To Tell The Truth Series 05 Turning Point

by Melanie

  "You're awake," an aged female voice said from his left. "Good. Lie still. You were badly injured. I have done what little I could to heal you, but you still need rest."

  The nearly dry cloth across his brow was removed and replace by another, much damper one.

  "There was a fever and an infection. We knew it was risky, but we gave you some herbs to reduce the fever and kill the infection. At least that is was it does in our people. What it does in yours, we're not sure."

  Painfully, he turned his head towards the voice, bleary eyes narrowed.

  "Yes, we know you are not Rachar," the green Rachar nodded, "though whether you are an actual alien or a Gherop experiment, we are not certain. It does not take a former physician like myself to know no Rachar -- or Gherop for that matter -- has red blood or... the extra parts to their anatomy that you do." She leaned closer. "So what are you? An alien from that ship Voyager? From some other planet? Or are you some creation of the Gherop? Have they've been experimenting on our people? For what purpose? Are they planning to create an army who looks like Rachar? Are you a spy?"

  So many questions, so little strength within him to answer them all. Feeling the darkness crowding him again, he whispered one word to answer all of the questions at once. "Voyager," Tom said then fell asleep once more.

  -------

  "Doctor, look!"

  At Samantha Wildman's cry, he whirled around to see B'Elanna sitting up on her biobed, groggily looking about her.

  "Well, good morning, Lieutenant," he greeted with a big smile as he and Sam walked over to her. "How do you feel?"

  "Tired," she mumbled. "Achy. Weak."

  As she began to sway, they helped her back to a reclining position.

  "You've been unconscious for over almost a day. You need to take things slowly."

  B'Elanna's eyelids fell and she returned to sleep.

  Sam shook her head and moved away with him following along behind to continued their previous conversation. "It's sad," she said before he could speak. "How are we going to tell her he's dead and we don't even have his body. And then when she finds out this Shared Pain theory, she's going to be even worse because she actually may have felt it when he died."

  "It will be hard on her," he agreed, "hard on everyone, but he's gone."

  She looked carefully at his face and thought she detected tears in the eyes. 'No,' she dismissed. 'He's a hologram. They wouldn't have added in a crying subroutine, would they?' She glanced back at the patient. "You know I would have thought it would have been more... I don't know... traumatic."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The impact on her with him dying. Look at what happened when his legs were broken. Look at how she described it." She brought up the entry in which he had recorded the incident. "The words the Captain said she used were exactly the same words just now. I would have thought the pain of death would have been more severe."

  He frowned at the screen then back at the patient. By the time his eyes made their way back to his temporary assistant they were wide and he did something she never had heard him do before -- he swore. Not just any profanity, but profanity worthy of a denizen of the seediest bars in the Alpha Quadrant.

  "Doctor to Janeway. Report to Sickbay immediately!"

  Running into his office, he began furiously tapping out commands on his computer. He was still at it when the Captain ran into Sickbay minutes later with Harry and Neelix at her heels. The three stopped at the sight of the woman quietly sleeping on the biobed. Clearly from the Doctor's commanding her to appear, they had assumed the worst had happened and B'Elanna had died. They were surprised to find she was not.

  Tuvok, walking in just then with a gash in his hand, observed the scene with curiosity. "Captain, is there a problem?"

  "Yes, there is," the Doctor answered for her, rushing out into the main room where they all stood. "Ensign Wildman, see to his hand."

  Already having been preparing to do so, Sam nodded and ushered the Vulcan over to a nearby biobed to begin treatment.

  "There was one remote possibility I never considered," the EMH told the Captain with barely concealed anger. Whether it was at himself for missing this "remote possibility" or at the woman to whom he spoke, no one in the room was too sure.

  "What was it?" she asked

  "Are you sure Mr. Paris was dead?"

  "What?"

  "Are you sure he was dead, not just unconscious?"

