Star Trek: Voyager®: Full Circle

by Kirsten Beyer

  “But…” Kaz began.

  “This is the battle Chakotay has been seeking for months,” Cambridge said. “His ship is being held together right now with spit and a prayer, but he’s managed to convince Starfleet Command that he and his crew are ready to lead a fleet. He’s encouraging people again, trying to rally the troops. It’s just a pity he doesn’t understand that he can kill every Borg in the galaxy and that still won’t solve his problem.”

  “No, it won’t,” Kaz agreed. “But it would solve the Federation’s.”

  “For now, perhaps,” Cambridge said.

  “You think that somewhere out there, there is something worse than the Borg?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Kaz considered Cambridge carefully. “How do you sleep at night, Counselor?” he asked.

  Cambridge actually chuckled.

  “Lately, I just try to remind myself that it’s probably better to die a man than to live a drone.”

  “Probably?”

  “Civilizations rise and fall, Doctor Kaz. History has taught us well that this is the way of things.”

  “The Borg are not a civilization. They’re a pestilence…a force of nature.”

  “Precisely,” Cambridge replied. “And nature always gets the last word.”

  Three days later, Chakotay sat expectantly in his command chair waiting for aperture twenty-six alpha of the Azure Nebula to open so that he could unleash hell upon what he knew in his gut would emerge from it. He had a promise to keep, and he’d never been more certain that destiny was about to grant him redemption.

  The aperture began to glow faintly, vivid sparks dotting the nebula’s bluish swarm of gases like blinking distant stars. Then, as if that multitude of stars had simultaneously gone supernova, the aperture erupted in a blaze of white.

  A singe Borg cube blotted out the brightness of the spectacle.

  Followed by a second.

  And a third.

  Tom Paris had already ordered the fleet to open fire when Chakotay lost count of the number of cubes tearing through the brilliance before him and time slowed to a crawl.

  Over three hundred and forty Federation and Allied vessels were arrayed in battle formation inside the nebula. The first cube to emerge opened fire upon Voyager while the second and third targeted the two ships closest to them, the Romulan Warbird Loviatar and the Imperial Klingon vessel Ya’Vang. As the bridge rattled thunderously under the initial impact of the barrage, the cube held its course. Its compatriots hurled themselves directly at the flanking ships, and what the Borg’s directed energy weapons failed to pulverize, the cubes themselves completely eradicated, charging headlong toward them through the ships that had all too briefly stood in their way.

  Chakotay found his eyes moving to the conn, where his helmsman, Akolo Tare, immediately corrected course to avoid the oncoming cube. The wailing of overstressed tritanium echoed briefly through the bridge as Tom’s voice called out, “Brace for impact!” And then there was silence as Chakotay’s eardrums were shredded by the concussive force of Voyager’s port nacelle being sheared from the ship. Tare had managed to avoid the collision, for the most part.

  In a violent lurch Chakotay was thrown by a force several times that of normal gravity against the console between his chair and Tom’s. With a sharp crack, his left arm snapped and a blinding rush of pain shot through his body. Simultaneously his nose briefly burned, then numbed, and he tasted the tang of blood pouring over his lips.

  Voyager’s inertial dampers were miraculous things, but clearly even they had their limits.

  Shrapnel hit the back of Chakotay’s neck, but it was little more than a stinging nuisance. Turning to assess the damage, he saw the tactical station in flames. Seconds later, the blaze grew brighter and hotter, indicating that the fire suppression systems were offline.

  The shadow of Tom Paris flashed briefly through his peripheral vision, moving toward the conn. Another explosion sent Tare flying from her seat before she fell in a tangled heap to the deck.

  The now rudderless ship rolled precariously to the right. Chakotay felt the beginnings of the sensation of free fall, a lurching in his gut as his body anticipated descent.

  A final explosion caught the left side of Chakotay’s face, but he barely registered the pain as dark pinpoints began to squeeze his head.

  Through streaks of static the viewscreen registered the fate of the rest of Chakotay’s fleet. There were no vessels in sight, only charred hulls and chunks of twisted metal glowing and flaming to their deaths.

