by Melanie
way to Camet."
"You're so cold about it." the First Officer whispered, seemingly not realizing he was saying it, not merely thinking it. "You killed all those people, thousands apparently, and it's like it all meant nothing to you."
"It means plenty to me, Commander." He tapped his forehead. "So much so that I still have them up here. Their voices are in my head, screaming at me, taunting me, replaying my crimes for me whenever I let my guard down enough they can get at me. They were silent for a while after Tuvok was in there too, but they are back, like some chorus, accompanying every word you say."
"Was this the mental breakdown Raven referred to?" the Doctor asked.
"No. They know nothing about my voices. The mental breakdown was after I saw my father's file. I lost my sanity and went after Camet."
Janeway opened her mouth to ask a question only to be cut off.
It was Souris' turn to scream.
The group around Tom's bed hurried over to help Harry who was having no luck calming her as the Captain had Tom.
After a moment of her shoving their hands away, she flew off the bed and into the arms of the man standing on wobbly legs next to his own bed.
"Sunbird," she sobbed into his chest. "What's happening?"
He was about to explain when she lifted her tear-streaked face to his sad one. Her green eyes met his for an instant then turned inward and widened. She slid out of his arms and slumped to the deck to sit forlornly at his feet, whimpering softly, floods of tears running down her pale face.
Harry immediately rushed over, intent on embracing his emotional lover. Tom stepped away from Souris to hold Harry back. Angry brown eyes glared into blue.
"Let me go!" the younger man demanded.
"You can't help her now, Harry," Tom murmured. "Her lives are merging."
"What the Hell does that mean?"
"It means she's remembering who she really is."
"But it's hurting her!"
"Yes, it will."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Tom looked down towards the woman rocking back and forth. Slowly, tortured green eyes met equally tortured blue ones. He had wanted to tell Harry, to prepare him for the pain that was coming, but now there was no time for it. Now he had to concentrate on the young woman, falling to pieces before him as the walls in her mind shattered like so much glass. Releasing Harry, he knelt down next to her, not touching her.
"You knew what happened," she said in a hoarse voice. "You were there."
"Yes," he admitted, knowing instantly to what she was referring.
"Why didn't you stop me?"
"You know the answer to that."
"But you broke their programming when you killed Gul Camet. Why couldn't you break it to stop me?!"
"Camet was personal. Seeing my father's file hit too close to home. Your family... your family I didn't know. I had no attachment to them. It wasn't personal."
"It was to me!" she sobbed. "They were *my* family! I loved them!" The eyes fell from his. "And that's why they had to die. Because I loved them too much," she whispered.
"You couldn't be extracted from your life long enough to do what The Protectors wanted. You and Danag were too close. You two couldn't go an hour without being in contact with one another. There was no way they could extract you from your life to use you if he was going to raise the alarm at not being able to contact you for even a brief length of time. And you know they wouldn't just shrug and remove you from the operatives list. You were too valuable to them. So they had to remove the obstacles so you could go on doing your job for them."
Her eyes leapt to his once more. "Obstacles? Obstacles! They were my husband and children!" Her eyes shut as her hands covered her lower abdomen. "And my baby!" she sobbed. "My poor baby."
Harry blanched and took a step back. Tom resisted sending a sympathetic glance towards his best friend. He felt for him. Discovering the woman he loved had been married and had had children was a blow, but nothing like the one that was about to hit him.
"How could they make me do that?" Souris continued to sob. "How could they make me murder them? Murder my own unborn baby? Why couldn't I break my programming? Why couldn't I refuse the order?"
Tom heard everyone gasp though he ignored it. "You tried to resist them, Allegia," he told her, the first person to call her by her true name in almost ten years. "They gave you the order and you tried to fight them. But they kept giving you a stronger doses of the burayte and Re-Educating you until-"
"Until I complied with the order and killed them!"
"Yes."
"And so many others. There were so many others who're dead because I did what The Protectors ordered me to do. How do you live with this?"
