The BLTS Archive -The Photonic Man by Charlene (charlene.vickers@gmail.com) --- He told himself to stay calm and think. Had he said anything to Starfleet about the mobile emitter? If he had even mentioned it in passing they might be on the lookout for it. Had he told Nechayev? Had he told Krantz, or Aiwo, or Riker? He couldn't remember. He - but he had mentioned it to the other EMH program. He was sure of it. "Damn." He hadn't felt this vulnerable since he had been on the Prometheus. From what Admiral Bashir had told Tieran's father during their last subspace transmission, Starfleet had no intention of allowing him his freedom after Voyager was reclaimed by the Federation. To them he was nothing more than a fascinating experiment, a study to be concluded and analysed. How would a medical hologram develop without upgrading or peer support? How does a self-aware hologram store data over a long period of time? Starfleet Medical itched to tear apart his algorithms and find out. But he couldn't let that happen. His only hope was the mobile emitter, but if Starfleet remembered it, Starfleet would want it. And as Chakotay had once said, Starfleet never forgets. Tieran stood behind the console and watched as he paced from one end of Sickbay to the other. "I won't let them do this to you," she said. "I'll do whatever I have to do to save you, you know that." He stopped and faced her across the console. "I'm not about to let them kill me just to satisfy their curiosity. I'm self-aware. I'm sentient. How can they decide that I'm going to be disassembled like I was a - a food replicator!" He slammed his fist against the top of the console, sending a hypospray skittering across the floor. She reached across and squeezed his hand, still wondering how this could even happen. Grandfather Vorik had taught her the IDIC principles a long time ago, assuring her that she would be welcome on Vulcan, that she would be protected under Federation law even though her maternal grandfather wasn't a citizen. It had never occurred to her that Lou would be treated differently. What truly free society would condemn a sentient self-aware life form to death merely for curiosity's sake? Merely because he was photonic and not corporeal? Haven't you ever been in love, Admiral Bashir? she thought bitterly. They had been able to pick up some of the debate on subspace since they emerged from the zone of silence around the galactic centre. Lou had his champions, including a gold-skinned Human named Professor Data who had defended him with great warmth and fervor before the Federation Council, but the result of the vote hadn't been in their favour. Vulcan and Ri'han had temporarily withdrawn their delegates from the Council, claiming the vote itself conflicted with the principles of IDIC, but most of the Council members had felt differently. Lou was to them nothing more than a set of instructions on a hard drive, to be decompiled or even erased at will. They would probably pity Tieran Nicoletti for loving that set of instructions, but what of it? What was a brain but a set of instructions on an organic hard drive? Grandfather Neelix was right; she didn't understand. She refused to understand. Lou was as real to her as anyone else on Voyager; she wouldn't let them do it. Their fingers intertwined across the console. "Lou, I promise I'll do everything I can to get you out of here. Engineering's trying to devise a personal cloak for the emitter, but if that doesn't work I'll shoot our way out if I have to." His eyes narrowed in disapproval, and she quickly explained. "I don't want to do it, you know that, but if the worst happens..." She sighed. "It would be easier if there were somewhere safe we could go before we reached Federation space." "What about Bajor? Or Cardassia?" "Cardassia's still a military dictatorship. Bajor's joined the Federation. The Klingon worlds aren't safe. Ri'han and Vulcan are our only hopes, but they're on the other side of the quadrant." He ran a finger down one of the blue stripes on her face. "And it's not as if you're terribly inconspicuous." Her sister Susan looked as Talaxian as Neelix did, but Tieran was a true mix. "You could make me look like a purebred - something, couldn't you?" she asked as he joined her behind the console. He winced at the idea. Changing his beautiful Tieran into a bland purebred? No. "You don't have the bone structure to pass as a purebred Bolian. Or Talaxian for that matter, although," he mused as he stepped back and cupped her chin in his hand, "you could pass for Human if I removed the stripes and spots and bobbed your ears. Your hair's Human enough, and Vulcans and Humans are so closely related that most people can't tell a Vulcan nose or mouth from a Human one anyway." "Then how do I explain my name?" The tieran was a form of blue zebra indigenous to Bolius V. "If it gets to that, Tieran, tell them it's - I don't know, Canadian - or change the spelling to T'Rinn and say it's Vulcan. Captain Kim's seriously considering wiping large areas of the computer core as it is. A few changes to the personnel records wouldn't be that difficult." Captain Kim. As long as Kathryn Janeway survived in stasis, he would never be referred to as 'the Captain'; he would only be Captain Kim. "Getting me off ship isn't the problem," she reminded him. "It's you we have to worry about. Maybe the emitter could be implanted somewhere in my body. Next to my heart, maybe. If anyone scanned me