  And still, more cubes were coming.

  All of this the Borg had wrought in less than thirty seconds.

  For the first time, Chakotay glimpsed in all its horror the truth Kathryn might have known in the seconds before she was lost to the Borg. Two words pummeled Chakotay’s mind but failed to reach his lips before the blackness swallowed him.

  I’m sorry.

  Tom Paris was certain he had been upright the last time he checked. Now, he was lying flat on his back beneath a heavy piece of bulkhead. His eyes stung as fine particulate matter cascaded into them from above. Without a free hand to dislodge it, he was forced to blink through the tears attempting to do that job for him. Apart from a dull ringing in his ears, the bridge was shrouded in silence. Tom gingerly rolled to his right, shifting the bulkhead debris and freeing his left arm, but came to an abrupt stop when he found himself staring into the lifeless eyes of Akolo Tare. Death had clearly taken her by surprise.

  The bulkhead still weighing down upon him, Tom began to crawl from beneath it, using his elbows for leverage. Inhaling deeply, he tasted the bitter stench of burning plasma.

  A million miles away, from the sound of it, Chakotay’s voice was murmuring, “Smashed the whole fleet…”

  Tom finally reached his hands and knees and dragged himself over the helm console, which was now a couple of feet closer to the floor than it used to be, to briefly see the grainy image of Captain Jean-Luc Picard staring grimly at what was left of Voyager’s bridge before blinking out of frame.

  The first thought that came to Tom’s mind was that if, after what he had just witnessed, Captain Picard and Captain Chakotay were somehow still alive, there might yet be hope for the Federation. Tom turned back over his left shoulder and received a jolt of pain shooting up his spine for his trouble. Chakotay was slumped over in his chair. The left side of his face was blackened and the front of his uniform was covered in fresh blood, which, as best Tom could tell, had originated from his clearly broken nose.

  But the sight that caused Tom’s heart to momentarily still was his captain’s eyes.

  Paris managed to pull himself upright with effort and after a quick check determined that, amazingly, aside from a few tender spots and more complaints from his lower back, he was relatively unscathed. Crossing to Chakotay, Tom brought his face level to his.

  “Chakotay?”

  A low gurgling suggested that the captain might be trying to answer, but might just as easily mean that he had sustained internal injuries that included the entrance of fluid into his lungs.

  Tom looked about him for the emergency medical kit standard to the bridge, but amid the wreckage surrounding him was quickly disabused of the notion that he had that kind of time. Instead, he turned back to Chakotay and began to gently palpate the captain’s chest and abdomen. When this crude examination failed to elicit a visible pain response, Tom decided that Chakotay’s injuries, while serious, were not going to result in immediate death.

  Chakotay’s eyes remained open, their gaze fixed on the viewscreen. Tom took a moment to wave his hand back and forth before Chakotay’s eyes and registered no response.

  He’s gone. Not dead, but definitely in shock, Tom realized in an instant. The grief Chakotay had carried for so long, coupled with his anger and fear, had just culminated in a moment so scarring to the soul that finally the captain’s spirit had buckled under the weight. Tom couldn’t really blame Chakotay, though given the fact that Tom had
his own demons to battle right now, he spared a moment to accept that while Chakotay’s condition might also have been one possible end for Tom, he wasn’t going to embrace that option right now. There was nothing more Tom could do for Chakotay at this instant, but there might be others he could help.

  Paris moved to the ops console, where Ensign Lasren sat upright on the floor.

  “Lasren, are you all right?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lasren replied. “Where am I?”

  Hell, Tom almost replied, but caught the word before it could escape his lips.

  “If you can stand your post, I could really use a report right now,” Tom said.

  Lasren nodded slightly, then with Tom’s help pulled himself toward his console, which had taken less damage than the rest of the bridge.

  Rather than wait for him to get his bearings, Tom moved to the rear bridge stations, where wisps of smoke flickered up from what once had been the tactical station.

