Part Two: Forgotten Past

Harry smiled as his two friends ran ahead of him, kicking up silvery sand.

It had been hard for him to believe Tom and Alex were a couple at first. He hadn't even known they were friends.

Even now, watching Tom chase Alex across the beach they didn't seem like they belonged together.

Or maybe he'd just thought Tom belonged with B’Elanna.

"Voyager to all hands," Janeway's authoritive voice rang over the com.

Tom and Alex stopped to listen, "All shore leave has been recalled, prepare to beam back to the ship."

"So much for fun in the sun," Harry complained. "I wonder what's happened now."

Alex shrugged and Tom rubbed his neck with a sigh. He had a bad feeling about this.

* * * *

Tom, Harry and Alex had just stepped off the transporter pad when Janeway called a meeting of the senor staff.

"You'd better hurry," Alex said. 'This sounds serious."

Tom and Harry nodded and sprinted off for the conference room.

"What do you think this is about?" Harry asked nervously.

"I don't know, Har," Tom replied as they reached their destination.

The first thing Tom noticed was that Neelix and Kes were present and B’Elanna and Chakotay weren't. Tom and Harry took their seats and the meeting began.

"I'll be blunt," Janeway said. "B’Elanna and Chakotay have gone missing."

"What?" Tom exclaimed. "Can't you find them with sensors?"

"The Commander and Lieutenant Torres disappeared from our sensors a half hour ago," Tuvok said emotionlessly. "We've been unable to locate them since."

Tom slouched in his chair. How could this happen? He had thought B’Elanna was in Engineering.

"Since sensors are not helping along our search, the only logical solution would be to send a team to the surface so that they can investigate," Tuvok told the Captain. "If you wish, I will lead the team."

"No," Janeway deadpanned. "We don't know what happened to them so we can't be sure it won't happen again. Ambassador Siward has said terrorists are most likely responsible but there is no evidence."

"Captain," Tuvok sounded surprised. "We will not gather any new information from Voyager."

Janeway sighed, coming to a decision she had told herself she would never make. "This meeting is adjourned. Harry, Tuvok work with sensors. Do whatever you can."

The two officers nodded and the crew began to file out of the room.

"Mister Paris," Janeway called to her retreating pilot. "Stay a moment."

Tom turned back around and faced his Captain.

"What do you think I should do?"

Tom's eyes widened, "Me, Captain?"

Janeway smiled slightly, "Yes, you Tom. I don't want to send just anybody back down to the planet. I need somebody who is better than just anybody."

Tom's hands clenched. She couldn't know.

"Do you think if I sent you and Alex down there you'd be able to solve this mystery?"

Tom searched her eyes. Just how much did Janeway know about him and Alex? "Alex and I are a good team," he said. "I'm sure we can find B’Elanna and Chakotay."

"Good," Janeway said. "I want you to depart immediately. And don't tell anyone else about this meeting. Not yet." Tom nodded. "Tom, find them. By any means. Dismissed."

Tom quickly turned to the door but before he could exit, Janeway called after him, "Good luck. Not that you need it."

Tom left the conference room feeling bemused. Janeway had hinted at knowledge she shouldn't know.

"Paris to Monroe."

"Here."

"Prepare for an away mission, Ensign. Meet me in Transporter Room 2 and be discreet."

* * * *

Tom surveyed the immaculate gardens for any sign of a struggle. This was the last place Chakotay and B’Elanna were known to have been.

Alex crouched beside Tom, both blended in wearing tight fitting black jumpsuits.

Their mission was secret from both the Dasavions and the Voyager crew.

Secrets were familiar ground for Tom and Alex.

When Janeway had contacted the Dasavion Ambassador, he hadn't seemed very concerened by the disappearance of the two Voyagers, mumbling something about a terrorist group most likely being responsible.

That wasn't much to go on.

Usually, Tom and Alex liked it that way it gave them a challenge. But with B’Elanna's life on the line, Tom didn't want to take any chances.

Alex nudged Tom with her elbow and motioned towards a flowerbed. The two swiftly headed over to the spot. There was a section of plowed up dirt that looked severely amiss among the flawless gardens.

"I don't see any trace of what was here, the roots have been pulled."

Alex nodded, "So it most likely wasn't just some tourist picking a bouquet but that still doesn't help us any."

Tom sighed, she was right. It didn't mean anything, not alone.

Taking out his tricorder he manually set it to a frequency so contracted that not even Janeway knew about it.

"They were here alright," Tom whispered to Alex. He had picked up residual life sign signatures. "And so was another Dasavion and another person belonging to a species I've never seen."

"You're sure they were all here at the same time?" Alex asked.

Tom double-checked his readings, "Yes, the four were all here the same time the sensors malfunctioned."

"So you think they've been abducted," Alex surmised.

Tom nodded, "Looks that way but we had already suspected that. We're still not getting anywhere."

"Be patient," Alex chided. "These kinds of assignments take time. You can't always expect instant results. You're not that good."

