TITLE: The Last Flight
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
FEEDBACK TO: [email protected]
SERIES: ST: VOY
PART: 1/2
CODES: AU, C, P, T
ARCHIVE: Just ask!
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the characters and situations, but they probably didn't anticipate this particular use of same.
SUMMARY: In an alternate universe in which Tom Paris remained with the Maquis and the events of "Caretaker" never happened, Chakotay and Paris resort to a desperate strategy to save their ship from the Jem'Hadar.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Acknowledgments will follow Part 2.
The Last Flight
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.
-- 2 Timothy 4:7
The Maquis raider, christened in prouder days as Crazy Horse 2, twisted madly through the asteroid field in a desperate attempt to put some distance between itself and the huge, relentless ship that pursued it.
Ayala swore as a burst of sparks forced him to pull back from his panel momentarily, going back to work the minute the last bright pinpoint died. "Lateral stabilizers failing," he warned, hands working frantically over the engineering board. Everyone knew that, below in Engineering, B'Elanna Torres would be laboring as urgently, but probably no more successfully; Crazy Horse 2 was just too badly damaged.
Once upon a time, the little ship's captain, Chakotay, had scorned a Cardassian demand that he surrender the original Crazy Horse. Now, with a failing ship and a burden of civilian refugees aboard, he might have yielded to such an order. But everyone knew it would never be forthcoming: the Cardassians' new allies, the Jem'Hadar, had no interest in Maquis prisoners, only Maquis dead. So no matter how hopeless its flight, the little ship had to keep going. Still --
"We can't keep this up much longer, Chakotay." Acrid smoke hung thick in the air, tearing his eyes and roughening his voice, but Paris kept the words calm, kept them statements of fact. There was incipient panic gibbering at the edges of his consciousness; if he let himself hear it -- The swift sure movements of his own hands sent the tiny Maquis raider through a series of aerobatics that threatened to yank the overtaxed stabilizers off-line completely. //No choice no choice no choice....//The pilot's heart thumped painfully, but he had no time to feel it or thought to acknowledge it. //Fly or die, Tommy boy, fly or die....//
"I know it, Tom," Chakotay said sharply from behind the weapons console. The position was solely so that he could see what was going on and, hopefully, devise tactical counters; since of course the weapons could not be fired while they were running in their current mode. Anyway, everyone knew that nothing short of everything they had would be enough to damage the Jem'Hadar. If even that..."Dalby," the captain snapped, "did you get that photon torpedo down to the cargo bay like I asked?"
Dalby's voice came back tinnily through the communications system, crackling with static. "Got it, Chief. What the hell is this about?" Tom had wondered as much when he first heard the order, but it wasn't as if he'd had time to think about it.
"You'll find out. Now get out of the bay and seal it off."
"My ass is *so* outta here."
Paris dismissed the exchange from his mind, concentrating on weaving through a particularly heavy swarm of asteroids. "Tom!" Chakotay barked suddenly. "That big one at three o'clock!"
"I can evade it, Chakotay," Paris said calmly.
"No! Take us around her and down."
"What?" No time for astonishment either, but it was such a strange order he needed clarification. Something crackled and sparked in the pilot's peripheral vision, but he ignored that; it wasn't anything he could do anything about.
"Get us on the other side of her, and land while we're out of their sensor range. Try to find us a spot with some geological cover." With a grunt of acknowledgement, Tom sheered off in another quick turn. "Tabor," Chakotay continued, "when I give the word, vent the cargo hold."
"*What!*" the young Bajoran cried. "Are you kidding? Our supplies are in there! And what about the bod --"
"Don't argue!" The words had the snap of command. "Vent it! Now!" With another sound of shocked protest, the other man complied. "Detonating photon torpedo..." the captain muttered, and a bright flash of light exploded somewhere in the periphery of the viewscreen, amidst the scattered debris.
//He's got a plan,// Tom realized, some small imperceptible fragment of his mind relaxing despite the tension of their situation. If Chakotay knew what he was doing, they might yet get out of this madness with their lives. Not with their freedom, but then, they had already agreed to that....
"Ayala, the minute we touch down, shut down everything but weapons."
"What about the cloak? And life --"
"*Everything but weapons,* dammit!" Chakotay snarled. "I don't have time for arguments!"
"Yessir!"
Paris heard the debate with half an ear, as he concentrated on his own task. Let's see....moving, rotating landing surface, ship with a sluggish sense of horizontal plane, the added imperatives of staying out of their pursuers' sensor range and finding some sort of natural cover -- some pilots would have said it was an impossible landing.
Some pilots weren't gambling their lives -- and the lives of all their comrades, and the lives of dozens of innocents -- on it.
Paris set Crazy Horse 2 down as neatly as if he were bringing an overstabilized training vessel down onto a flat landing strip under a cloudless, breezeless sky on a moderate-gravity world. When the vessel stopped, red emergency lights flared into gory brightness as Ayala obeyed his captain's imperative and shut down systems. "Torres!" Chakotay said sharply into a hand communicator, "I need you up here!" She made a noise that sounded like protest, but he overrode her with the force of full command mode. "*Now!*"
Paris leaned on his console, one hand unconsciously rubbing a bruise on his cheek as he looked up at his Maquis captain. Like most of the rest of the crew, like Paris himself, Chakotay was filthy, battered, bruised, his dark beard matted and his thick black hair gone wild. //How have the mighty fallen,// Paris thought, and there was no amusement in it.