  The Captain's mouth opened and closed reflexively. This was a question she had been avoiding asking herself since she had left Tom behind. She could not face the possibility he was still alive and buried beneath all that rock without a hope of rescue. "I couldn't reach his pulse," she confessed, fighting back tears, "but I couldn't hear any breathing and with all the fluid that it had seemed to be building up in his lungs by the sound of it..." Her eyes pled with the hologram's. "He couldn't have survived, could he?"

  "I don't know," the Doctor told her. "With Mr. Paris I try not to discount any possibilities."

  "Then we have to go back," Harry said firmly. This was the longest sentence he had spoken to anyone since he had returned to Voyager and been ordered to take his station despite his arguing he did not deserve to. All he had been able to think of was his complicity in the Gherop plan and how Tom had died before he, Harry, had had the chance to apologize to him. The fact his last memory of his best friend was not to be of the smiling face of the pilot, but of a barely glimpsed alien visage that he had not recognized as his friend only made him feel worse. "If there's even a chance he's still alive, we have to go back."

  "The Gherop ships will be at the planet by now, Ensign," Tuvok reminded him. "Voyager could not withstand another attack."

  "I could do it," Sunfire interrupted over the comm. As always, she had been listening in to the goings on, on Voyager. "My cloak can hide me, but I'll need someone to actually get him. My sensors couldn't detect him in the tunnel, but they were still coming back on line when I found the Captain and she told me he was dead and we all had to leave. If I get back to Rachar and do find life signs, someone will have to be with me to get him out. I can't risk transporting him while he's in the tunnel. It will collapse before I can get

  him out."

  "I'll go," Harry volunteered.

  "As will I," Neelix echoed.

  "I believe I could be of assistance also," Tuvok added, flexing his newly healed hand as he stood.

  "Knowing Mr. Paris, if he is alive, he will need immediate medical attention," the Doctor said, gathering up a medkit. "I really don't want to leave Lieutenant Torres right now, but if I'm right and she's unconscious because he is..."

  "Getting him back and healing him will permanently wake her," the ship finished for him with a hint of something in her voice as she said the last word.

  "Yes."

  "The mining equipment we used on the moon has been cleaned of the yatelite ore so we can safely take it with us on Sunfire," Neelix informed them. "That and something for braces should be all that we'll we need to clear the collapsed section of tunnel and brace it until we get him out."

  All four looked to the Captain for permission to go. Pale and with tears in her eyes at the thought of having left her precious pseudo-son behind and dying, she nodded and three of the four rushed out.

  The Doctor looked at Wildman. "A test of fire, I'm afraid, Ensign."

  "We're supposed to be safely hidden here from what I've heard," she told him, "so we shouldn't encounter any medical emergencies I can't handle. I hope."

  "Hopefully we'll be back by sometime the day after tomorrow. Just tell the crew to stay out of trouble until then."

  As he donned his mobile emitter, Sam laid a hand on his sleeve. "Bring him back alive. Naomi...."

  "I understand." He gave her a nod, gathered his medkit and left the two women alone with the patient.

  Sam watched the Captain move over to B'Elanna's bedside and brush back the thick black hair of the half-Klingon. Her heart went out to them. This
was not easy for any of the crew, but especially not for those two.

  'And not for me either,' she said to herself. She still had not told her daughter about Paris' death. She could not find the words nor could she find the strength to face the unspoken accusations her daughter inevitably would throw at her. At the time, concerned about his past and how it might impact on Naomi, she had been certain separating the two of them had been in Naomi's best interest. Now she was not so sure.

  Like most others on the ship, Sam, upon hearing Tom Paris was the one most directly responsible for their restoration to Voyager, had experienced a softening of her attitude towards him. Few were willing to trust him completely, but most at least wanted him back on the ship with them to at least say thank you and have him be there if their opinions of him changed any further for the better.

  Surfacing from her musings, she focused on the Captain tucking B'Elanna back in then leaving without a word and sighed.

  -------

  "Come on," Neelix said to his three companions when they materialized on Sunfire's Bridge. "I'll show you were you can store your gear and where the Equipment Room is."

