Disclaimer: Children, what are you doing in here? Get out of here! It features angst, two men in love doing stupid things to hurt each other, and it’s science fiction. If you don’t like that sort of stuff, or know you are too young for it, you can find plenty of interesting things to do at www.station.sony.com. It’s full of fun games and it’s by Sony. Did I mention there would be angst? Oh, and I don’t own any of these characters. I’m just borrowing them for a little storytelling. They are all owned by Paramount, and they wouldn’t have anything to do with this sort of thing if I paid them. And I don’t have any money. I do, however, have an overactive sexual imagination and a good grasp of how to drive a plot home. Oh, dear, that didn’t come out quite right . . . oh, well.
Send comments to the address above. And you may be wondering why the disclaimer is so wordy. Well, if you can’t read that, you certainly shouldn’t be reading any farther. The lyrics are respectfully taken from “Forgive me love,” by Alanis Morrisette on the album “Jagged Little Pill.”
Send comments to the address above. I am a naughty person, and I will continue to be so until I die.
Chakotay decided to visit the Captain before going off-duty, and back to his quarters. Janeway always had a sympathetic ear for her crew.
“One week, eh?” smiled Janeway as soon as he walked into her Ready Room. “How does it feel?”
He sat down before answering, and accepted a cup of coffee. “How did this happen? How did I fall in love with him?” asked Chakotay. “When did I fall so far that I couldn’t walk away again?”
Janeway just smiled across her desk at the bewildered Commander. “These things just happen.”
Chakotay shook his head and took another sip of his coffee. “He’s so beautiful,” he murmured to himself. Beautiful, fragile, irritating - Tom was all that, and more. “What am I thinking?” he moaned, and put his head down on the table.
“Easy, Commander.” Janeway patted his hand. “You have to take it slowly if you want to make it last.”
“He has nightmares,” Chakotay confessed suddenly. “I don’t know what to do. The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing that it wasn’t anything I did, that it just happens to him. There’s nothing I can think of stop them, so all I can do is be there for him. I can wake him gently from his nightmares, hold him when he cries, and stay with him until he falls asleep again. What I want to do is run for the doctor, find some magic potion to take all his nightmares and bad memories away. But it doesn’t work like that.”
Janeway frowned. “I knew I should have waited for a Ship’s Counselor before leaving Deep Space Nine. Has he told you what they’re about?”
“Sort of. I’m not sure if he even knows.”
“Every night?” demanded Janeway. Chakotay nodded. “That doesn’t sound healthy. Has he told the Doctor?”
“No,” Chakotay sighed. “I don’t even know if I should be telling you.”
Janeway sipped at her coffee. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think you’re a terrible counselor,” Chakotay smiled. Then he sighed. “Really? I think I have something to do with it; I don’t think he feels safe with me.”
Janeway nodded. “I can see why he might feel that. You should talk to him about it; let him know exactly where he stands with you.” Janeway leaned back in her chair. “And when you’re done with that, there are some gossips on the ship who could use a good talking to.”
Chakotay frowned. “I haven’t heard anything.”
Janeway arched one of her delicate eyebrows and stared pointedly at Chakotay’s pips.
Chakotay sighed. “Good point. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good.” She settled more comfortably into her chair. “But take care of your heart first.”
“Will do, Captain.” Chakotay smiled and left, heading for his room.
“There he goes,” muttered someone as Tom sauntered by, pretending that he hadn’t heard them. “Isn’t it amazing how scum always floats to the top?”
“It won’t go on much longer,” promised his companion. “It can’t.” Paris in the Maquis Flavor-of-the-Month Club was the talk of the ship, and bets were flying on how long it would last. Most people weren’t giving the relationship very good odds.
Tom continued walking, down to Chakotay’s quarters. He was slightly irritated. In the space of one week, he’d gone from ship’s pariah to ship’s whore. He was beginning to wish he’d listened to Harry, and simply said, ‘No’ to Chakotay’s offer. Until he saw Chakotay again, that is. One good look into Chakotay’s eyes could wipe out all the doubts and misery that plagued Tom.
But Chakotay wasn’t there. Tom sighed. He left a note, telling his lover that he was meeting Harry and B’Elanna for dinner, to help them plan their wedding. They were fighting over who got to have Tom as best man. Tom thought it was kind of silly, but enjoyed it a lot. He was used to people fighting over him, but not like this.
