To Tell The Truth Series 04 Sunfire

by Melanie

  "This investigation is why you and your people were asking all of those questions about Tom?"

  "In a way, yes, Captain. We had questions best asked before we properly identified ourselves and everyone became wary of us. If you thought we were Starfleet like you, then you might be more forthcoming with your answers. As unknown entities, you would have clammed up the moment we began asking about one of your own." He sighed. "We had hoped we would not have to explain any of this at all, except Mr. Tuvok here made it necessary."

  "Tuvok?"

  "His having been misled by Mr. Paris and his subsequent actions because of that brought all of this prematurely to a head."

  Voyager's Captain stared at Tuvok once more. "What exactly did you do?"

  The Vulcan calmly looked at his superior. "I have not been honest about the time Mr. Paris and I shared his body. In actuality, I remembered every moment of the experience."

  "You lied?" Harry shook his head. "But you're Vulcan. Vulcan's can't lie."

  "If they think that it is imperative to the safety of their fellow crew, then it is considered acceptable. And if you will remember, I have had to lie in the past, but in this case I did not actually lie. I never said I remembered *nothing* of my time inside Mr. Paris' body. I permitted everyone to have that impression, yes, but I never actually said it."

  Chakotay leaned forwards, forearms on the table. "And you thought keeping it quiet was somehow protecting us from something?"

  "While I was with Mr. Paris, he experienced the return of certain memories. He told me that the mishap with Commander Chakotay's akoonah triggered what he called an Awakening. He claimed he was an AlphaOmegan who had been trained since birth to be a cross between an assassin and an intelligence operative and that whenever an AlphaOmegan was not needed, an artificial amnesia was induced. However, it seemed the incident with the akoonah had overwhelmed the subatomic device used to cause

  this amnesia and he was remembering things."

  "Why have I never detected this device in any scans of him?" the EMH asked suspiciously.

  "He said it was and continues to be cloaked, though the function of preventing him from being aware of his being an AlphaOmegans no longer is operative. Because of this he was concerned The Protectors would be coming for him."

  "The Protectors?" Harry questioned.

  Raven nodded. "Our leadership goes by that name, Ensign Kim."

  "Mr. Paris claimed he knew something that was a threat to them," Tuvok continued, "and that they would be trying to assassinate him and possibly me given the opportunity."

  Chakotay frowned. "Why you?"

  "Even though he did not tell me what the *something* he knew was, he said it would be assumed he had since we had shared a body for so long and they would think he could not have kept the truth about himself from me. They would think I knew everything and was as much a threat as he was. And at the time, I believed him. Given the memories I saw and the story he told me, I honestly believed his claims. Therefore, I agreed to help him protect both ourselves and Voyager?"

  "Voyager?" Kathryn leaned forwards. "Why Voyager too?"

  "He said the AlphaOmegans could not be certain exactly how many he may have told therefore the majority of the crew would be killed outright. Those few who were not would be taken for study. Namely Mr. Neelix, Seven of Nine, and the Doctor."

  "They wouldn't!" Neelix spluttered. "Why?"

  "You and Seven of Nine are unique. You would have to be studied to learn everything there was to know about you and your species to see if you posed a potential threat to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. As for the Doctor, the fact he continues to exist and has evolved beyond his programming is of great interest to everyone, not merely the AlphaOmegans."

  "This is unbelievable," the Captain muttered to herself.

  "Because at the time I believed Mr. Paris, I agreed to help him with a plan to save everyone. If you remember when the AlphaOmegans arrived, Mr. Paris referred to them as 'the cavalry.' It was our signal for me to download a program he had hidden in a secondary system. Once I had it, I was to wait until I was alone to begin entering what Mr. Paris asserted were access codes to a 'Backdoor program' he had hidden in the AlphaOmegan files. He said every ship produced in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants contained certain files accessible only by AlphaOmegans. That every time a ship interacted with another ship or

  starbase these files transferred a copy of all the information entered into the ship's memory since the last transfer and added any new information that was available. He claimed he had inserted this 'Backdoor' program of his a few years earlier during a time when he had experienced some sort of a mental breakdown and gone rogue from the AlphaOmegans."