  Completely focused on their mission, Harry did not do the open-mouthed gaping that others had performed upon seeing the interior of Sunfire for the first time. Instead he followed Neelix off of into the turbolift with nary a glance around him.

  Tuvok, on the other hand, watched the scene on the main viewer change as they went to warp then glanced quickly about him as he proceeded to the lift with the Doctor in tow.

  "I was surprised when you volunteered," the EMH said to him. "I would have thought you'd want to stay with Voyager in case she came under attack."

  The other two turned to the Security Chief, interested themselves in his answer. He did not disappoint.

  "Indications are Voyager is well off of routes commonly used by Gherop ships," he replied, "therefore she should be safely hidden where she is. My presence is not required there."

  As the doors opened and they exited, the others thought they heard him softly say: "And I do owe him my life" though no one commented. All remembered the time months earlier when Tom and Tuvok almost had died in a climbing accident and Tom had carried Tuvok's katra while the Vulcan's body had healed. Being Vulcan and added to the fact he had had to help hide the secrets about Tom's past, secrets that he had learned during his time in Tom's body, Tuvok naturally had not shown any outward signs of a

  strengthening of their bond of friendship after their experience. But his presence there now was all the evidence of it anyone would have needed.

  -------

  "Is he awake, Sme?" the male voice asked in hushed tones.

  "I cannot tell, Mksa, but I don't think so," the female voice answered equally softly.

  "Did he say anything when he woke?"

  "Only 'Voyager.' I was questioning him as to what he was. When I asked if he was sent by them or was from Voyager or what, he said 'Voyager' then fell back asleep."

  "You believe him?"

  "I don't know. Any confirmation of what he is?"

  "One of our informants tentatively confirmed this one might be from Voyager," a second male voice said. "When the Voyager crew were beamed down, he saw one of the them without clothing -- a pale skinned one -- and he had... 'extra bits' like this one. And there were a couple who were blue."

  "So he might be a hybrid of the two or some other legitimate alien, not some experiment by E'Arte's people."

  "Yes, but what are the odds he would look like us?"

  "Long before you were born, Kni, I was ship's doctor on one of the Rachar trading vessels. I saw many coincidences when traveling the trade routes. Perhaps where Voyager comes from there's an entire planet like him. Or he is a hybrid of the pale skinned ones who have these 'extra bits' and the blue ones."

  "And E'Arte merely was extremely lucky to find one of his kind on Voyager?"

  "A stretch of the imagination, but yes."

  "And he convinced him to help him destroy us?" Mksa chimed in.

  "I don't know about that," Kni admitted. "Everything we've heard about the crew of Voyager says they cannot be bought. If they could have been, E'Arte would have done so, not concocted this elaborate plan of his to trick them."

  "Blackmail, perhaps?"

  "Maybe."

  Deciding he had heard enough to establish he was relatively safe and not with the greys or their agents, Tom opened his eyes and looked at the two males and the female standing to one side of his bed. "You're Verta," he whispered.

  It was not a question, but a conclusion. And given the quick, unguarded reaction of each of them, it was a correct one, too.

  "No blackmail. I came to free-" A coughing fit overtook him and the physician rushed forwards to help him. Pain shot up Tom's left side. The taste of his own blood was in his mouth. "My bag," he gasped then coughed some more.

  Kni ran over to the table on the far side of the room and came back with the battered bag they had found in the rubble with the patient.

  Coughing growing more violent, Tom fumbled with the contents.

  "What do you need?" Sme dumped the contents out onto the bed and began sifting through them.

  "Box."

  She picked out the medkit -- the only box amongst the contents -- and opened it.

  After double-checking his diagnosis with the medical tricorder, Tom grabbed another of the instruments and waved it over his left lung. The pain and coughing lessened then ceased as the rib was regenerated and the hole in his lung sealed. Sighing in relief and exhaustion, he slumped back into the mattress, arm falling to the mattress.

