No Way Out part 4

Disclaimer: I don‘t own any character of Star Trek. I just borrow them for my own stories. I don‘t get paid for this. It‘s just for fun, to let my fantasies go wild.

Fandom: Voyager/Star Trek

Pairing: C/P

Rating: PG-13 for this part

Summary: After 10 years in the Delta quadrant Voyager gets home. The crew is split up. Tom gets a new assignment as the pilot of the new warship U.S.S. Colossus as a lieutenant (if Paramount doesn‘t want to promote Tom again, I will! Hehe). Colossus was developed to fight against the "New Collective" [a new alliance between Borg and Breen], and especially to resist the new weapon of the Breen. Tom has to deal with the new captain, Captain Lee Warren. Warren is the father of Charlie Warren, Tom‘s best friend at Caldik Prime, who was killed by an accident Tom caused. Now Tom has to suffer under the new captain, but he gets help from Chakotay who‘s the new first officer on U.S.S. Colossus.

Feedback: Always! But please be gentle, this is my very first story. Melvp77@freenet.de

Archive: ATPS, CPSG, ParisNights, The Tom Paris Dorm. Otherwise only with permission.

Note: This story deals with Voyager only at the very first part. The story plays on a new warship in the Alpha quadrant after Voyager gets home.

Warnings: The story will content violence and bad language as well as a relationship between two men (no graphical sex). Tom will be in sickbay and close to death very often. The story will also contain humiliation and lots of Tom angst. If you can‘t cope with this, don‘t even think about reading this story.

Spoiler warning: -

Dedication: To the ATPS members, you inspired me to write my first story. To Jean and Elli. To Isabelle big wave Special thanks to Carolyn, my beta reader. You are great! :)
 
 

Part 4

Chakotay woke up when he felt something wet at his cheek. For a moment he didn‘t know where he was. The light was dim and it was quiet. When he tried to change his position, he nearly fell from the bed. That was the moment when he realized that he was still in sickbay, lying together with Tom on the biobed.

In his sleep, Tom had placed his head against Chakotay‘s cheek. Tom was still sleeping, but his breathing didn‘t sound right. Chakotay stroked through Tom‘s hair; it was wet. Touching Tom‘s forehead, he noticed that it was covered with cold sweat.

Slowly Chakotay felt how he began to panic. He sat up and grabbed Tom‘s right wrist. It was cold, too. Tom‘s whole body was cold and sweaty. Chakotay looked up to check the readings, they seemed to show too high values. He bent down to Tom again, and shook Tom‘s body to wake him up, but Tom stayed unconscious. Almost automatically Chakotay put one hand on Tom‘s knee. It was swollen and warm, compared to the rest of Tom‘s body his knee was almost on fire. Loosing it completely, Chakotay ran from Tom‘s biobed directly to Dr.Keller‘s office.
 
 

Dr.Keller was alone in his office. He didn‘t want to wake the couple up when they fell asleep, so he let them sleep together while he withdrew to his office. Seeing Chakotay storming into his office made him jump to his feet. Chakotay‘s hands were shaking, his voice sounded terrified and broken.

"Doc, there‘s something wrong with Tom. His knee is swollen and seems to have some kind of a fever. I tried to wake him up, but he stays unconscious!"

"Jesus, I‘m coming. - Keller to Gemelli, I need you in sickbay, now!"

Keller and Chakotay hurried to Tom. While Keller analyzed the readings, Ensign Gemelli entered sickbay.

"You called me... Gods, why didn‘t the diagnostic system notify you that Mr.Paris‘ condition had gotten worse?"

"I don‘t know. I think it was already very close to alerting us."

"Do we need to call Dr.Blake?"

"No, we try it with 10ml Cervaline at first. It is not as bad as it seems. It seems that the Lieutenant‘s immune system had a little fight with the new synthetic organ."

Chakotay followed each of Dr.Keller‘s and his assistant‘s movements. Gemelli prepared a hypospray and handed it over to Keller who injected it into Tom‘s neck. Keller checked the readings again.

"It worked, his temperature is falling. Mr.Paris will be exhausted when he wakes up, but I think he just made it out of danger. Well done, Commander. You just saved him from some very unpleasant side effects."

