To Tell The Truth Series 05 Turning Point

by Melanie

"Go ahead," Sme's voice answered from the Verta home base.

  In as few words as necessary, he outlined what was happening and his solution.

  "We're just abandoning our home?!" Mksa shouted.

  "You'd rather die here? The Rachar have fought all along wanting their freedom once more. But I don't think any of you want it through death. The Rachar who make it can start again on a new world, far from the Gherop."

  "They'll just come to reclaim us."

  "I'll see to it that if they do try, they won't succeed or try it again. I give you my word on that."

  "It is our only option," Zjna said in a firm voice. As Tom had expected, the Queen was right there in the thick of things, deathly ill or not. "What can we do, Tom?"

  "Nothing. We'll come to evacuate the base ourselves. You're down so far, I doubt Sunfire will be able to beam through all that rock. Get everyone to the entrance. It'll take us a while to get everyone out that little opening, but-"

  "There's another, larger entrance. Lpse will direct you."

  "At least T'Do and E'Arte won't be getting off this world," Sme approved, though wishing for the deaths of anyone rankled against her ethics as a physician.

  "They're dead by now," Mksa informed her and there was silence over the commline.

  "What do you mean?" the Queen asked.

  "When we were planning this counterattack, I sent word to our informant in E'Arte's circle to assassinate E'Arte and T'Do and whomever else she could get in their circle."

  There was a strangled cry from the Queen and Tom's heart leapt into his throat, thinking it was her death cry. Seconds later it became clear it was not.

  "They'll kill her! They're so much bigger than her. She's not ready to kill anyone. Tom Paris, you must get to the Palace and save her."

  "But Your Majesty-" Mksa began to protest.

  "She's the future of our people, Tom. You can't let her be killed."

  "Who?" Tom asked.

  "My daughter, Zji."

  Tom stiffened at the Helm and doubled back towards the Palace. "I'll find her, Your Majesty. Lpse, can you fly?"

  The computer technician was shaken to find the heir to the throne was on such dangerous duty as Verta informant inside E'Arte's circle, but nodded.

  "Good. Your Majesty, Lpse will bring the shuttle to the base. I'll get your daughter. Paris out."

  Tom turned the shuttle back towards the Palace and looked for a place to land.

  "Paris to Sunfire."

  "Go ahead."

  He outlined his plan for Lpse to take the shuttle and what he was going to do and why.

  "I'll keep a transporter lock on you," Tuvok promised, "and beam you two up here when you find her."

  "Agreed. Paris out."

  The shuttle hovered a meter over the Palace grounds and Tom yielded his seat to Lpse who waited until he had jumped out the hatch then flew off to evacuate the Verta base.

  -------

  Open mouthed, E'Arte stared at Zji standing before her, spatters of golden Gherop blood on her pale blue skin and tunic and all over the ornate dagger in her hand. "You..." he gasped, stepping backwards and his hands going behind him on the pretence of feeling for the wall behind him.

  "I am Zji, daughter of Zjna, the rightful leader of this world, and I have come to retake our throne."

  Zji threw the dagger at the same instant his hand whipped out from behind his back, weapon in hand and fired. She flew backwards into a chair, knocking it over and sending her tumbling limply to the floor. E'Arte jerked the dagger out of his bicep and stared down at T'Do.

  -------

  T'Do's shuttle suddenly came to life and I'Nu sighed in relief at C'Nar. The other Gherop did not reciprocate the grin.

  "I don't know what I did," he admitted then the transporter beam caught them and deposited them and the others on the shuttle on the ground as the vessel shot off into the sky. "But I certainly didn't do that!"

  "Voyager's back," I'Nu guessed incorrectly. "We have to contact them. We have to tell them we didn't want to do what we did to them, that it was all E'Arte's doing and convince them to save us. They might be able to stop the Final Weapon!"

  "They won't help us," C'Nar argued. "Besides, once the Final Weapon's deployed, there's no way to stop it."

  "Their transporters might be able to get it and beam it out!"

  He rushed off into the Palace to find a comm unit.

