get back to his ship as soon as he could. With any luck, Dokaru would not detain him long. In the mean time, Tom prepared his lines accordingly and with a skill that surprised him. He'd done it so many times when he knew he had to meet with his father or a superior officer he was in a tangle with. Then he wondered why he was feeling the need. He and Dokaru were essentially equal in rank...though Tom knew he'd never really felt right in the role, mainly for how he came upon it. Moreover, not since just prior to being confined to quarters on the Copernicus had he been to a captain's ready room. Better he hold up the front, he figured. He was better at that, and frankly, he didn't have the energy for an honest conversation.
Greeting him as he followed the lieutenant in was the same expression as earlier, this time behind a desk. Of vaguely Asian descent with a hint of something not Human, the captain was Tom's height and in excellent shape. Standing, Captain Dokaru nodded at the form in the door. "Thank you, Lieutenant. You're dismissed."
"Yes sir." He stepped back and the doors swished shut.
"Captain Paris, welcome aboard the Berlin," said Dokaru as he came forth to shake the other man's hand. His tone held great depth and warmth and his dark eyes held steady as his fingers gave Tom's a properly firm squeeze. He was the first member of the crew not to give him a second look. Professional and some. "Again, let me express how sorry I am about your inconvenience."
Tom couldn't help but cough a laugh, there. "Thank you, Captain Dokaru. --And please forgive me. All the attention is a little strange to us."
"How do you mean?"
"Independent freighters don't usually catch much notice from Starfleet," Tom explained, forcing some lightness into his demeanor. "We're used to Federation starships throwing some parts at us and moving on."
"I prefer a more personal approach," Dokaru replied, equally light but more convincingly so. With a sweep of his hand, he motioned to a small, round table surrounded by a few comfortable chairs. "Would you care for anything to drink, Captain?"
Tom shook his head, but did take a seat. "Thanks, but no. Honestly, I'd like to get back to my ship soon. We're still working off our emergency generator."
Dokaru sympathized, joining him at the table without any beverage. "Did your engineer discover the cause of your power failure?"
"She thinks it might be one of the optical clusters in the ODN core, an incompatibility or crossed connection somewhere between the core and the deflector. They're working on it right now."
"Those are pretty tricky diagnostics," Dokaru commented.
"She'll find it," Tom assured him. "She's somehow managed to stay ahead of the Guerdon for the most part, and I've only heard rumors about her sleeping."
The Starfleet captain smiled. "An ideal ship's engineer, then."
Tom's stare turned thoughtful at that. "Yeah, she is. Maybe too much so sometimes."
Dokaru allowed an appropriate pause to pass before changing the subject. "Where does your slate take you, Captain, after Sicira? I'm curious to know if you'll be able to find the remaining parts you need outside a Federation station."
For paranoia's sake alone, Tom did not deflect. Rather, he leaned back in the chair, rested his arm on the table and said, "We're back to DS-Nine and then out to Ulinas for a drop off--something my contract liaison just picked up, in fact. We might make some stops along the way if other deals come up. The usual."
Dokaru was surprised. "Don't read me wrong, Captain, but you cover a long territory for such a small freighter."
Tom played it off well enough. "We go where the deals send us, Captain. It's not work you take to get rich or stay still."
"Yes, of course," Dokaru nodded. "Forgive me."
"Nothing to forgive. I know we're small." He also knew that a great portion of Starfleet had no clue about his line of work, much less the currency scales or much else of really went on out there. "...and we'll probably be able to find what else we need as we had back towards Minjau. Thank you for asking." Pressing his hands on the table, he added, "But I do need to move--I mean, I have to meet my engineer soon, then get back to those bundles."
"Bundles?"
"ODN connectors--the old-fashioned kind," Tom explained, adding a derisive snort behind it. "Easy work in itself, really, though after another day of that, I'll probably need your doc to uncross my eyes."
Dokaru grinned as they both stood, then led Tom to the ready room door. "I won't delay you, then. Thank you for taking the time to see me, Captain Paris."
"You're welcome," Tom answered, once again shaking the captain's hand when it was offered and really wishing he'd grabbed that shower after all. Five minutes later, he changed his mind again. He wished he stank outright.
"Do you need any help, sir?"
"No, I know where I'm going."
It seemed in every section, he met with yet another crewmember who couldn't help but gawk at him as they offered, ever so politely, to guide the stray ex-officer to the largest room on the ship.
"Is the captain aware you're traveling through the ship alone?"
"Yes."
Years ago, Tom liked being the center of attention--relished in it, in fact. Now he knew why he'd come to prefer being on the Guerdon and on that far-flung route. For being unused to such treatment now, as well, the Starfleet officers' staged manners were triply intrusive.
"Do you require an escort?"
"No."
He reminded himself he was only about a couple hours from a nice Kressarian whiskey he'd picked up at Irtrin. At the pace he was going on the Berlin, Tom knew it wouldn't last long.
"Mister Paris? Do you need any help--"
"I know how to find a goddamn shuttlebay!" he cut in and strode ahead.
Annoying as it was to hazard the corridors there, coming into the Berlin's main shuttlebay and seeing the neatly lined crafts made Tom's chest hurt. Just in case today was in any way cheerful, he grumbled to himself and forced his eyes to point forward. He immediately spotted B'Elanna among a group of officers at the transporter station. A few long crates sat nearby it. He propelled himself as swiftly as he could manage, keeping his attention futilely on his destination.
Indeed, he tried not to look, but couldn't not see it: His former career, his doomed life and every mistake, craft by craft in the corner of his eye, seeming to mock him as he crossed the long bay. He could practically feel the LCARS under his fingertips, see the starfield from the angled viewport and sense the warm satisfaction of a day spent patrolling or running the engineers around on their various tests...
Yeah, did I know that feeling...
He could feel his youth, his health and everything before him.... Then he could see her panic, hear her choking, feel her death soaking through his uniform as her last puffs against his neck begged for life, and he could do nothing.
It all lived and died there, and so now lived for someone else. He was little more than a twitching corpse amongst that shining future.
Tom drew a deep breath and nodded to B'Elanna, who seemed surprised to see him there, though she knew he was going to take some parts over. Though it piqued his curiosity, he didn't ask about that. "We got the rods?"
