The BLTS Archive - To Tell The Truth
#6b: M'Nea Madeleine
by melanie (melanie@skynet.ca)

---

"Sunbird?"

Tom surfaced from his planning with a jerk.  For hours now, while the
child had slept in his arms, he had been working on an idea that
became more appealing to him with every passing second.  He was
puzzling out the logistics of such an operation and how best he could
protect his little charge while he did when the ship commanded his
attention.  "Huh?"

"I'm picking up a distress signal.  It's in... Gaelic."

"Crewwoman O'Banyon," he said in a monotone and smoothed the hair off
of his foster daughter's face.

"No, it's not from anyone from Voyager.  Listen."

"'I repeat,'" a female voice said in strongly accented Irish Gaelic.
"'This is the shuttle Dublin requesting immediate assistance from any
ships in the area.  My engines are offline and life support is
failing.  My co-ordinates are-"

He frowned as co-ordinates were rattled off then the message began to
repeat once more.  Voyager did not have any shuttles known by the name
of 'Dublin.'  And the speaker did not sound like Crewwoman O'Banyon -
the only female on Voyager with a thick Irish accent and who had the
tendency to launch into her native tongue when flustered.

"Gherop in the area?"

"No signs of them.

"Distance?"

"They're two hours away at maximum speed."

Despite his best efforts, M'Nea Madeleine woke as he carefully shifted
her to the mattress.  Seeing she was about to be left, she held out
her arms to him and mewed in protest.  Conceding defeat, he picked her
up and held her to him.

"What do you want me to do?" Sunbird asked.  "Change course or ignore
them?"

"Change course but keep alert for traps.  Come here, you," he smiled
at M'Nea Madeleine.  "Let's get you something to eat, huh?  I bet
you're hungry."

By the time they came within sensor range, he had M'Nea Madeleine fed,
changed, and happily ensconced in a corner of the Bridge in a playpen
with toys.  Seated at his station at the Helm, Tom was trying to make
sense of the readings the sensors were feeding him.

"The signal *is* in Irish Gaelic and the basic configuration of the
ship is...." Had she still been organic, her brow would have been
furrowed.  "I'd swear this ship came from the Alpha Quadrant.  Some of
the technology is identical to many Alpha Quadrant designs from about
twenty-five years ago."

"The basic configuration's the same," he clarified, consulting the
scans, "but whoever this is has improved upon them.  Check the area
for traces of wormholes, gopher holes, and temporal shifts."

"I'm reading normal space.  None of them or any other forms of
phenomena -- natural or otherwise."

"There's nothing amiss with your sensors?"

"I just finished a diagnostic.  They're operating a peak efficiency."

"So how did a ship, clearly Alpha Quadrant in design if not origin,
end up here?  Say a ship from twenty-five years ago somehow made it to
the Delta Quadrant and they or someone else found it and improved upon
its design.  There's no way either the original or the next
generations of that ship could have travelled this far into the Delta
Quadrant naturally in that short of a time span."

"Perhaps it fell through a wormhole I can't detect or the Caretaker
could have brought it here like it did Voyager."

"That wouldn't explain the changes in design.  Besides, it's too small
to travel far on its own.  It can't have a crew of more than two or
three."

"I'm reading only one lifesign.  Terran female."

"The Caretaker wouldn't have bothered to go to all the effort just to
grab one person.  He was looking for compatible genetic matches.  He
would have wanted more to chose from than just one individual.
Besides, how could it have made its way this far all on its own?  It's
too far and the ship's too vulnerable to attackers."

"Don't know, but we'll be in transporter range in three minutes."

"Any indications she's seen us?"

"None.  My cloak's holding and she hasn't charged any weapons or
raised her shields.  I don't think she's the power to do either
anyway.  All systems are in grey mode."

"Life support?"

"About to fall below minimum."

He surged to his feet.  "Beam her directly to Sickbay the second we're
in range."

"What if it's a trap?"

"Then it's a trap and we'll deal with it," he said, heading for the
turbolift.  He glanced at M'Nea Madeleine when he passed her playpen.
She was happily amusing herself with her new toys and Sunfire would
watch her to see she was safe so he felt no worry in leaving the
Bridge.  "Go through the usual screenings of course," he instructed
the ship as the lift descended.

"Acknowledged.  Thirty seconds to- I think I found the trap."

He paused as the lift stopped.  "What is it?"

"I've tapped into the ship's computer.  There's a self-destruct
sequence.  Its trigger is her lifesign.  If it goes, the ship will
blow."

"Transfer the information to the Sickbay terminal," he ordered,
rushing down the corridor to Sickbay.  "I'll see what I can do."

In his former life as an AlphaOmegan, Tom had disarmed self-destruct
mechanisms a hundred times more complex than this one so it was easy
work for him.  The only thing that gave him trouble was trying to
remember his Gaelic.  The idyllic summer during which he had learned
the nearly extinct Terran language been so long ago, but with
Sunfire's double checking his work, he managed to override the command
codes written entirely in that language.

"What's her status?" he questioned, getting up from his chair at the
desk and moving to push an instrument tray over to the biobed.

"She's almost unconscious."

"Beam her over."

When the woman appeared, Tom was ready for her, tricorder in hand.
Sunfire had verified their visitor carried no concealed weapons or any
diseases just waiting to be contracted by some unsuspecting
individual.  In fact, other than some respiratory distress due to the
low life support, their guest was in perfect health.  Still Tom gave
her a once over and administered a hypo of triox to ease her
breathing.

"Who are you?" she asked in her own language once the extra oxygen hit
her brain and she became lucid.  Hers indeed was the voice from the
distress call.  The strong Irish accent was very much in evidence.
"This doesn't look like any place I've seen before."  She looked
around then back at him.  "But you look like one of us."

"I'm Tom Paris," he introduced reverting to Gaelic himself, but with
the slowness of someone trying to wrap their tongue around long
forgotten words.  "Just lie still for a while."  He did not know who
the "us" was whom he was supposed to resemble.  He certainly did not
look like her.  The pale complexion yes, but she had green eyes and
black hair.  "What's your name?  How'd you get here?"

"Maire Molloy.  You're accent's strange."  She shook her head at her
own rudeness.  "I was out testing our new shuttle design when I ran
into a systems glitch.  Unfortunately I was too far away from New
Kildare to get back before my power went."

The medic froze.  His eyes slowly shifted from the tricorder readout
to her eyes.  "What did you say?"

Ignoring his instructions to lie still, she sat up and swung her long
legs over the edge of the biobed.  As she repeated what she had just
said, she ran her fingers through her long black curls, rearranging
them.

"New Kildare," he repeated in a soft voice.

"Yes.  You're not from New Kildare, are you?"  It was more of a
statement of a revelation than a question.

"I'm from Earth."

She smiled.  "I knew they'd do it," she murmured enigmatically.  "Am I
okay?"

He nodded, distractedly.

"Good.  I need to contact my ship.  There's a self-destruct on it that
was set to go off when my lifesign was gone.  So no one else could
take her after I was dead and use her to find New Kildare."

"We found it and disarmed it already."

She blinked at him in shock.  "How?"

"It was simple, if you know something about self-destructs *and* know
Gaelic."

Smiling, she shook her head.  "I'm impressed even more.  So where are
we?"

"You're on a ship named Sunfire."

"Then I'll need to talk to your Captain and ask for my shuttle to be
tractored into your shuttlebay and for you to return me home."  She
slipped off of the bed and smiled at him, shaking her head in
disbelief.  "We always figured someone from the Alpha Quadrant would
developed the technology to get to the Delta Quadrant, but I never
thought it would be in my lifetime."

"Sunfire doesn't have a shuttlebay and I'm her captain.  We didn't
exactly come here of our own accord."  The comments were almost
asides.  His mind still was on what she had said before.  "You're from
New Kildare?"

"Yes."  Her tone was the same as one would use with a child, one of
indulgence.

"But New Kildare and its system was destroyed almost twenty-five years
ago."

She sighed heavily.  "We always wondered what the Alpha Quadrant
assumed after The Relocation."

"Relocation?  I'm sorry, do you know Federation standard?  Can we
switch to that?  I think I'm mistranslating what you just said."

"Yes, I know it," she said in that language.

He switched over too.  "The entire star system vanished without a
trace.  But you called it a 'relocation', right?"

"Yes.  It's a long story.  Since you're Captain of this vessel, could
you tractor my shuttle along side and take me home?  If it's not too
far out of your way?"

"Yes.  Yes, of course."

"Good.  I'll tell you about The Relocation after I give your Conn
Officer the co-ordinates.  It's not too far, unless you're in a ship
that's losing power," she smiled.

He did not return it.  "I'm the Conn Officer too.  You're entire
planet came to the Delta Quadrant.  Population, moons, and all?"

"All of System 091, yes.  You're Captain *and* Conn Officer and
there's no shuttlebay?  Just how big is this ship anyway?"

When a thoughtful Tom did not answer, Sunfire did.  "I have five decks
and a gross mass of 290,000 metric tonnes.  The designers felt a
shuttlebay was unnecessary as I am perfectly capable of surface
landings and more space should be devoted to other areas of the ship."

"I'd love to see your schematics," she told the ceiling.  "I'm eager
to see how your designers overcame...."

As the woman attempted to engage Sunfire in a technical discussion
only B'Elanna, Carey, Seven and maybe a handful of Voyager's engineers
would have understood completely, Tom surfaced from his thoughts.  "We
have to get you home, Ms. Molloy," he interrupted, striding out of
Sickbay.

The guest hurried along after him.  "Call me Maire," she invited,
stepping into the turbolift with him.  "After all, you just saved my
life.  I think deserves a first name basis if anything does."

Involuntarily, he thought of the number of times he had saved people's
lives on Voyager and still never ended up on a first name basis with
them.  Refocusing on the matter at hand, he walked out of the lift the
moment it halted on the Bridge and headed for the Helm.

"Wow," Maire breathed.  "I've never seen anything like this.  Or you.
Aren't you the prettiest little girl."

Tom glanced over his shoulder to see her reaching into M'Nea
Madeleine's playpen to pick her up.  Unbidden, the desire to rush over
and snatch his daughter away from the stranger inundated him.  He
restrained it, surprised at the feelings of possessiveness that had
developed in him in such a short time *and* at the fact he already was
thinking of her as his "daughter."  "That is M'Nea Madeleine."

"M'Nea Madeleine?  An unusual name for an unusual little girl.
Madeleine's French, yes?"

He nodded.

"M'Nea?"

"Klingon.  From a story I once read.  'Women Warriors at the River of
Blood.'"

"Sounds gruesome."

"A bit violent, but rather good plot-wise."  A sad smile crossed is
face as he thought of when he had read it.  Memories of B'Elanna
laughing over his pronunciation of some Klingon words.  Of her teasing
him when he had heaved a relieved sigh at the happy ending.  Of the
teasing becoming sparring then the two of them making love and nearly
being late for duty shift.  He shook his head.  That was in the past.
Remembering what it was like back then only would torture him further.
He had enough to torture him without that.

Maire scrutinized the child who was conducting a tactile investigation
of Maire's face.  "You don't look-" She tugged the little hand out of
her mouth as it slipped in to check out her tongue and teeth.  "You
play with your own, little one."

The "little one" made a disgusted noise at her fun having been ruined.

"You don't look Klingon."

"She's Rachar."

"Rachar?"

Tom turned back to the helm and keyed in an instruction to Sunfire
while he spoke.  "A Delta Quadrant species that's been wiped out.
They were murdered by the Gherop."

"That's terrible."

"You haven't encountered them yourself?"

"The Rachar?  No.  Never have as far as I know."

"The Gherop I meant."

"Them neither.  We keep to ourselves for the most part and New Kildare
is well hidden from view.  Unless you knew it was there, you'd never
think to look for it there.  And if you did, you'd never be able to
find it anyway."

"Really."

"Yes.  System 091 is hidden inside of an enormous dust cloud that the
natives to the region apparently call 'the Y Llat Dust Cloud.'  At
least that's what we've picked up by monitoring a couple transmissions
of ships that had passed by the cloud.  Scanning it from the outside,
you'd never find it.  The dust particles cause a feedback for the
sensors unless they are specifically calibrated to cut through them.
It's quite the defensive measure and entirely natural."

He watched the results appear on his console.  All the standard and
non- standard tests indicated Maire was telling the truth.  Not that
he took that as conclusive proof of her honesty.  Her claim to be from
New Kildare and that the system had "relocated" to the Delta Quadrant
was just too hard to believe.  He was not going to rule out a trap
until the hairs on the back of his neck ceased standing on end.

"But you still sent out a distress call, one anyone could have picked
up."

"In another few moments I would have blacked out and eventually
asphyxiated.  Death versus running into someone I didn't want to meet.
Hardly a choice, in my humble opinion.  I still have a healthy
appreciation for this life, thank you very much.  Down you go,
leanaban."

He could hear her returning M'Nea Madeleine to her playpen and quickly
erased the truth test results from the screen before Maire's
inevitable stroll over to join him at the Helm.

"Besides, what's the worst that could have happened to me?" she
continued.  "Be killed?  That was going to happen anyway."

"Some things are worse than death."

"Name one," she laughed, moving to stand beside his chair.

"The Gherop seem to delight in enslaving peoples.  They probably would
have taken you to spend the rest of your natural life serving them and
tried to find the rest of your people to do the same to them.  And if
your people resisted, the Gherop would have destroyed your world.
Just like they did to the Rachar and New Rachar."

She laid a hand on his shoulder.  "I'm sorry," she apologized, her
laughter gone.  "These Rachar were your friends?  Well, obviously if
you had a child with one of them.  What a stupid question."

"She's not my biological daughter.  Her mother entrusted her to me
when she died."

"There are no other family?"

"As far as I know, there are no other Rachar.  Like I told you, the
Gherop massacred them all.  Even hunted done those who escaped their
world's destruction."

"I'm sorry."  She was silent for a long time, her hand still resting
on his shoulder.  "We should get to New Kildare," she finally said.
"They'll be frantic wondering where I am."

Tom caught her now powerless shuttle in a tractor beam and extended
Sunfire's cloak around it.  When Maire gave him the co-ordinates for
her dust cloud enshrouded home, they were off.

---

"Kathryn, we need to talk."  Chakotay sat next to the Captain.
Neither her position nor posture had changed since the last time he
had seen her.  "I went to see my spirit guide. She let me see Paris.'"

For the first time in days, she perked up a little.  Her head rose and
her grey eyes found his.  "Yes?" she whispered anxiously.

He began pacing.  "And he's fine," he dismissed, deliberately leaving
out any mention of the evidence of emotional trauma.  "Just like I
keep telling you."

"He's fine?"

"Yes."

Chakotay turned to her in time to see her eyes slowly slide from him
to a point on the couch cushion in front of her.  He hated not telling
her the entire truth, but he had rationalized it to himself by
believing whatever Paris was feeling at the moment would pass in time.
And he *was* physically okay.  What was important was getting the
Captain back to being the Captain and getting on with their lives and
their problems, not obsessing about Paris and his.

"Kathryn, it's time for you to remember you are Captain Kathryn
Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager.  You can't keep hiding in
here, trying to pretend the rest of the ship does not exist.  As long
as you do, it is undermining your authority as Captain and giving the
wrong example to the rest of the crew.  Just a couple of hours ago I
had a crewmember in my office who as much as told me everyone's
thinking you've gone weak and maybe unfit for captaincy.  Pretty soon
someone will actually come out and say I should replace you as Captain
because you can't do the job.  Is that what you want to have happen?
You really want to see someone else sitting in the centre chair?
Paris is gone.  It's time to snap out of it and get back to running
this ship."

He sat down on the edge of her desk and waited.  It took almost two
minutes, but eventually she did unfold her limbs and rise, tugging her
uniform down into place.

"Good," he nodded approvingly.  "You go take a long shower," he
instructed, jabbing a thumb towards the Ready Room head, "then we can
start addressing the problems that have crept up.  And toss out your
clothes out and I'll refresh them."

Mindlessly, Kathryn obeyed.

---

"Wait."

Q shot his mate a glance and stopped.  "Why?"

"I want to see what the big deal is."

"Big deal about what?"

"About Helmboy.  Why would q be here unless there was something
interesting going on?  The others are bad enough, but this one... As I
remember it, this one was downright boring."

"He's always did strike me as insignificant when compared to others."

"Others like your Janeway?" she scowled.

"Kathy does have an interesting mind."

"Huh."

"But this one... Rather dull really.  Always was more interested in
the physical pursuits, if you catch my meaning.  Speaking of which, I
wonder where his Klingon playmate is."  He glanced at Voyager and
found B'Elanna there and hard at work.  "There she is."  He assumed a
thoughtful pose.  "I wonder why he's here with these ones and they're
over there.  Someone ought to see why.  Just for the sake of
understanding Q's interest here and not over there, of course.  And
I-"

"Oh, no, you don't.  If anyone's going there it will be me," she
interrupted then vanished.

Grumbling to himself about his mate's jealousy, Q conjured up an easy
chair and sat down to watch his son and the "dull one."

---

Shortly after 1800 that night, an exhausted B'Elanna was dragging
herself around the corner and down the corridor towards her quarters.
Now she regretted not sleeping during the four hours the Doctor had
insisted she take off that morning.  She was so tired she was having
trouble resisting the temptation to just drop to the deck where she
was and curl up and go to sleep.  It had taken hours, but the breach
had been averted and the repairs were back on schedule.  Once she had
a nap, she planned to go back to help some more.

"Lieutenant?"

She prised open her eyelid a little farther and lifted her head.  She
not only saw Tuvok, who had spoken to her, but Seven, the Doctor,
Megan Delaney, and an uncomfortable looking Geron.