Hard to believe that, just months ago, the older man had been clean, neatly barbered, closely-shaven, composed and calm -- as hard as it was to believe that, no further back than that, the Maquis had been riding the crest of victory over the Cardassians. The Cardassians had lost so many of their elite ships in their ill-considered attack on the Founders (ironically, the masters of the same Jem'Hadar who now aided the damnable lizards) that they'd been forced to withdraw military support to their outposts in the Demilitarized Zone. The Cardies left in the DMZ were reduced to fighting with no more than was at hand, and at that, harsh experience had long since made the Maquis masters. From simply hoping to make the Cardassians pay for the occupation of their worlds in the DMZ, the Maquis had dared to dream of actual victory, of freedom from the Cardies, of an independent government --
Paris snorted, remembering. //So much for dreams.// "So what's the plan, Chakotay?" he asked aloud, with a deliberate, almost insolent, calmness.
"Going to get awful cold in here in a few minutes," Tabor muttered.
"That's part of the plan," Chakotay said grimly. "The closer the hull temperature gets to the asteroid's surface temperature, the harder we'll be to spot on a sensor sweep."
"Yeah, and the closer the hull temperature gets to the asteroid's surface temperature, the closer we get to the asteroid's surface temperature," the young Bajoran growled. Like all of them these days, he was far too thin, his cheekbones pushing out prominently under his skin. "That's pretty damn cold."
"I'm sure the Jem'Hadar would be happy to warm things up for you, Tabor," Chakotay retorted. "Go ahead, turn up the heat and help them." Tabor subsided with an angry growl.
"Won't they know where we went down, Chakotay?" Ayala asked; not a challenge, simply a question.
"If we're very lucky, maybe they'll think we did go down," the captain answered, more calmly than before. "Maybe they'll just assume we finally exceeded the limits of Tom's skill --" Paris smiled ironically at that -- "and cracked up on one of these asteroids."
"No debris," Ayala noted. Then it hit him. "The supplies. Right."
"And the bodies," the captain noted drily.
"You don't really think they'll fall for that?" Paris asked skeptically.
"No." Chakotay's voice was cool. "I don't. The best I'm hoping for from that is a few minutes of confusion. And that's probably optimistic."
"Probably," Tom agreed. "So the Jem'Hadar will realize we've got to be hiding out on one of these asteroids. Then, if they're running true to form -- and they're nothing if not predictable -- they'll just start blowing up every asteroid in the vicinity 'til they hit the right one. Then a few more for good measure."
"Probably," the captain agreed grimly.
"So are you going to tell us what the plan is *now*, or are we just going to hang out here playing Twenty Questions until we go boom?"
Not responding to the levity in Tom's words, the captain answered flatly, "We'll blow them up first."
Torres picked that moment to storm into the command center, grimy, tattered, and moving like a hurricane. //Nothing slows her down,// Tom thought admiringly. "Chakotay, dammit," she raged, "this is *not* a good time to hold a conference! I've got warp off-line and impulse dragging, the lateral stabilizers are shot, the verticals are at less than forty percent, life support is --"
The captain's big hands seized her shoulders and yanked her to a stop, as he shoved his face to within inches of hers. "Shut up, B'Elanna. Now."
Startled, she stared at him.
"That's better. Now, I want you to put Dalby on repairs in Main Engineering. I have another job for you."
"What?" she flared, yanking away from his hands and glaring up at him in patent disbelief. "Chakotay, weren't you listening to me? I have to get back down there now or --"
"Go back down there now and we'll die no matter what you do," he hissed. "Unless there's something you can do to swat those bastards on our tail. Is there?"
She glared at him. "I suppose *you* have an idea?"
"Yeah. I do."
"What?" she snarled.
"First off, I need you to disconnect the cloak." The Klingon cloaking device, one of a dozen the Maquis had, in their more secure days, bought from that alien government, had been hastily installed just before they'd left Athos IV, site of the last surviving (and now, no longer surviving) Maquis base in the Badlands. Its effectiveness against the Jem'Hadar was less than satisfying, though; if the Jem'Hadar aimed their anti-proton beams right, cloaked ships showed up as if a flashlight were being shone on them. "Then I need you to install it on the shuttle." At her frown, he added quietly, "I know they'll spot it, B'Elanna. I want them to. As Tom pointed out, if they don't spot anything, they'll just blast everything until they get us. That won't do us any good.
"But as long as the cloak is up, it'll be harder for them to determine what they've spotted. So they come after the shuttle, but it plays cat-and-mouse with them. With the asteroid field for cover, it keeps the Jem'Hadar from getting a clear shot until it leads them over this asteroid --"
"And brings the Jem'Hadar ship in right over our heads," Paris concluded, whistling. "And our guns."
"And we hit it with everything we have," Chakotay agreed.
"What if we don't have enough?" Tabor protested.
Chakotay fixed him with a glare. "Then we die, Tabor, the same as we will if we sit here and do nothing. Go on, B'Elanna, get the shuttle ready. Tom, you're more familiar with the shuttle than anyone. You help her."
"Sure thing, Chakotay." Paris got to his feet. "Just one question: who's going to fly it?"