Keller patted Chakotay‘s shoulder. Slowly Chakotay calmed down again. Before Keller could get back into his office, he got his voice back.

"Doc, does it mean he‘s going to be okay?"

"Yes, I don‘t think there will be anymore problems. His immune system had a little conflict with his new knee joint tonight, but Mr.Paris is out of danger now. He can leave sickbay tomorrow."

"Thank you Doc."

"Hey, that‘s my job. And by the way, what belongs together shouldn‘t be separated."

Keller blinked with an eye and went beck to his office, Gemelli right behind him. Chakotay sighed deeply. He bent down to place a kiss on Tom‘s forehead. Taking Tom‘s hand in his own he whispered slowly: "Never do that again, Tom Paris!"
 
 

Colossus approached the Mortalis nebula. It was also called the hell-nebula, because it was full of toxic gases and ion storms. The storms were so heavy that the nebula was impassable by starships, even with the strongest shields. There was only a small passage through the nebula. It was maybe wide enough for a Starship of the Intrepid class, but it was very narrow for Colossus.

While Tom had recovered from his injuries, Colossus was able to regain important territories from the New Collective. After the last battles, there weren‘t any Breen ships anymore. There were rumors that the alliance between the Borg and the Breen was over, because the Breen‘s wonder weapon was useless against Colossus. When the Borg were defeated on Vulcan, they withdrew to their nearest sector far behind Starfleet territory. Warren got the order to place Colossus at the border. A short distance before they reached the coordinates, an anomaly occurred right in front of them. A huge explosion, coming out of nowhere, destroyed 3 of the 4 warp gondolas; and the hull was breached in several places. A few gunboats were also destroyed. Colossus was heavily damaged. The pilots had managed to maneuver Colossus out of the anomaly before the impulse engines failed.

It took over 2 weeks to repair Colossus. It was brought back to Vulcan, where several starships had already arrived with new supplies. While Colossus was repaired, the renewed Voyager under the command of Captain Tuvok went to the anomaly to collect more data. The anomaly turned out to be a class-Y nebula. Because of the deadly ion storms, Starfleet had named the new nebula, which came out of nowhere, the Mortalis nebula. Lieutenant Kim and Ensign Hanson had detected the small passage. Some pilots soon started to call the passage the "death hole" because none of the probes reached the other side of the nebula without being destroyed.

Now Colossus was in front of the nebula again. So far, no Borg cube or sphere had made it through either. The nebula was a protective wall between the Borg and Starfleet territory. Nevertheless, Starfleet wanted to know exactly what was behind the nebula.

Warren had ordered Tom to fly through the passage with his Delta Flyer. This Time, Chakotay didn‘t protest. They really needed the best pilot for this job. Tom was in a good shape. Three weeks had passed after his accident and he had recovered well. When Tom heard about his new mission, he agreed immediately. Although he knew that there could be Borg on the other side, he was still optimistic.

Chakotay sat nervously in his chair while he watched the small vessel approaching the entrance of the passage. He knew that the communications wouldn‘t hold on during the whole ride through the passage, the interference was too strong.

During the first 5 minutes Tom made reports. It was a very difficult ride, even for Tom. Then his comm signal was gone.
 
 

Tom was very busy with the helm controls. The ship was shaking heavily. Several times the shields shorted out because Tom went too close to an ion explosion. The passage was very small, too small for a huge battleship, too small for Voyager, and way too small for a Borg cube.

Tom sighed in relief when he saw the exit of the passage. He left the nebula and entered the familiar starfield. He froze in shock when he detected hundreds of Borg cubes in front of him. He stopped the engines immediately and programmed a course right back to the passage. Before he could turn the Flyer around, a Borg scan caught him. When the green beam went through his body he got a heavy headache. Something was odd. The Borg didn‘t catch him in a tractor beam; they just scanned the Flyer and him. Maybe they were too surprised that someone could make it through the nebula. However, Tom didn‘t care. Before the Borg could change their minds, he had already entered the passage again.
 