"Hope I'm not too late, " Neelix apologized, hurrying towards the
group from the direction B'Elanna had come.  "Naomi's having a tough
time and I had to try to help.  Didn't do much good though,
unfortunately.  She still won't talk to her mother or me.  Hope you
don't mind me coming," he said, turning to B'Elanna.  "I ran into
Seven who invited -- Lieutenant, you need to sit down.  You look
exhausted.  Why are we all standing out here in the corridor?  Come
on, make way and let's get inside."

He put an arm around B'Elanna to guide her through the others and
inside her quarters, everyone else automatically following.

"Here, sit down."  He lowered her to a corner of the couch and headed
for the replicator.  "Let's get you some coffee to wake you up.  Can't
have a meeting when the one who called it is asleep.  Anyone else want
anything?"

Neelix was handing out everyone's requested beverages when the door
chimed.  At Neelix's call to enter, Pablo Baytart entered, looking
guilty and apologetic.  A close look at the new half pip sitting
beside the full one on his collar showed why.

"I... I was called to the Captain's Ready Room a few minutes ago," the
newly minted Lieutenant j.g. explained, unable to look anywhere but at
B'Elanna's stunned face.  "The Captain and Commander were there.  The
Commander did most of the talking.  He said we're back in the same
boat as we were when we thought Tom was dead.  We need a Head of Conn
since Tom's not here anymore.  They offered me the position again and
this time with a promotion.  I didn't know what to do.  Taking the job
when we thought he was dead was one thing.  I didn't want it under
those circumstances, but I knew someone had to do it.  Knowing he's
alive out there somewhere and could still do his job if we can just
get him back here... I certainly don't want the job or the rank under
those circumstances.  It's Tom's, but I figured if I didn't say yes,
they'd find someone else, someone who wouldn't know to give it back to
Tom once we got him back here on Voyager where he belongs."

"Perhaps this is a good thing," the Doctor suggested.  "With one of
our own in the position, it will mean one more vote in our favour on
the Senior Staff."

"Doctor," Tuvok began with a warning note in his voice, "please do not
speak in such terms.  We are not here to plan a mutiny.   We are here
simply to establish a coherent, overwhelming argument to present to
the Captain in favour of searching for Mr. Paris.  Nothing more."

"Of course, but the greater number of Senior Staff who back our plan,
the better.  They are the ones she listens to first and foremost.  If
they suggest a plan of action, it carries more weight merely because
they are the ones suggesting it.  Right now we have you, me, Mr.
Baytart, and Ms. Torres.  The fact Mr. Neelix and Seven of Nine are in
agreement will carry a lot of weight, even if they are not official
members of the Senior staff."  He turned to Megan and Geron.  "Not to
say your contributions will not important also, of course."

"Of course not," Megan nodded.  "And B'Elanna told me Lieutenant Carey
and Ensign Vorik are in on this too."

"I doubt Engineering can spare them right now so they could be here,"
Seven guessed.  "And the Doctor is correct.  The more Senior staff the
better."

"Commander Chakotay clearly is out of the question," the Doctor
grumbled.  "When I suggested the idea of going after Mr. Paris, I was
told in no uncertain terms to forget it."

Pablo flipped a dining table chair around and straddled it.  "What
about Ensign Kim?  He is Tom's best friend.  Well, he was before
everything came out."

"Yes, what about Harry Kim, B'Elanna?" Megan asked.  When she received
no answer everyone's heads pivoted to the Chief Engineer.  She was
dead asleep.  "Well, what do we do now?"

Tuvok came over to gather the sleeping woman in his arms and walked
over to the bedroom to deposit her on the bed.  "I see no reason why
we cannot continue," he suggested, returning to them minus his burden.
"We already are here and she appears to be sleeping so soundly we will
not disturb her."

The others all nodded in agreement.

---

With mild interest, the little Q's mother was listening in to the
conversation.  'Perhaps, Helmboy was not as dull as she had thought,'
she mused, listening to Tuvok play devil's advocate, and did a recap
of the case against Tom Paris, namely his past and crimes, so they all
knew what they were up against.  'But what is it that Q or q see in
these puny creatures with even punier minds?  They're so single-
minded.  So clueless about the Universe around them.  Why do they
merit their attention?'

The only thing that had given her any joy was seeing Q's precious
Kathy practically catatonic with self-pity and guilt.  That brought a
sadistic smile to her face, even if that one with the ridiculous
tattoo was trying to draw her out of her mood.  Still, her responding
to the illustrated man's presence did have one good side effect.  If
she stayed interested in him, then she would stay away from Q.  That
idea had promise and she would not even have to help them along.  The
interest already was there.

Without ever betraying her presence, she settled herself in an
unoccupied chair in the room to watch what progressed.

---

Warily, Tom instructed Sunfire to follow the two New Kildarean ships
through the Y Llat Dust Cloud while the other two slipped in behind
them.  Only moments ago, when they finally had come in sight of it,
these four ships had just been emerging from it, shields up and
weapons at the ready.  Before then, Sunfire's sensors had detected
*something* approaching them though she had not been able to tell what
until the ships were almost out of the cloud.  On the other hand, the
New Kildareans, who had spent years developing sensors capable of
cutting through the dust cloud, had seen them coming quite a ways off.
What was even more disconcerting was Sunfire's cloak had been
operational at the time and extended around the Dublin.  If they had
to escape these ships for some reason, they did not have a chance to
hide from them that way.

The only bright spot was he half-believed that would not be necessary.
While they had travelled there, Maire had made a somewhat incomplete
and less than technical explanation of the phenomenon that had brought
them to the dust cloud in the Delta Quadrant.  She had apologized for
the lack of specifics, saying she was an engineer, not an expert in
space phenomena.  When they had arrived in the Delta Quadrant and
realized they no longer were in the Alpha Quadrant, she had been only
two years old.  Her elder brothers remembered more than her of what
had occurred as did their parents.  She had been too young at the time
and later on she had not been interested in it.  As far as she was
concerned, how they arrived where they were was irrelevant.  They were
there to stay and that was that.  However, once they arrived on New
Kildare, she promised, she would find someone who could explain
everything to him properly.

Though he did not say anything to her or Sunfire, he secretly hoped
whomever she found botched the explanation as badly as she had.  Then
he would have proof it was all a lie and they could get out of there.
He did not know if he could take it were she telling the truth.  It
would be so much harder for him to go through with his plans for
starters.

Over the next few minutes, while Maire talked over the comm with one
of the pilots, who it turned out had been at school with her, Tom made
careful course adjustments and Sunfire began to amass evidence that
dashed his hopes of a quick answer refuting Maire's claims.  When they
emerged into the centre of the cloud, Sunfire did a quick scan of the
vast interior of the cloud.  The system of a single sun with eight
planets and fourteen moons in orbit precisely matched that of System
091 and New Kildare therein.  The mineralogical composition of the
celestial bodies was consistent.  The age of the sun matched.  The
lifeforms were genetically a match.  All the evidence seemed to be
falling squarely behind Maire.

As their four escort ships broke off, the Planetary Traffic Control,
who oversaw all orbital and sub-orbital traffic as well as surface
traffic, directed Tom to the landing area on the grounds of the
O'Connor Propulsion Research Facility, for whom Maire worked.  The
OPRF people then took over the conversation, instructing Tom where to
deposit the Dublin.  Sunfire was to then land nearby and Tom was to
wait to be met by a PTC officer for the required forms to be filled
out.  "Bureaucrats," Maire grumbled under her breath as they did as
ordered.  "Always reports and forms and red tape."

Secretly, Tom agreed with her.  "I'll beam you out to the surface," he
told her, letting Sunfire finish the shutdown of her propulsion
systems by herself.  "I have to collect M'Nea Madeleine and her
things."

"Ah, yes, the obligatory five million things one has to take
everywhere when taking the baby anywhere.  My sister-in-law says it
takes longer to get their kids ready to go anywhere than it does
herself.  And if you'd ever seen my sister-in-law you'd know how
inconceivable that is. Never seen anyone who could take longer to get
dressed and do her hair and make-up."

He smiled and nodded.  "I'll see you outside in a minute.  It'll give
you a chance to get a head start on that paperwork."

"Oh, gee, thanks."

She disappeared in a transporter beam and his smile vanished.

"Report," he ordered.

"The male approaching with a padd and a tricorder on his belt is
unarmed and there are no signs of any defensive measures at all, let
alone on alert here or anywhere else on the planet or in the system,"
the ship answered.  "I have interfaced with their computers and her
story checks out.  Everything appears legit."

"Hmm."  Tom was quiet for a while as he poked around in the New
Kildarean computers, trying to find something.  When he found it, he
slumped back into his chair, stunned.

"Sunbird?"

He shook himself, returning to himself.  "Surface conditions," he
asked, going to the playpen.

Beside the playpen, Sunfire conjured up a bag containing a baby
blanket, bottles of juice, and a bag of cookies to legitimize his
story for why he was delaying his disembarkation.  "Atmosphere checks
out. Slightly higher concentration of nitrogen than Earth, otherwise
identical.  Sunbird, what was that all about?  Who's-"

"Later."

"Fine.  Temperature is 18 Celsius and there's a slight breeze so
bundle her up."

Seeing a tiny jacket materialize, lying over the bag of baby things,
he grabbed it and wrestled M'Nea Madeleine into it, shaking his head.
"Maternal today, isn't she?"

The child giggled at him and nearly punched him in the nose as he
tried to stuff one chubby arm into a sleeve.

"Keep a lock on us, Sunfire, and keep them off of you."

"Of course," Sunfire agreed.  "You're sure you want to take her with
you?"

Mission accomplished, Tom began tossing a few toys into the bag.
"Since Maire's seen her, I can't very well just leave her here. I'd
have to explain why I wasn't worried about her safety then about your
special nature and for the moment I want to keep them in the dark that
you're a lot more than any ordinary ship."

"Understood."  She paused.  "Sunbird?"

"Yes?"

"Something strange is going on with you."

"What do you mean?"

"When she said she was from New Kildare you were shocked.  More than
you should have been upon hearing she was from a planet in a system
that had vanished twenty-five years ago," she hastened to add before
he could speak.

He slung the back over his shoulder and scooped up M'Nea Madeleine.
"I've been here before," he admitted, straightening.  "The summer
before it vanished, I spent four and a half months here with my mother
and sisters.  It was the best four and a half months of my entire
life."

"You didn't say anything to Maire."

"Of course not.  If this is all a trick, I don't want to give them
ammunition to use against us."

"How could it be a trick though?"

"I don't know.  It's certainly rather a large co-incidence, finding it
here, in the Delta Quadrant.  It being in the Delta Quadrant, perhaps.
Stranger things have happened.  But to actually stumble across it?
The Delta Quadrant is a huge place.  The odds are astronomically
against finding it like this.  Even greater against the one who found
it being me -- someone who's actually been there and has such fond
memories of it.  Sure everyone in the Alpha Quadrant has at some point
in school heard of the mystery of the vanishing New Kildare colony and
System 091.  But few had been there before it went.  It wasn't much of
a tourist spot, beautiful though it was.  It was off of the usual
routes. "

"Did you tell someone on Voyager about New Kildare and maybe some
aliens found out about it from them?"

"After New Kildare vanished, I never spoke of it again."  His voice
dropped to a whisper.  "It was too hard."

"What if this really is New Kildare?  Coincidences do happen."

He shook his head to clear it.  "I have a way to figure out if it is.
Just be ready to get us out of here if I'm right and it is a lie."

"I'll see if I can figure out a way to disable their ships and
sensors."

"Good luck."

"You too."

The organics vanished in a shower of light and Sunfire was alone to
work.

---

"There he is," Maire said with relief to the PTC officer when she saw
Tom and M'Nea Madeleine beamed onto the tarmac a short distance from
Sunfire.  "He can answer your questions."  Her head turned as a land
vehicle with "O'Connor Propulsion Research Facility" emblazoned on its
side stopped near the Dublin and a group of technicians tumble out en
masse.  "I have to go see them.  Tom?" Maire called over her shoulder
and jerked a thumb towards the PTC officer.  "Red tape with your name
on it."

"Thanks," he returned, nonchalantly striding up the blue uniformed man
with the padd.

"No problem," she grinned.  "I'll see what I can do about finding that
someone to explain The Relocation better to you.  Contact me at my
office."  She jerked a thumb towards one of the many buildings in the
distance.  "And I still would love to see Sunfire's schematics."

Not waiting for a response, she rushed off towards her colleagues who
already were crawling all over the Dublin with scanners and tools.

The PTC officer looked very nervous and uncomfortable.  At first, Tom
thought it was because the officer looked like he was barely out of
his teens and new at his job.  As the interview progressed, he
discovered the situation was not quite that at all.

"Um, er, uh, your name?"

"Tom Paris."

Nodding, he input the information into the padd then frowned at the
display.  "Okay, uh, your ship's name?"

"Sunfire."

"Okay.  And your... your planet of origin?"

"Earth."

"Uh huh."  He glanced up and straight at M'Nea Madeleine who was
toying with Tom's left ear lobe.  "And the... child?"

"M'Nea Madeleine.  She's Rachar.  From this quadrant."

"And you're her father?"

"Adoptive parent.  Her birth parents are dead."

"I see."  He was quiet for a while.  So long Tom had more than enough
time to clue into what the problem really was.

"This is the first time you've ever had to do this, isn't it?" he
asked in a comforting voice.

A startled glance was sent in Tom's direction.  "Uh, yeah.  How'd you
guess?"

"Only makes sense.  I doubt you have many visitors."

"You're the first."

"Why?"

"They can't navigate the Y Llat Dust Cloud."

"You led me through.  You could do the same for them."

"Oh, but then they'd tell others about us and we'd never be safe
again.  If they don't know we're here, they won't try and invade or
anything."

"But you let me come."

"Well, apparently they figured since Ms. Molloy had told you about us
it was too late and they might as well just let you come.  Besides,
there are some who left behind friends and relatives in the Alpha
Quadrant and wish they could tell them they're okay, not dead."  He
looked left and right to see they were alone, then leaned closer to
Tom.  "And there are some who are hoping you might be able to help us
get System 091 back to the Alpha Quadrant where it belongs so we can
tell everyone ourselves.  When we picked you up on our sensors almost
an hour ago, word of you spread like wildfire.  And when our ships
intercepted you outside of the cloud and Ms. Molloy said someone from
the Alpha Quadrant had rescued her, everyone soon knew that too.  They
figure you got here, so we can get back there."

There was the sound of footsteps coming towards them and the officer
straightened and returned to his work with a renewed vigour.

"As you know your ship and yourselves were scanned for diseases and
parasites before you entered the cloud," he said in a voice that now
rang with authority.  "You'll be relieved to know the scans came up
negative.  You are healthy and pose no health risk to New Kildare."

Tom refrained from telling him he already knew that.

"Your plans for your length of stay?"

"Uncertain, but not long."

"That's unfortunate," the middle aged woman in a PTC uniform declared,
stopping beside her underling.  "There are a lot of people who want to
talk to you."

"Oh?"

"Yes.  Come.  They're sending a transport to pick you up.  I'm
supposed to accompany you to the talla-baile so we'll have time for
you to tell all that's happening back on Earth."

She put an arm through his and escorted him across the tarmac to the
land vehicle they could see winding its way through the shuttle
hangers.

Their reactions were prime indicators of what he was to experience for
the rest of the day.  He felt like he was some sort of important
dignitary or celebrity and perhaps he was in a way.  He *was* the
first visitor from the Alpha Quadrant in a long time so he guessed
that justified the gawking and curiosity of everyone he passed.  Even
when he reached the town hall for the meeting, he found the planetary
president and regional governors, who had transported in just for the
meeting, were a little awe-struck, but, thankfully, that faded in
time.  Everyone's eagerness to know how he and Sunfire had arrived in
the Delta Quadrant, however, did not.

Still not totally convinced of their veracity, he stalled as long as
he could.  He professed a curiosity to know precisely what The
Relocation was and had bought himself some time.  The expert they
trotted out turned out to be the one Maire already had contacted
regarding speaking to Tom and he had droned on and on.  Tom would
still have been there three hours later if three members of his
audience, including M'Nea Madeleine and the President herself, had not
fallen asleep.  A tactful aide had roused their leader and the
sleeping governor of New Cork, both of whom went red in the face and
made apologies as did the expert, who was able to laugh at his own
over-enthusiasm for his subject.  He took questions, Tom obliging him
with as many as he, not being the scientific type, could manage.

But he must have somehow betrayed himself with all the questions.  The
governor from New Donegal suddenly leaned forwards in her chair and
stated that -- not asked if -- Tom was not convinced they were who
they said they were.  Seeing no recourse he admitted he was suspicious
since he had seen such tricks before.  The President had asked what
they could do to reassure them they really were who they said they
were? And that was the opening Tom had hoped for.  He had asked for a
transport and a driver and no further questions to be asked.  They had
agreed and he, M'Nea Madeleine, and the somewhat overwhelmed driver
had set off for the street name Tom supplied for him.  Taking no
chances, Tom kept the exact destination a secret until they were on
the specified street.

Three minute's journey outside of the town limits they came to the
last property before they entered the foothills of the Derryveagh
Mountains and he told the driver to stop.  Slinging the baby bag over
his shoulder, Tom stepped out of the transport with his daughter in
his arms and onto the winding flagstone path to the front door.  The
house had changed a bit since the last time he had seen it.  The
two-storey structure now was a deep sky blue in colour with white trim
and red shutters and a red front door.  The old front porch had been
covered with a roof and a wooden railing also painted white.  The
trees in the front garden were the same though.  A bit bigger of
course, but the garden remained a riotous butterfly garden full of
what most would have considered weeds, but were heaven to the
multitudes of New Kildarean butterflies that flitted amongst the
blossoms and leaves.  As they walked down the path to the front door,
M'Nea Madeleine made a grab for one of the gaily coloured residents as
tried to perch on her nose and chattered excitedly as it seemed to
play with her, always staying just out of reach of the pudgy fingers.