  “Harry!” Tom called, suddenly fearful.

  A tangle of conduit had fallen from the ceiling and Tom maneuvered carefully through it, worried that he might hit the end of a severed wire that still had power running through it. It wasn’t all that likely, but at this moment it would be Tom’s luck.

  “Harry!” Tom called out again, when he failed to locate him immediately on the other side.

  “We’ve lost primary power and are running on forty-two percent of backups,” Lasren called out from ops.

  “Can you raise engineering?” Tom asked. Harry, where are you?

  “Negative. Communications are down through the ship.”

  “What about navigation?”

  “Are we going somewhere?” Lasren asked.

  Tom almost smiled at the gallows humor.

  “Emergency force fields are in place on decks eight through fifteen, but they’re taking a lot of power,” Lasren said. “Shall I reroute—” he began, but Tom cut him off.

  “Take whatever you need from everywhere but life support,” Tom said as his foot impacted something soft but unflinching.

  Kneeling, Tom finally found Harry rolled on his right side, practically hidden under what remained of his former station.

  Paris gently rolled him onto his back and had to swallow deeply to keep his churning stomach acids where they belonged.

  Harry’s face and torso were covered in plasma burns.

  Tom checked immediately for a pulse, and though what he found was neither strong nor constant, it was at least there.

  Tom knew it wouldn’t be for long unless Harry received medical care immediately.

  “Is the Enterprise still out there?” Tom asked.

  “No, sir,” Lasren replied, “but it looks like they sent emergency personnel over before they left.”

  “Where are they?” Tom asked.

  “Engineering and sickbay,” Lasren replied.

  “I don’t suppose we’ve got transporters?” Tom asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Tom’s mind began to race around the dozens of brick walls that were separating him from his only priority at the moment: saving Harry’s life.

  “How much damage did the shuttlebay take?” Tom asked.

  “All shuttles are undamaged,” Lasren replied after a moment, clearly surprised.

  “Can you tap into the Delta Flyer’s transporter system?” Tom asked.

  “I think so,” Lasren said almost enthusiastically.

  “Do it,” Tom said, “and transport me and Harry to sickbay immediately.”

  While he waited for Lasren to execute his request, Tom grasped Harry’s hand.

  Hang in there, Tom thought. That’s an order.

  A few moments later, Tom felt the tingle of the transporter effect. When his vision cleared, he found himself in the corridor outside sickbay among dead and dying crew who were being evaluated by two harried-looking medical officers Tom had never seen.

  “I’ve got an emergency here!” Tom shouted.

  One of the medics glanced his way but failed to move toward him.

  Sensing that no amount of screaming and yelling was going to get him what he needed right now, Tom began to tread carefully through the ship’s new triage area toward the doors of sickbay.

  As soon as he reached them one of the medics barked, “You can’t go in there, sir. The damage was too heavy.”

  Tom had no interest in arguing the point. As long as the damage wasn’t complete, there might still be something behind those doors that could save Harry’s life.

  Grabbing a loose wedge of metal, Tom hurriedly set about prying the doors, which were uncomfortably warm to the touch, open.

  With a heavy groan, Tom managed to wedge the doors wide enough to slip through. What he found was a black space, filled with smoke and littered with debris and carnage.

  Taking a deep breath of cleaner air from the hall, Tom entered. The first body he stepped over was that of Jarem Kaz. His once gentle face was now a mask of shock. Deep, black, smoking burns covered much of his body. Tom knew he was past help but couldn’t stop himself from pausing over yet another friend lost in a matter of moments. Steeling himself, Tom realized that two lives had been taken in Jarem Kaz. The burns left no doubt that both host and symbiont were dead.

  Refusing to give in to the shock and accompanying wave of dizziness, Tom moved on to search what was left of Voyager’s sickbay. He managed to find a few intact hypos and one shelf of medication that had tumbled onto the floor without shattering.

  Gathering these few precious discoveries along with a working medical tricorder, a laser scalpel, and a dermal regenerator, Tom hurried back out into the hall and returned to Harry’s side.

