NEW VOY: Coffin (1/1), PG [P] Title: Coffin Author: Dave Rogers Email Address: daverogers@geocities.com Series: VOY Rating: PG Codes: P Part: 1/1 Date Posted: 12th November 1999 Summary: PTC Archivist's Challenge story: Just how claustrophobic is Tom, and why? After the events of "One", a flashback to Tom's Maquis days. Disclaimer: I just like to write about Paramount's characters. I always have. I don't know why. Acknowledgements: Thanks to Jenn for beta reading, Tara O'Shea for issuing the challenge, and Jim Wright's Delta Blues website for background information. Coffin The Mutara class nebula a recent memory, three friends and a perpetual outsider relaxed in idle conversation. "Just think - we could have died in those coffins," said Tom Paris nervously. B'Elanna Torres quietly laid a hand on his in reassurance. "I suspect you would have found a way out before that, Lieutenant," replied Seven of Nine with typically muted amusement. "What do you mean?" asked Harry Kim, sensing a chance for some gentle ribbing of his closest, but sometimes most irritatingly self-confident friend. "Lieutenant Paris refused to stay confined. On four separate occasions, the Doctor and I had to put him back into his stasis unit." The reformed Borg looked round at all three of them, two amused and one abashed. Harry laughed. "Were you, um, locked in dark closets or something as a child?" "I just don't like closed places. I never have. I don't know why." Tom Paris was lying, of course. Partly, at least. ================ The first ship was small, cramped, slow and uncomfortable, as befitted the dignity of its sole passenger. The aged Lieutenant-Commander in the Captain's chair could hardly have had a distinguished career, nor was it likely that any of his crew were destined for better things. The simple task of ferrying Maquis prisoners back to Earth for trial and, presumably, imprisonment was itself almost beyond them, and they made up for their lack of hope in the age-old fashion: finding someone even lower in the pecking order, and engaging in simple-minded cruelty. Not that they would have seen it that way. Ensign Mendoza, second of Security, honestly believed that Tom Paris was a dangerous man, and that strip-searching, solitary confinement and round-the-clock cell inspections were no more than reasonable precautions. "Wake up, Admiral's son. Inspection time." Paris struggled to sit up, helped by the anticipation of the blows that would follow if he wasn't stood to attention within twenty seconds. He stood, silently at first, as Mendoza searched him and poked into every corner of the brig cell. Then, as the officer moved towards a certain panel, Paris felt that a diversion was necessary. "Okay, I confess. I've made a hand phaser out of yesterday's stew. It'll stun at fifty paces." Mendoza stood, turned to Paris, and scowled. "Very clever. I'm sure you'll get a few years' remission for that sense of humour." "Then maybe I'll be out before you make Lieutenant. How long is it now, *Ensign* Mendoza? Not too many promotion prospects on this run." "Stow it, Paris. I hear they're setting up a penal colony on Antarctica just for you Maquis. That'll stop your smiling." "I'm sure it'll seem even colder after the warmth of your hospitality." Paris watched the Mendoza's face carefully. Push him hard enough but not too hard, that was the trick. The ensign had already forgotten which bits of the cell he'd inspected. Mendoza took a brief glance at the security camera, still clearly out of commission. Then, turning swiftly, he thrust the butt of his phaser rifle into Tom's solar plexus. "Sorry, Paris. Clumsy of me," he said as he left the cell. Paris stayed, crouched in the corner, as Mendoza left for some other task. Usual procedure, then; they simply didn't have enough crew to watch him full time and still man the ship. Feeling inside his left boot, he took out the bone he'd found in yesterday's stew, inserted it into a carefully hidden gap between two bulkhead panels, and worked quietly for a few minutes. Slowly, silently, a panel hinged out from the wall, and the tempting prospect of a Jefferies tube lay ahead. He'd have about thirty minutes to explore further. A shame he didn't have a schematic for one of these modified Peregrine class couriers, he thought; he'd have been able to find an escape pod in a few minutes. The Jefferies tube was small and cramped, but Paris had never been too concerned at being in tight spaces. Or tight situations, for that matter; he was down now, but not out, and at the speed this ship looked capable of he couldn't be too far from the demilitarised zone. An escape pod, a subspace message to Chakotay, a few hours' wait and he'd be a free man. He was actually looking forward to telling Chakotay how he'd got the message through. Maybe he'd actually start to win his Captain's confidence this time. And then there was a low, muted thud, echoing through the entire ship, and the walls of the Jefferies tube seemed to shake. Paris realised that there was another factor in the equation. The ship was under attack. It took him a couple of minutes of frantic crawling to get back to his cell, and he barely managed to secure the panel before Mendoza hurried in. "Paris, come with me." Mendoza held a phaser rifle in shaking hands. Beware a nervous man with a gun, Paris remembered from his Academy training. He raised both hands, palms forward, in a gesture of acquiescence, then went ahead of Mendoza. "This is the weapons bay," said Paris in surprise as they reached their destination. "What are..." "Warning. Hull breach in two minutes," interrupted the computer's voice. "Get in," ordered Mendoza, indicating a photon torpedo casing. The cover was open and a portable life support unit was inside. "Any chance of an upgrade to first class?" The butt of the phaser rifle hit him in the stomach again, and this time he struggled for breath for a few