Tom smiled but it soon faded. He wasn't in the mood to be smiling. Why would a Dasavion and another off-world alien abduct two tourists from a visiting ship?

Off hand there appeared to be no logical reason.

There had to be a reason.

The reason was the key.

* * * *

Chakotay's eyes followed B’Elanna as she paced their cell.

"There. two. eighty. ninety. four."

She'd been pacing, nonstop. Repeating the same numbers over and over again for nearly the entire hour or so since they had regained consciousness.

They'd woken up in the small cell to the incessant sound of dripping water, their heads aching from the blows they'd received.

The cell consisted of rusted brown metal walls and leaking pipes. Instead of a force field there were bars. Thick bars placed only an inch apart and impossible to break.

B’Elanna had tried.

The old fashioned lock on the door wasn't a computer and so B’Elanna was clueless on how to work it.

Chakotay had went to the one bench in the prison and sat back patiently, waiting for events to unfold.

B’Elanna abruptly stopped her pacing, "I know they're coordinates, Chakotay. And they're not far from here, maybe a light year or two."

"That doesn't help us get out of here," Chakotay reminded.

"No, but it might answer the question of why we're here. Those coordinates mean something, Chakotay. Somehow they are significant and nobody was supposed to know about them."

"If that's true perhaps you should stop chanting them out loud. If anybody's listening it would be best if they thought we didn't know anything."

"I can't forget those numbers. Who knows what is at stake here. We have to get back to Voyager."

Chakotay smiled, "I'm open for suggestions on how to get out of here."

B’Elanna sighed and collapsed on the bench beside Chakotay. "Three. two. eighty. ninety. four."

* * * *

Tom looked up at the sound of crunching leaves, grabbing Alex's arm he pulled her behind a bush.

Two Dasavion males entered the gardens. Both were well dressed, talking casually.

But Tom recognized something about their stride, their all-seeing eyes. They weren't just two guys out for a midnight stroll.

One of the men pulled out a phaser rifle and watched the entrance to the gardens, the other knelt down and opened his briefcase.

Tom and Alex strained to see what was inside.

It was a flower.

The second man quickly lifted the flower up and planted it in the barren spot of the flowerbed.

The man with a rifle glanced at his partner, "That flower's clean, right?"

The unarmed man nodded, "We couldn't risk putting another transmitter in the same spot but if we left the spot open, people would get suspicious. Nothing is ever out of place in the gardens."

Tom used the lookouts lapse in guard to circle around behind him. He swiftly clamped a hand over the man's mouth and pressed a sedative filled hypo to his neck while Alex took care of the other man.

'By any means,' Janeway had said.

Alex and Tom lowered the two men to the ground and Tom pulled out his tricorder and Alex picked up the Dasavion's briefcase.

Alex and Tom had rented a room at one of the nearby hotels, Tom transported the four of them there now.

Tom pulled off his backpack after they'd materialized. Taking out two pieces of nylon rope he bound the hands of both men.

Alex pulled a small case from the bag and looked at their prisoners. Outwardly they looked almost human. There eyes were narrower, their ears were much smaller but the differences were subtle. Alex guessed they'd have about the same tolerance for drugs as humans. Using her tricorder she made sure she was correct, as always, she was. She prepared one of the hypos in her case with just the right amount of Miratol.

Standing over the man who had been unarmed she motioned for Tom to help her get him into a chair.

The other man was just a lookout and would probably not know the answers to their questions.

Alex injected the Miratol into the man's neck. It was an old trick. It would put a person in a level of consciousness that took away all their defenses. Theoretically the man would answer all their questions and truthfully.

"Can you tell me your name?" Alex asked softly.

"Dican," he responded groggily.

"Alright Dican, why were you in the gardens?"

".planting a flower."

"Why were you planting a flower?"

"Someone discovered the transmitter."

"The transmitter?"

"It sends messages between the two factions."

"Whose two factions?"

"The Mivaino Alliance's two factions."

"What is the Mivaino Alliance?"

"We're a group loyal to the Mivaino."

"The Mivaino are another species?"

"Yes."

"Has your group taken any terrorist actions against the Dasavion world?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what happened to the two Voyagers? The Klingon women and the human male?"

"They found our transmitter, they decoded a sensitive message."

Tom instantly became more alert.

"What message?" Alex asked.

"I don't have clearance for that information."

"What has happened to the Voyagers?"

"They were turned over to Siward."

Tom's cobalt blue eyes widened, "The ambassador?"

"Yes."

Siward was the ambassador assigned to handle relations with Voyager.

"What had Siward done with them?"

"I don't know."

After another ten minutes of dead end questions Tom and Alex packed up.

Leaving the two men unconscious in the hotel room, they headed down the emergency stairs and back out onto the street.

"What do you say we pay Ambassador Siward a visit?" Tom asked.

A smile played on Alex's lips as she answered, "It'd be a pleasure."
 

TBC