AU, J/C & C/P
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount, the order of the words belongs to me.
© Shayenne, January 2010 Please email me to post/distribute elsewhere.
Rated NC-17
Especial thanks to my wonderful betas, Mary S. and Brianna, who had their hands full with this one, yet gave their usual marvelous care and consideration to my writing. And thanks to Mary S. for the advice on the best way to drink bourbon.
I've taken some serious liberties with the timeline of Chakotay's past as we know it, swirling events around to fit the story I wanted to tell.
Maybe the world was like a revolving door, it occurred to him as his consciousness was fading away. And which section you ended up in was just a matter of where your foot happened to fall. There were tigers in one section, but no tigers in another. Maybe it was as simple as that. And there was no logical continuity from one section to another. And it was precisely because of this lack of continuity that choices didn't mean very much. Wasn't that why he couldn't feel the gap between one world and another?
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami
1. Paper
"Chakotay! Chakotay! Come and say goodbye to Ina. Hurry! You'll miss her!"
Chakotay looked up as the gangly teenager rocketed around the corner, bare feet kicking up puffs of red dust. "I'm coming, Suli. I'm sure she won't leave just yet."
"The shuttle's here. She's really going." Briefly, the boy's face fell into somber lines before his natural exuberance bubbled up once more. "How amazing is that? Imagine, going to join Starfleet."
"Yeah." Chakotay set aside the board he was sanding, and stood. Briefly, he rested a hand on Suli's shoulder. "Imagine."
"Would you like to join too? After all, you're old enough." He grinned. "Too old."
"Maybe."
"Aw, c'mon. I think you want to go. I do, when I'm old enough."
Chakotay laughed. "I've seen you with my cousin. Maybe you'll want to stay with her?"
A blush suffused Suli's face. "We're only messing," he mumbled, his toe tracing a curve in the rich, red dirt.
The rumble of an engine from the far side of the settlement saved Chakotay from answering.
"Run!" called Suli, already a few paces ahead, whipcord muscles tensed in flight. "The shuttle's going!"
Chakotay dropped his plane and sprinted for the bare patch of dirt that served as the unofficial shuttle pad. He had hoped for a quiet farewell with Ina, had hoped to ask her to comm him about life as a Starfleet cadet. Now, thanks to his distraction, he wouldn't have that chance.
The shuttle's exhaust caused puffs of dust to swirl in chaotic eddies, coating its gleaming sides with a fine film. Chakotay panted to a halt, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Ina. Suddenly, she was there by his side and he was caught in a tight embrace.
"Did you really think I'd leave without saying goodbye, big brother?"
He hugged her back just as hard. "I hoped not. I'll miss you."
She put him away from her. "I'm only a comm call away."
"Not easy to manage on Trebus."
"I'll be there if you need me. Always, big brother, always. Maybe in a year or two we'll be there together!"
Chakotay closed his eyes briefly to stave off the longing her words caused. Imagine, being in Starfleet, wearing a cadet's uniform, feeding his hunger for knowledge, seeing other worlds, other cultures, other planets. Imagine traveling far from Trebus, smug in her sleepy little backwater of the galaxy.
"Count on it," he said, and reached for his sister's hand, squeezing tightly.
"I have to go!" she exclaimed, her face already turning toward the shuttle, her eyes already looking toward her new life.
"Send me a message," he called to her back. "Let me know what it's like."
"I will..." Her words drifted back to him, already dissipating to memories in the hot dry air. "I will."
Chakotay watched the shuttle trace its arc of fire against the heavy sky. His little sister was leaving before him, escaping Trebus and its restrictions. His fists clenched briefly in envy. Ina didn't carry the weight of first-born son on her shoulders. She was able to fly free, while he was chained to Trebus and the burdens of tradition.
Chakotay hid his impatience well and if he chafed at the responsibilities placed upon him, he didn't let it show. His fingers touched the tattoo inked on his forehead. Its heavy lines felt as cumbersome as any fetters. But if he were to leave, it would be ten times harder on his younger siblings. As long as Kolopak believed his eldest child was willing to remain, he would agree to let the others go. Ina was the first, but Chakotay knew that his younger brother wished to study computer technology and he couldn't do that on Trebus, which had only basic communications and farming machinery. No, Chakotay would remain so that the others could leave. And his time would come; of that he was sure.
