Chapter Text
“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns…driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” (Homer, The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles)
The New Zealand sun was warm on my neck as I made my way along the path the guard had indicated. A gentle breeze rustled the trees and danced through the tall grass on either side of me, and the sky was clear and blue overhead, not a cloud in sight. I paused my walk, closed my eyes, and lifted my face to the midday sun, enjoying its warmth on my skin, knowing it would be the last time I would feel the sun on my face for weeks. Once I left the penal colony, I’d go back to San Francisco for a few days to make final preparations for my mission before leaving for DS9 and the Badlands. It was March, and while March in New Zealand meant crisp, sunny days that had not yet lost their warmth to the impending winter, March in San Francisco was marked by rain and fog so thick you could lose yourself in it. The mission would take a few weeks, and though I truly enjoyed life on a starship, there were somethings I always missed while off planet: the feel of the sun on my skin, the touch of rain drops on my face, even the cold blanket of mist that was so constant at home.
Mark had been worried that I would miss the exploration of it all when I told him that Voyager was not a science vessel. He had asked me, more than once, if I would be happy, never straying more than six months from the known. In my twenties, I know that I would not have been. But as I prepared to say goodbye to my thirties, I knew that the part of my life spent living on a starship for years at a time, searching the dark corners of the galaxy for answers to questions yet unasked, was over.
A choir of birds in the tall trees sang alongside the sounds of machinery coming from the worksite up ahead. This place was so peaceful, one could almost forget it was a criminal rehabilitation center. I opened my eyes and resumed my course towards the worksite, gravel crunching under my boots as I went.
I recognized the man I had come to see almost immediately. The station he was working at was sunk into the hillside so I was above him when I stepped off the the path and over to where he was working. He was concentrating on the console he was repairing and didn’t see me approach.
“Tom Paris?” I asked, knowing exactly who I was talking to.
He looked up, his eyes traveling the length of my body as he stood, a salacious grin spreading across his face.
My hands went to my hips and I mentally rolled my eyes. “Kathryn Janeway,” I introduced myself. Though I was in uniform, I didn’t include my rank. As the son of a Starfleet admiral, Tom Paris could count pips. “I wonder if we might go somewhere and talk.”
“About what?” He leaned nonchalantly against the console, interest clear in his expression, but not for the work. I didn’t take it to heart: Tom Paris flirted with every woman he met.
Tom Paris was in his mid-twenties with blue eyes and wavy blond hair which was tamed only by a cowlick which forced it across his forehead. He was an attractive young man who was aware of his good looks and used them to his advantage, and not just to divest young, female cadets of their clothing and virginity. I knew because there were no secrets for legacy cadets, and Tom Paris’ promiscuity was well-known. So, too, was his father’s embarrassment. As the child of a Starfleet admiral myself, I knew well the pressures of inborn expectations, and the public scrutiny that came with a parent in the brass. But where I’d been inspired by that pressure, Tom Paris had rebelled against it, and never more so than after the accident.
“About a job we’d like you to do for us,” I said sternly.
“I’m already doing a job.” Somehow he’d managed to make even that sound suggestive. “For the Federation,” he appended.
“And very well, I’m told. The rehab commission has given me permission to discuss this matter with you.”
“Well then, I guess I’m yours,” he said. This time I did roll my eyes at his licentiousness, but he didn’t see it as he climbed out of his station.
Without waiting for him, I turned and started back down the path knowing he would follow. When he fell into step beside me, I said, “I served with your father on the Al-Batani.”
“You must be good,” Paris replied. “My father only accepts the best and the brightest.”
I smiled because it was true. About me, and his father. It wasn’t arrogance, but the fact that Owen Paris did indeed only accept the best, and he had fought for me.
“He taught me a great deal. I was a science officer during the Arias expedition.”
“You didn’t come here to talk about my father.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him directly. “No. I’m leaving on a mission to find a Maquis ship that disappeared in the Badlands a week ago.”
