Stardate 47510.1
 Maquis base 4, RA12, the DMZ

Okay, it was different than he'd expected.

The cavern was crude and cramped, with low ceilings and an inadequate bay area. There was no sign of activity or industry. There was no sign of tech, but for a few gutted replicators and an old, tired looking sensor array.  And the equipment heaved against the far wall was rusting; brown stains were overlying the surfaces like a rash.

Tom's nose wrinkled and he shifted his bag strap on his shoulder, hefting it's weight and rearranging his posture. Oxidization decay was an almost unheard of phenomenon in this century, at least as it pertained to pieces of tech, and yet there the rust was, decomposing both casings and conduits, eating into whatever working systems these people had left.

"So I'm here," he said, gaze scrolling its way around the cavern.  Ignoring all evidence to the contrary he added, "It's not so bad."  But he didn't quite achieve the assurance of tone he was trying for.  On Earth, even the seediest dives still felt somewhat sanitized.  They might be ill lit and vaguely disreputable, but they were clean, well maintained, safe.  None of them looked anything like this.

Tom felt slightly awkward.  Out of place.  Somewhere in his mind, an traitorous voice was whispering that this was just as bad as he'd expected.  Worse.  He remembered Starfleet HQ, lush green lawns, clear blue skies, and crisp uniformed Starfleet officers with perfect white teeth and shiny hair.  He wanted a drink, and some way to forget where he had ended up, and how far away it was from anywhere he'd ever wanted to be.

Behind him, the tiny vessel that had dropped him off hummed and lifted a metre or so off the ground, hovering for a moment before it shot out of the cavern and disappeared into the murky night sky.

"Chakotay."

Seska's greeting caught Chakotay as he was making for the main ship, head bowed slightly, kneading a sore muscle in his shoulder.  A headache was threatening.  Sheer will was staving it off.  They had been hiding out in the relative quite of an asteroid belt for five days; fear of discovery was keeping everyone on edge.  Repairs on the nacelle were going nowhere, and there was an additional undercurrent of anxiety today, a tricky passenger drop-off that required another maquis to make it in and out of their hideout on this m-class asteroid without being detected by any one of numerous patrols that the Cardassian military had set up this side of the Badlands. 

Eddington had confided the plan to Chakotay a week ago, in a low, fevered voice over a secured comm line.  A precision attack on an arms base.  It was heavily guarded, said Eddington, but blow a big enough hole in that installation and they could prove to the Federation that the Cardassians were gunrunning right in their own backyard.  Chakotay, frowning over the transmitted plans, had protested at the skill level required in the manoeuvre.  Maquis raiders weren't equipped to fly against high level Cardassian military defences, and the Maquis under Chakotay's command possessed no formal combat training; they were colonists, farmers and Bajorans who had learned their trade during the occupation. 

Eddington had nodded and leaned forward intently.  "That's just it.  We don't use one of our own.  We hire from outside."

"There isn't a pilot in the alpha quadrant who'd fly a run like this for money."

"Oh, I've got you a pilot, Chakotay.   Tell me, do have a sense of irony?  Imagine for a moment that Jake Sisko was our agent aboard Deep Space Nine.  It's that perfect.  I've got you a pilot.  Don't you worry." 

Seska had argued a night away with him on the subject, argued Eddington's competency, argued for a subtler, more vicious attack, argued against ceding any mission to a former Starfleet who wasn't part of the Maquis now, and likely never would be.  Her voice had coaxed at first, in honeyed tones of persuasion; it had ended hard with intelligence, and with the derision that showed itself every time she said the word Federation.

Now she was unreadable, her words a flat statement of fact.  "Pilot's arrived."

"Impressions?" he asked her, as she fell into step beside him. They ducked into the ship through the entrance provided by an opened cargo bay.

She glanced at him.  "Have you seen his records?" 

"Yes, and they're impeccable," said Chakotay.  "Nova squadron in his first year, a stint as squadron leader, then he went straight from the Academy into something galaxy-class." 

"The USS-Exeter," Seska said, her mouth twisting.  "His piloting credentials are as long as my arm and we're supposed to believe he was all of a sudden cashiered from Starfleet over a pilot error?  You put too much faith in Eddington, Chakotay.  This whole set up reeks of the Federation, and Eddington is so blind, he's letting it happen." 