He’d tried to comm Chakotay earlier to tell him he couldn’t make it to dinner tonight, but Chakotay had been too busy to talk. He was supposed to have dinner with Chakotay tonight, but Tom knew that by the time Chakotay was done going over the duty rosters with Janeway and Tuvok, dinner with Harry and B’Elanna would be over. It would all work out, Tom figured. He propped the padd up on the table where Chakotay would be sure to see it.
It wasn’t really a special day; he had just wanted to make it one. He and Tom had been seeing each other for exactly one week today. And everything else today had been throughly miserable. And having to deal with Harry Kim’s suspicious jealousy or B’Elanna’s pointed inquisitiveness was not how he wanted to end the day. He sighed heavily, and went to clean up the mess.
He considered leaving a note for Tom, but decided against it and simply grabbed a change of clothes. Maybe a session at the gym would help him figure it all out.
“Okay,” announced B’Elanna, “for dinner, we are having roast duck, with gakh sauce -”
“Blah!” said Harry.
“What? What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t want any,” said Harry. “But you can have it.”
“What do you want then?”
“Something else. I’m not in the mood for gakh.”
“Well, are you in the mood to have my fist in your face? Because that’s what you’re going to get if you don’t behave and eat what the rest of us are eating,” B’Elanna snarled.
“Oh really?” said Harry quietly. His eyes were locked with B’Elanna’s, and Tom wondered if they’d forgotten that he was in the room. Suddenly Harry turned to Tom. “What do you want for dinner?”
“That sounds fine,” smiled Tom. “Really, it does.” He smiled at B’Elanna and Harry, trying to calm both of them down. “Can we just eat?”
After coming to an agreeable compromise over the food, another argument started when B’Elanna decided she wanted to listen to popular music of the last century.
“That stuff is crap,” said Harry. “I am not going to listen to ‘Putrescence and the Postmasters’ while I eat.”
“Why not?” demanded B’Elanna. “And it’s not crap, you just don’t appreciate how difficult it is to create a viable fusion of Klingon and human musical theory.”
“Oh, I do,” snapped Harry. “And they failed!”
“Guys, please,” cried Tom. “Stop fighting, you’re making me crazy. Put on some Bajorran devotional music, then. Maybe it will cool you two off.” B’Elanna was usually only this prickly as a result of sexual frustration, and Tom had never seen Harry act like this.
They finished dinner without much more in the way of yelling and screaming. B’Elanna got called away while they were cleaning up, and gleefully left Harry and Tom to it. “Enjoy!” she called out as she skipped out.
“Okay, what’s going on here?” demanded Tom. “You two are acting like basket cases. Are you getting cold feet about the wedding? What?”
Harry just shrugged. “No, we still want to get married.”
“So what’s up?”
Harry sat down on the couch, and Tom joined him. “We had an argument yesterday. B’Elanna thinks I haven’t finished ‘sowing my wild oats.’ She suggested that I to go out and have one last fling.”
Tom stared at his friend. “She said that? Miss Possessive?” Harry nodded. “What, did she have someone specific in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
Tom laughed. “Only B’Elanna. What did you say?” He looked curiously at his friend, a little startled to see Harry gazing intently at him.
“I thought it was a bad idea until she told me who she had in mind. Then she got mad at me for actually wanting to do it.”
“Who-” Tom stopped. “Oh...” Sometimes Harry could be really hard to figure out. This wasn’t one of those times. “Uh...” Tom couldn’t seem to get out more than that. His best friend in the entire galaxy was hitting on him.
“I told her I’d think about it,” said Harry casually.
“Harry, please, don’t do this to me. This isn’t fair!” Tom burst out. “Chakotay and I are just getting started on our relationship,” he frowned at the slight smile on Harry’s face. “And I’m happy with him. I’m happy. Don’t do this to me.”
Harry shrugged. “I haven’t done anything, Tom. I’m still thinking about it.”
Tom stood up. “I’m going back to my quarters. I need some time alone.”
“I understand. See you tomorrow,” said Harry.
Tom almost ran for the door. Halfway to his quarters, he decided to see if Chakotay was home yet. Chakotay’s quarters were dark and empty. The padd was gone, so Tom knew he’d been here. Tom searched for an answering note, but found none. He went to his quarters, and found them empty as well. There was no message there, either.
Tom decided to wait in Chakotay’s quarters, since they’d been planning to meet there anyway. He sat and waited. And waited. Finally, Tom just put on his pajamas and went to sleep, trying to pretend that everything was all right and that he wasn’t going to cry himself to sleep.