"By reminding myself it wasn't my idea, that at the time there was no difference between me and any of the equipment in here. I did what I was programd to do and only what I was programd to do. No independent thought, all predetermined, pre-programd responses to input. Never any say in the matter, just doing as ordered."
He cupped her face in his hands. "If we had been given the choice, Mousey, we wouldn't have done what we did. But we didn't have that choice. It was taken from us. Focus your anger on The Protectors. That's where it belongs. They are the ones who did this."
"But we did the killing. I see them. I see my family. Looking at me. Not understanding why I'm doing it. Asking me why? Begging me to save them." She made a strangled sound. "And taking the drug they gave me to kill my baby. We'd tried so long to have another child. We'd just found about it that morning. I don't even know if it was a boy or girl."
"It was a boy."
Fresh tears ran down her face. "Danag always wanted a boy."
Tom drew her to his chest where she stayed for a long time.
"I can't live like this," she sobbed. "I'm not strong like you."
"I'm not strong, Allegia. I just kept focused on getting them home. Then I hopefully can... find peace."
"End it you mean."
Tom nodded. "My Implant is damaged enough that I may be able to do it, yes."
Stunned, Kathryn deciphered what they were talking about in euphemisms was Tom committing suicide once Voyager was home. "Tom-"
Souris alias Allegia pulled back and looked at Tom through watery eyes. "But we're probably never getting home now."
"Voyager will get home one day. Probably not any time soon, but one day she will."
"I... I can't live like this," she repeated. "Please, Sunbird. I can't...."
For a long time he looked into her eyes without speaking. Finally, he found whatever it was he sought in their emerald depths.
"Harry, leave," Tom ordered, rising and going over to a drawer.
The ensign frowned at the pilot's back. "What? Why? What's she-"
"Captain, Commander, take him out of Sickbay."
Seeing what Tom was taking out of the drawer, the Doctor added his voice to the objections. "Mr. Paris-"
"Computer, discontinue EMH program."
The Doctor vanished as Tom turned with the phaser in his hand. The others gasped and automatically stepped forward to disarm him, but he motioned with the weapon for them to stand back.
"Please don't make this harder than it has to be."
"Tom-" the Captain tried to reason.
A shake of his head cut her off. "Take Harry out of here. Now."
"I'm not going anywhere," Harry declared, "until I know what's going on."
Ignoring the younger man, Tom looked down at the woman on the deck. "You have to say it, Mousey. You have to tell me what you want."
"Please, Sunbird," the woman in question whispered.
Tears ran down Tom's face and his voice cracked as he repeated his request. "You have to ask me to do what you want me to do."
"Please kill me."
Tom raised the phaser, changing the setting to maximum as he did so.
Naturally Harry and Chakotay were voluble in their objections.
Kathryn, howe
ver, was oddly quiet. She was torn between stopping what was about to happen and facilitating it. Mercy warred with views as old as time about the sanctity of all life. Mercy won and Kathryn attempted to remove the ensign as Tom wanted. With his superior strength and determination to stay, he was successful in resisting her.
"No! Captain, you can't let him do this," Harry yelled. "Souris, don't do this. I know what happened was bad, but you can work through it. I'll help you. Don't-
Her eyes snapped to his. "'Work through it'?" she cried. "I killed my husband and children because The Protectors made me. I couldn't protect them. I couldn't even protect the five week old fetus I carried."
"That was in the past. The Protectors aren't here to-"
"In the past? My family was my life. Danag and I had the proverbial once in a blue moon sort of love. We were happier than any couple ever even dreams of being and I destroyed it."
"But that wasn't your fault. We can-"
"There is no 'we.'"
Harry stilled. "That's not true. You love me. You said so."
Fresh tears appeared. "Souris loved you. I'm Allegia. I'm not her."