This was the crux of the matter.  Eddington.  "Why should he lead?" Seska had demanded of Chakotay venomously, more than once.  "He's not a Bajoran.  He's not a colonist. He's Starfleet.  He's a fanatic.  We'd be better off if you'd do it.  If you'd just do it.  Get rid of him." 

It played with disturbing accuracy on his own doubts and suspicions.  It made him feel uncomfortable.  "Eddington's background check was thorough." 

"Would the Federation send an agent who could be identified in a routine background check?" Seska scoffed. "But even if he's not a spy, he's still the son of a high up Federation.  A living, breathing target.  An excuse for Starfleet.  They'll come at us with photon torpedoes firing.  I'm right.  You know I'm right, Chakotay." 

Chakotay passed a hand across his face, a minutely weary gesture, contemplative, rubbing at those parts of his flesh that felt gritty, overexposed.  "Admiral Paris's son," he said. 

Those words carried an enormous amount of weight. 

There had always been an unspoken hierarchy within Starfleet.  Not a class system, but unquestionably a group of men and women who stood higher than most in the estimation of Command:  Paris, Brahms, Hawk, Janeway, Kieran, La Forge.  Humans, most often from families with long, lustrous histories in the fleet, their names gleamed with a uniquely golden sheen.  They were the best and the brightest, stars on the rise, set to rocket to the top of their chosen fields.   They saved lives, earned promotions, and inevitably went on to careers as dashing doctors, wizardly engineers or thirty-something Captains who amazed and consolidated the Federation, pulling off the impossible in their dazzling little starships. 

Achieving it all, it seemed, less by virtue of what they did, than by virtue of who they were. 

B'Elanna might have been one such, Chakotay had always thought.  B'Elanna Torres might have shone as brightly as any of the stars in the Federation, had she not been different in some indefinable, yet fundamental way.  Unacceptable to the constellation.  The Klingon ridges weren't the half of it. 

Admiral Paris's son. 

Chakotay wasn't a man predisposed to make rash, or hasty judgements, but it was difficult to resist the image of the young Paris, handed advantage after advantage, finally unable to live up to the status of his name.  Not capable enough.  Not talented enough.  Unable to compass difficulty.  And now he'd bottomed out, lost it, fallen into the Maquis. 

"I think he's going to be a problem, regardless," Chakotay said, slowly.  "It's the . . . the . . . "   He made an expressive gesture. 

"You think it's bad now.  You haven't even seen him yet.  Wait till you do.  It's worse. I left him with Carter.  I thought he might as well make himself useful but--" Seska seemed unconvinced.  "Chakotay, hiring from outside was a mistake." 

"I'll talk to him," he said.  "Try to avert a disaster.  Seska, we don't have much of a choice." 

"Hey," Seska said softy.  Reacting to the tone in his voice, she reached out and brushed his arm.  "Chakotay.  If there's anything I can do . . . " 

That won a smile from him, small but genuine.   "Get some rest.  We meet Kasidy tomorrow.  It's going to be a big day." 

She nodded, holding his gaze, then left him to thoughts and concern.  Spy.  He didn't think so.  He didn't think that was it.  Seska saw traps and plots everywhere, in the readings of the sensors, in the patterns of the stars, but the Federation wasn't--quite--that duplicitous.  No, the problems Tom Paris engendered were going to be far more tangible, Chakotay was sure of it.  Prejudice and mistrust.  They hovered in the wings, like the headache, waiting for a cue.  You haven't even seen him yet.  Wait until you do.

Admiral Paris's son.  She's right.  I don't like it.  What's he doing here?
 

Port-side, one hand on the ship's deuranium hull, Tom Paris was asking himself the same question. 

What am I doing here?

He was staring down at a pair of boots, presumably connected to a person.  Someone was lying beneath the jutting nacelle, in a manner reminiscent of a twentieth century mechanic, sprawled out beneath an automobile.  The occasional muffled clunk emerged from the space.  Heavy sounds that meant someone was tinkering with the ship's hardware. Indelicately. 

"Jo Carter?" 

A muffled noise answered him.  "Uh.  Hello?" he tried again. 

A Bajoran pushed herself out into the open, squinting. 

Brown was his first impression.  Brown pants, brown top, brown smudge of dust on her cheek.  And it was the same dark dirty brown as her short, straight, greasy-looking hair.  No one in this place looked as though they'd eaten, or even slept, anytime in the last week. 

She stared at him, her brown gaze suspicious.  It verged on hostile.

"I've been sent to help out," he began, awkwardly.

"You're the Starfleet pilot."  There was something about the way she said Starfleet. The way they all said it. 