  The Doctor jerked. "Mental breakdown? What kind of mental breakdown? It's not in his files."

  "He said he accidentally saw an old AlphaOmegan file pertaining to an incident involving with his father. It told of his being captured by Cardassians along with an ensign of his and being tortured before being rescued."

  Kathryn gasped and grew pale. Chakotay and the Doctor instantly were rising out of their seats. She waved them away, eyes riveted to Tuvok.

  "He did not know that ensign was you, Captain," Tuvok told her.

  "It wasn't in this file?"

  "He referred to you as 'an ensign,' never by name, so I doubt he knew it was you. He said he went -- to use his own words -- 'a little berserk' and hunted down then tortured and murdered the Cardassian Gul responsible, a Gul Camet, and Camet's biological father, a Legate Meer. He also killed all of the Cardassians who were at the base with them."

  "Camet's dead?" she whispered.

  Raven outlined what Tom had done to Camet, Meer, and those at Camet's base. When he was finished, only he and Tuvok did not look like they were ready to dive for the nearest bathroom to be ill.

  "He said after it was over, the AlphaOmegans found him and transported him to a base for Re-Education."

  "Re-Education?" Chakotay inquired.

  "Essentially it involved torturing him mentally, physically, and chemically until he broke then mentally conditioning the aberrant behaviors out of him. Once The Protectors had returned him to acting the way they wanted him to, they induced the artificial amnesia once more and returned him to his life as Tom Paris, not AlphaOmegan 41783. Later, they sent him here to Voyager on some Mission. He does not know what it was, but he was certain if the ship had not been brought to the Delta Quadrant he would have Awoken and fulfilled that Mission."

  "Raven, is any of this-"

  "True?" he finished. "Some is, some isn't. Mostly it is a twisted version of the truth." He leaned his forearms on the table and stared at his clasped hands. "Where to start?" he sighed. "First of all, he is not one of us. We go by codenames, not numbers. AlphaOmegan 41783 was his case number. At least that was what it ended up being when we realized all of the seemingly separate incidents we were investigating were connected."

  He ran his gloved hands over his face. "That was an awful time, let me tell you. Starting a few months before Tom Paris was booted from Starfleet there were a series of inexplicable deaths in various parts of the Alpha Quadrant. As I said, at the time we didn't connect one with the other. Only much later did we finally connect the dots as it were."

  Rising, he began pacing and talking with his hands. "There were assassinations all over the Alpha Quadrant. Some were what we call single target hits -- the target is a very specific individual and only that individual actually is killed. Others were multiple targets -- a less discriminating assassination in which anyone who happens to be in the general vicinity dies along with the actual target. As far as we have been able to tell, there are forty-seven single target hits and an estimated 5,900 victims who fall into the multiple

  target category attributable to Tom Paris."

  Jaws dropped. Eyes widened.

  "I know. It amazed even us. We were stunned to trace all of them back to one individual. We had figured it was the work of several separate individuals
, not one man. Unfortunately there might even be more victims. Even now, all these years later, we're still investigating."

  "And you'll have to continue investigating," B'Elanna growled, "because you've clearly got the wrong man if you think Tom Paris did any of them."

  "I understand your reaction, B'Elanna, I really do, but when we captured him six years ago he confessed to it all."

  "I don't believe it. Tom Paris has the biggest heart of anyone any of us know. There's no way he could kill all of those people. Hurt or even kill the Cardassian who hurt his father, possibly, but any others... No way.

  You have the wrong-"

  "There is a recording," Tuvok began. "It, plus the file I saw on him and my own lingering concerns regarding the logic of what Mr. Paris had claimed was happening to him and what was to happen to all of us if the AlphaOmegans came, convinced me he was confused and his story to be questioned."