She turned back to the panel and shrugged. "I'm not sure if they'll take, but I'll try to readjust the relay parameters."
"If everything else in there has a chance of working," he commented, looking over at the numbers on her board, "these should, too."
"The power conversion still concerns me."
"Savan can work with you on that," Tom thought aloud. "She'd helped Livich install the port isolinear junctions. I think they had the same issues to work through that hasn't blown out yet that I know of."
"I'll ask her, then."
Nodding, Tom found his gaze foolishly drifting to a set of eyes he felt upon him. Turning, he saw Commander Barnes, who stood nearby with a couple young officers making their lists and checking them twice. Tall and brunette, Tom noted in a glance that the years hadn't been any kinder to her, even in that happy environment. Her face seemed to have its own source of gravity. Approaching, she did not offer her hand.
"Captain Paris," she started smoothly. "Perhaps you don't remember me from your brief visit here some years ago."
"I remember you," he replied, bracing for impact.
His curt reply crossed her face and left a small grin in its wake. "I have to admit seeing you was a surprise. There were no reports of where your travels had taken you."
"Assuming anyone cared," Tom returned. "But yeah, I managed to land on my feet."
"Indeed. I think you've lived up to your potential, considering."
Tom's eye twitched, but he held on. "Glad I have your seal of approval. That means a lot, Commander."
The commander's chin turned up. "I wouldn't say it's an approval. But you have, I'm sure, rectified what you could."
"I don't know," he smirked. "I'm sure I could do more. Maybe you could help me there."
B'Elanna couldn't help but listen to the interchange. Much as she expected it, was warned it would happen, she found herself staring at them both with rapt astonishment. Deathly pale and rumpled, Tom stood before the crisp, standard issue officer and fed into her snide pleasantries, inviting more contempt and swimming in it. Earlier, B'Elanna had taken the woman as smooth and efficient, if lacking in a little personality. Now she was showing personality and some, and that in harder fashion than the pert little ensign of earlier could ever have managed. Worse, the other officers simply went about their business as though the two were talking shop. One of them actually cracked a laugh at one of the commander's jibes. B'Elanna couldn't finish the power transfer and cut the link with the Guerdon fast enough.
"I hardly think anything I'd advice would be of any use to you."
"True, considering, as you say, what I've done for myself. But even that's more than I deserve, I guess."
"There are some who would agree," she replied with mock subtlety.
"More than some," Tom assured her. "I think I've only met, oh, four or five who think I'm right where I should be."
"That many?"
"Sure. But then, they're under contract. They have to be nice to me."
"Captain," B'Elanna cut in, coming down from the platform and putting herself purposefully next to him, "I don't mean to interrupt, but I'd like to get back to the problem at hand."
Tom still held the commander's attention when he replied, "Yeah. Guess we should." Turning away from Barnes, he looked at the crates. "I can take this one over to Savan and Nadrev. They should have the relay ready soon."
B'Elanna nodded toward the ensign at the transporter controls. "Beam Captain Paris and all the crates to the Guerdon's aft deck three parts bay. We can carry the pieces forward as we get to them. I'll wait for the last bin. It needs to go to deck two."
Tom and the crates dematerialized a few seconds later, leaving the half-Klingon with the other reason she wanted Paris gone.
"You actually think," B'Elanna said, turning a glare toward Commander Barnes, "you have the right to treat him like trash. You think you're entitled because you're here and he's not, and you're arrogant enough to do it in front of your minions and me."
"You don't need to concern yourself with something understood between your 'captain' and me, Ms. Torres," said Barnes, retraining her small smile. "Judging by your passionate reaction, I can tell you respect him. For that, I apologize if our conversation angered you."
"The hell you do," B'Elanna snarled.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Ms. Torres." Barnes raised her chin. "I think your work here is almost completed?"
She regarded the commander again with that, taking in every centimeter of her cookie cutter form. Slowly, she shook her head, realizing aloud, "People like you remind me how grateful I am that I got out of Starfleet when I did. That you're second in command of a starship honestly frightens me, for the crew's sake if anything."
"I hardly need to take pointers from a mechanic on an insignificant, border-bound tradeship, but I'll log your complaint duly."
"You have better things to do, Commander Barnes," B'Elanna coldly replied. Stepping down from the platform again, she brushed her hands on her jacket pockets. "The coordinates are set. You transport the crate. I'm stopping in engineering for the anodyne shunt, then gladly getting the hell out of here."
Striding across the bay and into the outer corridor, B'Elanna blew a breath, but then oddly felt a smile touch her lips. It felt better than it should have, to snap at a snotty officer. Worse than Tom taking her abuse with sardonic pleasure was that Barnes seemed proud to project everything Starfleet purported itself not to be about. But then, B'Elanna knew all too well what Starfleet looked like and was it really could be.
Back in her engine room, B'Elanna had seen Ensign Ciardro continue at stare at Tom on the sly and the other technicians passing through purposefully take the long way around him or make comments under their breath. Though Carey was the odd man out in not seeming concerned with any of that, he still said nothing to the others, though he did outrank them. The XO's behavior outdid them all, however.
Apologized for angering me, she snorted to herself as she stepped into the first turbolift. "She can shove it," she scoffed aloud.
"*Please restate command,*" chirped the computer.
B'Elanna opened her mouth, then paused. How's this for a passionate reaction? she reconsidered, her grin reappearing. Even if she could easily be shot down, it'd be worth the formality. "Computer: Bridge."
"...got what he deserved."
Walking through the section, he'd barely caught it, but turned his gaze to a junior lieutenant and a crewman setting parameters on the auxiliary power generator. They glanced at him, then coolly back to their work, not ashamed of whatever they'd been discussing. Tom could only shake his head at that point and continue forward.
Two and a half days to Sicira.
Tom rounded the corner from the main engine room and set into the corridor, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his heavy eyes on the floor as it moved before him. He'd just left Savan and Nadrev, who would continue to work on the microscopic ODN connectors within the main deflector power intake distributor, now that he'd organized the input valves. The blackout had fried the entire port relay. Thankfully, they were easily replicated materials and they had someone with the patience to rebuild it. The main computer and the electro plasma system were another story. B'Elanna had been working with half-compatible parts from the Berlin and would have to make do with them--risking another power failure--until they could find the right ones. Captain Dokaru's concern on that matter was not misplaced.
