Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  Nothing did. On he pressed: Tobago . . . Petra . . . Turnapuna . . . Baruta . . . Caesaros . . . Beausoleil . . . Göteborg . . . Alicante . . . Skopje . . . He saw communities he could not have imagined, pockets of cultural diversity, villages that had steadfastly preserved rituals and traditions from their past. He walked through crowded marketplaces, some of which displayed the only sight in all his wanderings that gave him pause—the display of pieces of meat, haunches, shoulders, ribs, making him realize that there were places on Earth where people still hunted, and who ate genuine, rather than replicated, flesh. The thought made him queasy, and he moved away, shrouded once more in numbness.

  After that, his appetite disappeared along with his emotions, and he had to force himself to eat. Pounds dropped away, leaving him gaunt and drawn, yet with a curious lightness of spirit. This new, leaner person didn’t seem to carry such heavy burdens. Yet this person was also wearier, sapped of energy. He began to sleep more, sometimes all day long. He found, upon waking, that a drink of alcohol revived him, at least briefly, and so it became a ritual.

  He didn’t go near North America, and communicated only with his mother, sporadic messages that assured her of his health and well-being, and promised a visit soon.

  Time became meaningless, and he rarely knew if days, or weeks, or months had passed. He moved through this quasi life in a miasma, rootless and torpid.

  Later he would wonder what instinct drove him to the location where he settled for almost a year, but at the time he lacked the awareness to question motivation. It seemed as good a place as any, and so it was that he returned to Marseilles.

  A woman whose name he had already forgotten twined her arms around Tom’s neck, murmuring softly in his ear. It wasn’t a particularly erotic sensation, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and he allowed her to cling to him as he sipped his drink and eyed his opponent.

  That was a blue-skinned Bolian whose name he had also forgotten, but whose prowess at pool was impressive. The vague thought came to him that there was a time when that challenge might have invigorated him, sending adrenaline coursing and pulse quickening, pushing him to marshal all his skills to best his adversary. But that time was long ago, and receding quickly in the alcohol-shrouded mists of faint memory.

  The past didn’t matter anymore. In fact, the present didn’t matter so much, either. And the future was a void, so it warranted no concern.

  So there was really nothing to worry about.

  He took another sip of his drink, and reflected briefly on the glories of single-malt Scotch whiskey. He anticipated the first drink of the day with a reverence that was almost holy. The initial taste on the tongue, smooth as liquid velvet but burning with an intense heat . . . the course of the whiskey down his throat and into his stomach . . . and then its plunge into his bloodstream, warming him, smoothing the mild shake in his hands, blunting the ache in his head.

  It was enough to get up for.

  “Tommy . . . come on . . . we’ve been here long enough . . . can’t we go?”

  The woman was beginning to irritate him. He unwrapped her arms from his neck and held her away from him. “If you want to go—go,” he said. “I’m busy.”

  He was aware that she went into a pout but he didn’t really give a damn. He was more concerned that the Bolian was running the table. That was—what? The fourth time tonight? Well, it didn’t matter. There was no wager. There was nothing worth wagering. If the Bolian had his ego gratified with the victory, that was fine with Tom. He threw up his hands and headed for the bar. His glass was empty.

  Sandrine was behind the bar. She was the same one who had befriended him when he spent a semester in Marseilles during his stint at the Academy. That was—a long time ago. He tried briefly to remember if it was five or six years, but couldn’t, but that was all right because it didn’t matter.

  Sandrine was eyeing him in clear disapproval. “Go home, Tom,” she said in French. “You’ve had enough.”

  “One more, my love. Can’t quite embrace the arms of Morpheus without a dollop more,” he replied in English. It was a game he played with her, because he knew it annoyed her that, even though he was fluent in French, he refused to speak in anything but English. These days, one took one’s victories where one could.

  She poured the drink, as he knew she would. He took it neat—the need for ice or water had long since passed. As she tipped the bottle over his glass, he put his fingers over hers, coaxing out another inch of the liquid. Sandrine pursed her lips and turned her back on him. He laughed.

