If At First You Don't Succeed...
Part 1 of 4
Synopsis: While investigating a nebula, strange things begin to
happen. Set pre-Scorpion.
If At First You Don't Succeed...
It was blue. The damn thing stretches for hundreds of light years and it's blue.
Janeway planted her hands on her hips as she stared out the viewscreen and a swirling blue nebula. Going through it could take days. Going around it could take months.
"Sensors can't penetrate it, Captain," Ensign Kim announced. "We have no idea how big it is."
Or what's in it, she thought, frowning. But if the crew of Voyager was to ever get home, they had to prevent detours as often as possible. "Shields at full. Take us in, Mr. Paris." Voyager slowly slid forward, but as its shields touched the leading edge of the nebula, the vessel shuddered and was violently thrown back.
Janeway stood up, brushing herself off. "Report."
Paris sighed in frustration. "Subspace currents grabbed the shields and threw us out."
"Could we enter without them?"
"Negative," Tuvok replied. "The primary hull would be torn from the nacelles. However, I have studied the outer currents of the nebula, and I believe there are smoother currents within. It may be possible to ride these currents through the anomaly."
"Hang ten," Paris said quietly. Janeway missed the reference, but from the look on Kim's face, he hadn't.
"Can you find those currents?"
Kim shook his head. "There's no way to scan the nebula... but a shuttle could get in there. If shields were deactivated, it would be small enough to avoid getting tossed around if it hit any real turbulence."
Janeway nodded. "Tom?" Paris swiveled around in his chair, grinning. He was, as always, ready for a challenge to his piloting skills. "Take a shuttle in and make detailed scans every inch of the way. Try to find a safe route for Voyager."
"Yes, ma'am!" he answered, heading for the turbolift.
"Looks like 'surf's up'," Chakotay commented.
Kim was grinning even broader, now. Janeway decided not to ask.
* * *
Paris whistled to himself, thoroughly enjoying the work-out his flying skills were getting. The inner currents of the nebula were fairly calm, but they quickly became bumpy when he strayed from the path the sensors were forming for him. The trip was otherwise uneventful, and he returned to Voyager hours later with the good news that the nebula was traversable.
When he returned, he handed the sensor data to B'Elanna and Harry so that his two friends could determine a means of scanning a path ahead of Voyager as they traveled. Then, after a sonic shower and a plate of replicated peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, he settled into bed to sleep.
He was awakened hours later by the red-alert klaxon. Tuvok's voice came over the comm. "Senior officers to the bridge." Groaning, Tom pulled himself out of bed, wondering what the Gamma shift pilot had gotten Voyager stuck in. Leave it to Baytart to entrench us in nebular gas, he scowled. Grabbing his uniform, he pulled it on and raced to the bridge. As soon as the doors opened, he realized he'd arrived well behind everyone else. Doesn't anyone sleep?
A quick glance at the viewscreen as he headed for his station--unconsciously rubbing his eyes--revealed that Baytart had had nothing to do with Voyager's present predicament. A dozen small vessels--each 25 meters long--hung in the nebula. Their 'wings' were tipped with deadly-looking weapons arrays, and Paris felt as though each little weapon was pointed directly at Voyager.
Come to think of it, he thought, they probably are.
"They are not responding to hails," Tuvok informed everyone. Obviously Janeway had called for him to hail the vessels.
I didn't miss much then, he thought.
"They are powering weapons," the Vulcan continued.
"Evasive manuevers, Mr. Paris," Janeway ordered.
Unconsciously, Paris tried to perform one of his favorite manuevers, but failed to compensate for the turbulence. Voyager immediately began to shudder, then to buck. Silently cursing himself for his inattentiveness, he checked the sensors, found a pocket, and began to shift Voyager into it.
An instant before impact, he realized that Voyager's shields weren't up, and that whatever damage they took from the enemy vessels' weapons was going to be hitting the hull. Upon impact, he was thinking that Voyager should never have entered the nebula.
A few shots missed, but most hit. Energy crackled across the viewscreen and his console. Startled, he jerked his hands away, watching with mute fascination as purple ribbons of lightning worked their way up his arms. He dimly heard Janeway calling for a damage report, and heard Tuvok's reply that several ship's systems were off-line. With a kind of childish curiousity, he held his hands close together, watching as the sparks leapt from fingertip to fingertip.
"Return fire, Mr. Tuvok!" Janeway ordered. "Target their weapons arrays. I want them shut down!" Voyager's phaser banks fired, searing the smaller vessels. A moment later, the attackers turned and vanished into the nebula.
"Tom?" Janeway asked, stepping forward but afraid to touch him.