In the meantime, he would savor the communications from Ina. He could live a cadet's life vicariously through her.
The admirals who came to his father's door wore gleaming black boots which were rapidly dulling under a film of red dust. Their faces were as blank as Trebus' third moon, and their voices as flat as the salt pans that stretched over the western half of his world.
Kolopak met them stiffly and ushered them in with politeness, shooing away Chakotay and his siblings as they loitered to hear what they knew instinctively was not a mere courtesy call. Chakotay's mother would not be dismissed so easily, and her voice rose in a keening wail, piercing the heavy clouds that forewarned the summer rain.
Chakotay rose and left his small sister and brother huddled in the back of the barn, arms looped in an embrace around their pet goat, their tears wetting the animal's hairy flanks as it single-mindedly munched hay. He went out into the heavy afternoon, and stood watching with clenched fists as the admirals took their leave, returning to their shuttle. One bent to wipe Trebus' dust from his boots before boarding.
He didn't know the details, but he could guess the facts, and that knowledge sat like a rock in his gut. His brave and bright sister wouldn't be sending any more messages, wouldn't be returning home on leave, her shiny dark hair swept up in a Starfleet plait, her new ensign's pip on her collar. Chakotay's eyes swept restlessly over the village. There was mourning to be done, and no doubt his father would demand the traditional way, the Indian way, the outdated way. There had been a small container in one admiral's hand; maybe it contained ashes. If so, that wouldn't please his father.
Chakotay walked to the edge of the village where the desert stretched unbroken to the indigo sky. It was a wide world from this point, but not wide enough for him. And it had been too wide for Ina. He tilted his face to the early evening star. Was she out there? he wondered. Was her spirit entwined in the atoms of the universe?
Dimly, he heard his mother's wail ease. No doubt the women had given her a draught to make her sleep. Dry-eyed, he paced farther into the desert. With Ina gone, his responsibilities as eldest were heavier. And with Ina gone, he wasn't sure his father would surrender another child to Starfleet. The idea was there in his head before he could suppress it, and swiftly he put it aside. There would be time enough later for those thoughts. Right now, he had to absorb the loss and comfort those who remained. Turning, Chakotay walked slowly back to find his father.
Over time, the details emerged, pulled as slowly and torturously as knotted twine. It was a shuttle crash, but not in battle. A mid air collision, a shuttle out of control in the hands of an inexperienced pilot and three young officers were instantly killed. The only survivor reported it was a navigational error by the pilot of the other shuttle, and that pilot was Ina. And with Ina dead, it seemed Starfleet accepted that explanation.
"How?" cried his mother, in a rare moment of coherence in her grief. "How could Starfleet let it happen? They were supposed to be trained." And she retired to her bed where she had spent so much of her time since Ina's death, drapes pulled tight against the sun's brightness, so that she lived in a twilight world of shadows and dim, gray shapes.
Chakotay had no answers, for it seemed as if every official channel was blocked. No one was able--or was willing--to explain exactly how the accident had occurred. If his sister was responsible, he wanted to know for sure so he could make amends to the families of the others killed.
In his spare time, of which there was precious little, Chakotay tried to find out the details. What had really happened? Trebus' communications systems were slow, but piece by piece, a nugget here, a kernel there, he was able to put it together, and it seemed that maybe his sister was not to blame.
Ina's friend, a self-contained Vulcan science officer on the Exeter where they had been assigned, informed him gravely that while she offered her respects to Ina's memory, there should be no blame attributed to Starfleet; indeed, Ina had obviously miscalculated. She had been an exceptional pilot, she said, but even the best make mistakes. It was unfortunate that this mistake had serious consequences. Ensign Paris, who had been piloting the other shuttle, had given an account of the accident and he attributed the blame to Ina.
Chakotay thanked her, and asked if she knew who the other officers involved had been. He was told that the only survivor of the crash was Tom Paris, and Ina's friend didn't know where he could be found. He might, however, wish to contact Paris' ex-girlfriend, a civilian who worked at a coffee shop near Starfleet Headquarters.