  -------

  Glancing up from his wrist tricorder, Tom fired at two Gherop who were taking aim on him. They tumbled over the railing and down to their deaths on the ground floor's tiles far below. Ignoring them, the pilot rushed further up the stairs in search of the faint life sign the tricorder projected was Zjna's daughter's.

  -------

  'T'Do is dead,' E'Arte thought to himself. 'That means I'm the next senior official on Rachar.' The implications of that fact made him smile then it faded as he remembered he was senior official on Rachar which was about to be destroyed. He had to stop this. He had to prevent this from hap-

  He never finished that thought. The blue Rachar male who appeared in the doorway shot him before he could react. The Gherop flew back against the wall, impacting with such force an indentation was left in the wall, and he was dead.

  Tom rushed over to the little girl on the floor and ran his tricorder over her.

  "Who are you?" she whispered.

  "Your mother sent me, Zji."

  She smiled softly then her eyes closed for the last time.

  He drew a shaky breath and his head fell forwards in defeat.

  -------

  "Damned Verta. Damned Rachar. Damned Voyager. Damned everything." I'Nu was swearing as he ran down the hall. He had not wanted to come to this horrible planet in the first place. When he had graduated from his clerk's course, it had been with dreams of clerking on the Homeworld, not on some horrible outpost where he was liable to be killed, either by the rebels or by his own superior.

  And now he was going to die here.

  None of the shuttles and ships were responding to hails. He had sent out pleas to all of the Gherop ships in the area to come to Rachar immediately, but he knew they would arrive too late to save them. There was no way to stop the Final Weapon now that it had been activated. C'Nar had been right about Voyager not wanting to help them for she was not answering his hails and the Verta appeared to have damaged the planetary sensors because they were telling him Voyager was not even in orbit. He was trapped, just

  waiting to die, but he was determined there were two who were not going to be waiting with him.

  He stormed into the Royal Suite, still not sure if it were T'Do or E'Arte he was going to kill with his bare hands first when he saw both of them sprawled on the floor already dead. Shaking with rage at having been denied his vengeance, he turned his head slightly and saw a blue Rachar male squatting next to the body of Zji. Determined someone was going to pay for his impending death, I'Nu grabbed the dagger out of T'Do's back.

  -------

  A tear ran down Tom's face. He had failed Zjna. He had promised to get her daughter to safety and now she was dead because he had arrived too late. Tom closed her eyes and stood, just as he sensed motion behind him. He whirled around, phaser pistol up to fire and felt a white hot pain as it searing through his chest. Stumbling back a step, he tripped over the body of Zji and went sprawling as his attacker merely stared at him in the same stunned fashion Tom was staring at him. The old hand at assassinations

  recognized the unmistakable look in the Gherop's eyes -- first blood.

  The first time someone took a life or tried to a look came into their eyes as they were hit by the enormity of crossing the line to becoming a killer. This was happening to I'Nu now. In the past, he had passed on E'Arte's orders to have people executed but he never had done the deed personally. Until now. The horror of seeing bright red blood gushing out of a living creature and knowing he was responsible for it was beyond his mind's ability to process. He lapsed into a state of catatonia
so deep even his victim's

  unexpected disappearance could not dispel it.

  -------

  For Nozawa in Transporter Room Two, this was becoming old hat. A call came in from Vorik in Engineering asking for an immediate transport of Lieutenant Torres to Sickbay, which he did and began to wonder when someone would clue in and just keep her in there until Paris was back aboard, alive or otherwise.

  Shaking his head, he went back to his diagnostic.

  -------

  Chakotay saw the notation appear on the console between his and the Captain's chairs and quickly filed it away and closed down the console. They had enough problems right now without Kathryn finding out something had happened to Tom again. Quickly standing, he mounted the stairs to join her at the Tactical.

  "How close are they?" she was asking Ayala.

  "They're just entering the nebula," he responded in the gentle voice that was incongruous with his large size.

  "What if we shut down all but the basic systems?" Chakotay suggested. "Make it more difficult for them to pick up our signature?"

