Cracks 01 Cracks in the Wall Read online

  Part 5

  Chakotay sat in his quarters, morosely staring at the coffee mug in his hand. Why was HE the one allowed to return to the ship? Why did he always manage to avoid the dangerous situations, while everyone else risked their lives? He, the First Officer, who was supposed to be responsible for the others? The others... He found his mind focusing on B'Elanna. If anyone was stubborn and resourceful enough to escape the Borg, it was she. And if there was anyone impulsive enough to get herself killed, it was she. I'm worrying like a father, he reflected. The coffee was cold. Technically, Chakotay was off duty for the evening, but he couldn't stop worrying...and besides, the captain was probably worn out. He left the half-empty mug on the end table and headed for the bridge. Janeway strode from her ready room to the bridge and assessed her crew. "Did you all follow orders?" she asked. "Has everyone had at least a LITTLE rest?" Guilty glances. "I thought not. Well," she softened, "I didn't either. Are we ready, Commander?" Chakotay nodded. "I guess we're all about to see what kind of actors we would have been." "Commander, I expect nothing less than a stellar performance from all of us. Mr. Kim, hail the Borg vessel." "No response, Captain." Janeway hadn't expected one. "Then I want to broadcast a message on all subspace frequencies." "Go ahead, Captain." "This is the Federation starship Voyager. Borg vessel: you are holding four of our crew. Return them immediately, or a state of war will exist between us. You have one minute to comply." The wall dissolved into nothingness. With the sudden loss of the wall they had been leaning against, both Tom and B'Elanna lost their balance and toppled into each other. They stepped back, like guilty teenagers. "Well," quipped Tom, covering the emotion again, "I don't know what you did, but you're right. Whatever it was, it was a good idea." B'Elanna snorted. "Paris, even I can't work THAT fast." "Ah. That must mean--yes, here he is. Our Favorite Friend." The Borg said nothing, but merely pointed a peculiar device directly at Tom's chest. "What's that thi-" Tom uttered a small "woof" of surprise and his eyes grew wide. "What's happening? What are you doing to him?!" shrieked B'Elanna. "Your 'other' cannot inhale, and his lungs have been emptied of oxygen." Tom looked wildly from B'Elanna, to the Borg, and then back to her. She could sense rather than see his rising panic. She whirled on the Borg. "Stop it!!" she shouted. "He can't breathe! You're killing him!" She lunged at the Borg, but it calmly pointed the device at her, and she pulled up. She watched helplessly as Tom slowly collapsed to his hands and knees on the grid floor, making small, choked, hiccuping noises. She knelt beside him, absolutely enraged, and screamed, "I'll kill you! I SWEAR it! You let him die and I'll make you ALL suffer! I'll--" "Will you trade his place?" "I--" she started, but a fist gripped her wrist, so firm as to almost be painful. She forced her eyes to meet his. Those eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. No, they implored. "Yes," she said defiantly. "You risk your lives to take control of this vessel and be free. You reach for each other even in total darkness. You must touch each other. You attempt to prevent others from being assimilated, and you are willing to sacrifice your life to save the life of your 'other'. You speak of 'humanity' and 'compassion'," said the Borg. "We have been looking for you." The Borg calmly pointed the device at Tom again, and activated it again. Tom collapsed completely, heaving great breaths. B'Elanna stared at the Borg, mouth still agape from the shock. Tom held one hand to his chest, as if he needed to feel its rise and fall. He managed to gasp out, "You don't sound much like the Borg I'm familiar with. Don't tell me you guys have turned over a new leaf?" The combined voices of the ship spoke again. But this time, it was not the mindless rasp of a thousand drones, but voices--real voices, that seemed stronger and louder and yet no longer frightening. "We are not the Borg." And suddenly, the ship was made of light -- "War will exist between our peoples." Janeway stood firm, hands on him, hoping against hope that she looked more intimidating than she felt. What had the Borg to fear from them? Only one thing, as far as she could tell--complications. Borg didn't like complications. This was the worst threat she had to offer. And she meant every word of it. "War." If anything, the voices of the Borg became more disapproving. "Biological life forms wish to destroy other forms of life." "We do NOT wish it," Janeway said. "But we will protect our people if they are in danger." "Scans indicate that your vessel is no match for ours." Kathryn took a deep breath. "Maybe not. Maybe we don't stand much of a chance. But maybe--just maybe--we do. And I'm going to take that chance, unless our people are returned to us." "You risk your deaths for only four individual units?" Tuvok spoke. "For Captain Janeway, the needs of the few sometimes outweigh the needs of the many. It is not logical--" he glanced over at his captain with an expression that, in anyone else, would have been affectionate