Caretaker (24 page)

She almost felt the jolt of alarm pass through the Vulcan’s body.

“Captain …” He stepped formally into her line of vision, capturing her full attention in the most expedient way available.

“Any action we take to protect the Ocampa would affect the balance of power in this system. The Prime Directive,” he emphasized, “would seem to apply.”

“Would it?” If he were human, Janeway would have suspected him of invoking the Prime Directive in an effort to manipulate her decision.

But Tuvok was a Vulcan, and one of the most honorable men of that race she had ever had the pleasure of knowing. He could only ever speak what he believed to be the truth.

“We never asked to be involved, Tuvok,” she told him. “But we are.”

She sighed down at the twisted metal lump. “We are.”

And running away wouldn’t be the answer to that involvement, any more than calling on the Prime Directive would help her to pretend their presence here hadn’t already impacted with horrible consequences.

Smiling sadly in unspoken apology, she said simply, “I’m afraid your family will have to wait a little longer for you.”

If any doubt stirred within that implacable Vulcan exterior, Janeway would never know. Tuvok nodded polite acknowledgment, then stooped gracefully to retrieve what was left of the entity who had cared for this system so tenderly for so long.

We won’t let them down, Janeway promised. We’ll make sure you see this through. She tapped her comm badge as Tuvok moved into position beside her. “Away team to Voyager. Two to transport.”

Voyager bridge was positively crowded by the time Janeway and Tuvok arrived. When the turbolift released them, Janeway had to shoulder her way past both Torres and Chakotay to reach the main walkway, and Torres actually growled at her in protest. Chakotay smelled like the burned remains of a fuel depository, and soot caked his clothes and hair as thickly as pollen on a flower.

Janeway could only imagine where he had just been.

Trotting down the steps to her command chair, she tried to ignore the energy beams still splattering like lightning strikes against their failing shields. “Mr. Tuvok, ready a tricobalt device.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Paris jerked around at the conn, but Janeway didn’t have time to explain. “Open a channel to the Kazon,” she ordered Kim.

He turned without question to his station. “Channel open.”

The viewscreen rippled and re-formed, replacing the image of a damaged Array with Jabin’s weather-beaten face. The Kazon leader wasted no time on empty pleasantries. “Be advised, Captain—I have called for additional ships.”

Janeway couldn’t help smiling a little at the pointlessness of that threat. “I’m calling to warn you to move your vessels to a safe distance. I intend to destroy the Array.”

Jabin’s face went still with shock. “You can’t do that.”

“I can,” Janeway told him, “and I will.” Not that she needed his permission. She tossed a nod at Kim. “End transmission.”

Almost immediately, the ship rocked beneath a new torpedo strike.

Janeway clung grimly to her chair as Kim announced needlessly, “They’re increasing fire, Captain. Shields are holding.”

At least something was working in their favor. “Move us four hundred kilometers from the Array, Mr. Paris.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What are you doing?” Torres lunged across the railing, almost into Janeway’s lap. “That Array is the only way we have to get back home!”

Not enough time, the Caretaker had told them. That warning became more and more true with every passing second. “I’m aware everyone has families and loved ones at home they want to get back to,” Janeway explained as calmly and simply as possible.

“So do I. but I’m not willing to trade the lives of the Ocampa for our … convenience.” Dammit, they deserved better than this—they all deserved better than this. “We’ll have to find another way home.”

Torres barked angry laughter. “What other way home is there?”

Chakotay grabbed her when she would have surged forward and blocked the view of the main screen. Janeway silently thanked him for his interference even as Torres whirled on him to snarl, “Who is she to be making these decisions for all of us?”

“She’s the captain.” He pulled her with him back onto the upper level, leaving the bridge open for the crew to do their duties.

He must have been a fine commander when Starfleet had him, Janeway thought. That was the Federation’s loss.

Tuvok looked up from the tactical station. “The tricobalt device is ready.”

“In position,” Paris sang out from the conn.

Which left only one thing to be done, one thing to be said before there was no more turning back from what they had set into motion. Taking a deep breath, Janeway nodded stiffly. “Fire.”