He never knew if it was his footsteps or the sound of M'Nea
Madeleine's voice that made the old woman look up, but she did.  With
the high plants almost up to his waist in places and meandering path,
Tom had not noticed her on her hands and knees, trowel in hand, trying
to prise the encroaching grass out from between the flagstones.  She
looked up, big smile of greeting on her face, and froze.  Her mouth
worked only no sound came out.  Shakily, she pushed herself up to her
feet, brushing her large straw hat off of her white haired head and
stared at him.

"Ogha?" she whispered and reached out and caressed his cheek with her
fingertips, leaving dark smudges of earth behind.

The hairs on the back of his neck finally lay down.  Tom closed his
eyes and sighed.  "Seanmhair," the "grandson" whispered to his
"grandmother," finally admitting he really was on New Kildare.

---

Seven was disappointed to find out she was correct in her prediction.
When the ship's computer had told her Ensign Kim was not sleeping in
his quarters but very much awake in the Mess Hall, she had known the
odds favoured he was staring out at the stars, not secretly making up
for all those missed meals.  And the odds were correct.

If he heard her mounting the steps to his level, he did not react to
it.

"It is a puzzle to me," Seven said, looking out at the unmoving stars
herself, "precisely what it is that so fascinates the crew that they
are drawn to this view.  It is nothing they have not seen before."

He maintained his detached silence.  Seven found this irrationally
annoying all of a sudden and she reacted with an uncommon display of
anger.  She grabbed his upper arm and whipped him around to face her.

"Ensign, your moping has persisted long enough.  If you are upset,
show it.  Though I do not understand it personally, containing one's
emotions is deemed unhealthy both physically and emotionally."

"Leave me alone," he demanded, trying to jerk free of her hold.

Naturally stronger with her Borg enhancements, her hold was next to
impossible for him to break.  "No, you are in need of companionship,
not isolation, if you are to work through everything that has happened
to you lately."

"What can you possibly tell me about emotions?  You might as well be
Vulcan for all the emotions you feel!"

That verbal slap in the face was enough to cause her to unconsciously
loosen her hold on him and he was able to break free.

"The opinion that Vulcans do not understand or feel emotions is
incorrect," she informed him, stiffly.  "Their lack of visible
emotional response is dictated by necessity, not deficiency.  If
anything, they feel things more intensely than other species."

"Whatever," he dismissed.  "I still want to be left alone."

"I am your friend, Ensign.  I wish to help."

"Fine, you want to help?  Erase the passed month.  That's how you can
help.  If you can't do that, then leave me alone."

"Interference with the past is strictly prohibited by Starfleet
regulations," she said, unknowingly parroting Chakotay's words to the
Captain the day before.  "As is tampering with the memories of an
individual, except in very rare circumstances.  Your situation does
not fulfil the necessary criteria."

"Oh, and just what would you know of my *situation*, huh?"

"I know you had a shock when Mr. Paris' past was revealed.  I know you
suffered immeasurably when Souris died.  I know you feel guilt over
what nearly happened during your imprisonment.  And I know you are
terribly upset by Mr. Paris' leaving without saying goodbye to you."

"You seem to think you know a lot," he muttered, turning away.

"No, I do not.  If I did, I would know how to ease your pain, but I do
not."

A note of despair had crept into her voice and hearing it, he tilted
his head towards her briefly to give her a calculating look before
walking out.

She watched him go then unconsciously discovered the reason why
everyone would stare out at the stars as she lost herself in them and
in thought.

---

"A few hours?" the old woman gasped.  "You've been here a few hours
already?  Why didn't you contact us?"

Tom dipped his head a little so she could take a swipe with the damp
towel at the dirt she had left on his face when she had touched it.
"I wasn't sure this *was* New Kildare.  I thought it might be an alien
trap."

"And what changed your mind?" she asked, walking across the large
kitchen to return the towel to its hook.

"You."

"Me?" she laughed, her entire face lighting up in a way that had not
changed since he was a boy.

"Anyone else... they could have duplicated them and I wouldn't have
noticed the difference.  Even people I knew slightly, I could have
excused changes over the years.  But you, Seanmhair,... Not you."

"Are you saying I'm stuck in a rut?  Huh?"

"No, ma'am," he laughed back.

Seeing her father in such good spirits, M'Nea Madeleine giggled too
and patted his cheek.

"She is a true gift, Thomas," the old woman sighed, coming over to
caress a plump, lavender cheek.

His face sobered and he nodded.

"I'm sorry to have brought back such bad-"

"No, it's okay, Seanmhair," he insisted.

"Where could Oran be?" she grumbled, going to the large window over
the sink and looking across the back gardens towards a small shed at
the bottom of the garden.  "I swear that man does this just to drive
me insane, Thomas."

"Well, you married him, Seanmhair."

"And I knew I was marrying the stereotypical absentminded professor."
She glanced over her shoulder at him.  "Why don't you go see if you
can root him out of there while I get started on dinner?"  Turning,
she gave him a good once over.  "And I think it'll be something more
substantial than what I'd planned for Oran and I.  You could use some
fattening up."

He ignored the reference to his abnormally thin frame.  "Seanair's
still into woodworking?"

"Yes."  She heaved a long-suffering sigh.  "Finally had to tell him he
had to start offering his work for sale at the village shops.  There
was getting to be no more room in the house for everything he was
making.  He almost can't keep up with the demand now."

"That's great."  He looked at the shed then down at M'Nea Madeleine.
"I don't think I should take her in there.  All that dust."

"I'll take her."  She held out her hands to accept the child.  Seeing
she was about to get someone else to lavish attention on her, M'Nea
Madeleine almost overbalanced and fell out of Tom's arms in her
eagerness to get to the woman.  "Oh, goodness.  You are the
affectionate one, aren't you?"

Tom hooked the baby bag over a chair back.  "You're sure you'll be
okay?"

"Yes, yes.  We'll be just fine, won't we, leanaban?"

"Okay.  I'll go get Seanair then I'll be back to help with dinner."

"Don't rush.  You know what he's like when he's working.  It's like he
is transported into another universe all his own."

"Transport!  That poor guy's still out there."  Tom rushed out of the
kitchen, down the long hallway to the front door.  He totally had
forgotten about the driver of the transport who patiently was waiting
for him.  "Sorry about that," Tom apologized to the man still behind
the controls.  "You can go home or whatever now.  I'll be staying
here."

"But my instructions were to be your driver," he protested.

"I'll clear it with the President or whomever later.  Don't worry."

While the man clearly was not happy with losing the cache being their
visitor's personal driver would bring, he had no choice but to leave.
Tom watched him go then started back up the flagstones, this time
following the path around the house and through the back gardens, a
far more ordered affair than the front one.  He stopped at the small
water garden in the centre and just stood there, drinking it all in.
The low walled kitchen garden off of the house.  The dwarf fruit trees
in the small orchard.  The unruly briar patch that was the source of
blackcaps for Nana's prize-winning blackberry pies.  And beyond all
that, the foothills and the mountains.  He thought he never would see
any of this again yet here he was.  He closed his eyes and birds
chatter, the wind through the leaves, and the splash of the water from
the artificial waterfall in the pond.  'This was Heaven,' he sighed.
'This was home.'

Reluctantly his eyes opened.  'And I could not have found it at a
worse time.  How am I supposed to keep my promises now?  How do I go
to Seanmhair and Seanair and say "Sorry, I know I just got here, but I
have to go now and probably get myself killed trying to avenge the
deaths of the Rachar.  And if I don't, when I get back to the Alpha
Quadrant to avenge the deaths of my Team, I certainly will then.  But
nice seeing you again.  Good to know you're alive."  Yeah, that would
go over well.'

He sat heavily on the bench facing the pond and held his face in his
hands, elbows resting on his knees.  'Why was life always jerking him
around,' he wondered.  'Why did it delight in giving him tastes of
Heaven then consigning him to Hell over and over again?  Finding
B'Elanna and achieving a position of respect on Voyager then finding
out he was an AlphaOmegan and about the deaths of his colleagues.
Finding in the Rachar a people who needed him and valued him then
failing them and losing them.  Now he had found people and a place he
had thought lost forever and if he was to keep his promises to his
dead Team and the Rachar he would have to leave here, probably never
to return.'

"Sunbird?" Sunfire called over the subdermal communicator he still had
implanted behind his ear.

Dropping his hands, he looked around to see the garden remained empty
then spoke.  "Yes?"

"You okay?"

"Been better.  This *is* New Kildare."

"I know.  I was listening in.  Sunbird, who are these people?  I
consulted your record and both sets of your grandparents are deceased
and none of them were named Oran or Nana O'Connell."

"They aren't relations.  Grandfather and Grandmother are only honorary
titles.  My mother had friends who were from here and were killed in
an accident on Earth when I was a boy.  She was entrusted to bring
their ashes back here for burial and she brought my sisters and I with
her for a vacation since my father was off on some mission.  We ended
up staying for four and a half months after Mom was asked to lecture
at New Dublin University.  She met Nana O'Connell at a faculty
function. Seanmhair was in the psychology department.  Retired now."
He shook his head.  "I didn't want to go back to Earth when the time
came to leave them and this place.  I wish I hadn't."

"But then you would have been Relocated along with the rest of the
system."

"And I wouldn't have had the rest of my life messed up by The
Protectors.  I wouldn't have been around for them to use.  I would
have turned out to be such a good person if I'd grown up here, away
from The Protectors."

"You are a good person."

"No, I'm not and you know that better than anyone.  You're looking at
my file.  You know everything I've done.  The majority of that would
have happened had I been here."  He ran his hands over his face.  "But
it's too late now."  He heard the happy laughter of M'Nea Madeleine
wafting on the breeze through the open windows of the kitchen behind
him.  "But maybe not for her."

"What are you going to do?"

Tom got to his feet and started for the shed with renewed purpose.
"Get Seanair for supper then talk to them about the future."

Stopping in the doorway of the garden shed that had been enlarged and
converted into a workspace for the rabid woodworker was like stepping
back in time for Tom.  It was not just that all of the equipment Oran
used exclusively in his craft were replicas of the tools used in the
1800s on Earth.  It was the sight of him bent over his lathe, the
smell of oils, resins, and varnishes he used to preserve the finished
pieces, the sound of the foot powered machine at work.  All of it took
him back to his childhood and the first time he had peaked into this
mysterious building.

He had come to see what had so absorbed the distracted man who had
left here under duress to take tea with his wife and her offworlder
guests. Tom had never seen anyone at any sort of function doodle on a
linen napkin with the handle of his teaspoon, the end of which was
repeated dipped in juice from the slice of blackberry pie that had
been placed before him.  In the Paris family, one had to observe their
manners, pay strict attention to the conversation, and not insult the
guests by demonstrating so blatant a disinterest in them.  Anyone,
especially an adult, who so flagrantly refused to conform to the rules
of social etiquette was someone Tom wanted to know.

And get to know him he did.  He had spent almost as many hours down
here as he had with Nana in the kitchen learning to cook or in the
gardens learning horticulture and the ancient tales and songs from
Ireland.  Seanair, for all his airs of being an absent-minded
professor, was every bit as astute and well-read as his wife, though
living in his own little universe at times.  As he taught Tom how to
use the old tools, he also had taught him much about life and the
value of history, especially after Tom had hit his finger with a
hammer for the third time then tried to refuse to use the "antiquated
monstrosities" any longer.  Though he had not been as enamoured with
the low-tech methods of the Nineteenth Century, Tom's fascination with
the Twentieth Century was directly due to this man's influence.  He
had taught Tom how to see the past in a new light and with a new
appreciation.  But Tom never had had the chance to say "thank you."
Now he did.

He stepped into the well-lit interior and skirted the workbenches to
the back of the shop where Oran worked at a lathe, turning a table
leg.  Tom said nothing, not wanting to distract him into ruining the
leg or hurting himself.

"Hand me that sandpaper," Oran asked, not even looking up.

Tom passed him the square and smiled as Oran launched into an
explanation of what he was making, even getting Tom to do some of the
work on the next leg they turned.  As they walked up to the house
almost an hour later, Tom realized he never had said what he wanted to
say nor had his seanair seemed to notice any time had passed since the
last time Tom had last been there all those years ago.  He had picked
up the lessons in woodcraft right where they had left off.  Smiling to
himself, he followed the old man into the house.  'You could go home
again,' he sighed silently, permitting himself to bask in the moment
for the time being.

---

"Captain, communications just came back on line and we received this.
You'd better read it."

E'Cta, the captain of the Gherop ship C'Cri, looked up from her
reports to see her First Officer, R'Eti, standing in her office
doorway.  She motioned her inside and accepted the report.  "The ship
we were chasing two intervals ago?" she asked after reading it.

"Exactly, Captain.  What do I tell the Homeworld."

The Captain considered it.  "We tell them the truth.  After one
hundred and forty-seven intervals patrolling our border with the
X'Kri'Ri Federation, we were on our way to spacedock for much needed
repairs when we detected a ship of unfamiliar design and attempted to
pursue it.  Unfortunately our systems were unable to keep up with the
strain and we lost all power and are just getting it back on line
now."

"Yes, Captain."

"And forward it to me before transmission."

"Of course, Captain."

Watching her Executive Officer go, she began to reconsider.  'How was
the transmission going to sound to the Homeworld?' she thought.
'Those pampered bureaucrats had no idea what it was like out on the
front lines, with the lack of trained personnel and supplies, making
do with what they could scrounge and crews of inexperienced and
uneducated slaves.  There was little doubt they are going to blame us
for not having captured this Voyager when we had the chance.  They
wouldn't care that we will be lucky if our ship doesn't entirely fall
apart before we reach spacedock.  All they'll care about is Voyager
was within our grasp and we had let her get away.'

E'Cta lurched to her feet and began pacing.  'All my years of
decorated service to the Empire will mean nothing now.  There has to
be some way to salvage this situation.  Something more than just
sending them an explanation and Voyager's last known co-ordinates.
We're going to have to catch her first.  Then they'll have nothing to
complain about.'

Smiling, she strode out intent on her destination of the Bridge.

---

"You've read this?"

N'Tra nodded to T'Ne.  "As per your orders, communications gave it to
me and have not 'bothered' R'Co while she is busy preparing for the
Ceremony."

"Busy thinking up ways to alter the Crown Jewels probably.  I told you
she wasn't wearing them the last time I saw her, but she was wearing
at least four other sets of crown jewels?"

"No, you didn't.  Just like I haven't told you she can't alter what
she can't find."

"What?"

"When you told me what she was having done to the robes and
head-dress, I took the liberty of removing the Crown Jewels to a safer
location. One she'd never think to look in.  I tried to tell you, but
she commanded your appearance just as I was about to explain.  Did I
do wrong?" she asked in a "frightened" voice.

"No, no, you did right, N'Tra.  Quite right.  Well done.  I'm sure
when we are able to remove R'Co from the picture, D'Itu will be quite
pleased with both our efforts to preserve Gherop state treasures."  He
smirked.  "Even if he's not properly appreciative at first, he will be
as time goes by.  D'Itu is so... malleable, so suggestible.  Under
him, the Empire will be a far saner place than under T'Do or R'Co.
It'll just take the right hands guiding him."

"Like yours?"

"Hmm.  Now we just have to get him on that throne."

She made no comment.

"You get on with your other duties.  I have to give R'Co an edited
version of this news from the C'Cri."

She left him to his visions of a future as the puppetmaster
controlling the most powerful individual in the Universe as far as the
Gherop were concerned.  Little did he know what a fool's paradise he
was living in.

---

"So you're not going to tell me who's coming to supper?"

Nana shook her head at Tom as he lowered himself to the couch across
from her living room chair.  "No, it's a surprise," she refused, her
eyes on her husband and their "great-granddaughter."

The moment Oran and Tom had finished washing up for dinner, Tom had
gone straight to where M'Nea Madeleine sat on her blanket to pick her
up and a curious Oran had followed him.  It had been love at first
sight for the old man and the child.  He immediately had dove out the
backdoor only to reappear a couple of minutes later with a large
wooden box.  Leading them all into the living room, he had moved the
coffee table off to one side and removed the wooden toys from the box
to set out on the area rug.  Now the old man and the little girl were
sprawled on the floor, playing with such enthusiasm it was hard to
tell who was the bigger child.

"Seanmhair, Seanair, I want to-"

"Nana?  Oran?  Anyone home?" a male voice called from the direction of
the hall.

"In here," Nana answered back.  The old woman smiled as the footsteps
coming down the hall from the entryway stopped in the living room
doorway.  "Stephane.  Maaike.  Come in."

Tom turned his head and saw two people he would have recognized even
after all these years and without Nana's having said their names.  A
big smile split his face as he rose and rounded the couch to greet
them as they came forward anxiously.

The man reached Tom before his female companion did and he enveloped
him in a back slapping bear hug.  "We didn't believe it when Nana
called us," Stephane admitted.  "We had to come to see for ourselves."

"Yes," Maaike agreed, taking her turn to hug the visitor.  "It seems
impossible, but here you are none the less."

"Yes, I'm here," Tom smiled.  Drawing back, he ran his eyes over her
jaw-length, dark blonde hair, green eyes, and petite frame.  "You're
still a shrimp, Maaike."

"Hey!"  Grinning, she punched him in the shoulder and he feigned
injury.  "Just because you're an overgrown -- Stop laughing,
Stephane!" she growled, whirling on the other man.  "You're not much
bigger."  She poked him in his rounded stomach.  "In some ways."

"Huh!"  Stephane drew himself up to his full height -- admittedly only
a head taller than her -- and rubbed his belly.  "I'm just well
insulated."