"Why does anybody have to fly it?" Tabor protested. It was too easy for Paris to guess the reason behind the objection; Tabor was a competent pilot, though not in the same league as the ship's aces. "Why can't we run it on remotes?"
"Not enough fine control," Chakotay said. "The flying will be tricky enough even on the spot."
"Besides," and Paris looked at the young man balefully as he said it, "what happens when the Jem'Hadar trace the transmissions?" He returned his gaze to Chakotay, a terrible certainty taking root in his gut even as he repeated his earlier question. "So who's flying it, Chakotay?"
Chakotay's dark eyes went from Torres to Paris, then back again. "I am," he said abruptly, and moved as if to turn away.
"What?" Torres exploded. "Chakotay, you can't --"
But Paris cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand. Locking gazes with Chakotay, he expelled one word, forcefully. "Why?"
"*God damn you!*" Chakotay blazed, drawing himself up to his full height, more fierce and terrible than any painted warrior of his ancient people could ever have looked. "You're going to stand here and argue with me while the Jem'Hadar pulverize every rock in this asteroid belt until they blow us into atoms! Do as I tell you! Get the hell down to the shuttle bay! *Now!*"
The fire in his eyes looked less like inspiration now, more like madness. But arguing with him would have been like arguing with a plasma storm, so Paris and Torres were left with no choice but to obey.
**********
"Pass me the hydrospanner," Torres said curtly, and Paris complied, working on his own circuitry connections, lost in his thoughts.
Chakotay's plan was a good one -- at least, the best that could be devised under the circumstances. With enough firepower, and a little luck, it might even work. The problem was, the choice of pilot was wrong. In all fairness to the captain, he was a Starfleet-trained and -rated pilot, and more than good; on most Maquis vessels he would have been Chief Pilot and they would have considered themselves lucky to have him in that post. But on Crazy Horse he was second-best, and everyone on the ship knew it. In happier times, Chakotay himself had even joked about it, saying it was bad for his ego, to be aboard the only ship in the Maquis with a pilot who could outfly him.
Happier times. Tom snorted softly to himself. When the hell had those been?
//When we were winning, of course.// But he thought that maybe, for Chakotay, they'd been further back than that. Maybe before they'd learned about Seska, back on the original Crazy Horse.
It had been the sheerest chance that they had. As part of a diagnostic, B'Elanna had been running a sensor check when she picked up something that bothered her. With Chakotay taking one of his occasional turns at the helm, Tom had been in Engineering that day, working alongside Torres. He'd noticed her disturbance.
It was a tiny fluctuation, insignificant enough that it probably would have been taken for interstellar static by anyone less knowledgeable. But Torres, though with fewer years' experience than her counterparts in Starfleet or the Cardassian fleet would have possessed, had a sure and certain eye. "A transmission," she'd said. "Originating somewhere inside the ship. Tom, I think we've got a spy."
The fluctuation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but they set up a tracer, to signal B'Elanna the next time it happened.
Less than a week later it did, this time long enough to let B'Elanna trail it partway back to its source. Over the course of a few months, she finally tracked it to its origin point: inside the captain's cabin.
They called Chakotay, confirmed he was on the bridge. There was only one other person on board Crazy Horse who had ready access to the captain's cabin: Seska, who had recently resumed her place in Chakotay's narrow bed. "Oh God," Tom said softly, disbelievingly. How could Seska betray her lover, her friends? More even than that, she was Bajoran -- how could she side with the enemies of the Maquis?
They waited a little longer before they brought the evidence to the captain; enough time to trace a few more transmissions, to partly crack the code they were encrypted in. The information was tactical specifications, ship movements.
B'Elanna and Tom knew they had to prove matters beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt if they could, in view of their captain's growing affection for Seska. By the time they reported to Chakotay, the case was unmistakable, the evidence too clear, for him to ignore it or explain it away. He didn't try. Though his lips tightened as they spoke, he listened gravely, silently, as Tom and B'Elanna presented the information they'd gathered. "Thank you, Tom, B'Elanna," was all he said. "I'll take care of it." With those words, he went to his cabin --
And shot Seska. Killed her.
From that day, no one on Crazy Horse had seen Chakotay smile, no matter how successful their missions or how good the news from headquarters. He took no home leave, little shore leave, and if he drank or otherwise let his hair down at base, he did it privately. Though the captain had never been light-hearted, now he was silent, even grim, especially as time passed and they lost more comrades to the Cardies: Henley, Bandera, Tuvok, more others than one could think of with ease. Those who remained followed him -- not without question, as that was not a Maquis virtue, but with unshakable loyalty -- anyway, and they had little trouble recruiting others to the ship. For all that Chakotay wasn't good company these days, his Starfleet-trained and battle-honed tactical gifts still gave the underpowered, undergunned Crazy Horse advantages no other Maquis ship had in combat. And no one who knew how he'd dealt with his lover, the spy, ever questioned his dedication to his Cause.
Now his Cause was lost, casualty to the Cardassians' alliance with an enemy the resistance fighters were too small, too weak, to battle. The Maquis were destroyed, their planets devastated, Chakotay's own Dorvan among the worlds rumored to be uninhabitable now. All that remained of the once-proud freedom fighters and their homes were a handful of ships, ferrying away the civilians -- mostly mothers and small children, and a handful of elders -- who'd somehow managed to make their way to Athos IV and the last surviving Maquis base, hoping against hope that those who'd vowed to defend them could defend them still. No matter the cost or the odds, for the sake of their oaths those defenders tried.