  Janeway nodded. "That might-"

  "They're leaving," Ayala interrupted.

  The two senior officers checked the console. Sure enough the Gherop ships were withdrawing from the nebula.

  "Do a sensor sweep," the Captain ordered. "I want to know why they left."

  "Aye, Captain."

  -------

  "Lie still!" the EMH ordered the instant his patient appeared. Immediately, he began cutting the tunic from Tom so he could access the wound.

  "How many are left?" Tom whispered, seemingly feeling no pain as the Doctor removed the knife.

  "Only nicked your lung. Good. What do you mean how many?"

  "Rachar. How many are left on the surface?"

  "Too many," Sunfire told him.

  "How much room do we have left on the ships?"

  "Including the short range shuttles, and me enough for slightly over another five hundred, if it's standing room only."

  "Then pack them in and hold some of them in the pattern buffers. How long until the planet goes?"

  "Less than four minutes," she said, answering his next question before he could ask it.

  Swallowing, Tom gave the most difficult order he ever had given. "Get as many more as you can to the ships then get us out of here." 'We'll have to leave the others behind,' was the unspoken conclusion to the order.

  -------

  "Get the others on the shuttle," Zjna commanded.

  "But, Your Majesty-" Sme tried to object.

  "Now!"

  Unwillingly the others hurried onto the shuttle and got as many of them inside as they could starting with the few children who had been at the base. When the hatch closed there still were a thirty-three left outside as it took off for orbit.

  "Your Majesty," Mksa began, staring down at the dirt beneath his feet, "I-"

  Magnanimously, the Queen laid a hand on his arm and he looked at it then into her eyes. "There was no way you could know Zji was my daughter, Mksa. Plwa, Sme, and I worked very hard to keep her identity a secret from everyone so she was safe. When the opportunity arose for us to plant one of our own people in next to E'Arte, Zji volunteered before I could stop her." She sighed. "How could I refuse to permit my child to do something that was so dangerous and then ask another child's parent to do what I refused to. So Zji went. But Tom will get her out. I know he will. That one keeps his promises when he makes them. I know he does."

  As she began to sway and her eyelids lowered, he caught her in his arms. He sent a look to Sme who only sadly shook her head. Then the transporter beam caught them and they were beamed aboard a ship with amber interior -- minus Zjna's body.

  -------

  "That's all we can hold," Sunfire said, sadly.

  The Rachar who were standing in the Sickbay with Tom and the Doctor looked at Tom confused. He ignored them.

  "Get us out of here then," he whispered.

  "Aye, sir."

  Sunfire and her convoy streaked away from the planet, leaving behind thousands of Rachar and hundreds of their Gherop masters all to die when the planet began to boil and shatter a minute later.

  -------

  "I want to know what's going on with me and I want to know now!" B'Elanna yelled at Sam who was pretending she was not intimidated by the angry half-Klingon.

  "I know this is frustrating for you, B'Elanna," she said in her most soothing voice, the one that always had worked with Naomi when she was having a temper tantrum. "When the Doctor gets back he'll-"

  B'Elanna was not in the mood for soothing. "I want to know now," she growled.

  "That's enough, Lieutenant," Chakotay's voice barked from the doorway.

  Both women looked at the First Officer -- one gratefully, one mutinously.

  "You can go about your business, Ensign," he told Sam and she left the patient to him with all haste. "B'Elanna, you are going to have to wait until-"

  "I'm tired of waiting! There's something wrong with me and everyone seems to know it but me! It's my body. I want to know what's wrong with it and I want to know now!"

  Chakotay thought it over for a long moment, weighing the pros versus the cons in telling her the truth. On the pro side, she would have some peace of mind knowing what was happening to her. On the cons, knowing there was a likely probability that whatever was happening to Tom was the cause might make her even angrier. She was irate enough as it was. Hearing Tom was hurt somewhere far from their position hardly would calm her down, especially not in light of what Harry had confided in him about her softening in her stance regarding the missing man. They had not even told B'Elanna yet of the cave-in and their suspicions he might or might not be dead for the very reason they did not want to upset her needlessly.