pride-- "but it is often right." Astonishingly, the Borg smiled. Chakotay's hand gripped her shoulder as the screen filled with light-- Tom shut his eyes hastily against the sudden blinding light. After a second, he opened them again, blinking, and looked out at the interior of a Borg ship. It seemed less forbidding now that it was better lit, but there was no mistaking the design. Especially since dozens of Borg stood there, surrounding the two officers huddled on the floor. B'Elanna squeezed his hand tighter, and he squeezed back. He could almost taste her bitter disappointment, the kin to his own. Just when it had seemed like things were finally going to change for the better... "We are not the Borg," the voices repeated, "anymore." This is getting more confusing every--wait a minute. Those voices sound wrong... He looked around again, and spotted what he had missed the first time. "Tom, the Borg!" There was shock in her voice...shock, and hope. "Yeah," he nodded, "I see it too, 'Lanna." The Borg had expressions. Not the callous, mechanical masks that Tom had come to hate in the hours since he'd come on board, but real, honest-to-God, individual expressions. They didn't seem like unfriendly ones, either, more like--hungry? Bad image, he decided, but appropriate. They regarded Tom and B'Elanna as if they had something that the Borg desperately wanted. Maybe we do, he thought. Beside him, B'Elanna let out a long breath, and then turned quickly to him. "Tom? Are you...all right?" Her eyes were dark with concern, and the previous terror in her voice--when she had watched him dying--ran through his memory. "Uh--I think so. No real harm done." He tried to smile carelessly, but he was too confused and shaken to pull it off. She nodded, but kept hold of his hand as they stood up, and wrapped a supportive arm around his waist once they were on their feet. "Now," B'Elanna said to the assembled Borg, "since we've come on board your vessel, we've been attacked, terrified, manipulated, and nearly killed. And now you say you've been looking for us? We'll listen to an explanation, but it had better be good." Tom's grin was genuine this time. You tell 'em, B'Elanna! A Borg stepped forward. It might have been the Borg who'd almost suffocated Tom, or it might not have--it was hard to tell. "My name is Kynn," he said. One more surprise. "Our...people were Borg before; we have no name now." "When?" Tom interrupted. "I mean, how long ago were you Borg?" Kynn hesitated. "I believe...centuries?" No wonder the ship looks different from the ones we know! "How did you quit being Borg?" B'Elanna asked, sounding bewildered. "There was a...malfunction. The cause was never isolated, but a unit aboard this ship developed...an individual personality. The effect spread slowly and subtly, but by the time it was discovered, all the units aboard this ship had been affected. To prevent contamination, we were...isolated from the rest of the collective." "Isolated?" Tom interrupted again. "You mean, they threw you out?" Kynn didn't seem to understand, and he rephrased it. "You were no longer part of the collective?" "That is correct." B'Elanna was frowning, the way she did when she was trying to diagnose an engine problem. "So you were all still connected to each other, but not to the collective. And you all had individual personalities, so you couldn't just form a miniature collective." "That is correct," Kynn repeated. Something like horror was in Tom's expression, he knew. To suddenly lose your entire way of life, and everything and everyone you'd ever known-- Who does that remind me of? he wondered bleakly, and moved a little closer to B'Elanna; she didn't object. And it wasn't even their fault. "What happene
d then?" he asked, trying to shake off his unwilling sympathy. "We sought instruction," Kynn replied, "in individuality. The first race we located, after a year's time," he added, looking at Tom, "was named the Vyarri. We learned much from them, but their systems proved...irrational. Wasteful. We terminated our association with them." "Wasteful of what? Energy?" That was B'Elanna's question, phrased like a true engineer. "Lives," Kynn answered succinctly. "Oh, Jesus," Tom breathed, suddenly understanding. If they'd run into an aggressive, warring race, whose members fought constantly, like the Kazon, what must the "instruction" provided have been like for a bunch of people who were all telepathically connected? The temptation to strike out at each other must have been irresistible, and the results would have been devastating. "Did any of you die?" "Fourteen." Kynn's tone was generally hard to read, but Tom was sure he'd heard grief in it that time. He paused a minute, then continued. "The Vyarri did not possess compassion, or...caring. We learned of this only through its absence. It seemed to us that such traits would be necessary to an existence such as ours. But there were no teachers, and our existence was becoming difficult to bear. A decision was reached. We placed ourselves in hibernation, to wait for teachers." "And that's...us? Teachers in compassion and caring?" Incredulous, he could almost hear his father's scoffing voice--then his eyes slid sideways to B'Elanna's face, and he banished the phantom