Paris didn't think Chakotay would survive the gauntlet of asteroids and enemies, didn't think he expected to. He had given everything he had to his Cause; today, with nothing left to fight for, he would give it his life.
Paris shook his head. //Not if I can help it.// The captain had given him a place, given him trust, when half the Maquis had questioned his motives and the other half had questioned his courage. Chakotay had had faith in him, had taught him to have faith in himself. And Paris had not begun his renegade career by believing in the Maquis cause, but by believing in Chakotay. //He gave me my life back. I guess it's time I paid him back.//
Besides, Tom knew that if any pilot on Crazy Horse could run that mad gauntlet outside and live, it was him. Not arrogance, simply fact. He was the best.
Now all he had to do was convince Chakotay.
"I'm finished on this end," he said, making a final adjustment to the transpolar bivalve.
"Me too," B'Elanna said, her voice oddly muffled. She pushed herself out from beneath the console, and he saw silent tears tracking her filthy, beautiful face.
B'Elanna loved Chakotay, after a fashion. There had even been a time, long ago, when Tom had wondered if she would turn to the older man instead of himself. Sometimes he still thought it might have happened if Seska hadn't shattered Chakotay's heart. But as matters were, even though they had never touched and never would, there was a link between the mercurial engineer and the saturnine captain that Tom could never challenge or question.
Extending both hands for B'Elanna's, he drew her to her feet and into his arms, holding her more tightly, more securely than he ever had. "Shh, Bella," he whispered into her ear, his throat tightening. "Easy. He's not going to die. No one else is going to die today."
**********
B'Elanna was back in Engineering by the time Chakotay came to the shuttle bay. The captain was closed-featured, expressionless, bearded jaw firm and shadowed eyes shuttered. His voice was without inflection. "Get to the bridge and take command, Tom."
Instead, Paris stepped in front of Chakotay, blocking his entrance to the bay. "No, sir."
A flicker of irritation animated the other man's features. "I don't have time to argue with you, Tom. We have to get on with this. Now, get to the bridge."
"*You* get to the bridge," Paris answered evenly.
Irritation began to kindle into anger. "What do you think you're doing, Tom?"
"I think I'm flying that shuttle."
"This isn't open for debate." Chakotay tried to shoulder past Paris, but the other man anticipated his move and blocked him. "Damn it, Paris, get out of my way."
"They need you on the bridge. Sir."
"I'm needed on that shuttle. Move!"
"No, sir." Paris looked him in the eyes. "We need the best pilot we've got on that shuttle, and we both know that isn't you." Chakotay tried again to step past Paris, again was frustrated. Paris pressed on as if he hadn't noticed, hadn't deliberately blocked him. "And we need the best captain we have on the bridge, and we both know that isn't me."
The anger flared full-blown in the big man's eyes, but he controlled it with a visible effort. "Tom, what is this really about? Did B'Elanna put you up to this?"
"No, she didn't," Paris answered tersely. "And it's about the truth. This plan of yours is shaky enough. If you want it to have a chance of working -- if you really want to lure that big bastard in -- you'll need the best pilot you've got."
"I'm not as clumsy a pilot as you seem to think I am." Another aborted movement. "And this is my duty."
"Your duty is to be the captain."
"It's as the captain I'm doing this." He met Paris's gaze and enunciated each word one by one, precisely. "When I took this command, I took an oath to protect my people. And I will."
"You'll protect them better up there."
"You're one of my people too."
"I don't need your damn protection, Chakotay," Paris answered sharply. "Not from flying. That's what I do best. And command is what you do best." He leaned closer, putting himself eyeball-to-eyeball with the other man. "We both know I have twice the chance of surviving this flight that you do. And the longer I can survive, the longer I can draw this out, the better your chances are of taking that son-of-a-bitch out."
"Paris, I can do this."
Paris continued as if he hadn't spoken. "And after we take him out, we'll need someone to lead us out of here. I can't do that. I don't know how."
"Tom --"
Paris overrode him, ruthlessly. "I don't know how to make them follow me. But we know they'll follow you. They always have. They trust you, Chakotay. The crew does, and the passengers do, too. Not me, not B'Elanna, not Ayala. You. And they need you to take them to the end of this -- this mission."
Chakotay sighed, averting his eyes. "What makes you think I want to see the end of this mission?" he said quietly.
//He gave everything he had to his Cause.
//And his Cause is lost.// A surge of sympathy washed through Paris, gentling his voice. "I know you don't, Chakotay." He clasped the other man's shoulder, squeezed it firmly. "But you'll do it because it's your duty. And I'll fly the shuttle because that's *my* duty."
Moments passed before Chakotay spoke again. "Damn you, Tom." The words were almost inaudible. "Take the shuttle. Take it and go."
"Yes, sir," Paris said softly, and turned to cross the bay.
Chakotay's voice stopped him when he was at the shuttle's hatch. "Tom." He turned, half-expecting Chakotay to try to call him back, knowing he would defy that order. But the captain simply looked after him, with a straight back, a lifted chin, and a gaze like a silent salute. "Fly well."
To which there was only one answer. "Lead well."
Then Paris entered the shuttle, and closed the hatch behind him.
To be continued...