Paris turned in his seat, blushing. "Captain, I--"
"Are you all right?"
He would have blushed some more, but realized that the captain was genuinely concerned. After all, Tom, it isn't every day you get turned into a human Jacob's Ladder. Then, in a kind of an undertone thought, On this ship, it's every other day. "I don't know," he answered, shrugging helplessly. "It doesn't hurt." Another spark spat with a popping sound, and Janeway's eyebrows shot to her hairline. Unsure of what else, to say, he turned back to his console which was, miraculously, still functioning.
Janeway sighed heavily and slumped into her chair. "All right, everyone. Harry, get down to engineering and see what you can do to help. Mr. Paris?" Tom turned his seat back around and held up his arms to show that they'd stopped conducting the strange energy. "Tom, I don't know what that was, so you'd better get to Sickbay and have the Doctor check it out."
Paris sighed with disappointment. Of all the rotten luck!
* * *
The mood of the officers' meeting was foul. The engineering team was still working on the transporters and the environmental controls for Deck Eight. Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim had been unable to get the impulse engines working again, limiting Voyager to thrusters. "At that speed we'll get out of this nebula a year from now," the half-Klingon growled. "We can't restart the impulse engines until we're out of this gas."
Janeway frowned, planting her hands on her hips. Things weren't going to well. Neelix wasn't smiling, and neither was Kes. The Doctor was not present, due to some injuries in Sickbay. To Janeway's left, Paris sat scratching at the medical device the Doctor had placed on his neck. Unable to keep Paris in Sickbay, he'd let the pilot out only on the condition he wore the monitor.
"Barring his obvious attitude problems," the Doctor had said, even as he turned to his other patients, "there is nothing wrong with Mr. Paris. Still, people don't turn into human power conduits every day, so I'd better keep an eye on him." Paris had then looked quite excited about getting out of Sickbay.
"Harry, B'Elanna, I want the two of you to concentrate all your efforts on finding a way to scan ahead of us. Maybe we'll find an empty pocket. Even if we don't, it should help us to avoid more mishaps with alien vessels."
"Aye Captain," Harry acknowledged.
"Mr. Paris, I want you and Chakotay to find a way to ride the currents to get us out of here faster." She waited for his affirmation. When Paris said nothing, everyone turned to look at him. He seemed to be staring at nothing. "Tom?"
"Doctor to Lieutenant Paris. Have you taken the monitor off?"
Kes tapped her commbadge. "No, he hasn't. He's just sitting there, not moving." She pulled her tricorder out and cautiously stepped around the table, opening the device. She aimed it at Paris, and her eyes widened with surprise. "Doctor, I'm reading no pulse, no brain waves, nothing!"
And Paris continued to sit there, half-leaning forward in his chair, staring vaguely past Chakotay's head. He didn't move or breath, he simply looked like he was frozen in a moment of time.
Then his eyes blinked, and he turned toward Janeway. He caught sight of Kes in his peripheral vision and jumped. "How'd you get over here so fast?" he asked.
Kes looked down at her tricorder, but she still wasn't getting any life-signs from Paris. According to the tricorder, Paris was a corpse. "Tom, you were... stuck for a moment. You weren't moving or breathing."
"Oh," he said simply. And it was at that moment that Janeway realized she could see straight through him.
* * *
Everyone was staring at him. Feeling just a little embarrassed, Paris turned to look at B'Elanna, who was gazing at him with open-mouthed shock. "What?" he asked. B'Elanna's mouth worked, but she said nothing. Then he heard a soft thump. He looked down to see that the medical monitor had fallen into his chair.
And he was still sitting in his chair.
Startled, he leapt up and ended up standing halfway into the table. "What the--?" he began. He could feel the table through his legs, and it felt cold. He danced back, stumbled through his chair, and came to a halt next to Kes.
"Tom, hold still," Kes said. She ran the tricorder over him again. Now she wasn't even registering an organism, life signs or no. It was as if he wasn't even there.
"What? What does your tricorder say?" Paris knew he sounded panicky, but who wouldn't panic after they'd lost tangibility?
"Lieutenant, please remain calm," Tuvok said.
Right. Tuvok wouldn't panic. "I'm trying to remain calm, Tuvok, but it isn't easy to when I just walked through a table!"
Kes tapped her commbadge again. "Kes to the Doctor. I'm going to bring Tom down to Sickbay. You might want to take a look."
Paris scowled. And back to Sickbay again.
* * *
Kes smiled inwardly. Paris was making a royal nuisance of himself. The Doctor, like Kes, had been unable to detect Paris. They could all see that he was there, but the tricorder insisted he wasn't.