He scoffed. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Oh really?”
“I’ve never seen a Federation starship that could maneuver through the plasma storms,” he explained.
“You’ve never seen Voyager,” I said, a note of pride in my voice. “We’d like you to come along.”
He didn’t miss my meaning. “You’d like me to lead you to my former colleagues.”
I inclined my head to indicate the affirmative, but didn’t respond further.
The Maquis were a group of rebels who, depending on who you asked, were either terrorists or freedom fighters unhappy with the Federation treaty with the Cardassians which had ceded several border planets to the Cardassian Union. When the treaty was signed, the Federation had dispatched ships to relocate the citizens living on the ceded border worlds, but many would not leave.
Then the Cardassians came to claim, by force, that which they had been given.
The Maquis claimed that the Federation had abandoned its people and that they, the Maquis, were protecting their homes and their families. For this, they wanted to secede from the Federation.
So on the one hand, the Federation was threatened with an ever more emboldened Cardassian military, and on the other, it’s own citizens upending a hard won peace. To allow secession in the name of their own treaty would have set a terrible precedent for the Federation and sent a dangerous message to the Cardassian Union. So, the Federation condemned the Maquis as traitors and sided with the Cardassians.
I knew that it wouldn’t last much longer. The Maquis, while brave and utterly convinced of their own righteousness, were too small a force to win a war waged on two fronts.
“I don’t know how much help I can be,” continued Paris. “I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured. I don’t know where most of their hiding places are.”
“You know the area better than anyone we’ve got.”
“Why go after them at all? What’s so important about this particular Maquis ship?” he asked.
I resumed walking and he followed. “My chief of security was on board, undercover. He was supposed to report in twice during the last six days. He didn’t.”
“Maybe it’s just your chief of security who’s gone missing?”
“Maybe,” I said, though I didn’t believe that was the case. “That ship was under the command of another former Starfleet officer, a man named Chakotay. I understand you knew him.”
His face twisted in disgust at the mention of Chakotay. “That’s right.”
“The two of you didn’t get along too well, I’m told.” It was an understatement. I knew that Tom’s brief stint in the Maquis began and ended under Chakotay’s command, and that the entirety of it had been tumultuous, namely because Chakotay hadn’t wanted him to join.
“Chakotay will tell you that he left Starfleet on principle, to defend his home colony from the Cardassians. I, on the other hand, was forced to resign. He considered me a mercenary, willing to fight for anyone who’d pay my bar bills.” He stepped in front of me, forcing me to stop. For the first time, Paris’s tone was completely serious when he continued, “The trouble is, he was right.”
He looked pensive for a moment before he said, “I have no problem leading you to my friends in the Maquis. All I need to know is, what’s in it for me?”
I had known that Mr. Paris’s help would come at a price, and for a shot at capturing Chakotay and his crew, Starfleet was willing to pay, up to a point. Mr. Paris had been given a second chance when he had been kicked out of Starfleet. In a civilian court, he would have ended up with a lot more than a dishonorable discharge after covering up what could have been construed manslaughter, even if it had been involuntary. He’d squandered that second chance by joining the Maquis. He’d have to work for his third. “You help us, we help you at your next outmate review.”
He shook his head. “Parole.”
“I can try.” It was all I could promise. “But it will depend.”
“On?”
“You, Mr. Paris,” I said firmly. “Officially, you’ll be a Starfleet observer on the mission.”
“Observer!” he balked. “Oh, hell, I’m the best pilot you could have.” I knew from his record that it wasn’t an exaggeration. It was part of the reason I wanted him.
“You’ll be an observer,” I said sternly. “When it’s over, you’re cut loose.”
“Story of my life,” he replied. It was the way he said it that finally began to change my perceptions of Tom Paris. I got the feeling that underneath all that bravado and rakish charm was a man who longed to show a side of himself that no one had seen, but also never allowed him to show.
I told him to be expecting his general orders before the end of the day and made my way back to the Administration building to check out.