  He sat alone at a table, aware that the woman who’d been draped over him was standing against the wall, arms crossed and lips pursed in a telegraphed snit. He wondered if she really thought that was going to make him come over to her, to grovel and let her lead him around like a poodle. Well, she could stand there till she turned to granite for all he cared.

  “You alone?” The voice came from someone who’d approached from behind him. He turned and looked up to see a tall, strapping human with short black hair and a strange tattoo on his temple. His voice was quiet but commanding, with a timbre that made even Tom, in a whiskey daze, take notice.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact. By choice.”

  “Mind if I sit down? I have a proposition for you.”

  “Not interested.”

  “I think you might be if you hear what it is.”

  Tom had gotten into fistfights with people less pushy than this. But something in this man’s voice, his very presence, exuded a power that was compelling. Tom allowed his eyes to flicker to the adjoining chair, and the man pulled it out and sat.

  “My name’s Chakotay,” he began, but Tom waved a hand at him blearily. He wouldn’t remember the name, so there was no need for formalities. He didn’t offer his in return.

  “I understand you’re a pilot,” Chakotay continued. “We might be able to help each other out.”

  Tom was silent, not encouraging the man, but finding himself unaccountably curious. He felt Chakotay assessing him, and for the first time in a long time, he wondered if he was measuring up.

  “I’m part of a group that’s always looking for good pilots.”

  “What kind of group is this?” The whole thing had a suspect quality to it. Federation planets weren’t known to be home to groups who solicited pilots in waterfront bars.

  Chakotay’s eyes flickered around the room, checking on their privacy. Tom noted briefly that the woman had disappeared, and felt a sense of relief. “Do you know what’s happening in the demilitarized zone near the Cardassian border?” asked the man.

  Tom shrugged. He’d heard muttered comments here and there, but had no real interest in events that were so far away. Now, he found himself wishing he’d paid more attention; something made him want to impress this man as a knowledgeable person.

  He struggled to follow as Chakotay unfolded the tale, and wished he’d had less to drink that day. He forced himself to concentrate as the man told him of an abortive treaty the Federation had made with Cardassia, effectively putting a long conflict to an end, but stranding a number of colonists in the newly created demilitarized zone between the two areas of space. The colonists were supposed to evacuate, but many of them—Chakotay’s people included—refused to abandon their homes, and opted to remain in the zone without the promise of Federation protection.

  And of course the Cardassians were exploiting that fact, harassing them, raiding them, hoping to make things so miserable they’d leave their colonies to the Cardassians.

  A growing number of people—humans, Vulcans, Bolians, Ktarians, a virtual melting pot of Federation species—were banding together in a loosely knit group to protect themselves. They called themselves Maquis, after ancient Earth freedom fighters of the twentieth century. Chakotay was part of that group, and had heard that a skilled Starfleet pilot was unoccupied at the moment, spending his days in drinking and playing pool in Marseilles.

  “We could use you,” he said simply. “And you’d get to
fly again.”

  Something vaguely remembered began to stir in Tom, a quickening, a response that he’d thought dead. Suddenly he wanted nothing more in the world than to fly again, to serve with this powerful man whose sense of purpose was so profound. Chakotay cared deeply, passionately for his cause, and that fervor had touched Tom. For the first time in years, he wanted to care about something—anything—and feel alive again.

  He started to speak, felt his voice catch as it did long ago whenever he feared his father, and coughed. He pushed the glass of whiskey away from him and looked into Chakotay’s eyes, which were black and impenetrable. “Count me in,” he said, trying for a studied nonchalance that he didn’t feel. A silence fell between them, and Tom spoke once more, this time with sincerity. “Thanks,” he said, and felt like a small child once more when Chakotay smiled in response.

  Flying again gave him more satisfaction than he would ever admit. His fingers were awkward at first; they had lost their alacrity. But the skills came back rapidly, and he felt a resuscitation of purpose that made him feel almost giddy.