"And a really cold winter's coming?" Tom joked and received a glare.
Had it not been for the twinkle Tom saw in the man's brown eyes, he
might have thought his childhood friend truly was offended.  "And
what's with this?" he asked, tugging the goatee a slightly darker
shade of brown than the rest of Stephane's hair.

"It's distinguished," its owner defended, slapping the hand away then
carefully preening.  "What's with this?" he countered, tapping Tom's
high hairline.

"It's distinguished," Tom laughed back.

"Oh and who are you?" Maaike cooed, squatting down.

M'Nea Madeleine was peering around the corner of the couch she clung
to in an effort to keep herself upright.

"This is M'Nea Madeleine," Tom explained, walking towards his daughter
and holding out his hands towards the child.  "Come here, sweetheart.
It's okay."

Releasing her death grip on the furniture she took on wobbly step,
nearly taking a tumble in her haste.  Only her foster father's quick
reflexes caught her before she hit the hardwood floor.  She squealed
with delight as he lifted her into his arms and kissed her chubby
cheek.

Maaike straightened and raised an eyebrow.  "She's yours?"

"Not exactly."  As they sat down, he explained the tragedy of Rachar
and New Rachar and how the child had come to be in his custody.

"So there aren't anymore Rachar anywhere?"

Tom lowered M'Nea Madeleine back to the floor and she took two
waddling steps towards Oran and fell on him, not that Oran minded all
that much given his laughter.  "I don't know.  Maybe on the Gherop
Homeworld or somewhere else.  I don't know if the Gherop moved their
slaves from one place to another or what."

A bell sounded from the kitchen.

"Supper's ready," Nana announced, standing.  "You can tell us all
about everything at the table. You kids can set the kitchen table.
Oran?"

Her husband continued to make faces at the child.

"Oran!"

He blinked at her.  "Huh?"

"Suppertime.  Clean up your toys and bring her."

Instantly, he began placing the toys back in the box.  "You can try
out the highchair I've just finished," he told M'Nea Madeleine.
"Stephane, would you mind-"

Stephane nodded.  "It's down in the shop?"

"Hmm."

"Be right back."

He jogged out and the others went to the kitchen.

---

Naomi knew she was supposed to be asleep, just like she knew she was
supposed to only go to the holodeck with the permission of her mother,
Neelix, or babysitter but she did not care about what she was
"supposed to do" anymore.  All her short life she had been told what
she and others were "supposed to do" and, to her at least, it was
clear it was all lies.  That was why she was heading for the holodeck
right now, in the wee hours of the morning, while her mother slept in
their quarters in the calm assurance her offspring was doing likewise.

The offspring in question did not know the programme she ran as soon
as she reached Holodeck Two had very nearly ceased to exist after her
mother had learned the truth about Tom Paris, its creator.  With
everything that had happened during the intervening time, Sam never
had found the time to finish her debate about the safety in permitting
Naomi to continue to play with her holographic playmates and the
teacher designed by a man of Tom Paris' dubious mental stability and
shady past.  So it was only luck that made it possible for Naomi to
call up her birthday present and enter to play with them on the Resort
beach.

As expected, the holograms found her the instant she touched the sand.

"There you are!" Fala shouted, running up to her.  "You were gone ever
so long."

As the other children came up to her, Naomi sunk to a seated position
on the sand.

"What's wrong?" Allegia asked, sitting beside her.

Haltingly, she told them of recent events.  "Tommy left.  He told me
he was going because the Rachar needed him only that was a lie.  He
left because Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim were having an affair."
She started to cry.  "Tommy lied to me!"

"He would not lie," Mor, the young Klingon, insisted.  "He is not like
that."

Siobahn, the hologram who had been intended to be their teacher,
settled herself slightly behind Naomi and scooped her up into her lap.
Cuddling the child to her, she tried to make sense of the situation to
herself and the children.

"I'm sure if there is more to his leaving than what Tom told you,
there had to have been a good reason he kept it to himself.  If he did
not share it with you then maybe it was because it was too painful for
him to.  Sometimes it hurts more if you say out loud what you're
feeling inside, even if you do feel better in the long run."

"I hate them," Naomi insisted.  "All of them."

"You don't hate them."

"I do!  I hate Mommy and Neelix for not letting me see Tommy.  I hate
the Captain and everyone else for making him feel bad.  I hate
Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim for hurting Tommy.  And I hate Tommy
for lying to me and leaving me!"

The hologram of Sunfire's organic self held the wailing half-Ktaran
closer.

---

"Tom?" Maaike called for the second time since they had started down
the flagstone path towards the middle of the garden.

While the others had played cards, Tom had excused himself and M'Nea
Madeleine to take her out to the moonlit garden show her fireflies,
something he was sure she had never seen in her short life.  Everyone
had taken him at his word, only doubting him when an hour had passed
and he still had not returned.  Stephane and Maaike were dispatched
and found him on the bench beside the pond, staring at the surface,
seemingly lost in thought as he stroked the hair of the little girl
cuddled in his lap, asleep.

In reality, had Tom not left their company when he had he knew he
never would be able to.  He had been playing on the living room rug
with M'Nea Madeleine and her new toys.  Stephane was teasing Maaike
about her brother Niels "whom she loved dearly but had been driving
her up the wall that day."  Oran meanwhile had been trying to prove
Nana's "luck" at cards was "cheating" by another name.  With all this
going on around him, Tom had felt warm feelings of home, love, and
happiness building within him, feelings that had quickly been blotting
out all others.  Only a chance comment by Maaike about her plans for
revenge on Niels for some prank made Tom remember his own plans for
revenge.

This had disturbed him.  Avenging the deaths of the Rachar and, before
that, those of his Team had been all that had been keeping him going
for so long.  Now, after only a few short hours with these people, he
was in danger of forgetting all that.

Part of him said: "Give in already.  Just stay here and be safe and
happy for the rest of your life.  You have 'grandparents' who love
you.  Friends who care about you.  A little girl who adores you.  It
would be such a beautiful life if only you would abandon your thoughts
of vengeance."

The other part of him, the part in which those thoughts of vengeance
originated, said: "Go and go now before it was too late.  Before they
have you so wrapped up in their lives you'll never want to go."  That
part of him knew if he did not do what he had planned to do,
eventually he would not be able to live with himself.  Even now it was
hard for him to look at M'Nea Madeleine without some little part of
his brain remembering the Rachar and New Rachar's destruction.  How
long would it be before that small part of him began to grow and turn
to resentment of those who had kept him here, preventing him from
following through with his promises to his Team and the Rachar.  He
loved them too much to let it turn to hate when he could do something
to prevent it.

These warring sides were what had taken him out of the house and into
the back gardens.  Tom needed peace and quiet to listen to the
pacifist and the combatant duke it out.  Despite the fact he already
knew who would win, he was hoping he could be proved wrong.

Stephane gently touched Tom's shoulder.  "Tom?"

"It's so beautiful here," the pilot sighed, eyes closing.  "So quiet
and peaceful.  I can almost forget the rest of the Universe is out
there, not being so quiet or peaceful."

"Tom, what's wrong?" Maaike asked, sitting down next to him.

"It's been a long time since I've been in a peaceful place," he
continued, talking more to himself than them.  "Physically been there.
I can't remember the last time I was there mentally or emotionally.
It probably was before all this began, before I found out the truth
about what I am."  A look of bliss came over his face.  "I do
remember.  I was in B'Elanna's arms, after I got back from a difficult
Away Mission.  We made love then just held each other, not saying
anything for the longest time.  Everything just felt so right, so
perfect."  The expression faded as reality crept back in and he opened
his eyes.  "But it was all an illusion."

Stephane lowered himself to a large rock on the edge of the pond and
faced the other two.  "Why do you say that?"

Tom's sad eyes focused on what he could see of his friend in the full
moon's light.  "She never loved me.  It turns out she really was meant
to be with my best friend, Harry Kim, only I guess they didn't realize
that until after I was in the picture then it was too late to break
things off with me."  His eyes turned inward.  "Only now they know the
truth about me and don't want me in their lives anymore so they don't
see any further obstacles in their way to stop them from being
together."

"That's the second time you've said 'found the truth out about you,'"
Maaike said quietly.  "What truth?"

He blinked rapidly, surfacing from himself.  He had not meant for
anyone here to ever know about himself, about his past.  He had wanted
at least one place in the Universe, one group of people he cared about
to not know him as the murderer he was.  Now that his subconscious had
betrayed him, he had two choices -- feed them some plausible lie or
tell them the truth and live with the consequences.  After a moment's
debate, he chose the latter.  There already had been too many lies in
his life.  He did not want any more.

So he slowly told them about The Protectors and their soldiers, the
AlphaOmegans.  About their recruitment and training methods.  About
the horrible things he had done all in the name of maintaining peace
in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.  And about The Diogenes appearing not
quite a month ago, revealing all his secrets to Voyager's crew and the
fall out

from it.  He finished with a description of what had happened on
Rachar.  The Captain thinking he had been killed in a cave-in and
leaving him behind.  The Rachar finding him and his helping lead them
in what they had hoped would turn their rebellion into a revolution
and free them from the Gherop forever.  The Gherop Leader, T'Do,
ordering the Final Weapon to be deployed, resulting in the destruction
of the planet.  He even told them about removing the Gherop crews from
every ship on the planet or in orbit and packing those ships with as
many Rachar as they could before fleeing the planet for New Rachar.

When he finished, the others clearly were struggling to make sense of
all the revelations about Tom's complicated past.  Maaike was the
first to start asking for clarifications.

"Why did The Protectors not take your sisters too?" she asked.  "As I
remember it, Moira and Kathleen were very intelligent.  And they are
Parises just like you so they had the same connections and advantages
you did."

"They were tested too," he nodded, "only they failed some of the first
round tests.  If you fail them, then The Protectors ignore you from
then on.  Fail some of the third round or later tests and they might
keep you on as a technician or something, but not if it's first or
second round.  They don't have much invested in you yet so they don't
feel cutting you from consideration would be sacrificing too much time
and effort that they had put into you.  The later on in the process,
the more they've spent on you and they don't like to waste all that
work.  They'll find some way to use you."

"So once they've got you, they don't let you go." Stephane concluded.
"That's why they went to all the trouble to come after you."

"And because if I get back to the Alpha Quadrant and start telling
what I know, I could bring down the Alpha Quadrant and probably the
Beta too.  I'm too much of a security risk to be permitted to live."
He gave a mirthless laugh.  "It's funny.  By coming to ensure I did
not pose a threat to them, they actually did the opposite.  By what
they did to me and to my Team, by killing them, they've made me even
more determined to go back to the Alpha Quadrant and make them pay for
what they've done."

"But you're just one man, Tom.  They're how many?  Thousands?
Millions?  More?  If they're as well connected as you say they are,
how are you going to bring them to justice?  And to what justice?  You
say they secretly control every government.  That would mean they'd
control the systems of justice too.  How can you make them pay if they
are influencing the people who are to sit in judgement of them?"

"I have a plan.  It's bizarre and risky, but I think it's the only
way."  He turned his gaze from them to the ground.  "And I need your
help.  If you'll agree."

"What kind of help?"

He shot them each a glance.  "Nothing dangerous.  In fact you won't
even have to leave New Kildare or this quadrant to do it and The
Protectors will never know of your role in it.  All I'm asking of you
is to find me someone to look after my project and find a lab
somewhere to house it while I'm gone."

Maaike blinked at him.  "Gone?  Gone where?  You just got here!"

"I know, but that's not important.  What is important is my project is
about ready to move into the next phase and it needs to be monitored
closely and I can't do that if I'm not here."

"What is this project?"

"You're both on the faculty at New Dublin University.  Either of you
know anyone from the genetics department?"

"You know me," Stephane grinned.  "I get to know everyone who has a
pulse."

Maaike leaned towards Tom.  "Translation: he's a nosy bastard who
can't keep his mouth shut and yes, he does know someone."

"Try to arrange a meeting with them for me?" Tom asked, ignoring
Maaike's good natured ribbing of their friend.  "For tomorrow?"

"I'll see what I can do."

"Good."

He paused for a moment, thinking of the best way to phrase his next
request.  He was tempted to just ask one of them to do it and skip
asking Nana and Oran.  A comment Nana had made earlier regarding his
last day on New Kildare all those years ago had made him suspect time
or more specifically age was catching up with his seanmhair.  Out of
respect and a desire not to insult her, he had not corrected her when
she had commented how terrible the weather had been the day his family
had left New Kildare to return to Earth.

"Pathetic fallacy," Maaike had remarked.  "The environment mirroring
one's inner conflict."

"Yes," Nana had agreed.  "It had known you didn't want to go, Thomas,
and it had stormed."

"It was bad weather because the weather controls had gone offline,"
Oran had corrected and been shushed in favour of the more romantic
version of events.

Tom had not told them it had been a beautiful day, yet another in a
long string of beautiful days and the weather controls had not
malfunctioned.  That minor discrepancy was understandable.
Emotionally, it had been a bad day for all of them so it made sense
their emotions would colour their memories to tell him it also had
been a bad day weather-wise.  And the O'Connells had been old when he
had met them.  Now, they were almost twenty-five years older.  Even
with all the modern medical advancements, deterioration of the mind
was to be expected.

He wondered if leaving such a young and active child as M'Nea
Madeleine with people of the O'Connell's advanced years was best for
any of them.  His daughter might turn out to be too much for them or
worse, they might have a memory lapse and forget her.

'Nonsense,' he told himself.  'You're basing all this concern on one
faulty memory.  You don't have any other indications they're a danger
to her.'  Conceding this fact, he returned to his friends and the
question at hand.

"I have another favour I might need to ask of one of you, but only if
Nana and Oran turn me down."  He smiled down at his sleeping foster
daughter.  "I can't risk taking M'Nea Madeleine with me where I'm
going.  If Nana and Oran don't think they can keep up with her, I'd
like to ask one of you to take care of her while I'm gone.  Maybe
longer.  It'll depend on how well this next phase of my project goes.
If it works like I hope, then I'll proceed with the third phase once I
get back and that means going to the Alpha Quadrant to take care of my
business there.  If all goes well, I'll come back here for M'Nea
Madeleine after I'm done."

"What kind of timeframe are we talking here, Tom?"

"I don't know.  A few days or so right now.  Maybe a couple of weeks
for the third phase.  Maybe more, maybe less.  When I originally
calculated the timeframe, I was planning on being on Voyager when I
set phase three in motion.  But now I have to rework it."

Maaike laid a hand on Tom's bicep.  "It's still not too late to go
back to Voyager, Tom.  They can't be that far away yet."

He shook his head.  "You don't understand.  I can't go back there.  I
couldn't... handle seeing Harry and B'Elanna together.  And I don't
know if they could stand me being there either.  I mean, I know they
hate me now, but I don't think it's in them to be totally devoid of
feeling towards anyone.  It's doubtful they would be able to see me
everyday, knowing how I still felt about B'Elanna.  They aren't that
hardhearted.  Nor have they forgotten what I'm like," he finished in a
whisper.

"How are you?" Maaike whispered back.

"Both of them regard me as emotionally fragile."

"Are you?" Stephane queried.

His failure to answer was all the answer they required.

"And what makes you so sure they are involved anyway?"

"After we returned from New Rachar and the Doc put me back together
again, I left Sickbay to go see what Megan Delaney wanted to talk to
me about.  Outside her quarters I met Geron Tem, her lover.  He was
mad at me for some reason.  He's never liked me anyway, but for some
reason he was extra ticked off at me that day.  He told me about
B'Elanna and Harry once having been on shoreleave months ago and seen
kissing by Megan's sister Jenny and the guy she was then dating.  I
didn't want to believe it, even after he called Jenny over the comm
and had her tell her version of it all.  I went to Harry's to talk to
him about this 'horrible rumour that was going around.'  Only I found
out it wasn't a rumour."

"And what did they say when you asked them?"

"They didn't say anything."

Stephane blinked.  "You asked them if they were having an affair and
they had no response?"

"I never asked them."

"Tom-"

"There was no need.  Harry answered the door in his night clothes and
looking like he hadn't slept in days.  Over his shoulder I saw
B'Elanna getting dressed.  From the way they looked it was obvious as
to what they had been doing.  I hardly needed to stick around for them
to draw me a picture."

Maaike looked unconvinced.  "It strikes me as odd.  Okay, so they
kissed once, months ago, maybe.  But it's an incredible leap from that
one kiss to having the two of them jumping into bed while you're lying
in Sickbay having surgery.  I know you say they hate you because of
your past and I know sometimes people do cling to one another during a
time of crisis and sometimes passions can flare under those
circumstances of heightened emotions.  But I wonder if things are
quite as cut and dried as you think."  She held up a hand.  "No, don't
reject it out of hand.  Think about it.  Doesn't it strike you as the
least bit odd and out of the character?  You've known both of them for
many years.  Was your relationships with them so shallow that they
would drop you just like that when they find out something they don't
like about you?  Something that's not of your doing or choice?"

He did think about her questions then his shoulders slumped.  "I don't
know.  All I know is the Three Musketeers are over.  B'Elanna won't
have anything to do with me now if she can help it and Harry goes out
of his way to get in my face to glare at me."  He paused.  "A lot of
that had to do with Souris, but still...."

The New Kildareans exchanged looks, knowing they were missing a chunk
of the story somewhere.

"Who's Souris," Stephane questioned.

He filled them in on yet more of the recent tragic history to which he
had been an unwilling yet resigned participant.

"It just doesn't make sense," Stephane argued the instant he had
finished.  "You're saying Harry had this whirlwind love affair with
this AlphaOmegan, Souris, that ended when you and Sunfire helped her
commit suicide, yes?  That he was totally devastated when she died, so
much so he's been so angry he's going out of his way to show you just
how angry he is.  But you're expecting us to believe that not even a
month later he's messing around with the woman you love?  Pardon me,
but either this guy's the most heartless bastard that's ever lived and
trying to get revenge on you by seducing your mate-"

"He's not like that!"