"Is that a problem?" 

Defensive.  Shit.  If he'd met her four months ago, he would have handled it differently.  Since the accident that had ended his Starfleet career, he'd become only too used to facing blank walls of hostility, closing in on all sides.  The only way he knew not to let them crush him was to force the issue. 

Carter's features flattened out.  She didn't say one way or the other.  She just glanced at an exposed section of the nacelle.  "Distribution coils need work."  She informed him of this fact, then turned back to her own work, ignoring him completely.

Tom thought, Great.

A lack of anything else to do eventually drew him over to the nacelle section in question.  Phaser marks were scored over the deuranium, he noticed.  He followed the line of one a little way with his fingers.  "Looks like she took quite a beating," he said, after a low whistle.  An unthinking comment.  He turned, more than a little surprised when Carter answered him.

"Three days with a Galor class starship on our tail.  Shields were breached.  The nacelle's a mess.  It took the brunt of the damage." 

"Three days?  You held off a Cardassian starship in this thing for three days?" 

Nothing.  The pride that had provoked Carter into an initial response was evidently not enough to engage her further.  She was staring at him again.  He knew the look.  It was sour and all too familiar.

"I--uh . . . has the ship got a name?" Tom asked almost arbitrarily.  He was off balance, feeling like he should be able to handle himself.  Once, he had been considered charming.  Good with people.  Women, particularly.

Grudgingly, "Torres--she's our engineer.  She's half Klingon--they named it.  Magh.  Klingon word.  It means--" 

His grip on the edge of the nacelle tightened.  Magh.   It killed any impulse to try and win her over, and, feeling light-headed, he stopped extending himself, his defences slamming firmly into place.

"I know what it means," Tom said. 

Two hours of mucking about with the Magh's  K't'inga technology and Tom had formed a detailed, comprehensive and professional opinion of the ship. 

It's a piece of junk.

Unaccountably, his spirits lifted. 

The Federation signs a treaty ceding certain areas along the disputed border to Cardassia. UFP settlers within those areas react violently against the idea. They file an official protest, which is ignored. Soon after, they decide to take matters into their own hands. They want Cardassia out. They want their homes back.

Jeez, some of these parts must be thirty years old.

Tom trailed his gaze over the length of the hull, the lazy sweep camouflaging a cool, professionally critical appraisal. Shearing stress in three of the main plasma manifolds.  Port nacelle shot to hell.  Outdated sensor array . . . 

That part of him that revelled in flying skill, that part of him that had never backed down from a piloting challenge now awoke, uncurled, took notice. Look who the Maquis were taking on, and with what, it whispered. These were people fighting with cobbled together engines and outdated tech, and they still had the UFP's Starfleet running around in impotent circles, unable to do much more than spew out threats from their outpost at Deep Space Nine. 

Okay, so it wasn't the officer's club, strange new worlds and a red shouldered uniform, but it was people making a difference. A handful of people, following their hearts, trying to make a difference. 

That counted for something, didn't it? 

Fool, fool, fool, Tom's mind repeated, small beats in time with his heart. Only a fool would fly an attack run on an arms base (Suspected arms base, he self-corrected primly, evidencing a certain amount of unconscious Federation partisanship, despite his situation), scant light years from the Federation's most heavily fortified Deep Space Station, in a ship that looked about as spaceworthy as a damp paper bag. And about half as fast. 

But I could do it, I think. I know the territory. I'm good enough. I think. 

"Carter."  A voice Tom didn't recognize spoke from behind the bulkhead.  It was low pitched, soft and almost husky.  Clear enough to carry.  "How's it going down here?" 

"Primary systems are back online," Carter answered.  "I still can't find the source of the power surge, but we're ready for the run tomorrow.  I'm missing Torres, Chakotay.  Bad.  Wish she'd get herself down from that missile." 

Chakotay,  Tom thought.  The pilot.  And Torres, that was this group's mythical half-Klingon engineer.  Tom rested the palm of his hand flat on the surface of the metal panelling and listened, took all of this in. 

Chakotay was saying, "Seska sent Paris down here to help you out. . .?" 

"By the couplings.  Section four." 

Chakotay had already formed a vague mental picture of Tom Paris.  Seska's suspicions  had translated themselves in his mind into an image of the Starfleet investigative archetype.  Thick necked and rather serious, with a blank expression and possessed of a kind of overt, know-it-all foolishness.  Blending with this image were his own memories of Admiral Paris.  Cold eyed, arrogant, with a paunch and an autocratic air.  He was hardly looking forward to the anticipated exchange. 

