"We've only got 50% of the damaged systems repaired, Captain," Harry Kim delivered the status report to Voyager's Captain.
He was interrupted when the doors to the briefing room slid open, admitting Kes. "I'm sorry to disturb you, I know you're busy."
Tuvok turned to her. "It is alright, Kes. What is it?"
"I think you should meet the man who beamed up from the planet," Kes suggested to Tuvok.
"Why?" the Vulcan asked, he trusted Kes' judgement but he needed to know her reasoning.
"He," she paused briefly. "He knows things."
The decision was taken out of Tuvok's hands when Tom entered the room. "Harry! Tuvok!"
Tuvok turned to the stranger, with an almost puzzled expression on his face. "We are in the middle of a situation here," he explained, "And I am afraid that I do not know you, but Kes says that you may be able to aid us," he said, letting Tom know that he was willing, for the moment to let Tom speak, if it meant he could help.
Tom wondered just what the 'situation' was that he could help with. He looked at Harry's face – it spoke of confusion, and a little bit of fear. "Ok, this is starting to get a little bit strange," Tom said. "Everything was a little different, not completely different, I mean," he gestured to Harry, "You're still you."
Tuvok was not willing to allow Tom to vent his frustrations, his talking was not aiding the situation, he determined that the most logical course of action would be to ask the man direct questions, the answers to which would be beneficial so that he could utilise the information and save more time that could be used for other purposes. "What can you tell me about the Borg?" he asked, monotone.
"What?" The question had caught Tom off-guard.
"Do you know who they are?"
Tom was still slightly confused. "Yeah," he said, the word was drawn out.
"Tell me what you know," Tuvok practically made it an order.
"Ok, now maybe I've completely lost my mind here, but as far as I'm concerned we know each other very well," he eyes travelled the room, encompassing everyone with his remark. "You know everything that I know!"
The expressions on their faces told him that he was mistaken.
"Look! I am a member of Voyager's senior staff," he tried to convince them once more, showing them his commbadge and rank pips, "With you—" he looked to Harry and Tuvok "—and Lieutenant Torres and Chakotay and Seven."
Something seemed to dawn on Tom and he looked around. "Where is Seven of Nine?" he asked. At the confused, unknowing looks on their faces he went on to explain: "Blonde, tall, knockout, enhanced eye, half metal hand. You can't miss her."
Tuvok realised, partially at least, who Tom was referring to. "A Borg?"
"Yes, she's our," he searched for the right word, settling on a word that was true for himself and Tuvok, although he knew the sentiment was not shared by all of the crew, "our friend."
Deciding that he was not going to get anything of tactical use from the man, Tuvok considered that the most logical thing he could do now would be to leave, and make better use of what little time they had. "Take this man back to the Brig, now," he ordered, turning to leave.
Kes watched as Harry grabbed Tom's upper arm to lead him away and she knew that Tom could be of more use, could tell them more, if only the asked the right questions, and kept listening. "How did he get to the planet? How does he know the things he knows?" Kes asked the questions, both wanting the answers, and wanting Tuvok to stay and hear him out. This was more logical.
"According to Captain Janeway you found the Maquis ship without me, the one that you infiltrated, and got swept to the Delta quadrant. Did you still encounter the Kazon and the Vidiians?"
This question caught everyone's attention. Tuvok turned back to Tom and started to walk towards him. "How do you know about that?" Tuvok asked him.
"You were sent to infiltrate the Maquis ship, find out their bases, numbers, plans, all that you could find and send back to Starfleet to help them fight the Maquis, right?"
Kes turned to Tuvok. "Kathryn and I, we didn't tell him anything."
Tom continued. "Did you still make an alliance with the Borg to fight species 8472?"
"What is Species 8472?" Harry asked Tom.
"A strong race, even the Borg can't defeat."
"But you fought them."
"Yes, we sent them back to fluidic space."
"How?" Kes hastily found a padd and handed it to Tom. They were approaching Borg territory and the ship had suffered greatly in the altercations that had resulted, anyway they could defend themselves could mean their salvation.
Tom took the padd from Kes. "What, do you want me to write it down?"
The slight inflection of Tuvok's head, a nod from Harry. "Yes," Kes told him.
Tom began to write down very brief notes. "So, if you've never made an alliance with the Borg then you've never been to a Borg ship and have probably never met Seven of Nine."
"That sounds like a Borg designation."
"It is!" Tom threw the padd down in frustration of his situation and began to pace. "Everything's messed up! Why?!" he looked at them for answers. None came.
He ceased his pacing when the doors opened to admit B'Elanna Torres. The first thing that struck Tom was her hair; it was tied back in a loose, messy bun, clearly longer than his B'Elanna's so that it was not practical to have it down in Engineering.
"B'Elanna!"
B'Elanna glared at him. "Who is this?" she demanded to know with a voice the indicated that her Klingon temper was close to the surface.
"Tom Paris," Kes said gently, wanting to diffuse the possible situation.
Tom seemed to realise something. "Of course," he whispered of Kes' explanation.
"The man who beamed up from the planet with a Starfleet uniform and commbadge," Kes continued.
"Report, Ms Torres," Tuvok asked.
B'Elanna looked long and hard at Tom and he hoped that she might recognise him, but she did not. Instead she turned to Tuvok and gave her status report as asked. "Systems are continuing to fail all over the ship. The Borg are getting closer and we've lost deck 13."
How could they lose a deck? Tom wondered. "I'm sorry," he asked, "What do you mean by 'lost'?"
Tuvok inclined his head to a panel on the wall of the briefing room. "Show him."
B'Elanna called him over to the panel with a wave of her hand. The diagram showed deck 13 and there were systems flashing where malfunctions had occurred. "Deck 13," B'Elanna explained tersely. "All the locking mechanisms failed on 13, 14 and 15, so crewmen were stuck there, unable to leave rooms or enter turbolifts. The transporters went down shortly after you beamed up so we could not beam them out. Life support failed about two hours ago on decks 14 and 15."
Tom drew in a sharp breath. When life support failed it got very cold, and the oxygen thinned. Death came slowly, and not without a great deal of pain. It was battle between asphyxia and hypothermia to see which could kill first.
B'Elanna spoke again. "We just lost it on deck 13."
Continued in Part 5