Dokaru, Tom mused, rubbing at his sore gut, was a good captain that he could see. Cynical as he was about the rest of the crew, Tom appreciated the man's inquisitiveness. Knowing my luck, though, he's got a better poker face than I have, he frowned. It wouldn't surprise him. Only time would tell. They really didn't have a choice at that point but to find out.
In the mean time, his Kressarian whiskey and a few hours of sleep awaited him. He needed both, already regretting his trip over to the Berlin. Indeed, Dokaru was fine, but the byplay with Barnes had curdled in his mind. While he now was certain about the consensus among the ranks regarding his reputation, it still nagged at him. He knew he shouldn't care, wanted to say he wouldn't in the end, but again, being aboard made him remember what he'd been like and what popularity he'd enjoyed when he was one among them. Maybe Starfleet wasn't his first choice in life, maybe starship work wasn't where he felt he wanted to be, but he'd liked that popularity and liked knowing he was at the top of his game and feeling certain others agreed. He had thrived in that youthful arrogance.
Tom shook his head. He had to stop thinking about it. Two and a half more days, they'd be at Sicira, the Berlin would be back on its regular course and Tom could put that past behind him again...much as he knew he never, never would. It was just as possible as getting that old life back again.
It wouldn't let him go...
He turned the corner to head forward to his quarters.
She would never let him...
"Aaagh!" Tom huffed as a shot of pain ripped through his midsection and up his spine, then spread down his legs. "Ah God!" Suddenly, his knees buckled and he dropped to the blue carpet, then to his hands. A trail of drool escaped his mouth as he groaned again; his elbow began to loosen. Forcing them to lock, Tom lowered himself to a hip to ride out the attack. They were coming a few a day by then, so he was getting used to...
He cried out again, futilely trying to stifle it behind his gritted teeth. Tears sprang to his eyes as he gasped and felt, wave, after wave, the pain escalate. His elbows finally gave way and he dropped to his shoulder. His cheek pressed against the gritty flooring. He choked for air, hardly able to think for the pain...agony. Agony.
"Oh God...gaah..."
It wouldn't end, wouldn't relent. It rose higher, into his eyes. His nose ran.
He hoped to hell no one would come upon him just then. Then he wildly wondered why he thought that.
"Bear...it," he hissed to himself, trying to grasp at something--anything- to make some kind of sensation and perhaps distract himself. His fingers were numb; his vision flooded with white specks. His midsection rounded another bend of pain and spiraled down. Tom tried to pull his legs up, but couldn't. "Augh!" he grunted, closing his eyes only to see the same hazy static behind the lids. He felt his bladder give way in a warm gush and couldn't hold it back to save his life, only feel humiliated on top of everything else. Totally helpless...and nauseated to boot when the resulting smell made its way to his nostrils.
Once all bright and full of promise, like all those assholes so happy to help, because they can: Look at what became of one of them.
His heart fluttered and hammered.
He wasn't going to make it to Sicira.
He'd die lying in fetid piss on a junked out piece of crap freighter. The newsfeeds would enjoy that.
He wasn't going to make it to Sicira.
There was no way he'd get to...
A breath.
Then, the pain drained--a little. Then a little more.
Tom didn't move a muscle, but waited a few minutes, feeling the trembling shock of sensation fizzle from his limbs even as he expected it to return. His head cleared enough to see again. The crush in his chest dissipated.
He breathed, puffed several lungfuls of air to get the blood going again. His abdomen felt like he'd taken an asteroid to it, but he did manage to push himself to his hands and knees. Crawling, gasping, until he reached a bulkhead, he pressed his hands to the side, dragged a couple more breaths then got himself mostly upright. His head spun and lolled. His first steps were staggers. He landed against the opposite wall and pushed himself off; leaning forward, he propelled himself. Crookedly, he made his way around the next corner to his door and slapped in the code.
Stumbling into his quarters, his eyes locked on the table at the left of the living space. Glistening red in the table's pendant light, the bottle he'd been waiting all day to liberate sat like a monument next to a pile of PADDs he'd never get to before docking at the station--and he couldn't care less about that, really. Tom immediately made his way towards the whiskey and grabbed the neck to pop it open.
It wouldn't take all the pain away, but then, it never had.
He drank, smoothly gulping as he slid down into the nearest chair.
It never had, but he'd lose nothing by making another attempt.
He picked his head up with a start.
"Computer," he croaked, "what's the time?"
"Oh-six hundred hours, seventeen minutes, Federation Standard Time."
Tom's head dropped back down to the table. "Shit."
He was half sprawled on the table and off the plain metal chair he was sitting on. As a result, his neck and lower back were killing him. His mouth smacked of the acid he'd drank and finally collapsed upon, falling into unconsciousness. He stank of urine and the drippings of that whiskey. He couldn't tell right off which was worse. His gut throbbed. His head pounded. His hands were numb. His skin felt sticky.
"What the hell am I doing?" he whispered to himself, pulling his head up again. "What am I doing?" No response came to mind. Everything was so foggy, and with every inhale, he could hardly think about anything but the smell, as though he were rotting alive.
He was three hours late, but no one had called for him. Then again, they all probably knew he'd be hung over. "He bought that Kressarian whiskey, you know," he could hear Maryl telling the others over coffee in the lounge. "He'll show up eventually."
Tom could be pretty certain Savan had checked for life signs inside his quarters. Were those sections of the sensor net not working, she'd have come down by then.
He stared at his thin hands. He could almost see the blood pumping through the veins, his skin was so transparent.
At last, he pushed himself up from the table.
It'd been a few years since he was on Earth, but he always thought of himself as looking like he did back then. When he closed his eyes and imagined himself doing something, he saw a tall, well-formed man, slightly tanned with light blue eyes, sandy blond hair and an expressive face. He wore neat shirts, well-cut trousers, good shoes. He was a handsome young man. It wasn't arrogance. He grew up knowing his looks pleased people, and he was generally satisfied with what he saw, too.
With that as his standard, he should not have been surprised by his tears.
Holding onto the door jamb as he peeled off yesterday's clothes and threw them into the non-functioning refresher, he still could think of nothing but getting himself into the shower, getting started with the day despite how he felt. Feeling clean always helped. Moreover, they were approaching Sicira. That alone made him want to get to work.