"-Or the story's screwed up somewhere."

"I don't see anything screwed up at all.  They finally realized what
everyone else knew all along and dumped me."

"And just what is this knowledge they lacked until now?"

"That I'm no good!  I never have been!  I-" M'Nea Madeleine stirred in
his arms and began to cry softly in her sleep.  Automatically, he
shifted her in his lap and gently cooed to her until she fell back to
sleep.

"But if they don't care about you anymore because you are what you are
then why did Harry go with Sunfire to Rachar to see if Captain Janeway
was wrong and you hadn't been killed in the cave-in?  He had to have
known he was risking his life.  Why would he do that for a man he
despised?  It doesn't make sense.  Unless he really was coming to make
sure you were dead or do you in himself if you weren't?"

"He's not a cold-blooded murderer.  Kill in self-defence, yes, if
absolutely necessary, but to kill me just so he could have B'Elanna or
get revenge on me?  No, it's just not in his character."

"But what you say he's done now is?"

"And what aboutthis B'Elanna?" Maaike interjected, not giving him a
chance to think up an answer for Stephane.  "Is she a liar and a
masochist too?"

"What?"

"Well, you say they've had feelings for one another for a months now,
maybe longer, only they've kept them a secret.  If you're right, then
they've been lying to themselves and you and they willingly put
themselves through pain by not being straight with you so they could
be together.  Is she usually so selfless?  Would she really make
herself and others miserable simply because they think you're too
emotionally unstable to deal with the truth?"

"Yes!  No!  I don't know."  His little girl opened her eyes a little
this time and reached up to him.  He repositioned her so she was more
or less draped over his shoulder.  "Look, I can't help that you two
don't see the writing on the wall like I do, but it's there.  She
doesn't love me anymore.  She loves him.  She would not have slept
with him otherwise.  Neither would he with her."

"But-"

"Regardless, I've left Voyager and I'm not going back.  I can't live
with things the way they were.  I'm tried of being shunned by everyone
who professed to care about me."

"So what *are* you going to do?"

"For the moment, I'm going to leave M'Nea Madeleine with Oran and Nana
if they'll have her, or one of you if they refuse."

Maaike touched the indigo hair of the child.  "Where do you have to go
that you don't think you can take her?"

"Just take care of her if I ask?"

"Of course, but-"

He rose with the child cradled to him.  "Thank you.  If you'll contact
me about that meeting with someone from the Genetics Department?"

Stephane nodded.  "Of course."

"Good.  I need to get his one to bed.  'Night."

"'Night," they chorused back.

As Tom walked away towards the house, he did not see M'Nea Madeleine
open her eyes and exchange glances with the New Kildareans over his
shoulder.

---

"Oh, it's so sad," Q pretended to weep into his handkerchief.  He was
loudly and wetly blowing his nose when his mate appeared.

"What's your problem?" she demanded, not amused by his act.

Continuing the pretence of being emotionally choked up, he told her
everything he had heard.

She countered with her own account of the meeting on Voyager --
leaving out the part about the upset Janeway of course.  The last
thing she wanted was for him to go off to comfort *her*.  Her
attention refocused on the scene before them.  "I wonder if Helmboy
knows what really is going on there."

Abandoning his "heartbroken" mien, Q shook his head.  "I doubt it.
He's not evolved enough to be able to sense it."  His attention darted
from Paris to Voyager.  "So, care to lay bets on if they succeed in
convincing Kathy to come after him?"

"It's a big galaxy," his mate observed. "I doubt they'd ever find him
if they did."

"Hmm."

"You're not helping them either."

"Why not."

"Why bother?"

"Well..."

"Well, what?  Because it would be the *nice* thing to do?  Puh-lease,
Q, this is me you're talking to.  We've been together for five billion
years.  I know you.  Nice and you are mutually exclusive terms.
Besides, the Continuum has told you to stop wasting your time with
them.  They were very explicit about that."

"It hardly would be interfering if-"

She glared at him.

"Fine.  Fine.  Let them wander aimlessly for the rest of their lives
looking for him."

"*If* they decide to go after him."

"I'm sure they will.  Kathy's not the type to leave anyone behind,
even if they want to be."

Tired of hearing of "Kathy's" virtues, she became determined to prove
Q wrong about Janeway.  "You keep watching q."

"Why?  Haven't you seen enough?  You normally don't want anything to
do with them."

"I am still trying to figure out what you two find so fascinating
about them," she lied, not wanting him to know she was interested in
seeing Janeway suffer some more before she collected her son.  "You
just keep an eye on q and I'll be back later."  With that order, she
winked out of existence again.

Q took her explanation at face value and actually did what someone
told him for once.

---

"Alarm off." B'Elanna groaned and rolled out of bed.  She stood there
for a long moment, legs braced against the bed to keep her upright
until she was awake.  Long ago she had discovered if she stayed in bed
after the alarm went off she merely would go back to sleep and that
was too tempting today.

'Something's wrong,' she thought, slowly walking towards the bathroom
to take a shower.  As she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror,
she stopped.  'Why did I sleep in my uniform?'  Taking her clothes
off, she thought about it.  'I don't even remember going to bed last
night. I must have been tired when I got back from Engineering.'

'Engineering!  That's what's wrong.  I can't feel the engines.'  As
she stood there, her brain cleared and she remembered everything that
had happened during the last two days up to falling asleep before the
meeting the night before had started in earnest.  'I have to get to
Engineering.'  She hopped into the sonic shower.  'They should be
almost ready to restart the engines.   I'll contact the others on way
there.  Maybe they'll have what they were supposed to bring to the
meeting in writing and I'll be able to work on it myself then take it
to the Captain.'

Minutes later, she found that was not necessary.  As B'Elanna rushed
from the bathroom to her closet for a fresh uniform, her eyes fell
upon a stack of padds lying on her coffee table.  'Where'd they all
come from?' she wondered, reaching out for one.  'Weapons
modifications?' She checked another.  'Shield modifications?'  She
went through them and found the others were one step ahead of her.
They had left their research behind along with a padd containing their
suggestions they had formulated during their brainstorming the night
during the meeting.

Smiling, she ran for a fresh uniform.  They had done a fine job from
what she could see.  There was little room left for the Captain to
quibble about the logic and safety of their idea.  Everyone had
surprised her -- and themselves she guessed -- with how well
everything had come together once they had pooled their information.

Once fully dressed, she collected the padds and headed for Engineering
for an update from the two co-conspirators who had not been free to
come to the meeting -- Carey and Vorik.  Their presence below had been
too vital to Engineering to let them go for long, though they had
wanted to come.

'Almost as badly as Geron,' she thought, entering the turbolift.

Geron Tem was becoming an enigma and she hated enigmas.  Was he really
there because he had realized he would lose Megan if he did not
support her desire to return Tom to them or was there something else?
Something he was not telling them?  The former was the most plausible
explanation she could find for his offer to help.  If so, why could
she not shake the feeling was something more?

She stepped out of the lift and strode down the corridor.  Whatever
Geron's motivation, he was willing to help.  The more support she had,
the greater her chances of success in swaying the Captain to her side.
The fact she had four out of eight members of the Senior Staff on her
side -- No, not four.  Five.  Baytart now was Head of Conn, whether he
or anyone else liked it.  She growled menacingly under her breath,
startling a crewman who was exiting Engineering as she was entering.
'So much for this guilt trip she had heard Janeway was on. *She*
clearly has forgotten all about Tom and *her* part in him leaving.'

B'Elanna nearly tripped when Harry Kim turned as she approached where
he, Carey, and Seven stood.  He gave her a smile that failed to reach
his eyes.  "Speaking of blame....' she thought.  'If this is him
*before* he's heard what role the two of us played in Tom's going,
how's he going to react when I finally have the chance to tell him
about Tom's message to me before he left?  Still, he has to be told.'

"I need to talk to you," she insisted.  "Later."

He nodded once then left, Seven of Nine trailing along after him.

"What's with that?"

"Harry?" Joe asked.  "Or Seven of Nine?"

"Harry I can figure out," she assured him.  "Seven?"

"Word has it over the passed couple of days she's taken to dancing
attention on him.  Any time he's not on the Bridge, she's there.  If
he were in a better mood, he'd be loving it."

"That was before Souris."

"Yeah, but he'll put it behind him eventually.  Speaking of putting
things behind you, the repairs are almost done.  The engines should be
ready to go back on line later today or tonight."  He handed her a
status report.  "And I am going to bed.  Vorik will be back on in a
couple of hours.  He's in bed right now."

"Thanks, Joe."

He lowered his voice.  "Seven called me over the comm last night and
told you slept through the meeting."

B'Elanna sighed.  "I was so tired last night, I forgot all about it
and left everything else when I stumbled out of here."

"I know.  I guessed that.  I found the padds Vorik and I gave you and
your list of arguments still lying on your desk so transferred it all
to the computer in your quarters."  He grinned.  "Guess I'll have to
admit now that I cracked your shorthand code."

She shook her head at hearing this.

"But Neelix said this morning, they left their padds there for you.
You found them?"

Nodding, she held up the stack in her hand.  "Right here.  I only had
the chance to glance at them so far."

"Well, you've got until tonight at the latest to make your move.  We
can't stall restarting the engines.  The Captain's finally out of her
Ready Room.  She hasn't been down here yet -- too scared of running
into you and having to look you in the face, I think -- but she is out
and about.  She will catch on if we stall.  And if she doesn't,
Chakotay will."

B'Elanna nodded and headed for her office to review the report and the
padds.

---

"Seanair, Seanmhair?  I need to ask you something important."

Nana set down her fork and gave Tom her full attention.  Oran,
however, continued to play "shuttlecraft coming into the shuttlebay"
with M'Nea Madeleine and her porridge.

"Seanair?"

"Oran," his wife said in a firm voice.

"Huh?" the old man blinked at them.

"Your ogha is trying to ask us something important."

"Oh.  Oh, of course."

Tom set his napkin beside his now empty breakfast plate.  "It's about
M'Nea Madeleine."

At the mention of her name, the child banged her now-empty juice cup
on the tray of her high chair.

"I want to ask you to look after her for me."

"Look after her?" Nana frowned.  "Why?"

"I have to go somewhere-"

"Go?  Go where?  Why?"

"There's something I have to do, but I can't take her with me.  And
once it's done, I have to go to the Alpha Quadrant and take care of
something there.  Again, I can't take her with me there either.  I
would like to leave her here with the two of you if you'll agree.
That is if you don't think she'd be too much of a handful for you."

"Of course we'd take her, but why are you going anywhere?  You just
got here."

"There's something I just have to do.  If everything goes right, I'll
be back here in a few days.  Well, I'll have to come back here before
I go on to the Alpha Quadrant, but-"

"A few days?"

He nodded.  "Possibly longer," he said, looking at his daughter, not
them.

"How much longer?"

"Longer."

In a rare display of mental alertness, Oran deduced the answer Tom was
trying to avoid saying for fear of worrying them further.  "Longer as
in never, Nana."

"Never?!" she gasped at her husband.  "What do you mean never?'"

"I mean he's going to do something so dangerous he might not get out
alive, that's what I mean."

"Then don't do it, Thomas!  Don't go!  We just got you back after
thinking we'd never see you again.  You can't leave us now.  You just
can't."

Tom got up from his chair and rounded the table to embrace her.
"Seanmhair, this is something I have to do.  I promised."

Nana wanted to object further.  In fact, she tried hanging on to him,
determined that if she held onto him physically, he could not go.   In
the end, she saw she could not hold on to him forever and released
him.  "We'll look after her until you return," she promised softly.

He smiled and nodded then embraced his "grandfather" too.  "I'll come
back here to get my things before I go."  He leaned down and kissed
M'Nea Madeleine's forehead then walked out.

---

"Naomi, wake up."  Siobahn gently shook the child in her lap.  "Come
on, sleepyhead.  People are coming in."

Stretching, Naomi yawned and looked about through red rimmed eyes.
The kids were just "waking" themselves.  They all had spent a long
time the night before talking through the situation, each throwing in
their own opinion while Siobahn tried to explain the behaviour of
adults.  The eleven holograms and one organic all found it as
incomprehensible as adults tended to find the behaviour of children.
Naomi finally had fallen asleep only slightly more settled in her mind
or heart than she had been when she had entered the holodeck the night
before.  She was no longer sure she hated Tom Paris.  The others,
however, remained on her hate list.

The sound of voices filtering down to her ears from the Resort's upper
terrace normally would have spurred her into action.  She was some
place she should not have been without permission.  Usually, she would
have scurried to the arch, hoping no one saw her and told her mother,
then snuck back into her room before Sam came in to wake her.  Today,
she did not care who saw her or what might happen if they did.  She
stood, called for the playmates programme to be saved, then
nonchalantly walked out passed the three couples and one single who
were sharing post-Gamma shift drinks.  The seven crewmembers were too
wrapped up in their conversation to notice her.

But Sam did notice her coming into their quarters.  "Naomi, where were
you?  I was worried.  I got up and went to wake you but you were
gone."

Her daughter refused to answer.  She walked straight to her room and
closed the door behind her.

Under normal circumstances, Sam tried to tried to respect her
daughter's privacy.  These were not normal circumstances.  She keyed
in the door release code and stepped inside.  "Naomi, this has gone on
long enough.  We are not leaving these quarters until we sit down and
talk this out."

The door chimed.

Sam mulled over ignoring it then it sounded again.  Groaning, she left
Naomi to answer it.

"Neelix," she sighed.

The Talaxian slipped inside.  "Same as yesterday?"

She nodded.  "And she was out last night.  I don't know where she went
or when she went.  She was in bed at the usual time but when I got up
this morning she was gone.  She just came in, still in her pajamas,
looking like she's been crying."

The sound of the sonic shower could be heard.

"And now she's in the shower.  I've told her we're not leaving here
until we talk."

"Knowing Naomi, she still won't talk after hearing that."

"I know, Neelix.  I don't like ultimatums either, but what else can I
do?  She's my daughter.  I can't stand this silence.  She and I always
could talk about everything.  Now she won't even look at me."  She
dropped onto the couch.  "What am I going to do Neelix?  Ever since
this thing with Lieutenant Paris started I haven't known what to do.
I thought I did.  I thought I was doing the right thing in keeping her
away from him, but was I wrong?  Was I supposed to risk something
happening to her and let them keep playing together?  Should I have
spent more time explaining his past?  She's only four years old!  How
do you explain to a four year old what The Protectors did to him?  I
don't care how bright she is, I can't explain what I comprehend
myself."

While Sam had talked, the shower had shut off again.

"I think I know of a way to get her talking again."

He did not say anything further until the muffled opening and closing
of drawers could not be heard any longer.  After Sam checked to see
Naomi was dressed in her play clothes, they entered the bedroom.

"Naomi, I have something to tell you," Neelix began, taking a seat on
the rumpled bed, "but it is rather hush-hush at the moment."

Her attention remained on her computer screen.

"It's about Tom."

She did not let on she heard him.

"And a plan to get him back here where he belongs."

This got her attention.  Though she did not turn towards them, the
cock of her head betrayed the fact she was listening.

"There was a group of us who met last night and worked on a plan for
convincing the Captain to let us go after him.  We have what we think
is a solid argument to take to her.  Once the engines are back online,
Lieutenant Torres is going to present it to her and-"

Naomi whipped around.  "She doesn't care!" she shouted.  "She doesn't
really want him back!"

In a repeat of the day before, she ran out of her and her mother's
quarters.

Confused, Sam and Neelix stared at one another until a call from one
of Sam's subordinates had her rushing to her lab to avert an
experiment turning disastrous.  Neelix was just assuring her he would
go find his godchild when the crewman he had left in charge of
breakfast called to ask if the scrambled eggs were supposed to be
incendiary devices.  With their disasters in the making, both forgot
about Naomi and her strange reaction to what they would have thought
would be good news.

---

"So you're going to give us the schematics?"

From the guest chair in Maire's office at the O'Connor Propulsion
Research Facility, Tom nodded.  "On the condition you help me, yes."

"And all the help you're asking is, while you're gone, we create one
of these ships -- minus this highlighted part-"

"That I'll install later after I've modified it a bit."

"Okay, and the information to fix Sunfire's cloak so our sensors can't
see her?"

"In case I run into someone who has the same or similar technology to
your sensors, yes.  I already spoke to the President and she approved
the trade, *if* your board of directors do likewise."

"I'm sure they will when they hear about this Gopher Hole technology
and that the President already okayed it."  She toyed with the shuttle
model on her desk.  "The President was a bit disappointed to hear how
you really got to the Alpha Quadrant, huh?"

"Word travels fast here."

"You are the biggest news since we discovered how to make our sensors
penetrate the cloud.  Within an hour of your arriving on Nana and Oran
O'Connell's doorstep, everyone here knew about it."

"The driver, I suppose."

She nodded.  "I wish you'd told me.  I wouldn't have gone on and on
about New Kildare on the trip here if I'd known you already been
here."

"I didn't know if it was a trap or what."

"Better safe than sorry."

"Or dead, yes."  He got to his feet.  "If you can talk to your
directors?  I have another meeting."

"I'll contact you at the O'Connell's?"

"I'll be checking with them later, yes."

"They looking after the leanaban then, huh?

"Yes."

Maire stood too.  "I'll talk to the directors right away, but I don't
see how they can say no."

"Good.  I'll talk to you later.  Sunfire, if you will?"

The ship transported him out of the office and into his lab aboard
her.

"You're sure this is a good idea?" she asked him.