seconds. "There's no room in the escape pods. You're lucky the Captain's even bothering with this. Get in now, or I'll kill you." He looked like he would, and Paris could understand why; any delay here reduced Mendoza's own chances of reaching an escape pod. So he laid down quietly in the torpedo, and waited as Mendoza sealed the casing. He heard the hiss of the other torpedo launcher, and realised the captain must have fired to mask his own departure; then there was a sudden acceleration, and all was darkness and silence. Trained reflexes and responses kicked in immediately. No telling how long this would last; time to take stock, see what resources were available to him, act to maximise his chance of survival. Groping around in his makeshift spacecraft, he found the life support unit and switched on its integral spotlight. He could see very little around his own shadow, but enough to see he had the absolute basics. Field rations, water, air and a waste recycling unit. Bearing in mind the way he'd been treated, it was more than he'd expected. Maybe the crew had just been afraid of him, maybe they were just decent people trying to do their jobs. A couple of years ago, he'd probably been much the same. Most importantly, there was a subspace beacon in the torpedo, sending out a continuous distress call. Paris didn't know which direction the torpedo had been launched in, but he presumed he was in, or close to, one of the Federation's main shipping lanes. There'd be something out there, a freighter, a Starfleet vessel, or whatever. So long as it wasn't Cardassian, he'd probably be safe enough. In fact... whoever picked him up would have no idea he was a prisoner, might even take him back to the demilitarised zone. It was worth a try, anyway. He drifted gently off into a peaceful sleep, the best he'd had since his capture, as he rehearsed his cover story. Here, even trapped in this tiny coffin, he felt almost free already. The second ship was small, fast, manoeuvrable, but most of all unobtrusive, as befitted the type of mission it was likely to perform. The two men who crewed it were human, and beyond that there was little to say of them. Of average height, average build and average colouring, they could both have vanished into any crowd. Neither used names in addressing the other; it seemed that names were in any case no more than a momentary convenience to such men as these. If asked about an organisation called Section 31, no doubt both would have denied that such a thing had ever existed. "He's early," said the slightly taller of the two men. "I'm picking up a standard subspace beacon at seventeen mark thirty-five degrees, five thousand kilometres." "Are you sure it's him?" asked his slightly lighter-haired companion. "The pickup's not due for two more days." The taller man studied his console. "Photon torpedo casing, standard Federation distress beacon, one set of lifesigns - human - and within half a parsec of the rendezvous. If it's not him, it's one hell of a coincidence." "Agreed. Bring him in." Moments later, the photon torpedo materialised on the transporter pad. As the cover swung open, neither man betrayed any surprise, but both surreptitiously checked the phasers at their hips. "Am I glad to see you," gushed Paris. "I thought nobody was ever going to find me!" He held out a friendly hand. "Tom Piper, Federation observer to..." What was the name of that place Chakotay was always talking about? Oh yes... "Dorvan. I was taking passage on the USS Goshawk, when we got attacked by Cardassian renegades. I'd be really grateful if you could get me to a starbase." As he spoke, Paris tried hard to project the image of a naive young bureaucrat with more talent for speaking than for listening; but from the silent stares of the two men watching him, he began to suspect something had gone wrong already. "Or somewhere in the demilitarised zone. Or any inhabited world would do," he prattled. "Whereabouts are you headed?" The taller man turned to a computer console, entered a few commands and studied the results; then he turned back to Paris. "The Federation observer on Dorvan is a Bolian woman named Chenarr." A phaser appeared in his hand. "Try again." "Chenarr, right. I'm supposed to be assisting her for the next three months..." Paris stopped talking, as the man before him shook his head slowly and deliberately. "Okay, what the hell." It hadn't been much of a plan anyway, and he didn't have another story prepared. "I'm a member of the Maquis. I was captured two weeks ago and I was on my way back to Earth for trial. I don't know what attacked us, but the ship was done for and there weren't any spare places in the escape pods. If you're Starfleet then I guess I'm still headed for Earth. If you're not, there's a man called Chakotay who might reward you for bringing me back." "Not good enough," said the taller man in a flat voice. "What d'you mean, not good enough? You think I'd make up something like that?" The taller man nodded towards the lighter haired man, then looked back to Paris. "We'll find out who you are." Paris never saw the taller man fire his phaser; it must have been the other. He fell, unable to move, but still conscious, as the two men picked him up and placed him on a bunk. There was the hiss of a hypospray, and then confusion set in. The passage of time seemed erratic and unpredictable at first. There were faces bent over him, and lights, and a voice asking questions. He was vaguely aware of the questions; always the same, over and over again. He answered every one, as clearly as he could. He felt a desperate, burning need to get the answer right, to satisfy the curiosity of his inquisitors, to make them happy. He told them his name, his background, the names of his Maquis cell, the co-ordinates of the Maquis base, and any other piece of information he felt they might like to hear. He was desperately worried, though, that