Naked, he turned to move into the bathroom and activate the shower. Unfortunately, there was no avoiding the mirror, which covered the wall to his right going in. What caught his eye, in fact, was the dark blob that wasn't supposed to be there. Looking over, Tom froze.
He'd been avoiding that mirror for a while, knowing he was sick and not looking too good. Now, he stared at it in horror, stared at something he hardly recognized. His cursorily cut hair was dark with grease and sweat above a haggard, unshaven face. His sallow skin was dotted with dark splotches and was slightly flaccid for the weight he'd lost. Indeed, his bones stuck out a little, hard angles from his wiry muscles. He looked four times his age. The blob he'd first spotted was a massive bruise covering his hip and running all the way down to his knee--where he'd hit when he fell off the ladder yesterday. He thought he'd come down hard, but not hard enough to blacken his whole flank.
By all right, he should have been dead.
His sunken, bloodshot eyes filled with tears.
He would never imagine that young man again.
"How can I help you today, Captain Paris?"
Peering over at the oft-discussed captain from the seat of his usual console, the Berlin's physician knew the answer was by no means simple, though it was plainly obvious the man did need assistance. Dokaru's suggestion that he might talk with the man, captain to captain, to try to discover what had happened to the young Human, had not been a bad idea after all.
"I'm having a problem," Tom rasped, then cleared his throat. "My science officer diagnosed me with a liver problem a few months ago, but I haven't been able to see a specialist, yet. I had an incident last night... I need to get it taken care of. You can download her file. She knows I'm here."
Dr. Masdi gestured to a nearby biobed as he pushed himself away from his lab readings. Standing, he showed a modest height and build beneath his neat gray hair. A ten-year veteran of the Cardassian border conflict, his dark blue eyes held an unabashed directness about them as he scanned the form before him. "Mind if I have a look for myself first?" he asked.
Tom shrugged, nodded. Taking off his coat and drawing a firm breath, he reached back and pulled himself up to sit on the side of the bed. He blinked away the resulting pain as the doctor came near with the tricorder and pressed his mouth firmly shut. His eyes still reflected a certain amount of anxiety, however.
Waving the tricorder slowly over his patient a couple of times, Masdi reset the parameters then scanned again. His tongue poked briefly out to lick his upper lip; then he rubbed his lips together. Without looking away from the readings, he asked, "Do you mind if I pull your file now?"
The younger man frowned, but then assented with a short nod.
"I'll try not to keep you waiting too long. Excuse me."
The doctor came around the corner into his office and with a few words, he connected with the Guerdon's science technician, who indeed had been waiting in her office for his call. The Vulcan said little, not wanting to interfere with the physician's work, but transmitted her captain's medical file with a quiet comment of gratitude.
Cutting the connection and calling up the file, Masdi's eyes soon danced over the neatly recorded history and increasingly worrisome test results. Notes taken by the tech also showed a steady decline of motor function, alertness and appetite. His own scan was a dire one to conclude the rest. Running the whole through the Federation database, a result shot back to Masdi's screen several seconds later. Seeing it, his head dipped in a nod to himself and his shoulders briefly sagged. But then he brought his head up again to spy through his window the young man on the table. Paris was trembling and the muscles in his jaw were tensed.
The doctor punched up the man's personal file, requesting the abbreviated version. He blinked as he read it, setting ship's gossip and facts in their correct places, glancing up a couple times as he did when an image of the ousted officer scrolled into view. Masdi stilled for a moment, remarking to himself at the difference between the two images. Another file opened. Methodically, the doctor's fingers tapped on the LEDs, his stare unbroken from the display as that information was digested. Finally, he leaned back and exhaled slowly. He looked out to the main ward again.
The patient outside had closed his eyes. He was trying to sit straight--trying to hold on.
Finally, Masdi pressed his hands on his desk and got to his feet. Moving to another console, he tapped in a course of treatment, glanced over it then returned to give his diagnosis.
After several seconds, Paris opened his eyes. Returning the physician's attention, his visual examination seemed equally thorough--and conclusive. He breathed a sigh through his nostrils and waited.
Masdi did not keep him waiting any longer.
"Min-Dirov's Cirrhosis is a very rare disease in humans, Captain, and entirely preventable."
The younger man rolled his eyes. "Here we go."
"Not we--you."
"Yeah, me. Going, right now." Tom slid off the table, muttering, "Another goddamned bad idea."
"Generally, it takes a few more years for the liver to present this form of dysfunction," Masdi stated as the man strained to get an arm in his coat. "Your beverage choices along the route have been exceptionally effective." Seeing Paris shrug at that, he added, "If you're going to kill yourself, there are far easier and less painful routes to it."
"I'm not in it for death."
"So, you're into suffering instead."
"Doc--"
"Do you think it's what you're supposed to do for the rest of your life because you crashed a shuttle and your crew died?"
"Two lousy days," Tom hissed to himself, "and I wouldn't have to listen to this."
"No, maybe not," the doctor deduced, willfully ignoring the younger man's digression. "If you were sorry you survived, you'd be dead already. Still, it's not easy to know your error had fatal consequences; it's a natural defense to try to not think about it, one way or another."
"It's not the only thing right now."
"It's not going to work, Captain." Masdi held the other man's glare when it turned back to him. "You're always going to think about it, no matter what you do to yourself."
Finally getting his arm in his coat, the young captain looked at his hand. One of them was gripping the hem of his pocket. It was shaking, the twitch in his leg became more pronounced. The man was obviously in great pain and taking as many pains to try to hide it.
"Let's put it like this:" the doctor continued as he leaned against an opposite bed, "This will kill you. I could treat you five times and it'll be what kills you as long as you keep imbibing the same gruel. And each time you're treated, the symptoms will come on more rapidly until you're in need of a full transplant. But you won't be anywhere near a facility that will be able to serve such a request in enough time, once you finally cross that threshold. You'll be in a great deal of pain and you'll probably be alone when your liver finally shuts down. Whatever you're trying not to think about? That'll be the last thing you think about before your heart stops, and you'll die having done nothing but let it rot you from the inside out. And for what? You think people are going to cry for a martyr? I promise you, they won't. You sure won't have honored those people who died. So I would highly recommend you find some other means of dealing with your guilt."