"But-"
"You would condemn me to living with the Hell The Protectors have sentenced me to? To the memories of my children and husband screaming in terror and confusion and pain? To the memory of betraying my wedding vows by sleeping with you? By loving you?"
Paling, he had no answer.
"The memories aren't going to go away. Time won't make me forget what I have done. The memories will stay as sharp and painful as they are now. Death is best."
Suddenly, she disappeared in a transporter beam.
Confused, Tom lowered the phaser.
"I fulfilled her wish," Sunfire said sadly over the Comm. "Her molecules are scattered to the stars. I couldn't let you have yet another voice in your head, Sunbird."
Nodding, he let the phaser fall from his lifeless fingers. "Allegia's better off this way," he said, not looking at anyone. "At least it's all over for her now. If there is an afterlife then she's in it with her family and hopefully she'll have peace."
"I could have helped her," Harry insisted. "I could have -"
Tom met his eyes. "All you would have done is prolong her suffering, Harry, until one day she found some way to get around her Implant and kill herself."
"What do you mean?" Kathryn interrupted. "'Get around her Implant'?"
"The Protectors spend a lot of time and effort creating us. In the beginning, some AlphaOmegans became so unbalanced by The Training that when they were returned to their other lives to await the next time they were needed, they committed suicide. That was considered a waste of resources so now, amongst the other things that our Implants do, they prevent us from remembering anything about what we are or being able to commit suicide."
"'Waste of resources'?" Chakotay said, stunned. "You're talking about people, not phasers."
"They are one and the same in The Protectors' Grand Scheme of things. Both are weapons used to accomplish a goal. To be done with as the user pleases." Tom lowered his eyes as more tears fell. "They have one less weapon now."
Harry shook off the Captain's comforting hands and stumbled out of Sickbay.
"I think the memorial service should be tomorrow," Tom told the Captain in a monotone. "I should have Sunbird stabilized by then."
"Tom, you need rest and-" she started to insist.
"The Mess Hall would be best. 1000 hours. Neelix should have cleared out the breakfast crowd by then."
"Tom-"
"Sunfire?"
The other ship took the hint and he too vanished, leaving a stunned Chakotay and the Captain calling for the Doctor to reappear.
-------
The next morning, Seven and Neelix were having a debate about nutritional value versus palatability of the meal he had served for breakfast when the doors to the turbolift in which they were riding opened and Harry Kim entered.
"Ensign Kim," Neelix greeted. "You were in the Mess Hall for breakfast this morning. Tell Seven it was not overly spiced."
Harry blankly stared at the Talaxian.
"I observed Ensign Kim did not eat his breakfast," Seven remarked. "He only repositioned it on his plate from time to time therefore he is not qualified to comment on what you served."
Neelix nodded. "Well, that is to be expected, what with the service for the AlphaOmegans being conducted in a few minutes."
"I'm not going," Harry mumbled, turning to the door.
"I don't know how many of the crew actually are really," Neelix admitted. "It's hard to mourn people who consistently lied to you and were going to kill you -- no matter what the reasoning."
"They were not going to kill you or I, Mr. Neelix," Seven corrected. "Apparently you, the Doctor, and I were to be taken for study."
"Well, I don't imagine many people will be going. Except Mr. Kim, to say good bye to Souris."
"Her name wasn't even Souris," Harry muttered. "And I'm not going."
The doors opened again and Harry left.
-------
In the end, only four people did attend the memorial service in the Mess Hall for the AlphaOmegans. The Captain, Tuvok, and the Doctor were the only members of Voyager's crew who were willing to come to say goodbye to the six who had lost their lives. As Neelix had predicted, none of the others were able to find their way past what had happened and permit any compassion to permeate the resentment they rightfully felt. All the anger and disappointment still was too close to the surface for the pity they felt for the dead to come through. 'Perhaps sometime in the future we'll say a prayer or something for them,' some told each other, 'but not now.' So the mourners only numbered four.