Tom checked the read outs from his project and nodded.  "Yes, I do.
Have you off-loaded the supplies that were for New Rachar?"

"Yes, they're now in the warehouse the President told you they could
go for the time being.  The samples have gone to Nana O'Connell and
she and her husband already have dug the new garden and planted them."

"Good.  Let's just hope for M'Nea Madeleine's sake they like the
ground here and grow.  Without them to supplement her diet, she's
going to be on those pills the Doc replicated for the rest of her
life.

"But, Sunbird, what kind of life is it going to be if you get yourself
killed trying to avenge her people's deaths?  You're all she's got
now."

"She has Nana and Oran.  Maaike and Stephane will be there for her
too.  And she seems to have the talent of wrapping everyone she meets
around her little finger.  There'll be no end of people to look after
her."

"But that's not the same as you."

"Sunfire, she's only known me for a couple of days.  And she's so
young.  It's not like she'll remember me if I don't come back.  Look
at what happened on New Rachar.  How little it effected her.  I'll
never be missed."

"Sunbird, that logic is-"

"I have to leave now before I get attached to her, okay?"

"You're already attached to her."

"But right now I can still leave her here.  Much longer and I won't be
able to."

"And the O'Connells?  It's the same with them, isn't it?  If you don't
leave here now, you'll never be able to do it."

His bracing his arms against the workbench and letting his head droop
was her answer.

"Sunbird, maybe someone's trying to tell you something.  Maybe some
part of you is trying to tell you to give up these vendettas of yours
and stay here.  You could be happy here.  I know you could.  That's
why you're wanting to go now.  You're scared the longer you stay the
harder it's going to be to wrench yourself away from them and this
place."

She was hoping he might see reason when he heard it.  Unfortunately
she did not know he already had been through all this with himself the
night before and had made up her mind.  All her words did now was make
him become more resolved to go through with his choice.

Tom straightened.  "I am leaving.  The Gherop must be made to pay for
what they did to the Rachar."

"Is that because you say the Rachar needed you and you think you
failed them?"

"*I* couldn't free them from the Gherop.  *I* couldn't stop their
world from being destroyed.  *I* promised to save Zjna's daughter, but
*I* got there too late.  Zji was their hope for the future and she
died because I was too slow in getting to her."

"Sunbird, she was killed by one of the Gherop, not you."

He continued without hearing her.  "*I* even was one of the causal
factors in the Final Weapon being activated.  If *I* hadn't helped
them get inside the prison-"

"The Gherop Leader already was on his way, Sunbird.  He would have
come down hard on the Rachar regardless of whether they had stolen the
weapons and supplies from that prison."

"But he wouldn't have destroyed the planet.  That was because of what
we did and our attacking them."

"So you're going to attack them.   An eye for an eye?"

"Exactly."  He gave a final check then nodded to himself.  "So if you
aren't in favour of this you can stay.  I'll speak with the President
about borrowing one of their ships.  I can replicate the parts for a
cloaking device and-"

"And you'll get yourself killed even faster in one of those dinky
little things.  If you're determined to do this, I'm certainly not
going to let you go without me.  You'll need more back up than one of
those will be able to give you so it has to be me."

"Thank you."

"You're going to be late for your meeting with Stephane and his
experts from the University."

He nodded and patted his project.  "You'll beam this down when they
agree to look after it?"

"Of course."

She beamed him to the meeting place he had prearranged with Stephane.
Once he was gone, she sighed.  The things one did for the people they
loved.

---

"Captain, we've found Voyager's warp trail."

The C'Cri's captain nodded to R'Eti.

"Follow it."

"Yes, Captain."

'And you hold together, ship,' E'Cta ordered her ragged vessel.  'At
least long enough to find Voyager and take her or we'll end up on the
scrap heap together.'

---

"That's a -- What is that?"

Kieran rattled off a long, technical term that left Stephane even more
baffled than he had been when seconds earlier Sunfire had beamed down
the tank with the pink mass floating in it.

"A clone," Kaatje clarified, translating her husband's words.  "You
say it's only a few hours old?" she asked the clone's "father."

"Yes," Tom nodded, eyes on his project.  "The growth medium and the
chamber both accelerate the development of the embryo."

"Amazing."

Both scientists wandered off to the other side of the maturation
chamber to check its controls, leaving Stephane alone with Tom.

"This is why you wanted to meet them?  You wanted them to babysit this
while you go off and do whatever?"

Tom smiled indulgently.  "It's a bit more complicated than
babysitting, but yes."

"What's it a clone of?"

"Me."

"You?  Why are you cloning yourself?  What are you up to."

"If I don't make it back, I want to know what has to be done in the
Alpha Quadrant will get done."

"So if you do make it back you're just going to what?  Kill this
thing?  You told Kieran and Kaatje that it should be ready to leave
the chamber in a few days.  Doesn't that mean it'll be alive?
Wouldn't that be murder?"

"I'm not going to kill him, Stephane.  I started working on creating
him long before what I have to do came up.  Even if I don't make it
back, what I want him to do won't change immeasurably."

"But how will it know you're not coming back?"

"He'll wait here one week after he is 'born' and if I'm not back by
then or Sunfire hasn't come back, then he'll know what to do."

"But I always thought clones were just reproductions of the original
organism physically.  That they didn't carry the original's memories
too."

"A Romulan scientist discovered a way to duplicate not just the
organism, but the memories and mental functions as well."

"And this Romulan just gave the process to The Protectors?"

Tom gave a mirthless laugh.  "No one has to *give* The Protectors
anything.  They see something they want and they just take it."

"Is that where they got all this information you gave us?" Kaatje
asked, stepping around the tank and looking uncertainly from Tom to
the padd he had given her minutes earlier and back again.  "They stole
it?"

"Or whomever discovered it was working for them in one of their labs.
And they call it 'appropriating for the safety of the Alpha and Beta
Quadrants,' not 'theft.'  But it doesn't matter where it came from
now.  You can put it to good use.  They've been using that research to
engineer plagues or other biological weapons.  To kill people either
en masse or singly.  With it you can do good.  And once OPRF have
created more of the Vanguard class ships or someone's figured out how
to get System 091 home, you can use what you've learned to undo the
damage The Protectors have done, if you wish to."

Stephane shook his head.  "You're saying they've deliberately created
plagues?"

"They sometimes felt it necessary in light of the Big Picture."

"What is this 'Big Picture?'  That's the second time you've said
that."

Talking a deep breath, Tom told his stunned audience.  When they had
heard everything, Kaatje and Stephane both had to stumble towards
chairs before they fell down from shock.

Seeing the clone in a new light, Kieran gaped at it.  "So how do
clones fit into their plans?"

"Into the Big Picture?  I don't think they do.  They usually use them
if a Mission has gone wrong and the subject or an AlphaOmegan has been
prematurely terminated.  They grow a clone, interrogate it as they
would have its progenitor or let it complete its Mission.  Once it's
outlived its usefulness, they terminate it."

"Lovely people these Protectors of yours," Stephane remarked in a
stunned voice.  He was still too dazed to add a sarcastic tone to his
remark.

"You'd better believe it."  He turned to Kieran.  "The information I
gave you?  It's adequate compensation for babysitting as Stephane
calls it?"

"Yes, yes, quite," Kieran nodded enthusiastically.

"Good, because if it wasn't I didn't have anything else in your area
of study to bargain with.  And you can keep this a secret?  Just you
two and Stephane in on this?"

"We'll have to bring in our assistant.  We can't stay here all night
to monitor him.  The kids home alone's not a good idea.  Not if we'd
like to have the house standing and some food in the pantry when we
get home.  P.J. usually stays the night here to look after any
experiments.  You can trust her to keep her mouth shut."

"Fine."  He gave the tank a final glance.  "You won't need to do
anything more than monitor his vitals and help him out of the tank
when he's reached maturity.  He'll take it from there."

"You don't want to leave any instructions for him?"

"When he comes out he'll be ready to go.  All of my memories and
skills are lying dormant in him.  When he wakes, they'll awaken too.
All he'll be missing is my memories from the moment I extracted the
cells I used to create hi-" His hands came up to massage his temples.

"What is it?"

"Nothing."  The hands dropped.  "Just a slight headache."

Kaatje hurried towards her desk.  "Do you want something?  I have-"

"No, I'll get something on Sunfire.  I have to get going now anyway.
Thank you for this," he smiled at Kieran and Kaatje.

They both smiled and nodded back.

"Come on, you," Tom said, draping an arm over Stephane's shoulders.
"Let's leave them to their real work."

"Let me come with you," Stephane almost begged once they were out of
the genetic sciences building and in the courtyard.  "You can't
possibly do whatever it is you're meaning to do alone."

"I won't be alone.  Sunfire will be there."

"But that's not the same as having another set of hands.  I could go
places she can't.  I could-"

Tom laid his hands on his friend's shoulders.  "I appreciate the
offer, Stephane.  I really do, but I can't accept it.  I'm trained for
this sort of thing.  You're not.  And if anything ever happened to you
I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."

"But-"

"No, Stephane."

Seeing he was fighting a losing battle, he nodded.

"Besides, you and Maaike promised to help out Oran and Nana with M'Nea
Madeleine."

Unable to say anything around the lump in his throat, Stephane smiled.

Giving him a crooked smile of his own, Tom embraced him then turned
away.  Sunfire took the hint and beamed him to her.

"You okay?" Sunfire asked the moment he appeared on the Bridge.

Entering the turbolift, Tom swallowed his emotions and nodded.

"Maire Molloy is hailing.  You want to me to stall her?"

"Wait until I'm in the computer core room," he said in a rough voice.
He cleared his throat as the lift let him out on the appropriate deck
and he started down the corridor.

"Sunbird, you can still change-"

"I'm not going to change my mind."  He entered the room housing the
main computer core and sat at the console there.  "On screen."

Maire's excited face appeared.

"I take it they agreed?"

She nodded.  "They think they may be able to apply the theories behind
the Gopher Hole to our research into getting us back to the Alpha
Quadrant."

"And the ships?"

"They agreed to the trade.  You get the first one off the line in
exchange for the information you've given us.  In fact, they are so
anxious, they've already working on producing the first one.  Within a
week, we should have our own Vanguard class ships."

"A week?  That's impossible."

"I said they were anxious.  They think having them around will be a
good security measure in case someone comes along who can find their
way through the dust cloud."

"I see.  And the information about your sensors?  You talked them into
giving it to me?"

"I did you one better."  She held up a padd and a part about the size
of Tom's fists placed together.  "We came up with a modification to
Sunfire so you're invisible to the sensors and replicated the part for
you."  Maire grinned.  "You're not going to attack us or anything, are
you?"

"Hadn't planned on it, but if you want me to...?" he smiled back.

She set it on her desk.  "So all you have to do is install it and
you're ready."

"Sunfire?"

The ship beamed the two items to the console before him and he scanned
the padd.  "Okay, no problem."  He lowered the padd.  "And what about
the other item?"

"You can beam it to my personal lab.  I'll keep it safe there until
it's needed."

"Good.  I'll beam it to you before we leave.  Thank you, Maire."

"You just come back soon and in one piece."

Tom nodded and ended the communication.  "Last chance to change your
mind, Sunfire."

"I'm not going to," she insisted.  "Wherever you go, I go."

Smiling sadly, he stroked the nearest wall.  "Even if it's straight to
Hell?"

"Even if."

Nodding, he opened a box on a nearby table.  From it he extracted a
part and began attaching it to the computer core.  "I'm going to start
the duplication then go see Nana and Oran."

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"There shouldn't be any problems," he said, snapping the last
connector into place.  "I've done this with other ships before and
under battle conditions without any problems so you're not at risk of
anything going wrong and me not here to monitor you while this
happens."

"No, I meant you going to see them."

"I have to say goodbye.  I told them I would."

"If you see them, you might just change your mind about going."

"Nothing will change my mind.  I am not going to abandon my promises
for them or anyone.  I can't."

He double-checked his handiwork.  Her central computer core now looked
like it was being attacked by a large parasite.

"Ready?"

"Yes.  I left the cargo hatch open so you can get out."

"Thanks."  He tapped the command sequence and the "parasite" lit up as
Sunfire's entire being and memory began to be copied into it.  A quick
check that everything was working as it should then Tom exited the
ship through the doors she had left open for him.

---

"What do we do?" Maire asked her guest as Stephane and Maaike entered
the office.

"We have to let him go," was the reply.  "You gave him the module?"

"Yes, and it already has been installed."

"Good.  This is what I want you three to do."

---

"Tom, please rethink this," Nana begged.  "You could get killed."

"Seanmhair, I have to do this," he insisted as he crossed the kitchen
to the sunny corner where M'Nea Madeleine was playing with her toys.
The instant she saw him, she held up her arms to be picked up.
Smiling, Tom did just that.

"But think of M'Nea Madeleine.  Her mother gave her to you."

"I *am* thinking of her.  That's why I have to go do what I have to do
and she's staying here where she'll be safe, on New Kildare with you
and Oran.  Here she'll have a normal life with good people to raise
her and not have to worry about the Gherop ever again.  That's what
her mother wanted for her.  A life different from the one she was born
into.  And if I'm successful, she'll never have to worry about what
happened to her people ever happening to her or you."

Pressing a kiss to the plump lavender cheek, he held the giggling
little girl closer.  "You be good for them, little one," he whispered
into her hair.  "I'll be back to make sure you are."  With one final
squeeze, he handed her over to Nana to whom he gave her a similar
goodbye.

Though the older woman did her best not to cry, the tears were there
in her eyes and he felt answering ones threatening to well up.  Before
they could fall, he hurried from the room and out of the house in
search of Oran to say goodbye.

As he stepped out into the sunshine, M'Nea Madeleine seemed to at last
understand what was going on and she began to cry.  Days later, he
would look back on this moment and wish he had followed his gut
instinct and immediately re-entered the house and not gone anywhere.

But he did not.  He instead determinedly walked down the path to the
shed where he thought he would find Oran.  Only he was not there.  The
shed was empty.  Stepping back outside, he scanned the backyard,
searching for Oran.  A splash of red sweater against the green grass
of the foothills alerted him to where his "grandfather" was.

Fifteen minutes later, Tom's hike was over and he was standing beside
the rock on which Oran lay, staring up at the clouds.

"I remember the first time I saw you," Oran said quietly.  "This
gangly boy staring so longingly at the model schooner I had
constructed."

"It was beautiful."

"And I made a present of it to you when you left."

"And you promised to show me how to make my own the next time I came
to visit."  Tom stopped smiling.  "Only there never was next time."

"Until now."  Oran rolled his head towards him.  "I won't try to talk
you out of this.  I know your seanmhair will have tried that already
and if she with her powers of persuasion could not change your mind,
nothing will.  But I will say this: I have some blocks of wood in my
workshop with your name on them.  It would be a shame if they were to
go to waste."

Swallowing hard, Tom nodded.

Oran returned to watching his clouds and Tom slowly walked away.

---

"We're almost ready to restart the engines," Vorik told his Chief
quietly.

B'Elanna slowly tilted her head up from her work to blink at him.
"But- "

"We finished sooner than we expected, Lieutenant.  That last relay
*was* salvageable after all.  Just looked ruined."

"They need to be scanned and checked for microscopic fractures and-"

He stopped her desperate whisper with a shake of his head.  "Already
done.  They tested well within acceptable parameters.  We cannot stall
any longer.  We have to restart the engines."

"But I'm not ready."  She gestured to the padd in her hand.  "This
isn't enough.  There's still room for her to say no."

"I am aware of that, but we have to think of the safety of everyone
aboard and restart the engines.  What if the Gherop or someone else
comes along?  You know how dangerous it is to perform a cold start."

Lowering her eyes, she nodded sadly.  She was being selfish, placing
her desire for more time to consolidate their plans over the safety of
everyone else on board.  As a Starfleet Officer she could not do that.
"Begin the pre-start."  She got to her feet.  "Let me know when you're
ready.  I'll be with Janeway."

---

"You're back."

"Yeah," Tom acknowledged, disconnecting the "parasite" from Sunfire's
computer core.  "That didn't hurt, did it?"

"No, I'm fine.  How are you?"

"Been better."

"Last chance to change your mind," she pointed out, parroting his own
words of forty-five minutes earlier.

"No need."  He locked the module containing the duplicate of Sunfire's
"mental" functions into a box.  "Just beam this to Maire's lab and
I'll install the new module."

The box and its contents vanished as Tom left the room for
Engineering.  Thanks to Maire's detailed instructions and the simple
design, it was less than fifteen minutes before he was finished and
Sunfire now was more than a match for the New Kildarean ships.

"Everything is working as it should," Sunfire reported, showing Tom
the sensor readings.  Sure enough, she now was able to see through the
dust cloud as though it was not there.

"Good.  I'll inform the PTC we're leaving then we'll go find the
Gherop and settle a score."

Five minutes later, as she shot into the sky and engaged her cloak,
Sunfire never noticed every New Kildarean in the area turn and watch
her go with sad looks on their faces.  The looks lifted a little when
two shuttles took off a few minutes later and flew out of the cloud.
One shadowed Sunfire.  The other headed in the opposite direction.
Neither were noticed by Sunfire, even with her "improved" sensors.

---

"How does he manage to survive with such a tiny brain," Q bemoaned,
shaking his head at the departing Sunfire and her pilot.  "So
oblivious to the Universe around him."

His eyes traced the path of the second ship and he debated temporarily
abandoning the monitoring of his son in favour of pursuing his
interest in this new curiosity.  Then he saw where it was headed and
reverted to his original plan to follow his son as he followed the man
who so intrigued him.  He would find out what the second ship was up
to soon enough.

---

"May I ask you a question, Lieutenant?"

Megan nodded to the former Borg.