"Are you going to treat me or aren't you?" Tom demanded.
"I'm required to," Masdi assured him. "But I'm also responsible for advising my patients on the proper way to maintain their health and well-being."
"I've worked really hard to get away from the lectures, Doc. I'm not some junior officer angling for correction."
"And I've been through more with your sort than you're aware of. You think you're the only one who's done what you have? Lied about an accident? Captain Paris, I know at least three similar incidents that haven't been resolved, as you resolved your situation."
"Nice to know someone's keeping count. By the way, you're not answering my question."
"I'll treat you, make you feel like you did when you were a second-year cadet. But I'll lecture you as much as I like, Captain, especially when I know you have the capability to right your mistakes."
Tom coughed a laugh, leaning back against the bulkhead. "Yeah, I've done a great job at that."
"You're still moving, aren't you?"
"Barely. There's some more I could do to fix that."
"You've got a good crew who seems to care and it's obvious you work harder now than you ever had in Starfleet."
"Thanks for the recap," Tom drawled, then narrowed his eyes. "What's your point?"
"The point is, you've already been punished. Starfleet made sure to punish you in every way it fairly could and you'll always have the onus of having to remember it. So it's time to let those people go. You have to get on with your life, or you'd might as well end it and save everyone the trouble. --I'll bet you already knew all this, though. You just haven't gotten around to accepting it. It's why you're here."
"I'm here because I nearly died on the way to my quarters last night."
"Why you're at this point, Captain," Masdi clarified. "Though, now that you mention it, you recovered enough to get yourself in my room not ten minutes after I arrived. You could've rationalized waiting again if you'd wanted to; you could've grabbed some more painkillers. But you know you need to make a change and are probably waiting for someone to take you there. If that's the case, I have no problem telling you that you can't keep going like this. You have to let those crewpeople go and move on, and you have to at least switch to synthehol, or you will meet a premature death. You'll be a pill capsule in open space and no one will remember anything but what brought you down and how you let it happen."
That stopped Paris--stopped his tongue and froze his expression. In fact, he stared blankly at the doctor for almost a minute; thoughts, memories and emotions flitted behind his yellowed eyes as he put together the full picture. He drew shallow breaths, and then finally coughed a longer one. His hand gripped his pocket again as he tensed, then relaxed. His lips parted.
"Can you treat it now?" he asked roughly, pushing himself from the wall. He tried to stand without wobbling, but finally had to set a hand on the side of the bed.
The doctor returned a belabored stare. "Don't tell me: You're on a schedule."
"Sort of," Tom admitted. "My engineer's expecting me after lunch to check in and help with some RTC repairs."
"If anyone on board questions your rank, I'll vouch for you," Masdi deadpanned as he turned back for his office. "Take your coat off. I'll call my nurse."
The surgery was not as straightforward as the computer promised--but then, such treatments rarely went as planned. The level of degradation in the man's internal cavity was far worse when Masdi and his nurse got inside of it. Things he hadn't scanned for popped up, causing him to hold back on the liver and address those first.
"Guess his engineer will just have to wait," Masdi commented with a snort as he reset the tissue regenerator.
Worse of all of the ailments outside the disease itself were the festering ulcers in his stomach and on his lower esophagus. It was a wonder to Masdi how the man drank anything at all. They looked to have been there a while and the man hadn't twenty-seven years.
That completed, the doctor moved on to the side effects of the liver dysfunction. Series of veins required treatment; his blood required detoxification and several points of swelling were relieved. The liver itself required a few attempts by the regenerator to remove all the scarring, and it had to be done in sections as a series of antibiotics were injected. That at last completed, the doctor and nurse deactivated the organ spreaders, then sealed the large incision site. Finally, a few more runs by the bioscanner corrected the jaundice and bruising. Some closer work took care of the bruise on Paris' hip.
Backing off a step to re-read the re-evaluation, Masdi nodded to his nurse, who dutifully prepared the patient to be revived. On second thought, Masdi held up his hand. "Just one more thing," he said, stepping away to the medical replicator. Tapping into the menu, he quickly found what he was looking for; a few seconds later, the small implant appeared, sitting on a sample glass. Masdi picked it up and grabbed the requisite hypospray. Loading the implant, he injected it into Paris' abdomen.
"Not that I don't trust you, Captain," the doctor said, his mouth pursed into a smile. He nodded at his nurse again and pulled away his surgical gear. "We're done. Scan his vitals and bring him back up to normal temperature. Then I'll revive him myself."
The nurse wordlessly went to it, well accustomed to his superior's temperament and knowing on whom they'd been working. When his duty was completed and he'd handed the required stimulants to Masdi, he excused himself to the lab.
"Thank you, Alston," Masdi said, then took a seat by his patient once again. Shutting down the table, the machinery pulled away, revealing a man who at last looked as he was supposed to, save a shave and decent haircut. Pressing the hypospray to Paris' throat, the doctor set that away, too, then waited.
Several seconds passed before Tom Paris breathed normally; slowly, his eyes opened to the stark Starfleet lighting above him. Blinking, he breathed again, then looked over.
Masdi ghosted a smile of greeting. "Good afternoon, Captain Paris. How do you feel?"
Tom cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders. "Groggy, a little sore."
"That'll go away with more sleep," the doctor told him. "I thought you'd prefer to have that in your own quarters."
"I need to get down to my engine room."
"A little late for that, I'm afraid--and I apologize. I did try to whip you back into shape in record speed, but you'd abused yourself more efficiently than I'd at first detected. I contacted your tech Savan and let her know. She said she would assist your engineer today."
Tom nodded, still breathing as though he slept. Thinking a moment, his brow furrowed as he caught up. "What time is it?"
"About fifteen hundred," Masdi answered then stood to help Paris up. "Again, a solid rest should help the residual stiffness and fatigue a great deal. If you come in tomorrow, I'll likely send you off with a bill of perfect health."
"And it's not even Christmas," Tom smirked, sliding down the table to his feet.
"You got a lot, though," Masdi returned. "I'll transmit your revised medical file to you. You should know what the last few years did to your body."
"Birthday, too. Thanks."