When the colony's thresher broke, he had the excuse he needed to make a trip to Earth. Sourcing the machinery part took him two days and then he took a series of transports, making his way to San Francisco. Starfleet headquarters dominated the bay. Its clean, sleek lines held his gaze, even though it wasn't the largest building there. For long moments he stared, the twin ribbons of envy and grief winding their way around his gut. Longing to be a part of Starfleet warred with growing unease that they were part of a cover up about the circumstances of the accident.
He tracked down Paris' ex-girlfriend easily enough. She was a Betazoid, and he spent an hour sitting in The Night Owl, the busy coffee shop where she worked, watching the cadets and young officers laugh and flirt. Kal had the intense gaze of her race, and she approached him while he stirred his second cup of tea.
"You're here to talk to me," she said. "You think I can help you understand something. My shift finishes in two hours. Come back then and we will talk."
He had come this far, and he wasn't leaving until he had answers, so he walked the streets, long looping circuits of Starfleet headquarters until it was time to return. Kal was still busy when he walked in, so he ordered a tea and found a seat in the crowded cafe, sitting opposite a commander who looked too busy to be bothered with him. He studied her russet hair and its careful upswept style, wondering absently if Ina had ever come to this cafe. It seemed popular with 'fleeters. While his unknown table mate drank two coffees and barely raised her head from her PADD, he watched Kal serve tables and wondered if he would get any answers here.
It was nearly an hour before the cafe was quiet enough for Kal to go off shift, and his red-haired table mate was gone before Kal sat down opposite him. The shuttle crash was an accident, she informed him, but Starfleet was blaming the error on Ina. She didn't think that was true; in fact, she knew it wasn't true. She'd sensed Tom's thoughts as they lay together, and seen the misty clouds of denial hiding the knife of guilt. The blame was Tom's, she said. Nothing deliberate, it was a navigational error, a careless miscalculation and the shuttle he was piloting had collided with Ina's.
Did Starfleet not know this? he asked, but the Betazoid shook her head. Tom Paris was not coming forward and had protected his career by blaming Ina.
"But he will own up," she said earnestly, leaning forward across the small table that separated them. "He is, underneath it all, a decent man."
What good was decency when his sister was dead, killed by the man who accused her? Suddenly Chakotay was tired, and this young woman with her unshakable belief that the world would realign and order prevail, annoyed him. He thanked her, and stood up to go before he said something harsh and terse.
She was staring at her coffee cup, her eyes distant. "I don't know where he is, before you ask," she said, and he saw the truth of her remark when she turned her deep, black eyes to his.
Taking advantage of San Francisco's better technology, Chakotay spent the next day searching the public records for Tom Paris. He wasn't hard to find; the blue-eyed admiral's son's smiling face was on many of the channels, staring cockily out of the screen, blond hair flopping over his forehead, despite the regulation short haircut.
Tom Paris. Chakotay stared at his picture for long moments, trying to read the man's self-assured expression. No doubt about it, Ina would have found this man attractive. She was assigned to the Exeter with him--could her judgment have been affected? Tom would have been younger than her. According to the records he found, admiral's brat Tom had been ushered into Starfleet as soon as he was barely old enough and had fast tracked through the cadet ranks.
Leaving the terminal, Chakotay went back out into San Francisco's hazy sunshine. He had a choice: pursue this, or let it go. Right now, he didn't know if he was strong enough to let it go, even though he knew how bitter was the alternative. Nothing he learned would bring Ina back. Nothing would erase the pain in his mother's eyes. A strong man would take his sister's memory and lay it to rest. He wasn't sure if he could do that yet.
Or he could keep digging, keep pursuing Starfleet for accountability, for some accurate, detailed answers, not the vague, pat responses they were producing. If an admiral's son were somehow to blame for this, Chakotay knew it would not be easy. He was cynical enough to believe in a cover-up at high level. But what would he achieve? Revenge wasn't his way.
Really, he thought, all he wanted was the chance to stand in front of Tom Paris and look him in the eyes and hear what had happened from his lips, without prevarication, with truth and honesty. Tom Paris held the key to this; of that he was sure.
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© Shayenne, January 201. Please email me to post/distribute elsewhere.