"If someone insists they wish to be left alone to deal with something,
though it is obvious if they are that they will not deal with it, is
it more detrimental to the individual with the problem to ignore their
wishes and try to help them or to permit them to continue to without
intervention?"

The woman was not sure what amazed her more -- Seven managing to get
her question out all in one breath or that she was asking Megan to
comment on something personal.  Their normal conversation -- if it
could be assigned such a familiar term -- typically was of the
professional variety.  "Do this."  "Why hasn't this been done?"  "What
were the results of that scan?"  Never anything personal.

"Uh, actually the person probably won't thank you for interfering, but
in the long run it usually is better to force the issue into the open.
But it always depends on the situation and the individuals."

Megan closely watched her superior continue her work.  'It can't be me
she's talking about.  With working on getting Tom back, I've been
better than I was, and Tem and I are doing fine now.  Okay, so he
seemed a little withdrawn last night when we went to bed, but it was a
long day and the meeting in Torres' quarters was rather lengthy so he
had every reason to just want to sleep last night and nothing else.
I'm sure everything will be better once Tom is back and Tem and I can
concentrate on us again.  I know the only reason he's so gung-ho about
getting Tom back is to please me and make me feel better.  He still
doesn't like him, but once Tom's home we can change that.  I know we
can.'  She narrowed her eyes in thought.  'So if it's not me she's
talking about then whom?'

"It's Harry Kim, isn't it?" Megan concluded.  "You're concerned about
him?"

"He is the Chief of Operations therefore is-"

"Yeah, yeah.  I know all that.  Can we drop the pretence already?"

Seven gave her a sharp look in response.

"You like Kim, even if you're not too sure what to do about it, and he
liked you at one point not so long ago.  You're concerned because he's
depressed and you want to make him feel better.  Right?"

"He is vital to this ship's-"

Megan cut the air with her hands.  "No, no, no.  'Yes' or 'no' to my
question.  Is this a personal, not professional interest?"

"Yes."

"Now we're getting somewhere.  You can't just push him, Seven.  He's
been through a lot.  He'll need time."

"And I should stand by him and be his friend.  Mr. Paris told me as
much."

"Then you should listen to him.  Tom knows a lot about people.  He
sees everything, even if he doesn't look like he does.  Give Kim time.
He'll come out of it eventually."

"*Eventually* is not-" Seven broke of in mid-sentence.  She moved to
another area of the main Astrometrics console to attend to the beep
that had summoned her.

Megan moved closer to her superior, curious.  "What is that?"

Seven tapped a few more controls then cocked an implant at the other
woman.  "Long range sensors are picking up a distress call from a ship
four point seven light years away."

"Gherop?"

Seven frowned at the readings.  "No, it's appears to be from the Alpha
Quadrant."

"Fell through a wormhole or something?"

"I found no evidence of wormholes or any other such phenomena in the
vicinity."

She played the distress call, hoping it would have some explanation.
It did not.

"It has to be from the Alpha Quadrant though," Megan insisted.  "The
computer says the original message is in Irish Gaelic.  The odds of
the same exact language developing in two different quadrants has to
be astronomically improbable."

Though she could have told the redhead precisely the odds -- and they
were impossibly high -- Seven refrained.  "We have to inform the
Bridge."

Immediately, Megan opened her mouth to object.  If they told the
Bridge then they would want to go after them and where would the plan
to go after Tom end up?  But they knew for a fact someone's life was
in danger.  With Tom, they did not have that same certainty.  The SOS
had to take precedence.  "Yes," she nodded, "we have to tell them."

---

"Come."

At her desk, reviewing reports she had been too depressed to read when
they had been filed, Kathryn looked up to see B'Elanna enter.  It was
the first time the two women had seen one another in days and the
Captain had trouble meeting B'Elanna's eyes.  Guilt over her role in
this woman's mate's leaving made the situation awkward.  She did not
know what to say to her, how to apologize for what she had done.

What she did not know was the younger woman was experiencing the same
feelings, only she felt more justified in having them given what she
knew to be true about Tom's reasons for leaving.

"Captain, the engines will be back online within five minutes."

Grey eyes leapt to brown.  'Well, Kathryn,' she thought, 'the moment's
finally come.  Three day's worth of soul searching and self-
recriminations have to end.  You have to give an order.  Chase after
Tom Paris or let him go?'

B'Elanna clearly had the same idea.  "Captain," she began in a very
formal voice, "I wish to request we go to New Rachar.  We have worked
out the safest route there from here.  By using natural obstacles, we
should be able to make our trail difficult for the Gherop to follow if
they are in the area.  There are several suggestions for weapons and
shield modifications and ways of improving engine efficiency and
output during any confrontations should the Gherop somehow find us-"

"Who's 'we?'"

The chief conspirator went perfectly erect.  They had known the
Captain would ask who was in on this cabal and they were willing to
risk reprisals, they felt so strongly about this.  "Myself, Tuvok,
Megan Delaney, Pablo Baytart, Neelix, Joe Carey, Vorik, and Geron Tem
officially.  Though others have expressed their moral support."  She
moved closer and held out a padd in a slightly trembling hand.  "I
have a list detailing the logic behind this request.  The suggestions
for modifications are there too."

The Captain stood as she took the padd yet stared at her visitor, not
the device.  The lieutenant took this as a bad sign and began
outlining their reasoning herself.  With each word, her speech became
faster and faster as she felt the opportunity to make things right
with Tom slipping through her fingers.  Desperation began to show
itself.

"Lieutenant!" Janeway finally said sharply, her command voice
surfacing for the first time in days.

Though the look in the brown eyes remained, the half-Klingon's
explanation abruptly ceased.

Kathryn, saying nothing, walked passed her and out onto the Bridge,
padd still in hand.

Trailing along behind, B'Elanna barely noticed how everyone glanced in
their direction then their eyes returned to their consoles.

"Mr. Baytart," the Captain began, "set course-"

From beside Tuvok's station, Chakotay interrupted.  "Captain, we're
receiving an SOS from a shuttle four point seven light years from
here.  Astrometrics' sensors say the shuttle's from the Alpha
Quadrant."

"What?"

"Play the distress call again, Harry."

Harry nodded and obliged.

"'I repeat,'" the female voice said in a strongly accent.  "'This is
the shuttle Dublin requesting immediate assistance from any ships in
the area.  Engines are offline and our life support is failing.  My
co- ordinates are...."

"That's the universal translator's version of it," Harry said once the
co-ordinates had been given.  "The originals in something called Irish
Gaelic.  It's a language indigenous to Earth and is spoken on a few
colony worlds with populations predominantly Irish in ancestry."

As the Captain, went to join her First Officer and Security Chief on
the upper level, B'Elanna felt the same worry Megan had felt.
B'Elanna, however, was more desperate than the human and did not
immediately surrender to the necessity of rendering aid to someone in
distress.  When Vorik contacted her to say the engines were ready, the
Captain heard and descended to her command chair, ordering Baytart to
set course for the shuttle.

"Captain-" B'Elanna tried to object.

Janeway would have none of it.  "I will take this under advisement,
Lieutenant," she said of the padd she set on the console between her
and Chakotay's chairs.  "You should be in Engineering in case
something happens."

"But-"

"Later."

Clenching her teeth lest she say something that made matters worse and
the Captain totally disregard her request, B'Elanna stormed out.

---

"You ready to tell me what the exact plan is or am I going to find out
when it happens?"

Tom nodded.  They were well on their way into Gherop space.  Now was
the time to tell her his plans.  "Simply put, I'm going to do to them
what they did to the Rachar."

The ship was silent for long moment.  "What they did to... You're
going to-"

"Trick them into releasing one of those Final Weapons on themselves.
I'll need to take whomever has succeeded T'Do as the Gherop Leader and
let them see first hand what it's like to watch their world explode
and not be able to stop it."

"And you think that will do it?  Killing all those innocents will be
justified?  That the new Gherop Leader will be so shocked that he or
she will feel remorse for what the Gherop have done to the Rachar and
others?  Sunbird, to feel remorse one has to be able to look at things
from the other side of the proverbial coin.  To see how the other
party is suffering because of what you are doing.  To be able to
question your society and its practices and beliefs, and permit
yourself to see they might not necessarily be valid or right.  Most
societies have a lot of trouble doing that.  With the advent of travel
to other planets and star systems, and visitors to their own world
from those planets and star systems, comes a growing desperation to
retain their own cultural identity.  Typically, they cling to their
social and religious beliefs and conventions far more zealously than
they normally would have had they not felt their identities as a
people threatened by the arrival of outsiders and new ideas.  Those
people look to their leadership for the protection of their unity as a
group, and the leaders routinely become more rigid about everyone's
adherence to them and those beliefs."

"So once the Leader sees the devastation the Final Weapon leaves and
sees his or her own people dead-"

"He or she will seek revenge on whoever's responsible, not see the
death and destruction and suddenly think 'Gee, this is what we've been
doing to others?  Guess we should stop.  This can't be a good thing.'
Sunbird, you're letting your desire for revenge get away from you.
Yes, what they did to the Rachar was wrong from the Rachar and most
other species' points of view.  But not from the Gherop's point of
view.  They think what they've done is a totally rational and
acceptable thing.  If the rebels on Rachar succeeded in ousting them
from power then other slaves would hear of it despite the best efforts
of the Gherop to contain the information.  They would have chaos on
their hands.  They couldn't permit the Verta to succeed so they
destroyed them.  Unfortunately, the entire planet went with them."

"I can't believe you're on their side."

"I'm on no one's side but yours, Sunbird.  You know that.  But you
also know that I'm right in what I'm saying.  You may be able to
change the Leader's attitudes by doing this, but that won't change the
people's minds.  They'll see it as too abrupt an about face, no matter
what has happened to provoke it.  No matter what the Leader says, what
you have planned will only unite the remaining Gherop further as they
demand revenge and they'll come after us for it.  Or even worse, they
go after someone else, someone who isn't even involved, but they think
it has to be them because they don't know about us.  Do you really
want to drag someone else into this?"

He did not want to hear any of what she was saying.  As she had
accurately pronounced, his desire for revenge on behalf of the Rachar
was overwhelming his objectivity.  He wanted them to pay so badly he
was forgetting all other considerations -- like innocent bystanders
who might suffer because of what he had done.

"They have to pay," he insisted stubbornly.  "No matter if they
thought what they did was right for them, they have to pay."

Sunfire restrained a sigh and abandoned the fight for the moment.  "So
you're expecting to find a huge, blinking sign somewhere with an arrow
saying Gherop Homeworld this way?"

"No, but it is logical that, if the other planets under Gherop control
are like Rachar was, their goods and treasures are shuttled back to
the Gherop Homeworld.  Going by what my console is telling me, in
about twenty minutes we'll be crossing a major transportation
corridor."

"The large concentration of warp trails," she sighed, finally clueing
into his plan.  "Naturally, if there's a lot of traffic, it has to be
going somewhere."

"Precisely.  We just follow their trails and they should lead to a
port of some configuration."

"And when we get there, we can just tap into their databanks and find
out where their Homeworld is.  Alidak."  She laughed and would have
shaken her head had she had one.  "How could I have forgotten the
menace of the Tal Shiar and his finding that Section 31 base The
Protectors lost track of in the Federation-Romulan Neutral Zone before
we could get to it.  That one should have been an AlphaOmegan.  I
can't figure out how he could have been rejected in the Selection
Process. He would have been an asset if they had made him one of us
anyway. Only they were resentful that he was able to do something
faster than we could.  They were scared of what else he might uncover
given time. So they took care of him, but good."  Her voice softened
to a whisper.  "Such a horrible Mission that was.  Even if The
Protectors did get what they wanted out of it, there had to have been
a better way to get it, one that didn't entail so many losing their
lives."

Her words brought the memory of it back to Tom.  Until she had said
them, he *had* forgotten that Mission -- or rather the memories had
yet to surface from the murky area that still existed in his brain.
Now they emerged in a terrifying rush.

"Sunbird?"

Even as she called his name, she knew he was not going to answer.  She
had seen this reaction enough times now for her to know summoning him
out of this would not necessarily be the best thing to do.  Instead,
Sunfire caused the Helm at which he sat to "melt" into the floor,
slowly followed by his chair.  Soon as he was on the floor, he curled
up, shaking uncontrollably as the images washed over him.

"The reports of their strength were not exaggerated," Sunfire
whispered, her huge weapon slack in her hands as she stared at the
death and devastation around them.

"They have immense power that's for sure," a similarly armed and
affected Souris agreed from a couple of metres away.  "The last one's
over here when you're finished with those two, Yana."

"Give me a minute," the Orion responded, from her place kneeling in
the rubble beside the two Romulan corpses.  She did not look up to see
to where her colleague was pointing.  She would be joining her soon
enough.  "This is rather delicate.  It does take some time."

There was the crunch of boots over what remained of the secret
installation and the three AlphaOmegans automatically turned their
weapons on the newcomer in defence.  Then lowered them as Sunbird was
recognized and approached.

"The Vanguard's new weapons do work, to a degree," he said by way of a
conversation opener, "but none of the corpses Bartoq and I found were
salvageable.  The weapons breached their shielding, but Bartoq has
concluded the setting is too high.  Every last body was almost
completely disintegrated and what was left, the circuitry was fused
and they're no longer of any use to anyone.  But, Gaylorne reported
some specimens appear to have been caught in the trap so that should
make the technicians happy."

"Too powerful is just fine with me," Sunfire assured him, her relief
quite evident.  "I for one am glad that little bit of target practice
for Bartoq from orbit was successful.  I'd have hated to have to come
down here and pick them off face to face.  What about these?"  She
wiggled her weapon filled with concentrated plasma coolant.  "They too
powerful too?  If the technicians'  'specimens' can't behave
themselves and stay contained for the entire trip, will these be
overpowering enough to stop them in their tracks?"

"Yes.  They'll stop them and anything else organic.  You've seen what
it does to tissue.  It appears their cybernetic augmentation won't
keep them alive once the organic part of them is gone.  Just remember,
nothing will save you either if you fire that thing and any of it gets
on you so make sure you're running in the opposite direction when you
decide to fire it."

"Don't worry, I will."  Looking at her weapon, her lips twisted.  "And
I might just sleep with this baby, too.  I don't want to wake up and
find those things loose and trying to do what they do best while we're
on route to their new 'home.'  Or worse, calling their compatriots to
come back and help free them.  We had a narrow miss here.  If they had
taken a slightly different path..."

"We still would have intercepted them, lured them through the
Federation and Romulan Neutral Zone, and on their way again as
planned," Sunbird said with absolute certainty.  "The Protectors were
prepared for every contingency.  If things had deviated from the
original plan, there were backups.  There always are."

She nodded.

"Yana, how soon until you're finished?  Dumar's detected two ships on
long range sensors.  One Romulan, the Kaleh, and one Federation, the
Enterprise.  Our people aboard both are doing their best to see
neither ship comes this way to stumble across us nor any evidence of
what really happened here.  Still, I would prefer we remove ourselves
from the area as soon as possible."

He did not have to explain why.  They all knew quite well The
Protectors did not want anyone in the Alpha or Beta Quadrants knowing
what happened here.  The Vanguard's sensors were far superior to any
long range sensors either the Romulans or Federation possessed.  If
Dumar had *just* detected the two ships, it would be at least an hour
before either the Kaleh and Enterprise were in range of the moon to
scan it.  By then the surface would have to be vaporized down to the
bedrock, eliminating all traces of the Tal Shiar base that was in
strict violation of the treaty between the Romulans and Federation.
Finding a secret base well within the Neutral Zone would trigger an
intergalactic incident that The Protectors certainly did not want.
But more importantly, if either ship discovered what else was on this
moon, specifically themselves or what was in the trap, there would be
too many questions The Protectors did not want asked yet.  Or ever.

"One more and I'll be done," Yana answered.  She neatly packed into
the sample cases the heads she had just removed from their respective
owners then called to T'Kara on the Vanguard to beam them up.  They
vanished and a third case appeared in their place.  The Orion scooped
it up and all of them made their way over to the third corpse.  "The
modifications to the Implants appear to be a success, but we won't
know for sure until we scan them more thoroughly and try to download
their information."

"You and Wer and Wat can worry about that after we have the specimens
and have left this space."

"I wonder what the specimens thought when they tried to make everyone
here their mindless drones but their victims just dropped dead
instead?

"And they couldn't beam anyone, alive or dead, up," Souris added in a
voice filled with detached curiosity.  "Do you think they became
suspicious?  Every one of the people on this moon that they tried to
take dropped dead the instant they attempted to start the
transformation?  Were the technicians right?  Did the dampening field
the Bulwark's crew set up here really fool their scanning devices into
thinking everyone's 'bad reaction' was because of the field?  Did they
ever have the chance to puzzle out what really was going on before
they were lured back out of the Neutral Zone and back to the Delta
Quadrant where they belong?"

"I'm more concerned with wondering what was going through *her* mind,"
Sunfire murmured.  She gestured with her weapon towards the body of
the Romulan female in the Tal Shiar uniform then to the other corpses
all around them.  "All of their minds.  Looking forward to finally
going home after a six-month posting out here, in the middle of
nowhere, monitoring the Federation outposts.  Then to lose contact
with the shuttle that supposedly was bringing their replacements.
Only moments later, to see a species they've never encountered before
suddenly appearing amongst them, looking like they do, and attacking
them, literally single-mindedly and without provocation.  Sticking
those tubes into them."  She unconsciously shivered.  "To find that as
the last thing you felt, see their horrible faces as the last thing
you see then just drop dead, just like that.  What did they think?"

"None of them thought anything, Sunfire," Sunbird said in a gentle
voice.  "Like you said, as soon as they came into physical contact
with their attackers their Implants would have killed them.  It's
quick and painless.  They wouldn't have felt a thing."