"You're welcome." Staring hard at the younger man, he held his position until the attention was returned. The look on Paris' face was unreadable--well trained, the doctor understood. He sighed, shrugged. "Just do me a favor, for everything I've done for you today, would you? What we were talking about before your surgery? Think it over. Really, Captain, you have a chance to keep yourself from sinking again, a great chance to get past what got you here. You'll never do anyone any justice by destroying yourself--not your crew, your friends or your family--and it won't do you any good, either. And you do deserve to move on. Take it from someone who's been serving on this border since you were still in grade school and who's seen just about everything man can do: You have the right to recover."
With that, the doctor returned to the lab console he had been sitting at when his patient first entered the sickbay.
Captain Paris grabbed his coat and strode out of the doors.
Only when he got to the center junction did he realize that he was striding.
Even his quarters looked different.
Pulling on a fresh shirt, Tom peered out of his bedroom to the place he'd been calling home for two and a half years, and he suddenly wondered how he'd been doing it. --Not that he'd been very clear-headed through it all, nor did he spend much time there, but the chairs were impossibly short and hard. He didn't have a single decoration of his own on the drab walls; it was dark and stuffy. Yes, he knew these things, but how did he deal with that?
The only redeeming feature was the very comfortable bedding--though it was a heap on the floor, waiting for the refreshers to come back online. The comforter, pillowcases and sheets all reeked of alcohol and vomit and his suddenly sensitive nose reeled well before he got on them. They were probably better off recycled. Nevertheless, with but a spare blanket, he did get over six hours of solid, undisturbed sleep. He almost felt guilty for it when he woke, though Torres had told him she wouldn't need him until twenty-three hundred, when she went back on shift and the last supplies had been replicated.
The rest had done just what the doctor said: He felt excellent. He'd forgotten what it felt like without the heaviness in his head or the flaccidity in his limbs. He felt like he needed to walk, even run.
We don't have a space set up for exercise here, do we? he pondered idly. He knew he had a great deal of natural energy--or at least he always had before. If that stuck around, he'd need to do something to burn that off.
He remembered once again that his sleep had been without disturbance, no memories, no panic attacks. He wondered if that was going to last as long as he lay off the drink. It could have simply been the aftereffects of the surgery.
Lay off the drink.
Tom paused, leaned against the window and pulled a breath into his unclogged lungs. All the sudden, it was so simple? Just stop? His form of relief had been such a part of his life for the past four years that Tom was having a real disconnect considering its absence.
Then he wondered why in the hell he'd want it back, considering how great he felt, how clear-minded and free of pain he was."Day hasn't started yet," he told himself with a smirk.
Then again, being drunk never did help him get away from what he knew, nor could he punish himself enough with it. Masdi had pretty well nailed that one, too. Tom knew he liked the numb, though. He'd become comfortable within the haze. He was afraid of the clarity of feeling and the emotional responsibility that came with it. But again, he'd always felt, always remembered--remembered painfully well. Rather, remaining intoxicated let him shirk off the emotional responsibility he had to them...
What I owed them, he thought again. The thought sat a moment longer. What do I owe them...for what happened out there?
Then he felt as though he could run fifty laps around that squat little ship.
"I need new chairs, maybe a chaise," he added, pushing himself away from the window to grab a pair of trousers--the last clean ones he had. He hoped they didn't smell, too.
I've been walking around wafting that odor, he thought as he slid his legs into the holes. He sighed. Goddamned wreck. No kidding people stayed away from me.
He needed to put on a few kilos at least.
"Damnit, I need to do something!" His mind was everywhere--making up for lost time. It'd been so long, and he hadn't slowed down enough yet to get annoyed at it. But again, he hadn't been out the door yet. He'd probably want a couple bottles of slowdown by the end of it. He had a fresh half-crate with his name on it in the back of the lounge.
Tom stopped again, trying to get back to that other train of thought...and then couldn't recall what--
"*Torres to Paris.*"
Tom walked over to the wall comm and tapped it on. "Yeah, B'Elanna. I'm here. Need something?"
A pause, then, "*Yes, well, it's twenty-two hundred, but I'm already on. Lieutenant Carey and I have been working on the port controls, and he had some good ideas on how to realign them. The new protocols are working well; I'm ready to start on rebooting secondary systems as soon as navigation is taken care of.*"
"Sounds great. Thanks."
"*Um, yeah. Anyway, if you're up for starting on the new GNS connections, I'll be in navigation control with Carey in about ten minutes.*"
"I just need to shave and I'll be right there."
Another pause. "*Okay. Torres out.*"
Tom nodded and popped his closet open to grab his boots and some socks. He tossed them on the bed for the moment, hurrying himself. A little distracted herself, B'Elanna still sounded upbeat about the progress and was ready to move forward at last.
Moving back into the bathroom, he almost didn't look. Pulling out his shaving kit, though, knowing he'd have to, he finally glanced up, then looked again.
The kid wasn't there, but what he saw was a hell of a lot closer to it than the ghoul he'd viewed not a day before--an image that hadn't left his near memory yet--and probably never would. No, he wasn't young anymore and he did need to gain some weight, but his color was good, his eyes were clear and steady; he looked and felt healthy...and was back to square one, give or take four pretty lousy years.
What about you? he asked himself, staring himself in the eyes. You ready?
Tom made good time to the engine room once he found a pair of socks that didn't somehow also stink. He still couldn't believe what he'd been doing and living with. Turning into the center corridor, which led straight into the deck two engine room, he saw his contract liaison coming his way, likely finally ending her long day on the bridge. Maryl had been covering for Savan while the latter was down working on repairs with the rest of them. Now her hands were in her pockets and her pace was relaxed; she even yawned.
"Hi Maryl," Tom said, offering a brief grin when she looked up at him.
"Oof!" she coughed as she smacked into a bulkhead.
Tom kicked up his pace. Maybe the new look was a good one after all.
Behind and beneath the rear warp and impulse assemblies laid Tom's domain: Navigation. Though not an engineer, the guidance and navigation system was one piece of machinery he'd made certain to know about from the bolts up, no matter what ship he was flying. In the Guerdon's case, he'd worked on that GNS so many times, he could probably rebuild it blind. Even Torres allowed him every opportunity to tune and replace parts in it for knowing it so well.
He couldn't wait to get rid of it.