Chakotay laughed. “No, really, stop. At least let me put my clothes on,” he chuckled, as Ensign Randal wrapped her long legs around him.
“That would really defeat the purpose, Commander.” She pulled him closer for a hungry kiss. “C’mon, you missed me, admit it.” She ground her velvety, wet body against Chakotay, as he struggled to free himself from her grasp.
“I just wanted to take a shower, Randal. I’m not interested.” Not emotionally, of course, but his body couldn’t help responding to her familiar warmth so close to his, and he was getting painfully hard.
Unscrupulous and determined, the beautiful young warrior shifted, arching her back and impaling herself on Chakotay’s stiffening cock. “Oh,” she moaned. “More, more.”
Almost none of the Maquis had mentioned Chakotay’s relationship with Tom to him, and no one at all had complained about the suspension of Chakotay’s open-door policy, which most crewmembers abused to get into Chakotay’s bed. But Randal, one of Chakotay’s longest running one-night stands, clearly wasn’t going to give up her rights and privileges with the Commander’s body. She used all her best tricks, stroking his favorite places, pulling him in as deeply and tightly as she could. And the setting couldn’t have been better, without actually using the holodeck.
Chakotay was holding her up against the wall, as they made love, under the warm water pounding down over them like summer rain, and her eager cries echoed through the empty stalls.
Tom followed some unmistakable noises to the back of the showers, where the computer had told him Chakotay was. Ensign Randal had her long legs wrapped around Chakotay, who was holding her up against the wall as he plowed into her under the pounding water. Her nails had dug deep furrows into his back, leaving thin red lines across his dark skin. She threw back her head and screamed as she came, leaving Chakotay to brace himself against the wall behind her as she let him bear her full weight. Her head came up slowly, moaning as Chakotay continued to pump into her, and she saw Tom standing quietly in the doorway.
His eyes were dull and quiet with hurt. He didn’t look angry. In fact, he didn’t look as though he were watching at all. Chakotay came, and Tom turned around and walked away.
Tom was mildly surprised that he actually made it back to his room. “Computer, privacy lock, Paris-13.”
A quick trill acknowledged that the computer had run his personal privacy lock, one that neither the commander nor the captain could override. Of course, Harry or B’Elanna could, but they wouldn’t think to try opening his door if the captain couldn’t, would they? Imagining that possible scene made him snicker through the tears pouring down his face.
He didn’t know what to think. He hadn’t prepared himself to be hurt. How could he have forgotten such a basic, simple rule of survival?
He drank a glass of water, only to taste his own tears spilling into the cup. He threw it away, and started to fiddle with the replicator. Something simple, something to help him sleep, since there would be no one to pull him out of the nightmares. “Damn him!” Tom heard himself scream. “All I did was miss one dinner!”
Tom could feel the remnants of his sanity start to fail. Something inside him did snap, and he gave in to his need for destruction and hurled one of the little statuettes that Chakotay had given him at the door. It smashed into about ten pieces, and Tom gasped in horror. That statute was irreplaceable! Crying, he picked up the pieces and set them carefully on the counter. He couldn’t fix it, but at least he could save the pieces.
Tom went to the replicator, and got another glass of water, then a cup of honeyed Acceber lemon tea laced with gluthimide, which he drank slowly.
His comm link beeped. He shut it off without seeing who it was, and then disabled all communications to his room. He couldn’t talk, and would probably fall asleep in about fifteen minutes from the drugs in the tea.
Tom thought darkly about fate. If he’d only come straight home- back to his quarters, rather- Little Tommy would never have found out what a fucking dog the man was. ‘I love you’ yesterday; fucking Ensign Randal today; and tomorrow, well, tomorrow everyone would just get over it.
Tom barely made it to his bed, welcoming the oblivion of the drug, and thanked all the gods and spirits that he wasn’t on duty tomorrow.
i shouldn’t stay long you might be home soon i shouldn’t stay long
Chakotay waited for a few minutes, but Tom’s door wouldn’t open and Tom didn’t reply to his communicator. Chakotay gritted his teeth, and then walked down to Randal’s quarters.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he demanded.
She smiled coyly, but her smile faded at the tightly restrained anger in his voice. She flipped her short dark hair out of her eyes, but didn’t say anything. Finally, Kellen, her roommate, piped up, “Didn’t you see Paris leaving the gym? He left right before you did.”
Chakotay spun on his heels and walked out without another word.
