Caretaker - L. A. Graf [39]
"It's good to see you, too, Chakotay." Paris sounded glib and smug enough to slap.
"At least the Vulcan was doing his duty as a Starfleet officer," the Maquis spat. "But you...!" He gestured at Paris with undisguised loathing. "You betrayed us for what? Freedom from prison? Latinum?
What was your price this time, Poocuh?"
Janeway didn't wait to see what effect Chakotay's words had on Paris's newfound self-respect. Stepping purposefully in front of the other commander, she planted a hand on his chest to warn him against moving any farther. "You're speaking to a member of my crew," she told him softly, evenly. "I expect you to treat him with the same respect you would have me treat a member of yours."
When Chakotay took a grudging step backward, she lowered her arm and let him have the distance. He didn't seem quite able to take his gaze off Paris, though, and the pure hatred Janeway saw in his eyes disturbed her for all that it didn't much surprise her.
"Now," she said, trying to pull the Maquis's attention back to what mattered. "We have a lot to accomplish, and I suggest we all concentrate on finding our people and getting ourselves back home."
Tuvok made his allegiance official by moving away from Chakotay to stand at Janeway's elbow. "Based on my initial reconnaissance, Captain, I am convinced we are dealing with a single entity in the Array. I would suggest that he scanned our computers in order to select a comfortable holographic environment. In effect, a waiting room--to pacify us, prior to a biometric assessment."
"An examination?" Paris asked.
Tuvok dipped a single nod--but to Janeway, not to this new crewman who had no functional rank. Janeway reminded herself to brief Tuvok on the situation later. "It is the most logical explanation," the Vulcan said. "Why else would we have been released unharmed?"
Paris gave a little snort. "Not all of us were."
Which brought them back to the real reason for their unsteady alliance.
"Break out the compression phaser rifles," Janeway ordered Tuvok.
"Meet us in Transporter Room Two. We're going back. We'll divide into two teams. Mr. Tuvok, while Chakotay and I look for Kim and Torres, your job is to find out as much about this Array as you can." She dared a frowning glance at the cloudy viewscreen and the alien structure that still dominated it. "It brought us here; we have to assume it can send us home."
As Tuvok led Chakotay and the other Maquis toward the turbolift, Janeway turned back to Rollins and the rest of her waiting bridge crew.
"Mr. Rollins, maintain red alert. Keep us on constant transporter locks--" "Captain?"
She stopped with one foot on the steps, burning to be out and doing, irritated at Paris's interruption. But when she twisted to look back at him, the simple bravery displayed on the young man's face caught her by surprise.
"I'd like to go with you," he stated simply.
A nanosecond flash of internal argument annihilated itself at the back of her brain. "If this has something to do with what Chakotay said--" "It doesn't." Paris came up the steps to stand with her, his voice disarmingly sincere. "I'd just..." Something that was almost a blush moved across his features. "... hate to see anything happen to Harry," he finished awkwardly. But he met her measuring stare steadily, and there was none of his usual flippancy in his eyes.
Maybe not a waste after all. Janeway clapped him on the shoulder, nodding him toward the door as she sprang into motion again. "Come on."
Chapter 9
Ducks still drifted placidly on the mirror-bright surface of the holographic lake. Willows shushed in the warm summer breeze, and the sun hung precisely forty-five degrees above the gables of the blue-and-white farmhouse. Eternally a June mid-afternoon,