I could tell them it was a holographic pacemaker." She took his hand, kissed it and pressed it between her breasts. "No. It's too dangerous." He imagined what would happen if the emitter suddenly activated while it was in her body. "There has to be another way. We have almost a month before we enter Federation space; we'll think of something." "My photonic man," she whispered. He wrapped his arms around her and forgot about the Federation, if only for a little while. --- "When will we pass over?" Susan asked. "Commander Geren said he'd let us know just before. Shouldn't be long now." Dr. Velar Nicoletti and his daughter stood over the Captain's stasis module waiting for Geren's signal. She should have been buried at space over a decade ago, but even the Vulcans hadn't had the heart to do it. So they kept her in stasis, almost dead but still alive, planning to revive her once they entered Federation space. They had told the Federation she was already dead, though; what business was it of theirs? But the Captain would know she got her crew home. Velar and Susan would make sure of that. And Tuvok, of course. Most of the original crew were still alive. The senior care facility in Holodeck A looked after the worst cases; the rest took it easy for the most part. The cloak they had picked up on Procanthus had made their journey safer and faster, and in any case the new generation was more interested in getting their parents and grandparents home before they died than in investigating every gaseous anomaly they ran into. "I wish your grandmother Nicoletti could have seen this day," Velar said quietly. "Mother once said New Zealand was particularly beautiful in the springtime." She ran a hand over the window of the stasis module. "Bolians and Humans don't live very long, do they?" "No." He raised his hand as if to tap his com badge but stopped in mid-air. At his daughter's puzzled look, he chuckled. "An anxious Vulcan. I know." He paused. "I'm worried about your Grandfather Vorik." "A worried Vulcan." "I'm more Human than Vulcan inside; you know that." He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "It's not going to be easy for him, Susan. Here on Voyager Father's the patriarch. Almost everybody born on this ship since Regala Prime is his descendant. Me, you and your family, Malek, Tieran, T'Varn and her family, Voran and his family, the younger Janeways; but what happens when he gets back? Will his family accept that he and Mother had so many children, and most of them outside - well, you know," he squirmed. "Outside the pon farr, father?" He might be half Human and a doctor, she thought, but he still couldn't say the words. "Yes, well..." "They'll recognise it was the logical thing to do. Somebody had to run the ship, and almost none of the Humans were willing to have children. I think they were afraid to settle down. Maybe they always thought they'd be home soon." "What does your mother-in-law call it? Next Year in the Federation syndrome?" She burst out laughing. "Naomi told me that the Captain was once afraid to give out promotions because she thought Starfleet Command wouldn't appreciate a ship full of admirals showing up out of the blue. Can you imagine?" "They could have taken over Starfleet Headquarters," he replied in mock severity. "Most illogical." "Oh yes, most illogical. So instead they get a ship full of spotted blue Vulcans with horns." Her smile faded. "I guess Tieran wouldn't mind if we did take over Starfleet. What is she going to do, father?" Velar shook his head. "If they tried to take your mother away from me to experiment on her, I'd kill them." Susan stared at him; he nodded. "I would. Tieran and Lou - they belong together. Even your grandfather thinks they're a sensible match. Tieran doesn't need a mental bond, and since she can't have children anyway what does his composition matter? They're like the halves of a leola seed." He sighed. "What will Tieran do if they take him?" "I just hope she finds a way to hide the emitter, and that they don't force her to fight-" {Geren to Dr. Velar,} his com badge chirped. {We're approaching Federation space. Voyager will cross over in about half an hour.} "Which system is closest? I'd like to point it out to her after I revive her." {We'll change the angle at which we enter so your viewport faces the Bolian system. It'll be the bright yellow double star.} "Thanks, Commander. Velar out." He approached the stasis module, but stopped and tapped his com badge. "Velar to Tuvok. It's time." --- He cradled her in his arms, her head on his shoulder, as they looked out the viewport. They were alone. Her voice was weak, but her mind was still sharp. "Bolius." He nodded as their eyes met. "You've been in stasis. We're home." "Home, Tuvok." He pressed his cheek to hers tenderly. "You've brought us back safely, Kathryn. Thank you." She smiled; he whispered in her ear, "Wani ra yana ro aisha." "I love you too," were her last words. She turned to the viewport for a final look; but her weakened heart couldn't withstand the emotion of being home any longer. Her pulse slowed, then stopped. He had expected she would die this way, but he still found it devastatingly painful even after all the years of stasis. He held her on his lap, his cheek still touching hers, until he could no longer sense her mind. Kathryn, my love, he thought: if not for you, where would we be? But he would soon have to leave for the surface and pretend that it had happened over a decade ago. Giving her a final kiss, he gently placed her back in the stasis module and tapped his com badge. "Tuvok to Dr. Velar. It is over. Please inform," and he paused, just for a second, then said, "please inform the Captain." And now he would have to face T'Pel. What could he say? --- Vorik read the results off the tricorder. "The emitter is still operating within normal parameters." She sighed in relief. "Thank you, Grandfather. I just hope it works." "Humans are intelligent, Tieran, but they can be fooled if one goes about it the right way. And you have friends on the surface. Mr. Neelix's plan will meet with success if they can help and if you are careful. I wish you good luck." {Geren to Commander Vorik. Your presence is required in Transporter Room B.