  Scanning him, he detected numerous internal injuries to accompany his external ones. Still, the vibrant young man’s heart refused to stop.

  That’s right, Paris thought. Stay with me.

  Hurriedly Tom searched through his small cache of drugs and found both tri-ox and kelotane. It wasn’t much, but it was a start and should be enough to keep Harry alive until the full extent of his injuries could be evaluated.

  Tom injected Harry with the medications and sat back on his heels. He knew he needed to get up and move on.

  Soon, he promised himself, he would.

  After a few selfish seconds of dull immobility, Paris picked himself up and moved to the next nearest injured member of his crew.

  MARCH 2381

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Two weeks after the slaughter at the Azure Nebula, as Tom Paris had privately taken to calling it, he was sitting a weary vigil outside Harry’s room at Starfleet Medical on Earth. The Enterprise medics had succeeded in stabilizing Harry. The surgeries he required had been postponed until Harry had been shipped out with the rest of the grievously injured to Earth thirty-six hours later.

  It had taken Paris another week to get back home. With Chakotay confined to quarters under the care of Counselor Cambridge, the task of supervising Voyager’s recovery efforts had fallen to him. Cambridge had suggested more than once that they abandon ship, but Tom had found that unacceptable. Instead, he, Vorik, and Voyager’s eighty-nine other survivors had focused on beginning repairs that would at least make the ship space-worthy again. Using their shuttles, they and a handful of other vessels that avoided complete destruction had managed to scavenge parts from the ship graveyard that rung the Azure Nebula, supplementing their supplies with what the Enterprise had been able to spare when they had returned for the final confrontation against the Borg. Miraculously, that confrontation had ended both quickly and in the Alpha quadrant’s favor. To this day Tom still found it hard to believe that anyone had survived. But to his credit, and that of the crew, Voyager had been spared the indignity of being towed back to Earth, though more than one vessel, heartened by Voyager’s survival and determination, had assured Tom they would consider it an honor to do so. Vorik had managed to get their warp drive working, and Paris had never been so proud in his life than he was the moment he had s
at in the stripped-down bridge’s command chair and ordered Ensign T.J. Sydney, a gamma-shift conn officer, to set a course for home.

  The latest reports Tom had received from Harry’s doctors indicated that he would make a complete recovery—eventually. For the moment, he was lying in a medically induced coma to minimize the strain on his body as it continued to heal.

  For the last several hours, strains of delicate music had been wafting gently from Harry’s room. It was the most melancholy sound Tom had ever heard and made him physically ache for B’Elanna and Miral.

  He knew they were safe for now, if completely beyond his reach. Painful as it was to remember, he found himself thinking back to the last time they had been together and there had still been hope in his heart.

  STARDATE 57312: APRIL 24, 2380

  At B’Elanna’s insistence, Tom had first contacted his old Academy buddy, Dil Moore, just before Voyager had shipped out following the rescue of B’Elanna and Miral and liberty on Earth. After weeks of arguing, B’Elanna had awakened one morning more at peace than Tom could remember in some time. Unfortunately, she had also awakened with a plan, and Tom had been unable to talk her out of it.

  Dil had completed the Academy specializing in the most esoteric of engineering theories, but had resigned his commission after the required years of active service following graduation. He had established a civilian research facility in the wilds of Montana and happily spent his days theorizing technology Tom could rarely pronounce, let alone understand the applications for.

  B’Elanna had insisted that he find a place for her with appropriate facilities for herself and Miral that did not fall under Starfleet’s purview, so Dil’s had been at the top of a very short list.

  Eighteen months later Tom had received an urgent message from B’Elanna. He’d requested permission to return to Earth several weeks before Voyager had completed their exhaustive analysis of the Yaris Nebula. Even before Tom had finished making the request, Chakotay had given him his blessing and an extended leave to take the Delta Flyer to Earth. Tom didn’t think he’d succeed in talking some sense into B’Elanna, but buoyed by Chakotay’s encouragement, he had set off, determined to do what he could.