  As his former self was revived, however, so were his former demons. He hadn’t hit it off well with their chief engineer, a half-human Klingon woman named Torres. She struck him as a passionate, driven woman, completely focused on her work and uninterested in developing friendships. It was exactly the assessment he would want people to make of him, but something in Torres’s rejection of him had piqued him and left him somewhat unsettled. His response was to keep baiting her.

  In general, he treated the women on the Maquis ship as sexual objects, a behavior that effectively irritated them. With the men he adopted a confrontational attitude, which gained him no popularity but insured that no one could get close enough to hurt him.

  But when it came to Chakotay, things were more complicated. Tom found that he wanted this captain’s approval, yet he hated that neediness in himself, hated the childlike stirrings it created, and so he constantly sabotaged the relationship. He was flip and disrespectful; smart-mouthed retorts slipped out before he could stop them. Chakotay responded in the beginning with patience and courtesy, but that only confused Tom, and he felt pushed to further disparagement.

  Finally they fell into a strained, silent relationship, Tom being careful to do his job as best he could so as not to be banished completely, but unable to surmount the craggy barriers he had erected between them. Chakotay, for his part, seemed to ignore Tom, devoting himself instead to their primary purpose: deviling the Cardassians.

  “Evasive action!”

  Chakotay’s shout was accurate but unnecessary; Tom had already entered a pattern into the controls as soon as he’d spotted the Cardassian attack vessels leaving the orbit of Dorvan, one of the planets in the demilitarized zone. There were two of them, heavily armed, and they were a lot more maneuverable than the three-decade-old Antaresclass ship he was piloting. Chakotay had warned him that the Maquis had to get ships as they could, and up-to-date technology was a luxury they rarely had. That was fine by Tom, who was familiar with the Antares ships, and who could coax every bit of performance from them that they could deliver, and sometimes more.

  Now was a time when he needed more, or his career with the Maquis would be short-lived. They, for that matter, would be short-lived, dying in a fiery explosion in the dangerous space of the demilitarized zone.

  “They’re powering weapons!” This from Torres, who was on the bridge. The first barrage of shots from the fighters struck them squarely, in spite of Tom’s maneuvers. The impact was considerable, and knocked them around the small bridge.

  “Shields at eighty-four percent,” shouted Torres, just before they took another volley, and Chakotay called out, “Returning fire!”

  Their phaser volley hit a glancing blow to one of the fighters but missed the other entirely. Tom made an instant decision.

  “I’m taking the controls off line. I can do this better if I do it manually.” He didn’t wait for Chakotay to respond, but quickly keyed the console and began to maneuver the ship without controls.

  He was able to maneuver more deftly that way—at least, he was convinced he could—and he worked not only to evade the two ships but to give Chakotay good firing positions. “Firing,” yelled Chakotay, and sent off a volley that caught one of the Cardassian ships in its weapons system.

  It exploded in a cascade of light and matter, and Tom had to handle the Liberty nimbly in order to avoid being hit by the debris. Without making a conscious decision, he maneuvered the ship directly toward the other enemy vessel.

  Chakotay launched one of their precious photon torpedoes, which scored a direct hit on one of its warp nacelles.

  Ship number two was reduced to flaming fragments, but not before they fired off a death rattle. The Liberty was jolted by a massive hit, Tom felt his eardrums vibrate painfully from percussive impact, and then, somehow, he was on the deck of the bridge as chaos erupted around him.

  Tom picked himself up and struggled back to his post. Acrid smoke filled the compartment and stung his eyes and throat, and he heard the sizzle and pop of a console in its death throes. Through the haze he could see Chakotay moving toward a dark shape on the deck, bending over it in concern. Torres, he realized, and hoped she wasn’t badly injured. She’d already cheated death once, on a planetoid in the Badlands they had visited, and would need the lives of a cat if she stayed much longer with the Maquis.

  He swiftly checked the ship’s systems and realized they were in worse shape than he’d thought. The comm was down completely, weapons were off line, propulsion showed thrusters only, and life-support was minimal. He turned toward Chakotay and was relieved to see Torres sitting up now, holding her head.