Voyager shuddered only faintly when the tricobalt device was released, a barely noticeable tremor compared to the battering she was already suffering from the Kazon fighters. A spinning glimmer of energy, flashing like a brilliant diamond, arced out from under the nose of the starship, speeding through the glowing sea of battle debris on its way toward the Array. One of the Kazon ships broke off its attack. Hoping to pursue the device, Janeway guessed, thinking it could stop the inevitable. What the Kazon thought didn’t matter. As the deadly packet disappeared into the tangled strutwork of the Array, Janeway felt a whole universe of tension inside her uncoil and release with a throb of almost painful regret. Over, she greeted the blossom of destruction that boiled outward from the point of initial detonation.

Its all over now, nothing to be done. All over.

For the Caretaker, for the Ocampa, for all of them. The relief that came with no longer facing a decision surprised her, although perhaps it shouldn’t have.

No one spoke for a very long time. At the rear of the bridge, Janeway could hear someone crying softly. She granted the person the privacy of not turning to see who it was.

“The lead Kazon ship is hailing us,” Kim said after a long moment of listening to the incoming signal chirp at him.

It was too much to hope Jabin would simply leave them alone.

“Onscreen.”

As it was, the hatred blazing in the Kazon leader’s eyes nearly drilled a hole through the starship’s heart. “You have made an enemy today.”

Then he cut the channel without giving her a chance to reply.

Not that she had anything to say.

Tuvok glanced up from his console, the only composed figure on the bridge. “They are withdrawing, Captain.” For everyone else’s benefit, Janeway assumed, as much as for hers.

On the viewscreen, an ever-expanding plasma cloud that used to be the Array swelled silently outward until it finally filled the night—obscuring, at least for the moment, all thought of life beyond itself, all hope of anything but the salvation it no longer offered.

Stepping into the Captain’s ready room, Paris wasn’t sure what to expect. To be keelhauled, maybe. Or at least dressed down for his sins.

The excitement of battle had swept over him with a frightening abandon.

It had never been like this with the Maquis—he had never been invaded with such a sense of duty and purpose that he had said things, done things, that only a member of a starship’s crew had any right to. And, greatest sin of all, he’d intentionally failed to inform Captain Janeway, “Hey, I’m a felon. Remember?” when she herself seemed to forget that fact in the thick of everything else. It had just felt so good to fit in again. So good to be useful.

Janeway turned away from the observation window as the door whispered shut behind Paris. He glimpsed a faint surprise in her eyes, as though she hadn’t expected him so soon; then she stepped smoothly to the monitor on the long table between them and switched it off without looking at it. A suggestion of loneliness—a man’s smiling face, and a blur of big, huggable dog—blinked out of existence before Paris even had a chance to blush at his intrusion.

“You asked to see me, Captain?” he prompted, just to break the moment.

She nodded, folding her hands. “Mr. Paris, you have a problem.”

It occurred to him that the first time a woman had told him that was probably in fifth grade.

“I’ve invited Chakotay and the other Maquis to become part of this crew,” Janeway went on. “It seemed the only reasonable thing to do, under the circumstances.”

Paris swallowed an insane urge to giggle. “Will you provide a bodyguard for me, Captain?” It seemed somehow so unfair to be murdered in his sleep after surviving everything else they’d been through.

Janeway smiled oddly. “It seems you already have one.”

“I do?”

“Mr. Chakotay said something about his life belonging to you?”

She shook her head, obviously at a loss about how to take the reference, while Paris allowed himself a thoroughly evil grin.

“He’ll be taking responsibility for your safety.”

“I think I’m going to enjoy this,” Paris admitted.

Janeway cocked her head in speculation. “Don’t be so sure. He’s also going to be my first officer. Everyone aboard this ship will report to him.” She captured Paris’s eyes with her own.

“Including the lieutenant assigned to the conn.”

At first, he was going to snort and ask what the hell this had to do with him. But something in his throat knotted before any sound came out, and his brain caught up an instant later. “Me?”

“I’ve entered into the ship’s log on this date that I’m granting a field commission of lieutenant to Thomas Eugene Paris.” She leaned across the table to offer him her hand and a welcoming smile.