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
FEEDBACK TO: [email protected]
SERIES: ST: VOY
PART: 1/2
CODES: AU, C, P, T
ARCHIVE: Just ask!
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the characters and situations, but they probably didn't anticipate this particular use of same.
SUMMARY: In an alternate universe in which Tom Paris remained with the Maquis and the events of "Caretaker" never happened, Chakotay and Paris resort to a desperate strategy to save their ship from the Jem'Hadar.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Acknowledgments will follow Part 2.
The Last Flight
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.
-- 2 Timothy 4:7
The Maquis raider, christened in prouder days as Crazy Horse 2, twisted madly through the asteroid field in a desperate attempt to put some distance between itself and the huge, relentless ship that pursued it.
Ayala swore as a burst of sparks forced him to pull back from his panel momentarily, going back to work the minute the last bright pinpoint died. "Lateral stabilizers failing," he warned, hands working frantically over the engineering board. Everyone knew that, below in Engineering, B'Elanna Torres would be laboring as urgently, but probably no more successfully; Crazy Horse 2 was just too badly damaged.
Once upon a time, the little ship's captain, Chakotay, had scorned a Cardassian demand that he surrender the original Crazy Horse. Now, with a failing ship and a burden of civilian refugees aboard, he might have yielded to such an order. But everyone knew it would never be forthcoming: the Cardassians' new allies, the Jem'Hadar, had no interest in Maquis prisoners, only Maquis dead. So no matter how hopeless its flight, the little ship had to keep going. Still --
"We can't keep this up much longer, Chakotay." Acrid smoke hung thick in the air, tearing his eyes and roughening his voice, but Paris kept the words calm, kept them statements of fact. There was incipient panic gibbering at the edges of his consciousness; if he let himself hear it -- The swift sure movements of his own hands sent the tiny Maquis raider through a series of aerobatics that threatened to yank the overtaxed stabilizers off-line completely. //No choice no choice no choice....//The pilot's heart thumped painfully, but he had no time to feel it or thought to acknowledge it. //Fly or die, Tommy boy, fly or die....//
"I know it, Tom," Chakotay said sharply from behind the weapons console. The position was solely so that he could see what was going on and, hopefully, devise tactical counters; since of course the weapons could not be fired while they were running in their current mode. Anyway, everyone knew that nothing short of everything they had would be enough to damage the Jem'Hadar. If even that..."Dalby," the captain snapped, "did you get that photon torpedo down to the cargo bay like I asked?"
Dalby's voice came back tinnily through the communications system, crackling with static. "Got it, Chief. What the hell is this about?" Tom had wondered as much when he first heard the order, but it wasn't as if he'd had time to think about it.
"You'll find out. Now get out of the bay and seal it off."
"My ass is *so* outta here."
Paris dismissed the exchange from his mind, concentrating on weaving through a particularly heavy swarm of asteroids. "Tom!" Chakotay barked suddenly. "That big one at three o'clock!"
"I can evade it, Chakotay," Paris said calmly.
"No! Take us around her and down."
"What?" No time for astonishment either, but it was such a strange order he needed clarification. Something crackled and sparked in the pilot's peripheral vision, but he ignored that; it wasn't anything he could do anything about.
"Get us on the other side of her, and land while we're out of their sensor range. Try to find us a spot with some geological cover." With a grunt of acknowledgement, Tom sheered off in another quick turn. "Tabor," Chakotay continued, "when I give the word, vent the cargo hold."
"*What!*" the young Bajoran cried. "Are you kidding? Our supplies are in there! And what about the bod --"
"Don't argue!" The words had the snap of command. "Vent it! Now!" With another sound of shocked protest, the other man complied. "Detonating photon torpedo..." the captain muttered, and a bright flash of light exploded somewhere in the periphery of the viewscreen, amidst the scattered debris.
//He's got a plan,// Tom realized, some small imperceptible fragment of his mind relaxing despite the tension of their situation. If Chakotay knew what he was doing, they might yet get out of this madness with their lives. Not with their freedom, but then, they had already agreed to that....
"Ayala, the minute we touch down, shut down everything but weapons."
"What about the cloak? And life --"
"*Everything but weapons,* dammit!" Chakotay snarled. "I don't have time for arguments!"
"Yessir!"
Paris heard the debate with half an ear, as he concentrated on his own task. Let's see....moving, rotating landing surface, ship with a sluggish sense of horizontal plane, the added imperatives of staying out of their pursuers' sensor range and finding some sort of natural cover -- some pilots would have said it was an impossible landing.
Some pilots weren't gambling their lives -- and the lives of all their comrades, and the lives of dozens of innocents -- on it.
Paris set Crazy Horse 2 down as neatly as if he were bringing an overstabilized training vessel down onto a flat landing strip under a cloudless, breezeless sky on a moderate-gravity world. When the vessel stopped, red emergency lights flared into gory brightness as Ayala obeyed his captain's imperative and shut down systems. "Torres!" Chakotay said sharply into a hand communicator, "I need you up here!" She made a noise that sounded like protest, but he overrode her with the force of full command mode. "*Now!*"
Paris leaned on his console, one hand unconsciously rubbing a bruise on his cheek as he looked up at his Maquis captain. Like most of the rest of the crew, like Paris himself, Chakotay was filthy, battered, bruised, his dark beard matted and his thick black hair gone wild. //How have the mighty fallen,// Paris thought, and there was no amusement in it.