  "Will you be all right now?"

  "For now," he nodded. "My crewmates. From Voyager. Have you heard anything about them? Or about a female who was in the tunnel with me?"

  "The female, yes," Kni nodded. "Two children say they saw her exit the tunnel then just vanish."

  Briefly closing his eyes, Tom sighed. 'At least the Captain made it out,' he thought. "What about those being held inside the prison? Or another one who was being held there separately? Did they recapture him? Did he vanish too?"

  "We haven't heard anything about those in the cells. As for the one who was held apart from the others, the last we heard of him, he still was their prisoner. He hadn't escaped."

  "But he did escape. I saw him dressed as a grey and trying to escape through the crowds." He held up an enhancer. "I slipped one of these into his pocket so my ship could lock on to him more easily."

  "We don't know if he was recaptured or vanished."

  Sighing, Tom rubbed his face with both hands then one hand slipped down to scratch an itch on his neck. Feeling a small lump under the skin behind his ear he groaned at his stupidity. There he was questioning these three when he could just contact Sunfire or Voyager and find out. "Paris to Sunfire." Silence. "Paris to Voyager. Come in." No answer there either. He noticed the three Rachar giving him strange looks and explained the subdermal implant. "It must be malfunctioning somehow. Would it be possible for me to send an encoded message to them?"

  "With security all over the planet so tight, they'd detect it right away." He explained about T'Do's imminent arrival.

  Tom closed his eyes again and sighed.

  Mksa, who had been warily watching the patient, decided to use the lull in the conversation to get an answer to a question that had been causing him concern since he had first seen the object. Picking the key off of the table where Tom's clothes still lay, he held it up. "How did you get this?" he demanded.

  Opening his eyes, Tom saw what it was and explained how he had taken it from the guards outside of the Captain's cell and kept it to delay the greys' freeing their comrades and finding Janeway was gone. After a second's digestion of these facts, Kni explained who the "greys," as Tom kept calling them, really were then urged him to go back a few steps and detail how he had made it inside the prison in the first place. Slowly, Tom went over the entire rescue plan from start to finish.

  While
the other two were greatly impressed by the daring of Tom's plan, Mksa was not. He drew Kni off to one side. "Do you believe any of this?"

  "Yes, I think I do," his friend told him. "Furthermore I think this is the opportunity we've been looking for. With that key, we can access three quarters of the prison. And that tunnel can get us inside."

  "But how do we know we can trust him?"

  "You can't," Tom admitted having overheard everything. "Anymore than I can you. But it seems we need each other. You now have the key, but I know the layout of the tunnel and what rooms the exits come out into. So we'll make a deal. I can't dig out the cave-in all by myself. I'll need help." He pushed himself up to a sitting position, the blankets falling to almost uncover his "extra bits." "If you help me clear the cave-in so I can get back inside, I'll give you the layout and whatever other information I have on that place.

  Deal?"

  "Why do you want back in there so badly?"

  "You say the Captain was seen vanishing, but I can't be sure any of the others are safe. If they're still trapped in there and the Gherop know the Captain's missing - which doubtless they will any time now if they don't already - any prisoners they have suddenly become targets for their anger and confusion at losing her. Since I can't raise Sunfire or Voyager, I must assume they were destroyed or had to retreat and did not get the crew. If Sunfire was following orders, which she usually does, she wouldn't have beamed up the others until she had transporter signals on all of us. Is there any hope of contacting your people on the inside and them finding out if the crew's gone?"

  "Not with this security," Kni said. "And it's doubtful any one on the outside will let anything slip either. E'Arte's given explicit instructions regarding Voyager and what everyone is and is not to say about her."

  "He doesn't want to lose face in front of his leader," Tom guessed.

  "Exactly."

  Tom looked at Mksa again. "So if I want to be sure they've made it out, I have to go back into the lion's den."

  The three of them did not understand the word "lion," but the meaning was clear.

  "I'll need to speak with my superiors," Kni told him. "I'll return soon."