  “We’ve taken a lot of damage,” he reported tersely, running down the dead and failing systems. Chakotay nodded, arm around Torres, who looked dazed. Suddenly another figure rushed onto the cramped bridge, breathless and urgent.

  “Are you all right?” The concern in her voice was palpable, but Tom was aware she spoke only to Chakotay. She was Bajoran, and her name was Seska. He hadn’t felt good about that one from the moment he set foot on the Liberty, and had not even bothered flirting with her.

  Now Seska witnessed the tableau in front of her— Chakotay kneeling protectively next to B’Elanna, arm around her supportively—and she stiffened perceptibly. Tom was instantly aware of powerful feelings of possession and jealousy from Seska, feelings she immediately suppressed and replaced with concern. It was a brief moment, but a chilling one.

  “B’Elanna has a head wound—maybe a concussion,” said Chakotay.

  “I’ll get the med kit,” replied Seska immediately, and disappeared again. Chakotay turned to Yuri Terikof, their navigator.

  “There’s a colony on Selka that’s sympathetic to us. Take the shuttle and tell them we need help.”

  Tom was out of his seat immediately. “I’ll do it,” he blurted, and headed for the exit, but Chakotay put out a restraining hand.

  “I told Yuri to go,” he said quietly. Tom held his look steadily.

  “Pardon my frankness, but it’ll take a better pilot than Yuri to get through the debris of those Cardassian ships. Your only chance is to let me do it.”

  Chakotay hesitated, and Tom realized with a sinking feeling that his captain didn’t trust him. “I’ll do it,” he promised. “I’ll get through and I’ll bring help.”

  “If you run out on us, I swear I’ll hunt you down,” Chakotay said, then jerked his head toward the portal, tacitly giving the order.

  As Tom exited the compartment, he caught a brief glimpse of Torres, face wet with blood, eyes black and unyielding, and determined that he’d do whatever he could to bring help for her, then quickly squelched the thought. It had made him unaccountably fearful, and he didn’t like the sensation.

  He launched the shuttle and weaved his way through the debris of the two Cardassian ships until he was in clear space, then set a course for Selka and jumped to warp speed. With lu
ck, he’d have help on the way within hours.

  Two hours later he detected the approaching Starfleet vessel and realized it was coming to investigate the massive explosions that had taken place in the demilitarized zone. It would discover the wreckage of the Cardassian ships and, hovering nearby, helpless, Chakotay’s wounded craft. Starfleet considered the Maquis little more than outlaws, and would undoubtedly bring Chakotay and his crew before a tribunal.

  The Starfleet ship hailed him.

  “U.S.S. Bradbury to unidentified shuttle. Please respond.” The disembodied voice over his comm system reverberated slightly, giving it a faintly mystical quality. Tom’s mind began to churn. The hail presented him with options, the most appealing of which was to pass himself off as a colonist of the zone, ignorant of any recent battle with the Cardassians. He was near enough to Selka that it was a plausible story. He could be quaffing an ale that very evening in a friendly bar, arms around a supple and eager playmate.

  “U.S.S. Bradbury to unidentified shuttle. Respond or we will take you in tow.”

  Once, a lie had come easily to him. He had looked Admiral Brand in the eye and, with voice unquavering, placed the blame for the asteroid disaster on Bruno Katajavuori. But the price he had paid was too great.

  He punched a control to open the comm, carving his mind into halves as he spoke to the Bradbury while simultaneously entering a complex series of instructions into his console.

  “This is Tom Piper, piloting the shuttle Equality.” He wasn’t about to use the now infamous name of Paris when addressing Starfleet personnel. He knew how he was regarded among his former colleagues. “Sorry, my comm system is malfunctioning and I’m not getting a clear transmission. Could you repeat?”

  “This is the U.S.S. Bradbury. State your purpose in this space.”

  “My purpose?” Tom chuckled audibly, as he continued to enter commands. “I’m on my way to visit a lovely woman on Selka. My purpose, frankly, is—well, let’s just say it’s my own business. But you might wish me luck.”