Hard to believe that, just months ago, the older man had been clean, neatly barbered, closely-shaven, composed and calm -- as hard as it was to believe that, no further back than that, the Maquis had been riding the crest of victory over the Cardassians. The Cardassians had lost so many of their elite ships in their ill-considered attack on the Founders (ironically, the masters of the same Jem'Hadar who now aided the damnable lizards) that they'd been forced to withdraw military support to their outposts in the Demilitarized Zone. The Cardies left in the DMZ were reduced to fighting with no more than was at hand, and at that, harsh experience had long since made the Maquis masters. From simply hoping to make the Cardassians pay for the occupation of their worlds in the DMZ, the Maquis had dared to dream of actual victory, of freedom from the Cardies, of an independent government --
Paris snorted, remembering. //So much for dreams.// "So what's the plan, Chakotay?" he asked aloud, with a deliberate, almost insolent, calmness.
"Going to get awful cold in here in a few minutes," Tabor muttered.
"That's part of the plan," Chakotay said grimly. "The closer the hull temperature gets to the asteroid's surface temperature, the harder we'll be to spot on a sensor sweep."
"Yeah, and the closer the hull temperature gets to the asteroid's surface temperature, the closer we get to the asteroid's surface temperature," the young Bajoran growled. Like all of them these days, he was far too thin, his cheekbones pushing out prominently under his skin. "That's pretty damn cold."
"I'm sure the Jem'Hadar would be happy to warm things up for you, Tabor," Chakotay retorted. "Go ahead, turn up the heat and help them." Tabor subsided with an angry growl.
"Won't they know where we went down, Chakotay?" Ayala asked; not a challenge, simply a question.
"If we're very lucky, maybe they'll think we did go down," the captain answered, more calmly than before. "Maybe they'll just assume we finally exceeded the limits of Tom's skill --" Paris smiled ironically at that -- "and cracked up on one of these asteroids."
"No debris," Ayala noted. Then it hit him. "The supplies. Right."
"And the bodies," the captain noted drily.
"You don't really think they'll fall for that?" Paris asked skeptically.
"No." Chakotay's voice was cool. "I don't. The best I'm hoping for from that is a few minutes of confusion. And that's probably optimistic."
"Probably," Tom agreed. "So the Jem'Hadar will realize we've got to be hiding out on one of these asteroids. Then, if they're running true to form -- and they're nothing if not predictable -- they'll just start blowing up every asteroid in the vicinity 'til they hit the right one. Then a few more for good measure."
"Probably," the captain agreed grimly.
"So are you going to tell us what the plan is *now*, or are we just going to hang out here playing Twenty Questions until we go boom?"
Not responding to the levity in Tom's words, the captain answered flatly, "We'll blow them up first."
Torres picked that moment to storm into the command center, grimy, tattered, and moving like a hurricane. //Nothing slows her down,// Tom thought admiringly. "Chakotay, dammit," she raged, "this is *not* a good time to hold a conference! I've got warp off-line and impulse dragging, the lateral stabilizers are shot, the verticals are at less than forty percent, life support is --"
The captain's big hands seized her shoulders and yanked her to a stop, as he shoved his face to within inches of hers. "Shut up, B'Elanna. Now."
Startled, she stared at him.
"That's better. Now, I want you to put Dalby on repairs in Main Engineering. I have another job for you."
"What?" she flared, yanking away from his hands and glaring up at him in patent disbelief. "Chakotay, weren't you listening to me? I have to get back down there now or --"
"Go back down there now and we'll die no matter what you do," he hissed. "Unless there's something you can do to swat those bastards on our tail. Is there?"
She glared at him. "I suppose *you* have an idea?"
"Yeah. I do."
"What?" she snarled.
"First off, I need you to disconnect the cloak." The Klingon cloaking device, one of a dozen the Maquis had, in their more secure days, bought from that alien government, had been hastily installed just before they'd left Athos IV, site of the last surviving (and now, no longer surviving) Maquis base in the Badlands. Its effectiveness against the Jem'Hadar was less than satisfying, though; if the Jem'Hadar aimed their anti-proton beams right, cloaked ships showed up as if a flashlight were being shone on them. "Then I need you to install it on the shuttle." At her frown, he added quietly, "I know they'll spot it, B'Elanna. I want them to. As Tom pointed out, if they don't spot anything, they'll just blast everything until they get us. That won't do us any good.
"But as long as the cloak is up, it'll be harder for them to determine what they've spotted. So they come after the shuttle, but it plays cat-and-mouse with them. With the asteroid field for cover, it keeps the Jem'Hadar from getting a clear shot until it leads them over this asteroid --"
"And brings the Jem'Hadar ship in right over our heads," Paris concluded, whistling. "And our guns."
"And we hit it with everything we have," Chakotay agreed.
"What if we don't have enough?" Tabor protested.
Chakotay fixed him with a glare. "Then we die, Tabor, the same as we will if we sit here and do nothing. Go on, B'Elanna, get the shuttle ready. Tom, you're more familiar with the shuttle than anyone. You help her."
"Sure thing, Chakotay." Paris got to his feet. "Just one question: who's going to fly it?"
"Why does anybody have to fly it?" Tabor protested. It was too easy for Paris to guess the reason behind the objection; Tabor was a competent pilot, though not in the same league as the ship's aces. "Why can't we run it on remotes?"