 

Back on Colossus, Tom made his report. Starfleet wasn‘t very happy about this situation at all. Nobody knew how long the nebula would be steady. It could collapse any second and then hundreds of Borg cubes and spheres would flood Starfleet‘s territory and even 20 Colossus‘ wouldn‘t be able to stop them.

A long meeting too place on Colossus. Every important Admiral was present. Tactical plans were created and redesigned again. It was a nearly hopeless situation. What seemed to be a secure blockade was now a ticking time bomb.

At last, the commission decided to risk an attack. Everybody knew this might cost hundreds of lives, but there was no other way to stop the Borg.

Because nobody except Tom was able to fly through the passage without being destroyed, Tom had to lead the squadrons with his Delta Flyer. Every movement he‘d do would be transmitted to the following gunboats. This way, Tom would practically be able to fly all gunboats at once.
 
 

Tom didn‘t feel comfortable with the immense responsibility he had. Chakotay had talked often about it with him, and in some way he was able to calm Tom down a bit. Tom knew he could make it, even with hundreds of Borg ships behind the nebula; it was just the strange feeling that he had hundreds of lives in his own hands.

The day before the mission, Tom tried to relax in his quarters. He was just about to replicate himself a cup of coffee when an intercom signal caught his attention. He went to his monitor and activated the screen. His father appeared in front of him with a sad face.

"Dad! What‘s going on?"

"Tom, I know this is a very bad moment to tell you this, but you must know it. Your mission tomorrow is too dangerous, who knows whether you will come back in one piece."

"Do you think I‘ll fail?"

"No, of course not. I‘m sure you‘ll make it through the passage again, it‘s just that what‘s behind the passage bothers me. However, I‘ve called you because something happened to Moira."

"Moira? What happened to her? Tell me!"

"During the fight in the Vulcan territory, your sister was part of an undercover mission on board of USS White Star. The mission failed. The ship was destroyed by the Borg."

"But that doesn‘t automatically mean that Moira died, she could have escaped before..."

"No, Tom. We found the black box. Moira‘s life sign vanished a short time after an impact. She‘s dead, Tom."

"No."

"I‘m sorry. And I‘m sorry that I have to tell you this now, but..."

"Noooo!"

Tom was screaming now. He turned away from the monitor and grabbed a vase from a shelf. With a growl, he threw the vase against the bulkhead. It shattered into a thousand pieces. Crying, Tom let himself fall down on his knees. He covered his face with his hands, now crying and sobbing heavily. He didn‘t hear his father anymore as he tried to calm him down.

Helplessly, Admiral Paris cut the connection. There was nothing he could do now with this distance between them. Admiral Paris decided to fly to Colossus and abort Tom‘s mission. Tom wasn‘t in good enough condition to do it so soon.
 
 

Chakotay was on his way to Tom‘s quarters, and he was already in front of the Tom‘s door when he heard something shatter. Chakotay opened the door in an instant and ran into Tom‘s quarters. What he saw made him anxious. Tom was kneeling on the floor, his face covered with his hands. He cried and sobbed bitterly while he moved his body back and forth, again and again.

Not knowing what to do, Chakotay just stood there and watched his mate. After a while, he found his voice back.

"Tom! What happened, baby?"

Tom didn‘t answer. Chakotay went down to Tom and put his right arm around him. Tom didn‘t wait long to accept Chakotay‘s offer, he laid his head onto Chakotay‘s lap and curled up into a protective ball. Chakotay didn‘t like this position; he knew this meant that something horrible had happened to Tom.

Chakotay stroked Tom‘s back and kissed him repeatedly on the cheek. He always repeated the same sentence with his slow and calm voice: "Everything‘s gonna be okay, I‘m here with you, you‘ll be okay!"

That had an effect on Tom, and he calmed down. Still crying, he said in a sad voice: "I loved her, why did they have to take her away from me!"
 
 

Chakotay didn‘t know how long they sat on the floor like that; it must have been hours. When Tom was quiet, Chakotay realized that he had fallen asleep. He gently shook him awake and helped him to bed.

He went back to the living area and noticed the open monitor. He hit the replay button. That was the moment he knew why Tom was like that. It would take a long time for Tom to get over with it, that Chakotay knew for sure. But Chakotay would be there for him; he‘d help him through this.

TBC