  "That's it? Files and recordings can be faked."

  "But his story was full of holes, Lieutenant, that it is possible the AlphaOmegans are telling the truth. I am not saying I do not possess doubts, yet it is slightly more logical than Mr. Paris' version of events."

  "I don't believe it. You've turned on Tom!"

  Raven went to the wall console and ordered up a file. "I brought this over from our computer. What you are about to see is what Mr. Tuvok watched earlier on The Diogenes. The reason you see only Paris is because the recording was downloaded from the victim's memory not long after she died."

  When he called for the file to play, they were shocked. Before their eyes was a visual of a younger Tom Paris, one whose hands and outfit were stained with blood. As they watched and listened, they met a Tom Paris they never had dreamed existed, a cruel and sadistic Tom Paris who clearly had no conscience or qualms about using torture to get the answers he wanted. And obviously he wanted them very badly from the woman he was physically abusing.

  "The woman you hear pleading for her life is one of our own, Sunfire," Raven whispered as he fought back his emotions. "She went undercover to gather evidence against him. She got it, but lost her life in the process when he realized she was lying to him."

  On the screen, the door a couple meters behind Tom disintegrated and a team of armed AlphaOmegan soldiers in full uniform including hoods and gloves burst in. Four soldiers tackled Tom to the floor and one of the soldiers hurried over to Sunfire to untie her. As the recording faded to black, the soldier at her side began to remove his hood.

  "She fell unconscious at that point and died shortly after we got her to our ship," he choked out.

  Each member of the Senior Staff had a similar response to Raven's. Even if they were not, as Tuvok appeared to be, convinced what they were hearing and seeing was true, it was disturbing.

  Halfway through the recording, Harry had turned a lovely shade of green. Immediately he had swung his chair away from the screen, eyes on the tabletop now in front of him. Anyone who saw him could tell he desperately wanted to leave the room or at least cover his ears so he did not have to hear his best friend's harsh voice or the victim's screams. Now that it was over he still looked like he wanted to throw up.

  The Captain and Neelix did not seem far behind the young ensign in this sentiment.

  Chakotay had paled beneath his naturally tanned skin and joined the EMH in staring wide-eyed at the now black screen.

  Tuvok, who already had seen everything was unmoved, or at least appeared that way.

  B'Elanna refused to look at the display after the first minute. For the rest of the playback, she kept shaking her head and saying over and over that it was not Tom, that it was all a fake.

  Raven shut off the playback and collapsed into a seat next to the still mumbling B'Elanna.

  "He was diagnosed with some mental condition Souris would have to explain to you, I don't really understand it personally," he said, "but the gist of it is, he wasn't himself when he did these things. The pressure of trying to live up to the Paris image then failing so badly combined with the physical and mental trauma he endured during the accident at Caldik Prime and lying about it, all caused him to -- in layman's terms -- flip out. He was not legally responsible for what he did then."

  "Not responsible?" Chakotay gasped. "Then who the heck was?"

  "He was mentally impaired, Commander, therefore under the law not responsible. Unfortunately that still left us with the problem of what to do with him. He was too ill and obviously far too dangerous to be permitted to roam free."

  "Obviously."

  "But, he had learned things from Sunfire that would jeopardize our existence if they got out. We had our own psychologists and psychiatrists readying to treat him so no one outside would find out what he had about us, however at the same time, Starfleet was looking for him. Tom Paris needed to make a rapid reappearance or Admiral Paris might have kicked up a fuss about his missing son."

  "Why would he have?" Harry asked, some of his color returning. "He had disowned him after his court-martial."

  "Perhaps officially, but unofficially he still was the Admiral's only son. He kept an eye on him, a disapproving one, but an eye all the same. We didn't have much time before trouble arose when the Admiral's spies couldn't find his son. So, in light of that, we tried a radical procedure to cure him. In hindsight, it clearly was a bad idea."

  "What did you try?" the EMH enquired suspiciously.