} He acknowledged the call, then turned back to his granddaughter. "You remember the instructions?" "How could I forget them?" she replied. It was the most important thing she would ever do in her life; she had to be perfect. If not....her hand went to the portable phaser at her waist. She would kill, or die, if she had to. "Grandfather?" she said as he turned to leave. She raised her hand in the Vulcan salute, just in case. "Live long and prosper." He returned it. "Peace and long life, but we will meet again. We will all meet again." --- "Some things never change," Chakotay muttered to Paris as the ceremony dragged on. And on. And on. Every windbag in the quadrant had shown up, and they all seemed to have a speech. He stopped grumbling for a minute and listened to the Federation Vice-President for Interplanetary Trade. "...and so, my fellow Federation citizens, I ask all of you to think of these brave, brave voyagers and how their odyssey has broadened the Federation's trading sphere under my administration by so many..." "Jesus H. Christ," he growled under his breath. Looking around, he wondered who in the crowd was worse off: sombre Tuvok, grieving the loss of his beloved wife only a few hours earlier while his first wife stood beside him, glowering, obviously furious; terrified Tieran Nicoletti, all false dignity and haughtiness; or himself, his back sore from the hard wooden chair, his shoulder acting up in the dampness, his prostate - he didn't even want to think about what that felt like right now. "It could be worse," Paris whispered, as if reading his mind. Chakotay snorted. "Name one way it could be worse. One way, Tom." He thought for a minute. "They could have made us stand." "On our heads." And the two old men burst out in laughter, greatly amusing everyone at the ceremony except perhaps the Federation Vice-President for Interplanetary Trade, who drummed his fingers on the podium angrily before continuing with his speech. It was an election year, after all. --- Ensign Cormack studied the man in front of him. A light brown Vulcan, apparently, with a horn on his forehead. It had been like this all afternoon. "Name?" The young man replied, "Torek Wildman." "Species?" "Vulcan, Human and Kitaarian." No wonder. "Rank?" "Civilian." "Parents' names?" "Father, Talar Janeway. Mother, Naomi Wildman." He asked a few more questions, then handed the young man a small rectangular identicard. "Welcome to the Federation," he said in a dead monotone. "Next." What was this? he thought as a tall yellow woman sat haughtily in the chair and gave him a withering look. He thought it was a woman, at least; she had all the right curves. But her face was covered in gold spots; her scalp was studded with tufts of gold hair. One eye was brown, the other blue. She wore an elaborate ankle-length outfit made of silver cloth, and a detailed and apparently ancient silver headdress from which a heavily engraved platinum pendant dropped to rest on her forehead, flashing green and red lights apparently at random. He marvelled at the detailed engraving, not knowing that the main motif was a rather crude Talaxian curse directed against Starfleet Medical. "I trust I do not have to go through this - plebeian - ceremony?" she asked. Or demanded, perhaps. "All new Federation citizens must be catalogued and identicards issued." "Very well," she replied with a haughty nod. "Carry on." "Name?" "Tieran of Neelix." "Species?" "Talaxian," she said with pride. "Rank?" "Princess." He swallowed. What if this woman were an important member of the Talaxian government, whoever they were? He didn't want to think about the trouble he'd get in if he screwed this one up. "Your, um, Highness?" he ventured. "I think you might wish to speak with Admiral Delmar. Would you wait?" She nodded dismissively, and he left the tent. She waited until the flap closed, then she ran to the flap on the other side of the tent and peered out. Seeing nobody but a few Voyager people, she looked back to make sure the tent was still empty, then slipped through, making sure her headdress didn't get stuck in the flap. She walked past Anna Kim and Commander Geren (who touched his nose - the Bajoran sign for good luck - without looking at her), then quietly made her way across the compound and out the unguarded gate. Free at last! She walked nonchalantly across the road, down a back alley, and through an open-air market until she found the deserted office building. Finding a windowless room with a working lock, she began to undress. Off came the headdress, the wig, the coat, the blouse, the skirt. Underneath she was wearing casual clothes of the type they had seen in the