"Not enough fine control," Chakotay said. "The flying will be tricky enough even on the spot."
"Besides," and Paris looked at the young man balefully as he said it, "what happens when the Jem'Hadar trace the transmissions?" He returned his gaze to Chakotay, a terrible certainty taking root in his gut even as he repeated his earlier question. "So who's flying it, Chakotay?"
Chakotay's dark eyes went from Torres to Paris, then back again. "I am," he said abruptly, and moved as if to turn away.
"What?" Torres exploded. "Chakotay, you can't --"
But Paris cut her off with a sharp motion of his hand. Locking gazes with Chakotay, he expelled one word, forcefully. "Why?"
"*God damn you!*" Chakotay blazed, drawing himself up to his full height, more fierce and terrible than any painted warrior of his ancient people could ever have looked. "You're going to stand here and argue with me while the Jem'Hadar pulverize every rock in this asteroid belt until they blow us into atoms! Do as I tell you! Get the hell down to the shuttle bay! *Now!*"
The fire in his eyes looked less like inspiration now, more like madness. But arguing with him would have been like arguing with a plasma storm, so Paris and Torres were left with no choice but to obey.
**********
"Pass me the hydrospanner," Torres said curtly, and Paris complied, working on his own circuitry connections, lost in his thoughts.
Chakotay's plan was a good one -- at least, the best that could be devised under the circumstances. With enough firepower, and a little luck, it might even work. The problem was, the choice of pilot was wrong. In all fairness to the captain, he was a Starfleet-trained and -rated pilot, and more than good; on most Maquis vessels he would have been Chief Pilot and they would have considered themselves lucky to have him in that post. But on Crazy Horse he was second-best, and everyone on the ship knew it. In happier times, Chakotay himself had even joked about it, saying it was bad for his ego, to be aboard the only ship in the Maquis with a pilot who could outfly him.
Happier times. Tom snorted softly to himself. When the hell had those been?
//When we were winning, of course.// But he thought that maybe, for Chakotay, they'd been further back than that. Maybe before they'd learned about Seska, back on the original Crazy Horse.
It had been the sheerest chance that they had. As part of a diagnostic, B'Elanna had been running a sensor check when she picked up something that bothered her. With Chakotay taking one of his occasional turns at the helm, Tom had been in Engineering that day, working alongside Torres. He'd noticed her disturbance.
It was a tiny fluctuation, insignificant enough that it probably would have been taken for interstellar static by anyone less knowledgeable. But Torres, though with fewer years' experience than her counterparts in Starfleet or the Cardassian fleet would have possessed, had a sure and certain eye. "A transmission," she'd said. "Originating somewhere inside the ship. Tom, I think we've got a spy."
The fluctuation vanished as quickly as it had appeared, but they set up a tracer, to signal B'Elanna the next time it happened.
Less than a week later it did, this time long enough to let B'Elanna trail it partway back to its source. Over the course of a few months, she finally tracked it to its origin point: inside the captain's cabin.
They called Chakotay, confirmed he was on the bridge. There was only one other person on board Crazy Horse who had ready access to the captain's cabin: Seska, who had recently resumed her place in Chakotay's narrow bed. "Oh God," Tom said softly, disbelievingly. How could Seska betray her lover, her friends? More even than that, she was Bajoran -- how could she side with the enemies of the Maquis?
They waited a little longer before they brought the evidence to the captain; enough time to trace a few more transmissions, to partly crack the code they were encrypted in. The information was tactical specifications, ship movements.
B'Elanna and Tom knew they had to prove matters beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt if they could, in view of their captain's growing affection for Seska. By the time they reported to Chakotay, the case was unmistakable, the evidence too clear, for him to ignore it or explain it away. He didn't try. Though his lips tightened as they spoke, he listened gravely, silently, as Tom and B'Elanna presented the information they'd gathered. "Thank you, Tom, B'Elanna," was all he said. "I'll take care of it." With those words, he went to his cabin --
And shot Seska. Killed her.
From that day, no one on Crazy Horse had seen Chakotay smile, no matter how successful their missions or how good the news from headquarters. He took no home leave, little shore leave, and if he drank or otherwise let his hair down at base, he did it privately. Though the captain had never been light-hearted, now he was silent, even grim, especially as time passed and they lost more comrades to the Cardies: Henley, Bandera, Tuvok, more others than one could think of with ease. Those who remained followed him -- not without question, as that was not a Maquis virtue, but with unshakable loyalty -- anyway, and they had little trouble recruiting others to the ship. For all that Chakotay wasn't good company these days, his Starfleet-trained and battle-honed tactical gifts still gave the underpowered, undergunned Crazy Horse advantages no other Maquis ship had in combat. And no one who knew how he'd dealt with his lover, the spy, ever questioned his dedication to his Cause.
Now his Cause was lost, casualty to the Cardassians' alliance with an enemy the resistance fighters were too small, too weak, to battle. The Maquis were destroyed, their planets devastated, Chakotay's own Dorvan among the worlds rumored to be uninhabitable now. All that remained of the once-proud freedom fighters and their homes were a handful of ships, ferrying away the civilians -- mostly mothers and small children, and a handful of elders -- who'd somehow managed to make their way to Athos IV and the last surviving Maquis base, hoping against hope that those who'd vowed to defend them could defend them still. No matter the cost or the odds, for the sake of their oaths those defenders tried.