Tom was the fourth and last to arrive, beaming over from Sunfire only moments before the service was to begin. Earlier, when the Doctor had been preparing the deceased for their final resting place in the photon torpedo cases, Tom had sent over a dress uniform for each of the five bodies. Now he came in his own dress uniform, carrying six AlphaOmegan flags in his arms. Wordlessly rejecting the Captain's offer of help, he draped each "coffin" in a flag then laid the sixth one over Souris' uniform, lying on a table placed in line with the torpedo cases on their stands. Once he was done, he stood there for a long moment, staring at the remains of his dead colleagues.
When he was ready, he turned to the others. There were no tears in his eyes. No emotion at all. He had done all his crying the day before on Sunfire. With only a voice and mind left, Sunfire had no arms to hold him as he had cried, yet she had done her best to comfort him until he was done. Now he felt nothing. All the pain was gone and he felt dead inside.
"You may think it strange considering what the AlphaOmegans, namely The Protectors, did to them that I asked for them to wear their uniforms or that I put the flags over them, but it is not. When the AlphaOmegans were created, they were not what they are today. They were intended to be something to be proud of. They were intended to be the good guys. Whether they agreed with what we had become or not, these six were AlphaOmegans and I am proud of them. They were good people who did not deserve what they were made to be. I would like to properly introduce them to you."
As Tom made the "introductions," he stunned all present by revealing the connection between the deceased and the "children" who were intended to be Naomi's playmates.
He stepped over to Pardan's coffin. "This was Sar in his real life. He was the treasured son of his parents and possessed a musical genius seldom seen. Once we were trapped on Ultea III in a cave-in. All of us were hurt and exhausted and knew the chances of survival were slim. Sar fashioned this musical instrument out of bits and pieces from his kit and kept our minds off everything until help came. He also was the best First Officer I've ever had. I will miss his counsel and presence."
He touched Bartoq's coffin. "This was Mor, son of Kerr. He had the finest hand with a bat'leth that I have ever seen. And he had the fiercest, most loyal heart of anyone I have ever encountered. He saved my li
fe more times than I can remember. I know he sits at Kahless' right hand in Sto-Vo-Kor."
Dumar was next. "This was Darkat." Tom half smiled. "He had the wickedest sense of humor I have ever heard. He had a bad joke for every occasion, each one worse than the one previous. I know he is somewhere with a whole new audience groaning at his bad punch lines."
The slight smile faded as he moved to Yana. "This was Pia. The first time we met, her Mission happened to intersect with mine and I won her in a card game. At the time she was the *property* of this crime lord who used her as a stake in the game. I was supposed to arrange it so a certain player won that round, but for some reason I couldn't let her go to him. So I cheated and won. It complicated both our Missions, but I'll never forget the look on her face when I won. It was this flash of relief that she wasn't going to have to go home with either of them as she was meant to." Unconsciously he rubbed his ribs. "The Protectors made me pay for my mistake, but I did not and do not regret saving her from how she would have been treated."
T'Kara's was the only coffin left and he laid both hands on the casing and was quiet for a moment. "This was T'Kosh," he finally told them. "She was the best pilot I've ever seen. She also had a calmness and an unerring logic I regretfully lack. Any time I felt I was losing control of a situation, all I had to do was exchange a glance with her and she'd give me the calm I needed. She never could teach me how to find it in myself, she knew it just wasn't there I guess, but she would let me have some of hers whenever I needed it. I am sorry there was no one there to accept her katra when her time came. The Universe became a lesser place when it was lost."
Gently, he laid a hand on Souris' uniform and the flag. "And this was Allegia. Beloved wife of Danag. Mother of Ita and Ipa and a little boy who never had the chance to receive a name. She was a precious creature who never should have been violated the way The Protectors did to her. It is for them that I swear on my miserable life and before witnesses that one day The Protectors will pay for what they did to all of us."
He stepped back. "Their battle is over. May they find the peace they fought to preserve and the happiness that they were denied in his life."