fiercely. "That is you," Kynn confirmed. He could feel B'Elanna starting to say something, and the look of outrage on her face told him what it would be. "B'Elanna, NO!" he hissed in her ear. Before she could go on, he said loudly, "Excuse me, Kynn. We need a few minutes alone to discuss this." Kynn looked mulish, and Tom didn't try to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "Look, you owe us. And you say you need us. So back off, all right?" Reluctantly, the Borg moved out of earshot. Tom hoped, anyway. He thought he saw reluctant admiration on B'Elanna's face, but it vanished as she pulled away and turned on him. "Don't you EVER try to shut me up, Tom Paris!" she hissed. "You were going to say no, weren't you?" he hissed back. "So what? After everything they've put us through, you want to HELP them? Give me one good reason!" "I can't!" he nearly yelled, then stopped and tried to wrestle down his temper. Since when can she make me this furious? "I can't," he repeated more calmly, "but I can't think of a good reason for the captain to have taken a chance on me, either. But she did." "You see yourself in them?" She sounded surprised. "That look in their eyes. So lost, so damned uncertain. Almost screaming, 'Please help me. Please give me some purpose. Please, don't turn away from me.'" Tom's hands clenched, then opened again, convulsively. "Yeah." The silence was endless; Tom studied the floor, feeling sick. He didn't want her disgust, or her pity. But when her warm hand touched his arm, and he looked up, he didn't see either. Only acceptance, and understanding. "Remind me to tell you sometime," she said with a small smile, "what I was doing for a living when I hooked up with Chakotay." Paris returned her smile, his a bit uncertain, and a bit embarrassed. He'd just revealed more of himself to this woman in the past few minutes than he had to anyone in the past year, even Harry. It left an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn't like leaving himself open like this, yet when he looked in her eyes, it somehow felt right that he should share this part of himself with her. Giving Tom a look full of understanding, B'Elanna said softly, "Okay, hotshot, go for it." She turned them back toward the Borg. Addressing Kynn, Tom said, "OK, the first thing you need to do is stop this ship and open communications with Voyager. The captain will want to speak with you." "She is like you?" questioned Kynn, a bit suspiciously, as if he did not quite trust them yet. Paris nodded, trying not to hold Kynn's suspicious nature against him. Given how these Borg had been living, he could hardly blame them. "If you think I'm full of understanding and compassion, wait 'til you meet her." Softening his tone, he said, "She's really the one you should be talking to anyway." Looking disappointed, almost like a child, Kynn said, "We are talking to her. You do not wish to continue conversing with me?" Surprised, Tom could only stare for a moment. "No, it isn't that, it's just that Captain Janeway is in a position of authority to make certain decisions that I'm not. If you'd like to talk more later," he shrugged, "I'll be around. Just ask for me." Kynn considered them for a long moment. Finally, when he spoke, it was with the awkwardness of not being skilled at making small talk. "You have names?" he asked. Paris nodded. "My name is Tom Paris. This is B'Elanna Torres. And the other two crewmen who were with us are Ethan Simms and Mikel Hudson, who, by the way, are still missing." "They are safe," Kynn reassured him. "We'd like to see that for ourselves," B'Elanna said, still not completely trusting these "new-and-improved" Borg. Kynn turned and spoke to one of his comrades behind him. The Borg left the room as Kynn turned back to Paris and Torres. "The other two--Ethan Simms and Mikel Hudson?--will be brought here shortly." Another of the other Borg whispered in Kynn's ear. Kynn looked at Paris and Torres. "You may contact your ship now. We will speak with Captain Janeway." Exchanging an uncertain look with B'Elanna, Tom hesitantly touched his comm badge. "Paris to Voyager." There was a slight pause, then Janeway's concerned voice came over the link. "Mr. Paris, are you all right?" "I'm fine, Captain. B'Elanna's here with me, and we've been assured that Hudson and Simms are safe." "Tom, the Borg ship's shields are down. We're beaming you out of there." On the Voyager bridge, heads swiveled in confusion when Paris said, "Captain, wait." After a brief lull, Paris came back on line. "Captain, one of the Borg would like to beam over with us to talk with you. He has an intriguing story to relate." Janeway looked at Chakotay who looked as uneasy as she felt. Addressing Paris, she asked, "Does Lt. Torres concur with this?" "Captain," came Torres' voice, "I understand your apprehension, but I agree with Tom. Allow Kynn to beam over with us. I think you'll be interested to hear what he has to say." "Very well," Janeway agreed. "We'll beam you over shortly." Cutting the link, she looked at Chakotay. "Commander, care to join me?" "I wouldn't miss this," he replied, joining her as she headed for the turbolift. "Tuvok, have a security team meet us in the transporter room," she instructed. "You have the bridge."