He wandered down to the Mess Hall, trying to find someone to talk to. It was late, and the Mess Hall was almost entirely empty. No one he knew well enough to sit with or bare his soul to.
Janeway was still down in Hydroponics with some random crewman that she had taken a liking to. They were working on a new breed of rose together. Chakotay sat down at an empty table, and ignored Neelix.
Harry and B’Elanna walked in. Their shift must have just ended. B’Elanna waved to Chakotay, and he smiled wryly back at her. She walked up to him, trailed reluctantly by Harry.
“Hey, Commander. Are you okay?”
Chakotay shook his head. “I need someone to talk to.” He was surprised and frightened by how desperate his voice sounded.
B’Elanna sat down opposite him, and Harry pulled up a chair. “I’m all ears. So talk. What’s wrong?”
Chakotay just stared off into the distance without answering for a moment.
“I bet you did something really stupid,” guessed Harry. Chakotay didn’t reply, but he dropped his eyes to the table. “You know, Tom worships the ground you walk on, no matter what I say. So there must be something to you that I’m just not seeing.”
“Harry, I don’t think you’re helping.”
“It just got a little out of hand,” Chakotay explained lamely. “Ensign Randal and I were wrestling in the showers, and one thing led to another...” his voice trailed off at the expression on Harry’s face: disgust. Contempt. But the worst part was the utter lack of surprise. “And Tom saw us.”
“You know,” said Harry thoughtfully, “you might want to get a few of your Maquis crewmen to hold Tom down the next time you plan to rip his heart out. It might hurt less that way.”
B’Elanna stared, speechless, at Harry. Chakotay sighed. “I guess I deserved that.”
Harry stood up. “You’re right, B’El. I’m not helping here. Why don’t you talk to him, and I’ll go see if Tom’s okay.” He stalked out of the Mess Hall.
B’Elanna watched him leave, and Chakotay continued to examine the table until Harry left.
“What were you thinking?” she finally blurted out. “I expected you and Tom to move in together, but instead you’re fucking around with Randal? Why?”
“I’m not perfect, B’Elanna. I have a long past, and a lot of bad habits when it comes to sex.”
“I thought you and Tom might be starting a relationship, not just having sex,” said B’Elanna warily.
Chakotay dropped his head to the table and covered his head with his arms. “I wanted to, B’Elanna, I really did. He must be so hurt. He’s never going to speak to me again, and it’s all my fault.”
“Oh, I don’t know, it sounds like Randal could use a good talking to,” B’Elanna snarled. Everyone knows that you and Tom have been spending a lot of time together lately. Why did she even touch you?”
Chakotay shrugged. “Because I’m irresistible? Because she wanted to break us up? It doesn’t really matter, B’Elanna. I’m the one who fucked up.” Chakotay looked up. His eyes were dark with defeat. “I just want a chance to apologize, and then I guess I’ll leave him alone.”
Horror filled B’Elanna’s beautiful face. “That’s it? You’re just going to give up on Tom?” A gentle nod of Chakotay’s head confirmed her fears. “But- you can’t! That’s not fair! You two were so happy!” she wailed. Chakotay stared at her. B’Elanna looked like she was going to cry. She stood up quickly. “It’s not fair. It’s not!” and then she turned and ran away.
Chakotay banged his head into the table a few times. Nothing made sense anymore. Not his feelings for Tom, not his friendship with B’Elanna, and his relationship with his former crew - well, that was also going poorly.
Right now, all he wanted was to be able to talk to Tom again, to apologize, maybe explain, and if he was really lucky, maybe they could still be sort-of friends. Chakotay eased out of the booth and slowly walked back to his quarters.
“Hey, Commander,” a few members of the crew called out as he walked by. Chakotay only barely acknowledged them, not caring if his behavior caused any comment. He went right to his quarters, and lay down on his bed, feeling the emptiness for the first time. He stared at the ceiling unmoving until he fell asleep.
Harry walked down to Tom’s quarters. He looked calm, but inside he was seething. His anger showed only in his dark eyes. The door didn’t give him any trouble, which was just as well. Harry was much better than Tom with the security systems.
“Who is it?” Tom whispered. He was almost asleep.
“It’s me.” Harry walked into Tom’s bedroom. It was as dark in Tom’s quarters as he ever let it get, and there was just enough light for Harry to navigate through the room. “Mind if I sit down?” Tom shifted enough to let Harry sit down on the edge of the bed next to him.
