No Way Out part 6 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 6 Chakotay was surprised when Tom visited him last night in his quarters and stated that it was over between them. There was no reason why suddenly Tom broke up so soon. Chakotay tried to talk to Tom, but he was stubborn. Walls, meter thick walls were raised around Tom. It was as if Chakotay met the Tom of 10 years ago, stubborn, aggressive and cool. Something wasn‘t right with Tom. If Chakotay didn‘t know it better Tom was about to scare him off. But why? Why was Tom like this? After all the nights of passion, after all the long talks about Tom‘s past, about his nightmares and fears, after so many things Tom had confided Chakotay, he now refused to see him. The fact that Tom had to go onto the mission tomorrow made it worse. Chakotay didn‘t believe Tom. Something was going on that prevented Tom to show him his real feelings, and Chakotay wasn‘t able to find it out before Tom went into that nebula, maybe he‘d never find out...     Tom‘s face was blank when he entered his Delta Flyer. The last night was horrible. He had cried the whole night. He couldn‘t endure that Chakotay was now unreachable for him. But it was better that way. Maybe one day Tom would succeed and Chakotay would leave Colossus, but maybe with this mission everything cleared up anyway... He got the order to launch and lead the squadrons through the nebula. Tom started the engine and launched his shuttle. Almost automatically Tom maneuvered the Flyer to the passage.     Chakotay sat in his commanding chair when he watched the Delta Flyer disappear in the nebula, followed by hundreds of gunboats. He sighed deeply. He had made a last attempt to talk to Tom, but once again he had refused. Chakotay had caught Tom in the corridor before he could enter the shuttlebay. A short "I don‘t want to talk with you." Was all he got from Tom. But there was more, and that scared Chakotay. When he looked into Tom‘s eyes he saw nothing. Tom‘s eyes were blank and tired. It was as if Tom had already given up. Chakotay crossed his fingers and prayed that Tom would come back in one piece...     Tom saw the exit of the passage and sighed in relief. The whole squadron got into big trouble when the systems of one gunboat failed and it exploded in the nebula. Tom nearly lost the connection to the rest of the ships, but with some luck they made it through. Tom just left the passage, followed by the first gunboats, when the Borg cubes already advanced. This time the Borg didn‘t wait long to see a potential danger in the small vessels. Tom could see how the cubes got wider and wider on his screen when he heard the so familiar welcome: We are the Borg. Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own... You will adapt to serve us... Resistance is futile...We are the Borg.....< More and more gunboats left the passage and attacked the cubes. A group of 12 boats positioned themselves around Tom‘s Flyer. Tom‘s wasn‘t allowed to attack the cubes, because he was the only key through the passage. The group of 13 vessels did its best to evade the tractor beams. Exact after 10 minutes, as planned, Tom gave the order to enter the passage and fly back again. Only three cubes were seriously damaged, but over 50 gunboats were destroyed. The small vessels just formed themselves to a large group to follow Tom into the passage when a huge green beam hit the Flyer. Tom screamed out in pain. His head seemed to explode. He lost helm-control and the Flyer started to spin. The beam also hit a few of the gunboats, but it seemed that they were not effected by it. Somehow only Tom reacted that badly on the beam. Tom tried to get the Flyer under control, only to be punished by another beam. When he realized that he had no chance to get the Flyer under control he sent out an emergency signal to the squadron. They should try to fly through the passage without him, using the telemetry of the first flight to lead them through. The gunboats entered the passage one after another without being attacked by the cubes anymore. Instead the cubes seemed to have Tom as their main aim. Again and again they shot the Flyer with the beam, until Tom laid immobile on the floor. One cube activated a tractor beam on the Delta Flyer and pulled it towards the assimilation chamber. Tom was able to get to his knees and support himself on the controls. With his last strength he made his last step: "Computer, activate self destruction, set to 10 seconds, authorization: Paris, alpha, 395." Only very few seconds later two Borg drones rematerialized behind Tom. One grabbed Tom brutally at his neck and pulled him back. The other one went to the controls and injected his assimilation tubes into the console to stop the self destruction mechanism. When Tom tried to scream the Borg pressed his hand over Tom‘s mouth. Helplessly Tom closed his eyes, waiting for the explosion. But instead he felt the familiar feeling of a transporter beam. When he rematerialized he found himself being held tightly by two Borg. Panic grew up in Tom. He tried to fight against the grip, but the more he tried to break free, the harder the grip became until it was unbearable. With a painful cry Tom gave his attempts up. He was dragged to a chamber where the Borg Queen was already waiting for him. >>Great. That‘s how my life ends, how fitting for a Paris.<< His sarcasm didn‘t help him much when he was pressed down on his knees, still held immobile. The Queen in front of Tom turned around and advanced on him. It was dark and Tom couldn‘t see her face at first, but then, when a green light fell onto her face, he recognize her. "Oh my God, Moira!" "Surprised?" "Oh no, what did they do to you?" "They gave me perfection. And they gave me my beloved brother." "No, no they didn‘t give you perfection, they stole your life." "Soon you‘ll understand what it is to be a Borg." "I can help you, Moira. Come with me and the doctors will do everything to recover you." "No, Thomas. I will help you. I will help you to end this unsatisfactory life. I‘ll lead you from chaos to perfection. And in return you‘ll give us the knowledge how to fly though the passage" "Don‘t you remember how it was when you were an individual? We were always together, don‘t you remember? I love you and you loved me." "Oh, I still love you, my brother. And believe me, we will be together, closer than ever, closer than ever..." With that the Queen injected her assimilation tubes into Tom‘s neck and let the nano probes stream into Tom‘s body. Tom felt how he weakened. His thoughts became more and more dull. He watched his hands turn a gray color. His view was more and more covered with a black haze until he saw nothing but blackness. He collapsed and fell to the ground. His last thought was a repeat of what the Queen had said >>...closer than ever...closer than ever...<< But the voice in his head wasn‘t a single voice. Thousands of voices hammered in his head. The Hive—   TBC