subspace broadcasts from Bolius. She wouldn't fit in perfectly, perhaps, but she wouldn't stick out either. She removed the emitter from the headdress, checked the program and gave the emitter a kiss (how unVulcan, she thought with a smile - Grandfather would not approve), then slipped it in the shielded pocket she had sewn into the front of her undershirt. Sealing the pocket carefully, she then peeled the heavy makeup off her hands, neck and face, removing the leftover bits with the towel she had concealed around her waist and the makeup remover she had hidden in the pocket of the discarded coat. She removed the coloured contact lenses, then the theatrical putty, tape and batting which had changed her features so radically. Tieran of Neelix had looked like a Talaxian; Tieran Nicoletti looked like - well, like herself. She gave her hands, neck and face a final wipe with the towel, then checked herself in the mirror welded into the back of the headdress. She felt for the holoemitter between her breasts again, then rolled everything else into the towel and carried it along with the headdress out into the hallway. She found a working replicator and recycled it all before leaving through a back entrance. --- "I didn't think it looked dangerous," she replied. "Not dangerous." The lieutenant walked back and forth behind her. "Not dangerous, Ensign LaForge?" His tone was deceptively calm. She shook her head. "No, sir. And she looked so - important that I was afraid to go up to her and ask her to remove it." "Important." Lieutenant Brownlee nodded, then turned to face Ensign Cormack. "And do you believe every woman who tells you she's a princess?" "I wasn't sure, so I went to get the Admiral. What if she had been a princess? What if I had asked her something that would have caused a war?" He could believe Cormack was that stupid, but he had his suspicions with regard to the others. "And you, Lieutenant Rozhenko? You just happened to be away from the gate when she left?" "Yes, sir." The Klingon declined to comment further. "You do realise, Lieutenant, that you can be busted down, unlike your comrades in ineptitude?" "Yes, sir," she repeated, apparently unconcerned. Perhaps he would make Cormack read The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe. He doubted the others needed the reminder. Something was going on. But who was behind it? Was it Starfleet Intelligence? The Cardassians? Someone else? He didn't really want her per se; he was only interested in what she had stolen. The pendant she had worn on her headdress, the one everyone at the ceremony had commented on, was almost certainly the missing mobile emitter and almost certainly contained Voyager's EMH program. The pendant had been so obvious that he hadn't suspected it was actually being smuggled off the ship. Now half the brass in Starfleet Medical were sitting around a hotel conference table in Kelvas City discussing whether he should be shot or merely roasted over an open flame. The biggest obstacle Brownlee faced in recovering the EMH program was that he had no idea whom he was looking for. Voyager's computer core had been damaged - sabotaged from within, he suspected - about a week before the ship had entered Federation space. The original crew's personnel records had been intact, but some of their children's records had been badly damaged or destroyed. The missing resident could indeed be a Talaxian princess for all he knew. He didn't put much stock in her description; anyone could look like that given a little makeup, padding and heavy clothing. But it was all he had. He hoped the agents he was sending into the city would find her, or at least find the emitter, but he didn't expect they would. She was smart and had guts, and he suspected she had a compelling reason for what she had done. Money? Principle? It didn't really matter. As long as he recovered the EMH program before it reached Vulcan or Ri'han, he would win. But if it hadn't happened on his watch, he'd be rooting for her to win. --- She entered the bar just after sundown and spent the first few minutes counting the undercover Starfleet security officers. They had been combing the streets for the missing 'princess' since shortly after she escaped. They weren't doing a very good job; they might as well have "Starfleet Security - Look Out Tieran We're After You" stencilled on the backs of their shirts. Strong, muscular, short-haired; male or female, they were all the same. They pretended to drink or play darts or just enjoy themselves, but every few minutes they would reach down and scratch their hip or rub one foot against the other, depending on whether their tricorders were in their pockets or in their shoes. She didn't know much about Starfleet, but from what she had seen this afternoon it didn't know squat about security. They were looking for the emitter, of course; but they knew any competent thief would have invested in good shielding, so they were also scanning for any trace of an electronic code. The thief would have to make contact with his or her fence, or find a way off Bolius soon. Starfleet tricorders were designed to pick up even the most elaborate cyphers. But they weren't designed to pick up the most basic ones, such as Morse code irregularly tapped with a foot on the floor of a bar. She had picked someone's pocket earlier in the evening and had silently thanked Mr. Paris for teaching her how; there was enough money left to buy a Ri'hannsu ale