in his confusion he might have got the details wrong; so he told them over and over again, even after the questions stopped. His concern turned to fear, when it became clear that they didn't want to hear his answers any more, and then to an aching loneliness as he saw them both turn away. "He's telling the truth," said the taller man. "Nobody could resist the sort of dose we've given him." "I still don't like it," said the lighter haired man. "An Admiral's son gone bad, he says. He's Starfleet through and through. He could be a plant." "Space him? Even if anyone found him, there wouldn't be any questions. We could launch him in that torpedo, but just not put the lid down again." "No." It was clearly a command. "Put him under and give him a shot of amnesiac. We'll wait for Smith." Paris knew very little of the next two days, drugged and comatose in the rear compartment of the anonymous ship. He vaguely sensed something when the transporter beam delivered a photon torpedo similar to his own, and he was almost conscious when the cover hinged open to reveal a charnel stench and a much-decayed corpse. He heard, uncomprehending, the taller man utter one word - "Smith" - and then there was another hypospray. He came to in a darkened ship, the smell of death everywhere. He rose, and staggered over to the torpedo casing; a small, rational part of his mind sensed an opportunity to escape, but it involved getting back into his spaceborne coffin, and for some reason his instincts were warning him against the idea. As he leaned over the torpedo casing, his senses allied themselves with his instincts, and he saw that this was the wrong coffin. The remains of the man called Smith were not pleasant. Fighting the urge to vomit, he pulled himself over to the other casing and checked, as well as his disorientated state permitted, that the contents were present and working. Then he moved over to the transporter controls and entered a delayed beamout. The rational part of his mind was shouting to him that it was all too easy, but the message was lost in his confusion, and a few seconds later he was sealed in his coffin again. On the bridge, the taller man observed an alarm, and commented, "He's gone." "Good," replied the lighter haired man. "End of problem. With that amount of amnesiac in his system, he'll never remember us even if he does get picked up. And if he doesn't make it, he'll live long enough to purge the drugs from his system. Nothing points back to us." "Did he give us anything useful on the Maquis?" "Possibly. It's untraceable, which is the main thing. One of my oppos in Starfleet Security might be interested. He's been trying to get a man into Chakotay's cell for a few months." The taller man thought for a minute. "We pumped a hell of a lot of drugs into Paris. Any idea what the side effects are?" The lighter haired man shrugged. "Who cares?" Trained reflexes and responses kicked in immediately. No telling how long this would last; time to take stock, see what resources were available to him, act to maximise his chance of survival. There seemed to be a problem with the life support unit, though. It shouldn't be allowing that smell to linger in the air. In fact, it was getting stronger, starting to make him gag. It couldn't be his imagination, could it? In his drugged state, anything was possible. He felt for the spotlight, felt again, felt nothing. He started to panic, hammering with a bruised fist at the front of the unit, but no light came. How long had he been in this coffin? It was getting smaller, the air was foul and rank, his chest was crushed by a great weight. His vague, disconnected memories of a second ship, of two anonymous men, were already fading. He heard a sound, loud and high-pitched, and realised for a brief while that it was his own voice, screaming. At last his ravaged and abused mind took flight, leaving only a thrashing, struggling, purposeless body for the distress beacon to advertise. The third ship was bright, clean and efficient, the very epitome of Starfleet excellence. Its Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Security were both extremely interested, for different reasons, in the haggard, wide-eyed, screaming wreck of a man they had picked up, kept alive but not whole in a photon torpedo casing. Deep sedation and antidepressant therapy dealt with the concerns of the former, a DNA scan and a subspace exchange with Starfleet Command with those of the latter. And if the rebel, traitor, liar and possible murderer they delivered into the hands of a Federation remand institution two weeks later had picked up the odd phobia along the way, so deeply rooted that the ship's counsellor had been unable to begin to trace its source, who indeed cared? ================ Seven of Nine seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Perhaps you dislike being alone." Tom assumed a carefully studied flippancy. "Perhaps. Who cares? I'd have thought we could find something more interesting to talk about." "Tom, you're not trying to - ow!" Harry Kim looked down at his shin. B'Elanna Torres quickly stepped in. "Thanks for keeping the engines in good shape, Seven. Did the nebula have any effect on the warp core?" Soon she, Seven and Kim were deep in the complexities of warp field theory. Tom sat back, competent but unwilling to join the discussion, and wondered. He remembered being unconcerned by small spaces, long ago. He remembered the fear that had taken over, adrift for several days in a photon torpedo casing - itself enough to account for some residual claustrophobia - but had never quite been able to tell exactly when he'd lost his self-assurance, where the panic had begun. Over the years since then, he'd filed it away in the back of his mind, under the heading "Who cares?" Maybe some day, though, he'd take another look; because here on Voyager, at last, it seemed that a few people did indeed care. THE END