But then, rounding the corner, he saw Tom Paris himself, back to the bulkhead, eyes wary as he watched for Chakotay's arrival. 

A flurry of first impressions.  Blond, well groomed, nice jumpsuit. Preppy hair. 

Young. 

Chakotay found himself absorbing the sheer incongruity of the man before him with a kind of appalled fascination. Tom Paris, lounging--lounging, the very word echoed with disbelief in Chakotay's mind--against the Maquis ship wall, looked at once unimpressed and immature; a prized, petted thoroughbred colt, led from his trailer into a run down village, arching his neck in disdain at the locals. 

"Tom Paris," he said by way of greeting, hearing in his mind Seska's outraged voice. You haven't even seen him yet.  "You're Admiral Paris's son." 

Tom's only response, spoken in a flat, unhelpful tone, was, "Yeah." 

I was right,  Chakotay decided at that moment, allowing his gaze to drift the length of Tom's form.  With that attitude and that . . .   Tom's hair, his jump suit, even the boots he wore looked Federation, UFP to the core, the outfit cut along crisp, fashionable lines to flatter the length of his tawny form.   All that was needed to complete the picture were the pointed regulation sideburns and the trademark red shoulders of the Starfleet Command uniform. That Academy boy image, he concluded finally,  he won't last three days here, let alone three weeks.

"You were 'Fleet," Chakotay said bluntly.  "And I can see where, for some employers, having an obviously ex-career 'Fleeter at their helm might be considered . . . an advantage.  A feather, a status symbol, whatever.  But here, forget it.  Here the attitude will get you killed." 

Eyes narrowing slightly, Tom's attention returned to Chakotay's face.  "The attitude," he said. 

"There are five of us for you to deal with now," Chakotay continued.  "Myself, Seska, Carter, Tuvok and Kenneth Dalby.  Five people.  But tomorrow we rendezvous with Kasidy, and three days later we're meeting a group of thirty.  If you underestimate the level of hostility these people have for the Federation, you're going to end up in more trouble than any of us will be able to get you out of." 

Tom's gaze held, clear, a little brittle.  Beneath it however, he was shifting his weight.  There were small, nervous breaks in his calm.  Anticipating another brief, childish snap response, Chakotay felt a shock of pleasant surprise when, after a moment, Tom said, "Noted.  I'll try to keep that in mind.  Thanks." 

In return, perhaps in an unconscious attempt to make reparation for the brusqueness of his greeting, Chakotay said, "How are you feeling about the run?  You've seen the ship now . . . " 

"Oh," Tom said, relaxing another notch, actually making a face as he glanced briefly around the corridor.  "Yeah.  Well, she certainly looks um . . . " 

"Challenging?" 

"That's one way of putting it." 

"Ever flown a K't'inga-class ship?" 

"You're kidding, right?"  Tom's lips parted slightly.  He looked genuinely surprised to have been asked this question. 

"Because if you haven't you'll need to--" 

"No, I've flown one, Chakotay.  I'm a pilot, remember?   I'm not a colonist amateur.  I trained at Starfleet Academy." 

The arrogance of it hit him full force.  "When a man is forced to resign from the Fleet," said Chakotay, "and then professes himself willing to fly for the Maquis--fly a dangerous run against a Cardassian arms installation--I have to question his ability." 

"Well, you don't have to question mine," Tom said, folding his arms. 

Chakotay was again reminded of Seska and her warnings.  Eddington the fanatic, and now he'd landed them with a pilot who looked Starfleet to the core.  Ironic.  Not much else.  Tom was too handsome to be talented as well; the look in his blue eyes was spoiled, and feckless.  "Tell me--why here?  Tom?  Why the Maquis?" 

Tom hesitated.  The question tugged at his own almost overwhelming desire to confide.  Tell someone.  Tell them about flying carriers for a deuranium mining corporation for two months; a mind numbing, pride destroying, drudge job he'd hated, and from which, thanks to incessant drinking and the kind of recklessness that comes with utter boredom, he had finally been dismissed.  Tell them about the desperation.  The loneliness.  The terrible, shattering need he had to feel as though the things he did mattered to somebody--anybody.  Just say the words.  I'm here because this, whatever it is, is all I have now.  This.

He felt his gut twisting.  Small breath.  "You're paying me twenty bars of latinum," he said, voice light. 