and a bowl of hasperat. For the first time in her life, she was relatively inconspicuous. Many Bolian mixes were striped; she blended in with the crowd. Taking a sip of the strong blue drink, she scraped her foot against the pedestal table ever so lightly. Scratch-tap-tap, tap-scratch, scratch, tap-scratch. D-a-t-a. The hasperat was awful, but she ate it anyway as she scraped out the code again. And again half an hour after that. Finally, she heard a faint reply. Scratch, tap-tap, tap, tap-scratch-tap, tap-scratch, scratch-tap. T-i-e-r-a-n. She washed the taste of the hasperat out of her mouth with the last of the ale, stood, stretched as the other Bolian women had, and left. A minute or so later, a hunchbacked man followed her out of the bar. Nobody but Tieran had noticed his gold skin and eyes. Within an hour she and Lou were on a private transport headed directly to Vulcan. --- "It is not the bonding I object to. Far from it. It would have been illogical to allow yourself to die and deprive the crew of your knowledge and expertise." T'Pel regarded her husband with tightly controlled hostility. "It is the emotional component which angers me." "I did not intend for it to happen." An excuse worthy of Geren when he was a teenager, Tuvok thought ruefully. What excuse could he have for abandoning his wife in such an embarrassing fashion? What excuse did she have the right to demand, though? "Your intentions at the time are not of interest. Your-" but she stopped to control herself. T'Pel had never before expressed this level of emotion; it was not healthy and she knew it. Of course, she had never felt this level of emotional pain before, not even when they told her he had been killed. On that day she had felt grief at the loss of a mate; today she felt pain at the loss of a mate's love. The circumstances were different. So was the pain. "The fact that you mated and that she bore your children is not the point. In fact, I am pleased that she had the chance to procreate. She was a fine woman of excellent lineage, and I would be honoured to accept your children with her into our family. But - but did you have to fall in love with her?" He did not answer; what could he have said? She asked too much. She asked for him to repudiate Kathryn's love and trust and complete and utter devotion, and he would not. T'Pel might be his wife, legally; but Kathryn was the love of his life, and he would not throw that away merely to assuage his wife's wounded pride. Just for a moment, he wished he had died in that room this morning with Kathryn. But he could not return in time. What is, is; he was alive. And there were children and grandchildren to educate, poems to write, meditations to complete. Perhaps he would never feel as strongly again for another person, but he would have his memories and his children. It would be enough. --- The Voyager crew emerged relatively unscathed by the investigation into the missing mobile emitter. Popular opinion among everyday Federation citizens was strongly in Lou and Tieran's favour; no politician was ready to sacrifice his career by calling for stiff penalties for the main perpetrators. The only victim was Commander Vorik, who was stripped of his rank and sentenced to one year's probation for his role in conspiring with unknown elements to smuggle Lou off Voyager. Due to public pressure, however, he was not stripped of his Starfleet pension. At any rate, his back pay with interest was more than he would ever need to live on, especially since Lou and Tieran had guaranteed he would never be without a comfortable home. He also inherited his wife's back pay with interest and a payout of her pension; he used it to fund a chair in ethics at Starfleet Academy on Vulcan, and in his will arranged for his remaining assets to be used to fund a similar chair at Starfleet Academy on Earth. The Federation eventually ruled that self-aware sentient holographic programs enjoyed the same basic rights as any other self-aware sentient species. On the evening the bill was signed into law, Lou and Tieran travelled to Earth and met with Professors Data and Moriarty for dinner at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Tieran was the only one who actually ate dinner, of course, but she ate enough for all of them, never having tasted real seafood before. Neither Tieran nor Lou ever knew why the man with the gold skin and the yellow eyes had risked his life, his career, and the lives of so many people they had never known about to protect Lou from Starfleet. Perhaps if they had been historians they would have recognised the similarities between Data's and Lou's encounters with Starfleet bureaucracy, but they were healers and only recognised Data's compassion. But they were also his friends; every year they remembered him with a donation to one of his favourite charities, and every year he paid them a visit. And when Tieran died she was buried in the red sands of Vulcan. The mobile emitter containing Lou's program was placed next to her heart as she had wished it so many centuries earlier, and as he requested shortly after her death. What interest had he in a lonely immortality? There was nobody left from Voyager to mourn their passing, but Professor Data sent a spray of blue and white striped roses. Tieran flowers, they were called on Bolius. Not after the zebra, but after the brave woman who had risked her life and defied the Federation to save her photonic man. ---- The End