Caretaker - L. A. Graf [7]
"Your father taught me a great deal," she said when one of his self-deprecating slurs laid out an overlong silence between them.
"I was his science officer during the Arias Expedition."
Paris nodded, thoughtfully. "You must be good. My father only accepts the best and the brightest." Surprisingly, the rancor she'd expected didn't surface in his voice. Perhaps the worst of it only reached inward instead of out.
She followed on the heels of his reasonability before it could crumble away. "I'm leaving on a mission to find a Maquis ship that disappeared in the Badlands a week ago."
"I wouldn't if I were you."
The easy certainty of his tone made it sound like he was commenting on the soccer scores, not a trek into the worst uncharted space.
"Really?" she prompted dryly.
He nodded again, more seriously, and even dared stealing a direct look at her face, as if to make sure she was listening. "I've never seen a Federation starship that could maneuver through the plasma storms."
"You've never seen Voyager," she told him, and quietly enjoyed the flash of jealous curiosity that jumped into his eyes. "We'd like you to come along."
Bitter understanding supplanted whatever interest had started to get a foothold in his brain. "You'd like me to lead you to my former colleagues." He wasn't guessing, though she knew he meant it to sound that way, and the half-angry, half-mocking smile that seemed his constant companion finished the job of banishing her respect. "I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured, Captain. I don't know where most of their hiding places are."
"You know the territory better than anyone we've got." He had to know that was true.
Whether he believed it or not, he shrugged off Janeway's comment the way he might a drink offer during a long and boring dinner party.
"What's so important about this particular Maquis ship?"
A fair enough question, considering Starfleet hadn't followed any of the other hit-and-run raiders so far into their own territory.
"My chief of security was on board. Undercover. He was supposed to report in twice during the last six days." She blinked off an unwelcome memory of the night she'd spent sleepless, waiting for her trusted friend's last scheduled call. "He didn't."
Paris snorted at some personal joke she hadn't heard. "Maybe it's just your chief of security who's disappeared."
The possibility hurt, but... "Maybe."
She gave him a moment to study whatever thoughts her proposition awakened in him, eager to shake an answer out of him, leery of frightening him off when he was the only real chance they had.
When she glanced away from the tower of distant mountains to see where his reflections had led him, she found Paris staring at her with surprising intensity. Their eyes met for just that instant, and he turned away with a mortified blush creeping up his cheeks toward his hairline.
Janeway discreetly averted her gaze, pretending not to notice.
"That ship was under the command of another former Starfleet officer named Chakotay," she said, giving him a chance to catch up with her conversation before forcing him into an answer. "I understand you knew him."
"That's right." He quirked a grin, as though remembering rowdy weekends at the Academy, or a wild first assignment with a brace of other young men.
Janeway watched him carefully. "The two of you didn't get along too well, I'm told."
He shrugged, laughing, and tossed his arms out as though absolving himself of all responsibility for anything this Chakotay might have claimed. "Chakotay would tell you he left Starfleet on principle," Paris explained. "To defend his home colony from the Cardassians." He folded both hands across his chest in beatific innocence. "I, on the other hand, was forced to resign. He considered me a mercenary--willing to fight for anyone who could pay my bar bills.
Trouble is--" He shrugged again, grinning. "He was right."
He turned away from her, walking