  Making up his mind, he sighed and sat next to her on the biobed. Gently, he took her small hand in his large one and looked down at it. "The Doctor didn't want you told this because he was worried you knowing about it would contaminate the results of the investigation."

  "What investigation?" she asked suspiciously.

  "You remember when you fell ill, because of Raven and his hormones?"

  "Yes."

  "And Tom... did what he did to save you."

  She nodded.

  "Well, the Doctor thinks that there was some sort of mutation."

  "Mutation? What mutation? Of me? But I-"

  "Of your... bond to Tom."

  She blinked rapidly. "I don't-"

  "He thinks what's happening to you is called shared pain. Something happens to one partner and the other feels it."

  "But if that were true..." Her eyes widened as she began to comprehend the implication of the Doctor's theory. "Tom's hurt?" She leapt off of the biobed. "We have to get to him. We have to-"

  "B'Elanna!" Chakotay gently clasped her upper arms. "That's why Sunfire left with Tuvok, Harry, Neelix, and the Doctor. They're going to get him."

  "Get him? What do you mean, 'get him'? But I thought he was on Sunfire and they were investigating something. Where is he?"

  "What they're investigating is what may have happened to Tom. On Rachar."

  "I don't understand."

  "Whether or not I killed him," Janeway said sadly from the doorway.

  "Kathryn," Chakotay admonished, not wanting her to embark on that guilt trip all over again.

  "What?" B'Elanna gasped, eyes wide.

  "We were coming out a tunnel. I caused a cave-in and I may have killed him."

  "Kathryn, we've been through this. It is ready to collapse all on its own. You did not-"

  "What did you do?" Tom's mate growled in a low voice filled with fury.

  "I was laughing at one of his stories and brushed up against the wall of a narrow opening and there was a cave-in. Then I left him there." Tears began running down her cheeks. "I swear to you, I thought he was dead. He wasn't moving. I couldn't hear him breathing. There were these rocks between him and me. And I could hear fluid buildin
g up in his lungs. It wasn't until the Doctor suggested he might merely have been unconscious, not dead that Sunfire went back for him."

  "If he dies..." B'Elanna left the threat open ended, though the meaning was clear and Chakotay picked up on it.

  "No one is going to kill anyone," he insisted. "You are going to get into your uniform, Lieutenant, and get down to Engineering to check on your department's progress. And you, Kathryn, are going to come with me."

  He shot a glance at Sam who stood in the doorway to the office. The woman seemed to pick up on his tacit order and came out to help B'Elanna as he escorted the Captain out.

  "Do you have a death wish?" he hissed at the woman whose arm he held so tightly she probably would be bruised the next day. "You knew she'd go ballistic once she knew. I thought we agreed not to tell her the particulars of this until after he was back with us, alive and well, or never if he didn't come back that way?"

  "But she's right to-"

  He pulled her into the turbolift with him, calling out his deck number. "Kathryn, you have to snap out of this. When he's brought home, safe and alive, maybe then you'll see it wasn't all your fault."

  "But some of it was."

  "Yes, perhaps, but not *all*. Stop taking all the blame. That tunnel deserves the lion's share. And the Gherop, they earned a lot too for placing us in the position that he had to come rescue us. So stop trying to take all the credit for this mess," he tried to joke.

  It fell flat and he tugged her out of the lift. Another night like the one before clearly was in order. He only hoped he could continue to restrain his baser instincts while he sat up with her all night on his couch, holding her and letting her cry through her pain.

  -------

  The next two days were Hell for everyone on board Voyager -- whether they were worried about the rescuers or the potential rescue or none of the above.

  Now that she knew everything that was going on, B'Elanna was like a caged targ, snapping at everyone she met, except the Captain at whom she only glared with the promise of retribution if things did not turn out well. Only the calming influence of Chakotay kept B'Elanna from committing a solo mutiny and taking Voyager to Rachar to rescue Tom and the rescuers. He continually had to remind her that the plan was for Sunfire to rendezvous with them in the nebula and if they left they might miss them if the other ship had to take a different route to get back to them.