"But only five of them were actual AlphaOmegans.  Why did The
Protectors go to all the trouble of giving all these civilians
Implants when they could have just arranged for the civilians not to
be here? They could have had the AlphaOmegans on the shuttle be the
ones the 'specimens' found as they came through.  Then the dampening
field excuse would have been so much more plausible when they tried to
figure out why they couldn't take anyone and they died instead."

"The entire purpose of the dampening field was to cover up the
existence of the trap, Sunfire," their leader corrected her.  "And to
keep them from beaming up any of our people to figure out why they
died or beam themselves back up to their ship or contact it once they
were down here.  If they were able to take any of our people up for
study, they would have discovered the secret of the Implants and they
don't need to know that yet.  As for creating the trap on a ship, it
would not have worked.  Too easy for them to adapt and escape.  Here,
there's only one way out of that trap and we control it.  They aren't
getting out until we let them out.  That was why the control group had
to be on the shuttle.  Both groups could not be here.  When we can
shut down the dampening field, we'll be able to download the
information from the base's sensors and you'll see why it was so much
simpler to do it this way."

She inclined her head in agreement.  It was one thing for his Team to
*question* The Protectors' orders, but *challenging* those orders was
something completely different.  If Sunbird said something was so, it
was so.  The Team's loyalty to him was absolute.

All of the Team that was except its newest member, Raven.

"Raven to Recovery Team One," Raven's voice came over their subdermal
communicators.  "Sunbird?"

"Go ahead," Sunbird answered.

"The Team from the Bulwark are in place and we're ready to open the
trap.  Are we going to do this any time soon, oh fearless leader?"

The eyes of Souris, Sunfire, and Yana met.  They knew full well that
if Raven had wanted to talk only to Sunbird, he would have started out
by calling to him, not their group first then him.  He wanted them all
to hear what he was saying to Sunbird.  He wanted everyone to get the
message.  Not what he actually said, but the message behind it
certainly.

Over the passed few Missions, everyone had noticed how Raven was
becoming increasingly antagonistic towards Sunbird.  At first it had
been only criticisms and snide remarks behind their leader's back, but
recently Raven had become braver and was saying them to his face.
Soon, everyone knew, there would be a confrontation between the two.
Sunbird merely was permitting Raven enough rope with which to hang
himself.

"Everyone is *not* in place as we are still here, Raven, and the rest
of the Vanguard Team is still aboard her.  Once we are finished here,
everyone will be in place.  It is not like the specimens are going
anywhere."

"But the longer we delay moving them into the stasis units, the
greater the chance they will somehow adapt to overcome the dampening
field."

"We have time.  Sunbird out."  He looked his other subordinates firmly
in the eye.  "Well?"

"I'm almost done here," Yana answered, making the last incision.  The
Romulan's head, carefully severed from the rest of her, went into the
last case.  "I don't know how much they'll be able to download from
this one's Implant.  There's a lot of damage."

"That's the technicians' problem, not ours.  Sunbird to Vanguard,
we're done here."

Later on, Raven would claim had Sunbird come when he had called him,
things would have been different.  He even went so far as to suggest
as much to the Alphas when the Team was debriefed at the Base where
they took the "specimens" for study.  Alpha Two investigated the
entire situation and sided with Sunbird.  Not because the young human
was his protégé, but because Sunbird was correct in his evaluation of
the situation, as usual.

But that came later.  After the near disaster.

---

Once the last head was sent to Sickbay, the four of them were beamed
to the trap's location -- a space outside of what had been the Tal
Shiar base's well hidden emergency exit.  Though Sunbird was in
command of this Mission, another AlphaOmegan ship -- the Bulwark --
actually had done the bulk of the work since the Vanguard and
Sunbird's Team had been held up on their previous Mission.  Therefore,
when it came time to beam down to the surface and remove whatever was
in the trap, Sunbird permitted the Bulwark crew to continue on as the
point crew. The Vanguard's crew became the backup.  This did not sit
well with Raven, naturally, and when Recovery Team One arrived his
displeasure was evident.

The crew from the Bulwark had the area well secured.  Three of them
were standing in a widely spaced triangle formation, all facing each
other, with their weapons trained on the patch of ground in the centre
of their triangle.  The other seven plus Gaylorne, Pardan, and the
very impatient looking Raven were backing them up.

A moment after, Sunbird and Recovery Team One joined them, Bartoq,
Dumar, Wer, and Wat themselves beamed in with a dozen very large
stasis units.  The Bolians double-checked everything was in working
order with the units, nodded and waited for Sunbird's instructions
like everyone else.  The wait was not long.

Sunbird gestured to everyone to take up their weapons and pre-assigned
positions.  The three in the triangle repositioned their grips on
their weapons.  The remaining members of the two Teams fanned out,
weapons up to their shoulders and aiming at the same spot as the
initial three were -- straight at the invisible trap.

Because of what their prey had been, the lower tech the trap, the
better.  What they had done was carve out of the rock of the planet a
ten metre deep by four metre diameter hole with smoothed sides.
Looking at it, anyone not in the know would have thought it to be an
old cistern from the days before replicators could supply all the
liquids a creature needed to survive.  Thanks to the lack of handholds
in the sides, anyone falling into this hole would be very simply and
effectively trapped until someone came to get them out.

But just digging a hole and hoping one or two of their prey might fall
in was not enough and a trick had to be added to the simplicity.
Holographic camouflage covered it and the dampening field prevented
their scanners from seeing it until it was too late and they were
inside.  However, those same high tech additions to the hole also kept
the Team from seeing inside.  They knew precisely where the hole was
because of seemingly meaningless marks they had made in the surface
rock of the area.  Scuff marks surrounding the hole opening were the
only way they knew for certain anything actually had fallen in.  When
the dampening field and camouflage were lowered only then would they
know how many "specimens" they had for the technicians.

"Sunbird, to Bulwark and Vanguard."

T'Kara on the Vanguard and the pilot of the Bulwark both acknowledged
his call.

"Now."

All Hell broke lose.

While T'Kara had the Vanguard's weapons target on the hole and ready
to fire should there be trouble those on the ground could not handle,
the Bulwark's pilot triggered the field and camouflage to vanish.  The
technicians who had designed the high tech end of this plan had told
them they would have twenty seconds from the time the field went down
to the moment the effects wore off and their prey was mobile again.
They were wrong.  Two seconds after the cover over the hole vanished
and the dampening field with it, two long, dark grey tubes snaked out
of the hole and straight in the direction of one of the three nearest
to the hole.  It all happened so fast, none of the others could get
off a shot before they pierced his uniform and skin and he dropped
dead as his Implant reacted to the nanoprobes being introduced into
his system and killed him.

No one present had ever seen their "specimens" in action.  They had
seen the simulations of course, but this was the first time anyone
from the Alpha or Beta Quadrants had ever seen the real thing and it
momentarily stunned them.  That was all the time those in the trap
needed.  Within seconds they had formed a pyramid and the AlphaOmegans
saw live Borg face to face for the first time as they climbed out of
the trap.

The AlphaOmegans' training finally kicked in the instant one of the
Borg started to attack a second victim.  Weapons were fired.
Surrounded as they were, the Borg did not stand a chance.  They fell
in quick succession, their organic halves immobilized by the weapons
the technicians had designed for just that purpose and Bartoq had
modified to tone down so they had some live Borg to take back with
them.  When the shooting was over, five full Borg lay unconscious on
the rocky ground outside of the hole and two more still inside the
hole, never having had the chance to climb out before they were
stopped.  Four of the Bulwark's crew lay dead on the ground, one with
her attacker's tubes still stuck in her neck.

"Sunbird to Vanguard and Bulwark, start beaming them into the stasis
units."

As the drones began materializing inside the units, the still shaken
AlphaOmegans all began to move to guard them.  One by one, each unit
received an occupant and the unit's cover closed.  An anaesthetic gas
was released to keep the organic part asleep while the gravity inside
the unit was switched off and forcefields fell into place between the
occupant's cybernetic half and the unit's interior.  Every precaution
was being taken so the Borg could not make contact with the unit and
override the controls to free itself.

"Sunbird, it's Alidak," Gaylorne called to Sunbird as the last of the
drones was being settled inside its temporary home.

In three long strides he was over to where the R'taian stood and
studied the drone at which she was pointing with her weapon.  "He was
in the control group on the shuttle, wasn't he?  They assimilated him
that fast?"

"Apparently."

Both shook their heads.

"These Borg could be more of a problem than the technicians predict."

"What about our people?" Raven harshly demanded.  "They need
attention."

All four of the violated AlphaOmegans were transferred to stasis
units, the one still attached to her Borg attacker sharing the same
unit with him.  Though they all were dead, their colleagues had to
treat them the same as the still living Borg, just in case.  Plus, the
technicians would be quite happy to have something else to study.

"They are dead, Raven," Sunbird informed him.  "There is nothing that
can be done for them."

"So we just take them to Base and turn them over to the doctors who'll
what?  Study them just like they are going to study these
monstrosities."

"In the hopes of unlocking the Borg's secrets and neutralizing them as
a threat to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, yes."

"Vulcan scientists started working on 'unlocking the Borg's secrets'
way back in 2063.  After the AlphaOmegans were created and assumed
control of the Vulcans' research, our scientists have been working on
it.  Total, that's over three hundred years of research.  How much
longer can it take?  They figured out their technology enough to
create these Implants to put in our heads to control us and record
everything we see and do.  If they haven't figured out how to
neutralize the Borg's threat -- and some way better than giving the
entire population of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants Implants and having
them killed when the Borg try to assimilate them -- they never will."

"Now they will have live specimens on which to experiment.  They will
make greater progress with them to study."

"And our people too, huh?  Fresh subjects for them to study too, huh?
We should never have been down here.  We should have stayed on the
Vanguard and Bulwark, opened the trap from there and transferred them
to the stasis units from there.  None of us needed to risk our lives.
Or lose them.  To the Seven Hells with the fact it logistically could
not be done that way.  We should have found a way."

"You know precisely why we could not have done that."

Raven glared ferociously at him.  "Then you should have given the
Vanguard and the Bulwark the order to fire the instant we saw them
coming out of that hole."

Sunbird never changed his posture or the tone of his voice, but the
look in his eyes showed Raven he was very close to crossing the line.
"Are you questioning my authority in this matter?"

"Yes, I am.  Four of our people are down.  If you had acted when you
should have, they wouldn't be.  You should have either told T'Kara to
fire the Vanguard's weapons or told everyone to evacuate and let those
with the plasma coolant weapons fire."

Everyone present, even those from the Bulwark who normally did not
interact with the Vanguard crew, knew this was not about the Bulwark's
four dead.  Raven could not care less about them or anyone other than
himself.  That was well-known.  He was latching on to this horrible
event as a way to undermine Sunbird for his own ends.  Fortunately,
the man whose position he coveted knew it too.

"One, the purpose of this Mission was to capture *live* Borg, not the
component parts.  Plasma coolant liquefies organic tissue.  Their
organic halves would be destroyed and their mechanic halves would not
survive long therefore they would no longer be *live* Borg.  And, two,
if you would like to take issue with the method in which this Mission
was undertaken or with my leadership, I suggest you discuss it with
the Alphas when we get to Base.  Until then, you still are under my
command.  Remember that."

"The Alphas *will* hear of this," he vowed, stomping away.

"I'm sure they will.  Sunbird to Bulwark.  Commence beam up."

The stasis units and their cargo dematerialized.  In space, out of the
sight of those on the moon, they reappeared and were caught in a
tractor beam.  There they would stay, safely well away from the two
ships, yet hidden by their cloaking devices, until they reached base
and were deposited where the technicians were certain they could keep
them controlled.  Moments later, what was left of the Bulwark crew
went to their ship and the Vanguard crew were on the Bridge of their
own.

"Everything is a go," T'Kara, the Vulcan pilot, responded.

"Good.  Bartoq, you're on."

As the two cloaked ships broke orbit, the charges Bartoq and the
others had planted all over the moon vaporized the surface down to the
bedrock.  There no longer was any indication a base had ever been
there.  The ships flew off and the first of what was to be many
encounters with the Borg was over.


That memory ended, but other later meetings with the Borg, either the
"specimens" or "wild Borg" as the Team had called the ones on the
loose, soon assaulted him.  Memories of two years later, the next time
the Borg entered Alpha Quadrant space, this time of their own accord,
and of the massacre at Wolf 359.  Captain Jean-Luc Picard being taken
and transformed into one of those monsters and over eleven thousand
unsuspecting civilians being killed or assimilated, all when the Borg
could have been stopped.  But all those lives had been forfeited and
one of the best captains since Kirk had nearly been lost all because
The Protectors needed a diversion and what the Borg were doing fit
right in with their plans.  Overly ambitious plans, Tom now judged,
though at the time he had been so much under The Protectors' control.
To try to take over a Borg cube sounded perfectly reasonable back
then.  Alpha Two deemed it was necessary and so it was, as far as
AlphaOmegan 41783 was concerned.

*And so many of your people didn't make it back from that Mission
either,* Camet crowed.

Tom had expected the long dead Cardassian to make an appearance now
that he was remembering more of his past and here he was.

*Because you did not object to your precious Protector's plans,
innocent civilians died by the thousands or were condemned to a life
that is no life with the Borg.  And,* he stressed, *people under your
command, people you were supposed to protect, died.  But that's a
running theme with you, isn't it?  Part of the Bulwark's crew died.
All of your Team is dead now, except for Raven, who never was much of
a Team player anyway, and Sunfire, who more or less is dead, but
you're determined to finish the job by dragging her off on this quest
for vengeance of yours.*

'The Rachar don't deserve to have died in vain.  Someone has to teach
the Gherop they can't go around doing what they did to the Rachar to
anyone ever again.'

*And that someone has to be you.  Admit it, all this is just an excuse
to go out and kill people.  The Protectors programmed you to be a
soldier, an assassin, but during your cushy life on Voyager there
wasn't much call for blowing up buildings or slitting throats.  You
really left not because of that Klingon bitch you had taken to your
bed took another to hers, but because they were stifling you.  Same
with that happy little planet where you left that little whelp you
were using to replace the kid you never had.  It was all too perfect,
all too peaceful.  Your blood lust was frustrated.  You needed to get
off of that ship, needed to find a battle and spill some blood.
That's the real reason you're trying to find the Gherop Homeworld and
destroy it and everyone on it.  No matter how much you bemoan your
blackened soul, you want more blood on your hands.*

'No!'

*You enjoy the killing.  Thomas Eugene Paris.  Scion of the privileged
Paris clan.  Unloved little boy who desperately wanted his father's
attention but could never be good enough to get it.  So he does the
opposite instead.  Can't get attention by being good?  He'll strike
back at Father by being as bad as possible.  So much for the
upstanding Starfleet Officer.  He is nothing more than a common
killer.*

'I....'

*You can't even deny it!* Camet laughed.

He could not deny the truth and, for the most part, what was being
said was the truth.  He had felt ill-at-ease on Voyager, mostly
because of the way the others were treating him, but also because he
was frustrated with the way things were done.  So many times of late,
he had found himself thinking he could have handled such and such
better than Janeway.  She had taken too long to do something, to come
to some conclusion when he could have done it better and faster and
with more success.  He had put it down to his having been a leader for
so many years -- more than Janeway had been -- that finding himself
the one taking orders was chafing.  He so much wanted to do things the
way he had been programmed to do them, the AlphaOmegan way.  Was Camet
correct?  Was he doing this because he was an old soldier who suddenly
had found himself without a war to fight, without an outlet for the
"bad" side The Protectors had cultivated?  Was his not listening to
Sunfire as she tried to speak reason to him not because he thought she
*was* misjudging the situation, but because he *wanted* her to be
misjudging the situation?

He weighed the questions, trying to stay objective.  Finally he came
to a decision.  The Rachar deserved better than blood shed in their
name. All they had wanted was freedom and peace.  Sunfire had been
right about needing to change the Leader's attitudes without such a
grand gesture as the death and destruction of his or her people and
Homeworld, that it would only unite the remaining Gherop further as
they sought revenge against whomever had made their Leader destroy
their Homeworld.  Something else had to be done.

*But you will not enjoy it nearly so much.  You want blood.  You will
not be satisfied with anything less.*

"Then that's my problem, Camet!"

"Sunbird?" Sunfire called to him, confused.  They were alone.  She
searched her databanks and found forty-seven references to the word
"camet" in seventeen languages.  Only one had any direct connection to
Tom Paris alias AlphaOmegan 41783.  Camet had been the name of the
Cardassian who had captured Janeway and Admiral Owen Paris and
tortured the latter only to later be tortured and killed by Tom Paris.
And according to Tuvok, Sunbird now claimed he heard Camet's voice in
his head, chastising him for past misdeeds.  For the first time, she
began to wonder about the mental stability of the man she loved.

*Don't do this, Thomas Paris,* a new voice urged.

"Zjna?" he whispered.

*Yes,* the late Rachar Queen confirmed.  *Though I only knew you for a
short time, Thomas Paris, I know this is not what you truly want.  Nor
is it what my people want.  To destroy so many people, to do what they
did to us, it would only take you down to their level and dishonour
us.  You are not like the Gherop.  Don't let thoughts of revenge make
you become like them.*

'But, Zjna-'

*What you plan to do is not right.*

*But he's going to do it anyway,* Camet insisted.  *He can't do
anything else.  It's in his nature to destroy everything he touches.
He can't help it.*

"No, I can help it."  Shaking his head to clear it, Tom rose.  "Change
of plans, Sunfire."

"Change?"

"We're still going to the Gherop Homeworld.  Only for a different
purpose.  I'll be in Sickbay.  Tell me once we find the nearest Gherop
outpost."

She continued to monitor him carefully as he went about his mysterious
errand below.

-------

End Part Two