“I guess you saw Chakotay.” Harry nodded. “I’m okay, really,” said Tom softly. His voice was distant, as if Tom weren’t all there. “A little disappointed, of course, but-” Tom choked back a sob. “I don’t know why I thought it would work.”
Harry reached out to touch Tom’s shoulder. “I-” he started again. “Maybe you could talk to him.”
Tom shook his head. “What would I say? ‘I’m sorry I’m not enough for you?’ I’m not that desperate.” Tom started to break down. “I’m just not good enough, Harry.”
“Tom, don’t say that.” Tom started to cry. “Tom, you deserve better. Let it go.”
Tom was really crying now, wild racking sobs that were heartbreaking to hear. “I don’t want better! I want Chakotay!”
Harry leaned over, and finally lay down next to Tom, so that he could hold him, pulling Tom close, and stroking his back and his soft blonde hair. Harry wondered again what it would be like to be Tom’s lover. Would I have the strength to keep him? Could I make him happy? Harry swallowed hard at his thoughts. B’Elanna would have quite a few things to say about that if she knew. In another world, maybe they could all live together and be happy. But clearly not in this one, he thought with a cynical chuckle. “It’ll be okay, Tom. I’m here for you. B’Elanna’s here for you. It’ll be okay.” Harry stayed with Tom until he was sure Tom was asleep, and then he slipped out quietly and returned to his quarters to see how B’Elanna had fared with the Commander.
“Breathe, Tom, that’s it,” said the Doctor calmly.
Tom gasped for breath, trying to get enough air to communicate. He could feel his heart racing, and all of his muscles felt tight and uncomfortable. He must have overdosed.
“Is he going to be all right?” That was Harry’s voice, and now Tom could feel B’Elanna’s hand holding his so tightly it hurt.
“Glutethimide,” he managed to whisper. It would help if the Doctor knew exactly how he had fucked himself up, wouldn’t it?
“Ah,” said the Doctor. “Do you remember how much?”
Tom tried to answer, but his heart began pounding in his chest, and he couldn’t remember how to breathe. He blacked out.
“It’s a good thing you went back to check on him,” observed the Doctor as he administered a hypospray to Tom.
“I never should have left him,” growled Harry. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’ll be fine, once I get this cardiac dysrhythmia under control. I’ll keep him here overnight, but he won’t suffer any permanent damage.” The Doctor looked down at his unconscious patient. “There. He’s sleeping normally now.”
“Can we stay?” asked B’Elanna. She looked lost.
The Doctor looked at her and Harry. They had almost lost their best friend. “For a little while, but you two should get some rest yourselves.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Tom woke up to find the Doctor gazing down benevolently at him. “How are you feeling?”
“Like something really big just stepped on me,” Tom groaned. “Are Harry and B’Elanna still here?”
“I sent them home. Do you remember, offhand, how much glutethimide you took?”
“You think I was trying to kill myself.” Tom’s voice was soft and curious.
“The idea had crossed my mind. You had a panic attack, and your central nervous system started to shutdown under the influence of the drug.” The Doctor scanned Tom while he talked. “The Captain has asked me to assess your fitness to remain on active duty. My major concern is whether I will prompt a genuine suicide attempt by asking you about it.”
“And miss out on all the fun?” Tom laughed sarcastically. “Not me, Doc. Besides, we still have eighty-two chapters of ‘Days of Our House’ to get through.”
The Doctor smiled. “That’s good.”
“Aren’t you going to say anything about me taking that stuff in the first place?” asked Tom.
“The likelihood was quite great that you would backslide, eighty-eight percent, if I remember correctly, given that you have no counseling available. Would you like to talk about it? Perhaps we can reduce the chance of a repeat occurrence.”
Tom smiled. “I’ll try.”
The Doctor nodded. That was a good sign, and the odds had been against it.
The next few weeks gave ‘tension’ all new meaning onboard Voyager. As usual, the Maquis aligned themselves behind Chakotay; first because he was their Captain, and the Captain is always right; and second, because the other party was Tom Paris, scum of the universe. On the other hand, performance statistics all over the ship reached an all-time high.
Finally, a system with culture and people willing to trade appeared to distract them...somewhat.
“Get in here,” snarled Janeway. Chakotay sighed and followed Janeway into her ready room.
“Yes, Captain?”
She brandished the duty rosters at him as if they were dangerous contraband. “What the hell is this?”
“If you disagree with my duty assignments,” Chakotay began, but she cut him off.
“Stow it, Commander. Just tell me, how long did it take to arrange the rotations so that you and Paris would never be on the planet together?”
