Author's Note: A follow-up to "Convergence" and perhaps more entrenched in my personal head canon than most of my other pieces, hopefully this can still be enjoyed on its own as well. This is the result of a plot bunny gifted to me by Photogirl1890 and was started sometime last winter - it may have the worst time spent to word count ratio in the history of fanfiction, but here it is – finally.

My endless gratitude to Photogirl for everything from the initial idea through hand-holding and patience over the months that this was ever-so-slowly-and-painfully in progress to the final beta and proof reading. Also, many thanks to Sareki for lending a much needed fresh set of eyes at the end.

I own nothing but borrow greedily and, again, must beg forgiveness of Jeri Taylor for both borrowing from and overwriting her pre-Voyager novel Pathways.

No Good Deed

I.

Stardate 47452: Planetoid designation Alpha 441, the Badlands...

"Where the hell did it come from?"

Proximity warnings lit up the console before them as the monitor showed the steadily approaching blip of a Cardassian energy signature. An alarm wailed from somewhere behind and overhead.

"Through one of the plasma storms, I guess."

"It came intact through a plasma storm?"

"Look, it wasn't there a minute ago, I swear."

"Well, it's certainly there now. What sort of armament are we reading?"

No response.

"Ries?"

The younger man swallowed hard. "I'm reading a thousand kilos each of matter and antimatter, plus disruptors and torpedoes of some sort."

"Mierda... Do we have shields?"

"The base shields are up, but they aren't going to do shit against that sort of armament."

"Do we have any ships nearby?"
"The Val Jean is the closest, but it's a couple hours away at least."

"And this...thing's...ETA?"

Silence.

"Ries?"

"Two minutes."

Bloody, fucking hell...

In the background, the alarm continued to sound.

"Shut that thing up."

Ries complied and their attention fixated on those steady, eerie pings from the main monitor.

"Time?"

"Thirty seconds."

Thirty seconds. His eyes were still on the monitor but his thoughts fled a dozen light years away to a resettled homestead and a promise to return...a promise he had always intended to keep...

"Ten seconds."

Eyes closed and a prayer learned in childhood and since assumed forgotten passed across his lips.

"Three, two, one..."

And nothing.

His eyes opened.

"Ries?"

"It didn't detonate."

"What?"

"It skipped off the atmosphere without detonating." Ries's fingers moved over the board. "It's entered into a stable orbit."

Slowly, he let out a long breath, feeling only then the sweat that was soaking through his clothing. "Call in the Val Jean," he ordered. "I think Chakotay is going to want to have that engineer of his take a look at this one."

.

.

A few weeks prior...

"You're telling me that I have Tom fucking Paris in my brig?"

Seeing his first officer flinch, Daniels regretted his slip into profanity, but, in the name of all that had ever been holy, why him?

"That's what the records show, yes, sir," was his XO's careful response, his confusion clear. Which was understandable: why would he know after all? Yent was a Napean and, as such, removed from Starfleet politics which were largely human driven; added to that, the commander had come up through the ranks on a science track and, thus, might well be unfamiliar with the more laudable exploits of the former Academy Golden Boy.

"You have no idea who he is, do you?"

With more confusion, Yent glanced down at the PADD in his hand. "Thomas Eugene Paris, former Starfleet Lieutenant, junior grade. Resigned on Stardate 45790..."

"Does the name Admiral Owen Paris mean anything to you, Commander?" Daniels interrupted.

Yent blinked with sudden, albeit partial, comprehension. "Admiral Paris. Yes, sir. And the former Lieutenant Paris is...?"

"His son," Daniels clarified, standing now and moving to the viewport, a hand coming up to rub his jaw. "And the one time presumed next-in-line-to-become-Captain-and-then-Admiral-Paris." He turned then to look back at Yent with some amusement. "Also one of the best pilots ever to come up through the Academy. He still holds just about every single pilot record there. Too bad we can't tell that to poor Pierce and let her off the hook for that chase he led us on."

Which, incidentally, only confirmed Daniels's suspicion that the only reason they had found the scout ship in the first place was that its pilot wanted to be found. And that the purpose of that chase had been to draw the Trieste away from some bigger prize.

Damn Tom Paris anyway.

Yent, in the meantime, was considering this new information. "Why would someone with such a promising career resign his commission?" Napeans might not be up on human politics and gossip, but that didn't mean that they didn't understand career ambition.

Any remaining trace of amusement faded as Daniels answered, "Lieutenant Paris was forced to resign after an incident in which three Starfleet officers lost their lives." That was all the captain knew of the circumstances and, frankly, all that he had any interest in knowing. Unfortunately, with the younger Paris now sitting in the Trieste's brig, it was unlikely that he would get off that easily.

Yent glanced down at his PADD again, clearly with some consternation that it offered so few of these details. Again, carefully, he offered, "As Mr. Paris is no longer a member of Starfleet, jurisdiction of his case would seem to belong to the Federation."

Daniels's eyes and part of his attention was back on the view in front of him. A view of the swirling plasma storms of the Badlands. Hidden in those Badlands was a growing movement of dissidents that Starfleet and the Federation – clinging as they were to the hope of the viability of the Cardassian treaty – were stubbornly ignoring, despite the numerous reports sent back by Daniels and other ships' captains in the sector.

Now Daniels appeared to have one of those dissidents in his custody. And, not just any one, but the already once disgraced son of a Starfleet admiral.

Somehow he suspected that was going to be much harder for both Starfleet and the Federation to ignore.

The captain sighed heavily, rubbing now at the back of his neck and grimacing at the tension that had already taken up residence there. Yent was likely right that this was a Federation matter, but the implications felt beyond a captain's pay grade – and sometimes it was useful to be part of a hierarchy.

"I'd like to contact Starfleet Command before alerting the Federation regional office. It was a Starfleet scout ship he was in after all, even if a long ago decommissioned one." Slim grounds, he knew, but he'd take what he could get.

He moved back to his desk and held out his hand for the PADD which Yent passed over.

"Yes, sir," the Napean replied, mostly, Daniels suspected, glad that the decision was not his to make. Yent was a competent first officer and excelled in the numerous logistical duties that his post entailed, but Daniels doubted that he would ever be ready to move further up the chain of command.

"Thank you, Commander," the captain said by way of a dismissal; Yent nodded and headed for the door. As an afterthought, Daniels added, "And Commander?" Yent turned. "Perhaps let's limit who has contact with Mr. Paris until we find out what we are to do with him. No need to jump start the rumor mill."

"Yes, sir," the commander repeated, his expression set grimly, and then exited the ready room.

Sitting down at the desk, Daniels keyed on his console before looking back down at the information on the PADD in front of him.

Tom Paris. Bloody hell.