"Money."  Chakotay held his gaze. 

"Man's greatest motivator." 

"And if there are people on that installation?" 

"Then they'll get killed," said Tom, after only the slightest pause.  "You're the one commissioning the run, Chakotay.  You know that." 

"I know that," Chakotay agreed, calmly.  "I also know that weapons from that installation are being used to terrorize border colonists.  Kill--" 

"Hey, if it's for the greater good, I've got no problem."   Tom's smile was brief enough for Chakotay to recognize the comment for what it was.

"You believe otherwise?" 

Tom didn't immediately reply. 

Chakotay pushed it a little further.  "I'm interested, actually, in what your political views might be." 

"I'm here," Tom said with clear and deliberate emphasis, "for the money." 

"You present like you're pro-Federation," Chakotay said. 

"Why--because I think 'Cardies bad, Bajorans good' is a bit politically naive?" 

Chakotay was careful in his reply.  "Naivety is believing that the Cardassian government intends to honour that treaty.  Already they're nibbling at the edges of the demilitarized zone, and doing it right under the nose of the Federation.  Conducting raids, gunrunning, expediting the removal of Federation citizens from their territory--" 

"That's speculation," Tom countered.  "Just like there was speculation about Klingon arms trading in the early days of the Khitomer Accords.  All sorts of wild stories about deals forged by General Daagh with the Tal'shiar, fears that our borders would open only to find a hostile force waiting to invade the Federation.  But if there had been an anti-Klingon Maquis in the days of the Accords, we'd never have achieved peace along our border.  You think that . . . what?" 

Tom broke off, flushing slightly, his animation instantly transforming itself into nervy, defensive energy.  Chakotay became aware of the strange, half-assessing, half-involved expression that had crept over his own face. 

"It's--I don't often hear the counter-view," he said.  I did not expect you to demonstrate any level of political enthusiasm, he didn't say, finding Tom's words to be somewhat at odds with the more insouciant persona he presented.  But it occurred to him that Tom had doubtless spent a great deal of time in the company of Starfleet policy makers, friends of his father.  It was very likely that he was parroting views he'd heard at the dinner table.  He was Admiral Paris's son, after all.

Tom had relaxed.  "Well, I mean, I understand that it's difficult to trust Cardassia after the war, but without trust, I don't think it's possible to achieve any kind of successful diplomacy.  With anyone.  Not just Cardassia." 

"There's a difference between diplomatic trust and blind trust.  The former forges bonds.  The latter gets people killed." 

Tom shook his head.  "The Federation is built on trust.  Trust in other races, trust in humanity, trust in ourselves.  Trust is worth something more than--" 

"Like the trust that the UFP won't suddenly hand your homes over to a race of a people intent on brutalizing you?  Brutalizing your family?  Is that the kind of trust you mean?" 

"The treaty of 2367 was signed with the full co-operation of--" 

"If that treaty had been mutually acceptable the Maquis wouldn't exist."  Chakotay didn't lift his eyes from Tom's face.  "You accuse me of political naivety in one breath, and in the next you're talking about 'ideal trust' and 'full co-operation'?  Tom, live with these people, experience their situation.  Then presume to speak." 

Tom said, "It isn't naive to believe in an ideal, or in the decency of people.  That given a chance they might--might--" 

"Cardassians aren't people." Chakotay said it flatly, without thinking. 

Cardassians aren't like humans, he'd meant.  The similarities between the two races are too slight to facilitate friendship.  But the words that emerged were subtly different, telling.  A year ago he would have been horrified at the thought of it, such prejudice.  Now, emotionally, if not intellectually, he believed it.  Cardassians aren't people. 

He watched Tom's expression change, withdraw.  "Yeah, whatever," the young man said after a pause.  "Whatever, Chakotay.  I'm just here for the money, remember?" 

"Yes," Chakotay said, anger spreading slowly through his chest.  "I will remember.  But I want you to understand something, Tom.  I spent a lifetime in Starfleet, learning the Federation mantra you're defending.  I'm not here because I hate Cardassians or because I want some kind of. . .war.  I'm here because something important is at stake, the freedom of the colonists, my friends, and their families.  Your own views--considering that you're in Maquis employ--are hypocritical at best.  And there's a word they might be called at their worst--" 

Tom flushed again.  Hard. 

"We fly out tomorrow," Chakotay told him, "to meet up with Kasidy Yates.  Don't expect a place at conn."