“Congratulations.”

Paris wrapped her hand in both of his, shaking it with a gratefulness his heart didn’t feel ready to contain. “For the first time in my life … I don’t know what to say!”

He didn’t even mean to it to be funny, but Janeway still smiled as she rounded the table to walk him toward the door. “You’ve earned this, Tom. I’m only sorry your father won’t know.”

It was the first time she’d spoken with anything approaching doubt.

That subtle change in her demeanor startled Paris into an honesty he never could have mustered if he’d tried. “He’ll know,” he promised her. “When we get back.” Because if I can be standing here with your respect and a renewed commission, then I have to believe that anything is possible. Anything.

* Sometimes, it amazed Janeway how far a small amount of praise could go toward bolstering a young person’s confidence. She wondered if it maybe wasn’t so obvious to parents, who were often too entwined in their children’s lives to have any real objectivity about what was going on. All she knew was that in the last few days, Tom Paris had somehow grown from an irresponsible child to a young adult any father would have been proud to raise. And contrary to what everyone had always feared about Paris, the loading of additional trust on his young shoulders had only pushed him that one step closer to true manhood.

Janeway was looking forward to knowing him once he got there.

“Ah, Captain …” Neelix’s voice warbled through the still-open doors just ahead of his and Kes’s arrival. “We were just coming to see you.”

Janeway stood again, smiling as the alien couple gaped around the empty ready room as though it were filled with endless wonders.

Perhaps the sight of such clean, well-built technology was much the same thing to them. “We’ve supplied your ship with water, Neelix,” she told him. “It’s ready to go.” It had seemed the least they could do after his and Kes’s help in recovering their crew.

Neelix bobbed his bald head nervously, clinging to Kes’s hand.

“Well, you see … that’s what we wanted to discuss. …” He took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “We’d like to go with you.”

Janeway blinked at him. And here she thought the little alien had exhausted his ability to startle her. “I’m sorry—this isn’t a passenger ship—” “Of course not!” Kes jumped in. “We won’t be passengers—” “—we’ll be valuable colleagues,” Neelix added.

“Colleagues?” She probably shouldn’t have spoken—the encouragement just seemed to fill him with more energy.

“Whatever you need,”Neelix announced with Faginesque charm, “is what I have to offer. You need a guide? I’m your guide. You need supplies?

I know where to procure them—I have friends among races you don’t even know exist. You need a cook? You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted my angla’bosque.” Janeway wasn’t sure if it would even be possible to add something so exotic to the replicators, but decided not to mention that. “It will be my job to anticipate your needs before you know you have them,” Neelix persisted. A puckish twinkle lit in his eye.

“And I anticipate your first need will be—me!”

He was good. Janeway had to give him that.

“And where I go—” Neelix pulled Kes into a possessive embrace.

“—she goes.”

“In my own way,” Kes said, as though wanting to make sure Janeway understood that this was her decision, too, “I’m an explorer, Captain.

On my world, exploration meant defying the Caretaker just to walk on the surface. I took that chance because I had to. My father taught me that the greatest thing an Ocampa can do is to open her mind to all the experiences and challenges that life has to offer.” She looked around the room that Janeway found so familiar and unromantic, and the look of naked wonder on the Ocampa’s face was heartbreaking. “I can’t begin to imagine where this ship might take us! I know I’ll never see my homeworld again. But I want very much to be part of your journey.”

Janeway studied her in gentle amazement. How could anyone say no to someone who instinctively understood the heart of Starfleet so well?

She nodded acceptance, and knew right away it was the right thing to do.

Sighing, Neelix hugged Kes to him ever tighter and smiled up at Janeway in sincerest bliss. “Isn’t she remarkable?”

Yes, Janeway thought in wonder. Aren’t we all?

The bridge was still crowded, but in a calmer, less claustrophobic way.

Most of the debris had been removed since the Kazon battle, and at least half the panels were functioning again. The rest were patched closed. Janeway hadn’t even begun to think about where they would get replacement parts, or even enough repair crews, and being faced with the hint that it would all have to be dealt with soon made her head hurt.