Paris didn't think Chakotay would survive the gauntlet of asteroids and enemies, didn't think he expected to. He had given everything he had to his Cause; today, with nothing left to fight for, he would give it his life.
Paris shook his head. //Not if I can help it.// The captain had given him a place, given him trust, when half the Maquis had questioned his motives and the other half had questioned his courage. Chakotay had had faith in him, had taught him to have faith in himself. And Paris had not begun his renegade career by believing in the Maquis cause, but by believing in Chakotay. //He gave me my life back. I guess it's time I paid him back.//
Besides, Tom knew that if any pilot on Crazy Horse could run that mad gauntlet outside and live, it was him. Not arrogance, simply fact. He was the best.
Now all he had to do was convince Chakotay.
"I'm finished on this end," he said, making a final adjustment to the transpolar bivalve.
"Me too," B'Elanna said, her voice oddly muffled. She pushed herself out from beneath the console, and he saw silent tears tracking her filthy, beautiful face.
B'Elanna loved Chakotay, after a fashion. There had even been a time, long ago, when Tom had wondered if she would turn to the older man instead of himself. Sometimes he still thought it might have happened if Seska hadn't shattered Chakotay's heart. But as matters were, even though they had never touched and never would, there was a link between the mercurial engineer and the saturnine captain that Tom could never challenge or question.
Extending both hands for B'Elanna's, he drew her to her feet and into his arms, holding her more tightly, more securely than he ever had. "Shh, Bella," he whispered into her ear, his throat tightening. "Easy. He's not going to die. No one else is going to die today."
**********
B'Elanna was back in Engineering by the time Chakotay came to the shuttle bay. The captain was closed-featured, expressionless, bearded jaw firm and shadowed eyes shuttered. His voice was without inflection. "Get to the bridge and take command, Tom."
Instead, Paris stepped in front of Chakotay, blocking his entrance to the bay. "No, sir."
A flicker of irritation animated the other man's features. "I don't have time to argue with you, Tom. We have to get on with this. Now, get to the bridge."
"*You* get to the bridge," Paris answered evenly.
Irritation began to kindle into anger. "What do you think you're doing, Tom?"
"I think I'm flying that shuttle."
"This isn't open for debate." Chakotay tried to shoulder past Paris, but the other man anticipated his move and blocked him. "Damn it, Paris, get out of my way."
"They need you on the bridge. Sir."
"I'm needed on that shuttle. Move!"
"No, sir." Paris looked him in the eyes. "We need the best pilot we've got on that shuttle, and we both know that isn't you." Chakotay tried again to step past Paris, again was frustrated. Paris pressed on as if he hadn't noticed, hadn't deliberately blocked him. "And we need the best captain we have on the bridge, and we both know that isn't me."
The anger flared full-blown in the big man's eyes, but he controlled it with a visible effort. "Tom, what is this really about? Did B'Elanna put you up to this?"
"No, she didn't," Paris answered tersely. "And it's about the truth. This plan of yours is shaky enough. If you want it to have a chance of working -- if you really want to lure that big bastard in -- you'll need the best pilot you've got."
"I'm not as clumsy a pilot as you seem to think I am." Another aborted movement. "And this is my duty."
"Your duty is to be the captain."
"It's as the captain I'm doing this." He met Paris's gaze and enunciated each word one by one, precisely. "When I took this command, I took an oath to protect my people. And I will."
"You'll protect them better up there."
"You're one of my people too."
"I don't need your damn protection, Chakotay," Paris answered sharply. "Not from flying. That's what I do best. And command is what you do best." He leaned closer, putting himself eyeball-to-eyeball with the other man. "We both know I have twice the chance of surviving this flight that you do. And the longer I can survive, the longer I can draw this out, the better your chances are of taking that son-of-a-bitch out."
"Paris, I can do this."
Paris continued as if he hadn't spoken. "And after we take him out, we'll need someone to lead us out of here. I can't do that. I don't know how."
"Tom --"
Paris overrode him, ruthlessly. "I don't know how to make them follow me. But we know they'll follow you. They always have. They trust you, Chakotay. The crew does, and the passengers do, too. Not me, not B'Elanna, not Ayala. You. And they need you to take them to the end of this -- this mission."
Chakotay sighed, averting his eyes. "What makes you think I want to see the end of this mission?" he said quietly.
//He gave everything he had to his Cause.
//And his Cause is lost.// A surge of sympathy washed through Paris, gentling his voice. "I know you don't, Chakotay." He clasped the other man's shoulder, squeezed it firmly. "But you'll do it because it's your duty. And I'll fly the shuttle because that's *my* duty."
Moments passed before Chakotay spoke again. "Damn you, Tom." The words were almost inaudible. "Take the shuttle. Take it and go."
"Yes, sir," Paris said softly, and turned to cross the bay.
Chakotay's voice stopped him when he was at the shuttle's hatch. "Tom." He turned, half-expecting Chakotay to try to call him back, knowing he would defy that order. But the captain simply looked after him, with a straight back, a lifted chin, and a gaze like a silent salute. "Fly well."
To which there was only one answer. "Lead well."
Then Paris entered the shuttle, and closed the hatch behind him.
To be continued...