"Carey, right?" Tom said, moving directly into the center of the half-layer of control relays, which they'd pulled out and set on its support hinges. Letting the man have his moment to stare at him, too, Tom motioned to the small crate of shunts. "Have you guys started, yet?"
"We just got here, Captain."
"Great," Tom nodded then looked around. "B'Elanna?"
"Good, you're here," she called, glancing briefly from the other side of the power control box. "You can start the installation now. Ridge finished cleaning out the unit a couple hours ago."
"Is he taking a break?"
"Yes. He'll be back on in six."
Tom nodded at that, too. Maryl would fill him in and they'd both get some deserved rest. It'd be nice if they could somehow get back on a regular schedule again. They hadn't enjoyed one in months. "Where's Nadrev?"
"Recycling that useless anti-grav."
"Got to give him credit for trying, though."
"It was a waste of time," she clipped, "but yes, he did try."
Looking at Carey, Tom grabbed a tool tray. "Thanks, by the way, for all your help these past couple of days. It's really made a difference," he added, pointing Torres' way with his chin, "in more ways than one."
"I'm glad to help," Carey returned with a small grin. Blinking his returning stare away, he motioned toward the assembly. "B'Elanna says you might have some compatibility issues with these kinds of shunts."
"We'll reroute and compensate as usual," Tom replied, settling himself into the first section and dragging the crate nearer to him. "But yeah, it's why we keep having problems." Not to mention a dozen or so Maquis attacks, but that's beside the point. Cursing to himself as he set those memories aside for another day, Tom cranked the replacement part into its socket, then waved the hyperspanner over it. He grinned. His hands were so steady. "Hopefully, the new relays will help, though I'm not going to hope too hard. It'll get us where we need to go for now, though, which is enough for us."
"That's what she's hoping too," Carey said, collecting a kit and a section of his own to work on as Tom came out to tap into a nearby panel.
Coming out of the control grid, B'Elanna did a double take to see her captain. What one trip to a doctor can do, she remarked to herself. He looked...handsome. His fair golden face nicely shaved, he had dressed in refreshed clothes, his posture was straight and his hands had an odd grace about them that she knew couldn't have been there before. Even his walk, an easy stride that knew its footing, looked right on him.
It was good to see him well, particularly while still in contact with the Berlin's crew. After defending him against the officers there, B'Elanna had realized in full how she'd been kicking a man already down, too. Though she saw no need to apologize to him, she didn't like seeing him beaten anymore, either--and certainly not brought down by a bunch of Starfleet assholes. Whether or not he wanted her to stay on the Guerdon wasn't so much an issue to her, anymore. What happened in the Berlin's shuttlebay wouldn't happen again while she was there, if she could help it.
Stepping over to the console, she reached up to an adjacent screen and locked in some numbers. "These shunts respond better to a lower frequency," she told Tom. "Don't set them too high."
"Yeah, I was just seeing that." Looking down, he held her stare when she glanced up to him. "Thanks."
B'Elanna paused before exhaling, then turned her attention back down to the readings. "You're welcome."
With that, Tom moved back to the grids and continued his conversation with Carey.
Entering a new line of power conversions, B'Elanna let the remnants of his cologne fade slowly away.
They were eight hours from Sicira--a miracle, really, considering what the ship had been through. In fact, they were coming in ahead of schedule, an irony Maryl gladly reported as Tom slid the last few wires into place beneath his flight control console. Standing, wiping his hands on his coat pockets, he slid off his coat and stepped into the middle of the bridge when the call from the Berlin came through. A transporter beam whisked him away a few seconds later.
For the second time since hooking up with the Berlin, Tom moved down the corridors en route to Dokaru's ready room. Two days later, however, his visit with the Starfleet captain would be greatly improved, for both the ship and how he presented himself--a detail he realized only as he caught the stares of various crewmen he passed, and again on the bridge, when Barnes looked up from her position and frowned.
He couldn't help his smirk, there, and he gladly aimed it at her. He knew he looked good as much as he knew she hated him for it. It's what you get for relishing in my downfall, you ass. "Just here to see your captain, Commander," he glibly told her and turned for the ready room door. Drawing an unnoticeable breath, he reached out for the door call.
"Come," was the immediate reply. Captain Dokaru was out of his seat before Paris got in the door. "Captain, thank you for coming."
"Not a problem," Tom told him, shaking the other man's hand when it was offered. To his credit, the older man hardly blinked at his appearance, though Tom could tell he noticed it. "Actually, we're pretty well set. We have enough to get into the Siciran system on our own and complete our repairs, thanks to you and your crew."
"That's good to hear."
"I owe you a lot of thanks, Captain Dokaru," Tom told him sincerely, "and Carey, too. He was just what we needed in our engine room."
"We're more than happy to have been able to assist." There, Dokaru offered a more inward grin. "And amend our ways, too."
"How so?"
"Your engineer Torres came to visit me not long after you left the other day. Were you aware of...? Well, she had some choice words in defense of you."
"She did?" Tom didn't try to hide his surprise. B'Elanna had showed no indication of letting go of her grudge. He'd have never guessed she'd been off sticking up for him.
"Yes, and I've had a few words with my second in command. I apologize for her behavior, Captain. I honestly did not expect such disrespect to be displayed by any among my crew."
"It's not unjustified. I'm used to catching hell."
"It's unjustified when it's a member of my a senior staff speaking with a guest aboard my ship and setting an example." Letting the little burst of indignation that came with that admission fade, Dokaru motioned towards the table, where a couple chairs had already been pulled out and some selections of food had been set. "I know we'll be breaking off soon, Captain, but I assure you, it won't happen again."
"Thank you," was all Tom could think to say. He was still in rewind about B'Elanna taking his byplay with Barnes to the top.
"This might surprise you," he started as Tom moved towards it, "but I am not interested in the past or politics. I prefer to look at what's in front of me. And what I've seen is a leader making the best of a bad situation. You obviously work very hard; you have a good crew and a decent living--not an easy thing to keep in this region these days. There are a lot of temptations along this route, which I know you're well aware of."
Sitting as Dokaru had said the words, Tom instantly felt a pang in his chest. Suddenly, he was reminded of where he was--and where his ship still was. Oh shit, he thought next. Stupidly comfortable for a moment, he now could see precisely what was coming. He wondered how the well-corrected Barnes would look when he was led to the brig by the security officer, this time for treason.