Chakotay choked down his first answer, and stared calmly at the wall behind her head.
“Fine. Be that way. I hope you realize what you’re giving up, Commander.”
Chakotay opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I take it the duty rosters are acceptable, Captain?”
Janeway nodded brusquely. “They’re fine.”
“Then I’ll post them immediately, so we can begin negotiations with the Kasiar for the supplies we need.”
“Dismissed.”
Chakotay let himself leave, and took a deep breath once he was finally out of her hearing. The bridge crew did their best to pretend he was acting normally. Like anyone on board Voyager was acting normally, thought Chakotay ruefully. He had wrapped himself in an aura of uncaring calm, refusing all offers of sexual favors or any other kind of company. He had also stopped his open door policy, promising to reinstate it when he felt ‘competent to offer advice again,’ as he put it. The only person he wanted to talk to had reverted to the earlier Paris, irritating and untouchable, but without the fights and the cheap sex. Like Chakotay, Tom had apparently become celibate.
Chakotay returned to his room, and posted the duty rosters from there. The Kasiar had promised to trade with Voyager for food and materials the ship desperately needed. They had approved of Janeway, although they regarded everything on board as Janeway’s personal property, which Chakotay found particularly disturbing.
He and Janeway would be meeting with two of the Kasiar princes tomorrow, while the rest of the away team started preparing the supplies for transport back to the ship. They would have to use shuttlecraft, since the upper atmosphere of the main planet was so tightly ionzed that the transporters scrambled irretrievably.
The only thing that worried Chakotay about the upcoming meeting was the political undercurrents of a possible civil war that Retfian, one of the princes, had warned them about. Tuvok would make sure that all of the away teams were aware of the possible danger. They were prepared for the worst.
The next day, Chakotay began to suspect he’d been worried for nothing. Retfian and Gaikaidoj were the perfect hosts, and the trade negotiations had gone wonderfully. Apparently, the civil war had taken place overnight and was already over. Still, Chakotay insisted on tight security, and Janeway agreed. They returned from the meeting, and watched the first away teams go down to start trading.
“Nervous?” the Captain asked.
Chakotay shrugged. “It just seems too easy.”
Janeway smiled. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the pilot of that shuttlecraft, would it? I mean, you aren’t worried about him, are you?”
“Why are you riding me about this? Why are you acting like there’s something else I could have done?”
Janeway pursed her lips and continued watching the viewscreen silently.
With an irritated growl, Chakotay turned and walked away.
Tom found the main planet of Kasiar, Tetelan, strangely beautiful. It had a warm, temperate climate, with lots of vegetation. He liked the air here. It reminded him of home, in a comforting way.
It was the third day of trading, and he was sitting idly at the end of a stairway leading down to the huge underground market, waiting for his team to start bringing supplies up to be loaded onto the shuttle. Almost none of the Kasirians ever came this way, so Tom was more than a little surprised to see a definite military unit approaching from the surface.
They were armed, but didn’t have their weapons powered. Tom stood up. His communicator beeped suddenly. “Has anyone seen Ensign Dunne?” That was the panic code, the code to get your supplies and get the hell out.
But if Tom obeyed the order, his team would be trapped. The Kasirians readied their weapons. Tom swallowed once, and then ran down the stairs, tapping into the remote controls, sending the shuttle out of range of their ground weapons. Now all he had to do was find his team.
“Away Team Beta, where are you? This is Paris, please respond.”
“Fuck, Paris, fuck! Where are you? Where’s the shuttle? We’ve got to get out of here!” screamed Ensign Cruz.
“Tell me where you are. I’ll get the shuttle to you. What’s going on?” asked Tom conversationally. He could hear shooting and screaming. He was running though an almost abandoned section of the market, trying to home in on Cruz and the others with the remote sensors. He could hear people following him, but they hadn’t caught up with him yet.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but Voyager opened fire on something and now all these friggin’ aliens are out to get anybody in a Starfleet uniform. Oh thank god, there’s the shuttle.” His pursuers were closing in, but they hadn’t opened fire yet.
“I’ve got you,” said Tom confidently. “I’m setting her down now.” He landed the shuttle. Then he took a deep breath, and dropped the remote control system to the ground. “She’s all yours, Cruz.” He brought his foot down hard on the sensitive equipment.
“What?” Confusion was evident in the other’s voice. “Good lords - Paris, where the hell are you? Paris?”
Next Episode: Taking Paris