  "At first, Souris attempted to treat him with therapy. When that did not work, we attempted to mentally condition the mental disease out of him."

  Harry blinked. "Brainwashing?"

  "Yes, Ensign. He was going to need years and years of therapy. But he had to make an appearance somewhere so his father would hear he was okay so we didn't have years. And even if we had, I doubt we could have hung on to him for that long. Tom Paris was and is too dangerous, too intelligent. He would have done his damnedest to find some way to escape. It was going to take up too much of our time and resources to guard him, let alone treat him. So we took the unorthodox step of factoring the mental disease

  out of his personality."

  "How?" the Doctor questioned.

  "By the use of anti-psychotic medications and certain other mind altering drugs in conjunction with extensive behavior modification sessions."

  "Explain 'behavior modification.'"

  "The Implant he told Mr. Tuvok of actually does exist and he does have one, as does every AlphaOmegan, including myself. The recording you just witnessed was made by Sunfire's Implant. That is how we got it. In Paris' case, we used it to modify his reactions to various stimuli. Mostly, it channels his adrenaline to keep him calm and in control, but it also was to blank all memories of the things he had done to Sunfire and to all the others, at least temporarily. It had been our intention to put him back on Earth, let on of his father's spies see Tom was okay, then he was to broadcast to the patrons in Sandrine's that he had had enough of Earth and was going to get lost for a while. After that, we'd have picked him up and taken him to one of our bases for proper therapy."

  "Why didn't that happen?" Janeway wanted to know.

  "Your Commander Chakotay happened."

  Chakotay frowned. "Me?"

  "You stumbled upon him when you were trying to recruit for your Maquis cell. He went with you and, in all honesty, when we started reading the reports on his behavior, we figured we might just as well leave him as he was. Obviously the Implant had eradicated all traces of the former behavior."

  "Whoa, back up here. Reports on how he was?"

  "Yes. He was a bit of a handful for you, Commander, but he was not violent like he had been."

  "I know. I was there. How do you know?"

  "We are charged with keeping the peace in the Alpha and Beta Quadrant, Commander. That is a huge amount of territory. It is very difficult a task to try to maintain the careful balance of things for as long as we have without any overt presence. So we have seeded our people all over the Quadrants."

  "Seeded?" Kathryn asked.
>
  "The majority of what we do is intelligence. We have to know what is going on at all times to head off any attempts to disrupt the peace. So we place our people in well-connected positions where they'll be our eyes and ears."

  "So you can control what's going on."

  "In a way. We prevent bad things from happening, yet we don't initiate policies, Captain. Our mandate is to maintain the status quo. Nothing more."

  Not for a moment did anyone at the table unequivocally believe this denial yet he went on before they could attempt to refute it.

  He ran a hand through his hair. "But we are getting off of topic here. Back to Paris. I'm not the expert on how and what they did to treat him."

  "Or not treat him," the EMH interjected.

  "Or not treat him, yes. I'm just the poor slob who gets to tell you all this. And all I can tell you is that it appeared to work. The man who was responsible for so many murders was gone, or so we thought. When you visited the Alpha Quadrant, Doctor, we read your report on what was happening here, especially about him and the akoonah and we realized we had trouble."

  "Because of this reaction he had to it."

  "Yes. As we feared, the device in his head is breaking down and the blocked out memories of what he did and our capturing him apparently are returning. Fortunately for all of you, when the memories did begin to surface, they were so jumbled up he thought he was one of us. He knew no one is supposed to know we exist so, thinking he was one of us, he tried to act appropriately by keeping everything he remembered a secret. Thinking he was an AlphaOmegan probably was only thing that kept him from returning to his former... occupation. Or maybe it was that he realized he needed to keep all of you alive so he can make it back to the Alpha Quadrant, I don't know. All we do know is he thinks he is one of us and that we are here to destroy him and he had Mr. Tuvok here convinced all of you were in mortal danger from us."

  "Any idea why he killed these people?" Kathryn questioned.