His chest fluttered with anger, then, but he knew better than to move. Running to the door would have signaled a full alert. Tom's eyes nailed the door, however.
Dokaru, walking over to the replicator, finished, "I hope you'll continue to be successful in keeping ahead of it, Captain."
With that, he tapped on the replicator panel. The welcome whirr of an efficient food slot filled the room, shortly drowning out the sound of Tom's thrumming pulse.
"Me too," Tom finally coughed and looked down at the food tray to deflect the flush in his face, buried his hands under the table to hide the shakes from that surge of adrenaline, trying not to curse aloud. His chest panged again and he calmed it with a few slow breaths. With all his native skill, he got a grip.
"Yes, please help yourself," Dokaru said, glancing back. "Would you care for a drink?"
Stuffing his first response, Tom stared suspiciously at the slim, silver tumbler that Dokaru had removed to the table. "What are you having?"
"Iced coffee."
Tom smiled, exhaling a breath of relief. "Iced coffee it is, then. It's been a long while since I've had it."
The captain complied then took his seat by Tom. Sipping at his drink, choosing a finger roll from the tray, he leaned back. "Catching up on events, I learned you are also a pilot."
Tom nodded as he swallowed. Dokaru's choice wasn't half bad. The coffee was quite cold and strong, heavy with vanilla but not too sweet. "Yeah, I put in some time at the wheel."
"As did I. As did I." Dokaru smiled wistfully. "I sometimes think I shouldn't have let them promote me." Seeing the other man's stare askance, he grinned. "That surprises you?"
"A little," Tom admitted. "You seem very comfortable in your position."
"Thank you--and you have a point. Most officers aren't in it to stay where they are."
"I was," Tom said. Laughing quietly to himself, he nodded at the memory--the first time he'd ever done so, he realized, even as he continued, "I didn't want to be anywhere but behind the conn, or at the shuttle controls."
"It was your real love, then," Dokaru observed.
"It was," Tom, mused aloud. "I'd have been happy anywhere as long as I was flying."
The older man grinned. "I used to think that way, but I think I was more the officer in the end. Opportunities opened up and I began to climb..." He stopped there, smiling a little, then sipping his coffee. He looked at Tom again. "Maybe it'd just be nice if my commander would let me fly a shuttle."
"Maybe you should take a vacation at the test fields at Migata-three," Tom suggested.
Dokaru chuckled. "That I hadn't thought of--but I will remember it! I was there in my fourth year at the Academy when they introduced the Ottar-Ring relay..."
Leaning back in the very comfortable chair as Dokaru told the story, Tom realized that the man was still paying him courtesies, but not because of the Guerdon's situation or just because they were there. Tom was now certain that he wasn't being played for information, either, much less under arrest. Rather, it occurred to him that Dokaru was showing a fellow captain the courtesy earned by his rank, in the regular updates over the past few days to the candor of their present conversation. This was highly strange to Tom, though he finally decided to try some food and accept the opportunity to relax. He'd spent most of his time on the Guerdon avoiding the idea of his rank, mainly for knowing he hadn't earned it. Suddenly picking up a kind of camaraderie he'd not experienced in a long while, Tom felt he might actually be enjoying his position for the first time.
Being off the alcohol really was messing with his brain. He plucked up a cracker.
"Perhaps I'll convince the designers to refit the bridge with the configuration you enjoy," Dokaru continued.
Tom pursed his lips. "You can't be coveting the Guerdon."
"It might be a freighter, Captain, but again, I do miss being at the conn. Being able to fly your ship as a captain is, yes, something that would give me the best of both worlds."
"Well," Tom considered, "you do have a holodeck." He smiled, scooping up another cracker and a piece of cheese that time. "I'd probably be the loser, but I might be willing to trade ships."
Dokaru laughed.
That must have been some talk, Tom noted to himself as he moved into the engine room. B'Elanna had just set up a small group of Starfleet people with the last of the ODN assignments, their final favor to the Guerdon. They all saw him come in, but all would sooner look at their boots than look him in the eye; they got out of his way as he walked, offering a quick, quiet, "Sir." Whatever Barnes received trickled down with the force of a flash flood. No question, that was satisfying.
"I have some time," he told B'Elanna as he neared. "Can I do anything?"
B'Elanna glanced quickly back at him. "Actually, you can. I finished the rebuilds on those injector rods, if you'd like to help install them."
Tom watched her stare follow the flow of numbers before her. "No problem. Thanks."
She seemed to think about it again for a moment; then she frowned. "I'll have to open the control panels for you." Sighing to herself, the engineer gave up her console and led Tom over to four plasma rods, which lay unceremoniously on the deck. Each two meters long, B'Elanna knelt at the center and nodded over to a tray of tools. "Bring me the magnetic-diffuser."
Tom did as asked and regarded the shiny instrument with a flick of his eyebrows. "This yours?"
Her lips twisted up. "It is now."
"Glad to hear it," he grinned back and placed the diffuser in her palm with a light whack. Her fingers wrapped around it and she got to work immediately.
Coming back into the main engine room, wiping his hands on his pockets, Ridge caught the last of their dialogue and nodded. "About time we moved on," he said with a wistful grin, looking up a moment. "You'd have liked that we did."
"What?" B'Elanna asked as she and Tom unhinged the rod assembly, then moved to the next one.
"Just talking to myself," Ridge answered and bent to heft the first burden onto his brawny shoulder. "You know I'm a little off in that department."
"Just a very little," B'Elanna replied, her head bent to her work
Carey, nearby, stared at Ridge with a certain amount of awe, then got B'Elanna's attention as she disconnected the second injector. "You know, an anti-grav unit would probably make things a lot easier."
B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "You'd think that."
Tom snorted. "I think we've got it, Lieutenant. Thanks."
"They just beamed it over?"
"Just a few minutes ago, in fact, just before we before we reversed course."
"No message?"
"None. He only asked permission and said it was for you."
"I see. Well, then, let see what's under..."
"What do you have there, Doctor?"
Masdi sat back on his heels on the floor of the transporter pad, a slow, rare grin forming on his thin mouth as he looked down at the crate he'd just opened. According to the label, it was a stock of whiskey.
The note beside it read, "Happy Holidays. --TEP."
(c) D'Alaire M, 2007