The trip to Sickbay had been interesting. The two had walked onto the turbolift and the doors had closed, Kes and the turbolift heading downward for Sickbay. Paris hadn't. Kes had frantically called for the turbolift to halt, Paris floating about half a meter off the floor. His head was brushing the top of the turbolift.
"This isn't funny," he'd said.
Kes held out her hand. "Take my hand, Tom, and concentrate on standing next to me."
Paris frowned, holding out his own hand. It passed right through hers, but he didn't notice, his eyes closed in concentration. Slowly, he descended to the floor. Satisfied Paris wasn't going to float anywhere else, Kes called for the turbolift to resume.
Now Paris was standing next to a biobed, casually passing his hand through the edge. Janeway stood next to the Doctor, the corners of her mouth descending toward the deckplates as the Doctor informed her that his tricorder, the ship's sensors, and even tangible objects all insisted Paris wasn't really there. Paris existed only in the visual sense. Kes was glad the other crewmen had been dismissed to their quarters, because she didn't want Paris' vanishing problem to hit the ship's rumor mill too quickly. She wanted her friend to be ready first.
Kes suddenly had a brilliant idea. "Tom, do you remember how I told you to concentrate on standing on the floor?" He nodded. "Step away from the biobed and concentrate on being solid. Try to imagine you can actually touch things." She waited until Paris looked like he was concentrating, then said, "Now, place your hand in mine."
To their collective surprise, his hand came to a rest atop her hand. She could actually feel his skin, not that vague feeling of warmth she'd felt in the turbolift.
"It worked!" Paris exclaimed, relieved.
Janeway and the Doctor turned to see Paris grinning. "What worked?" Paris reached out and picked up a hypospray.
"I can touch things again!"
The Doctor pulled out his tricorder again. "Still no signature." He turned the tricorder on Captain Janeway, relieved when she registered a pulse. "This makes no sense!"
Kes turned back to see Paris holding the hypospray in his cupped hand. Then it fell through his hand to be caught in the other. He'd obviously gotten control of his phasing-out problem.
* * *
"Hey, Tom, are you all right?" Kim asked as Paris entered the mess hall.
He'd opened his mouth to reply when Torres jumped in. "Yeah, there was 'clearly' something wrong."
Paris sat down at the table with his best friend Harry and his friend B'Elanna, who he wished would one day let him be something-more-than-a-friend. "Ha ha. For your information, I've gotten a handle on that." To prove his point, he picked up Harry's unused fork and repeated the hypospray trick.
They sat for a moment with their mouths hanging open. "How did you--?" Kim began.
Paris shrugged, grinning. "Kes taught me how to concentrate to stay solid. I figured out how to switch back and forth quickly."
"What caused it?" Torres asked.
"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was this." Holding up his hands, he caused a spark to jump from his right index finger to his left. "When the alien weapons hit us, these sparks ran all over my console and up my arms. It doesn't hurt, it just looks neat."
"And makes for hours of entertainment," Harry commented wrily. He shook his head wearily as Tom caused yet another spark to jump from fingertip to fingertip. "Didn't the Doctor find anything unusual?"
"You could say that."
"Like what?" Torres asked.
"Like the fact that I still don't appear on his tricorder or on the internal sensors."
"Whoa. That's weird," Kim whistled.
"You could say that."
"Tom! You had us worried earlier," Neelix said, coming up to join them.
"I had me worried, too," he assured the Talaxian. "I don't ordinarily make a habit of walking through tables."
"For the first time in a long time," B'Elanna laughed, "you were completely transparent."
"You're one to talk," Paris retorted.
"Me?!" she exclaimed. "Look, hotshot, I'm not the one that keeps everybody at arm's length–"
"No, you use a three-meter pole..."
"Hey, you two," Harry cut in. "Save the argument for later. I don't have the patience to listen to you two bicker for the next several months."
Torres wouldn't back off. "Well, if Tom hadn't led us straight to those pirates, we wouldn't be–"
"Hey," Tom retorted. "If I could go back and change that, I would!"
* * *
B'Elanna Torres was ready to jump at Paris and choke him. In fact, she reached out a hand toward him, only to have it go right through. "Not fair, pig. How am I supposed to strangle you if you won't let me touch you?"
A look of surprise appeared on his face. "I didn't know I'd phased out."
"Tom! You're turning transparent again!" Neelix exclaimed.
Paris held his hand up to eye level and cursed. Torres could see his face straight through his hand... and she could see the kitchen straight through his face.
The commotion was attracting the attention of the rest of the mess hall's occupants. "Lieutenant," someone began.
"I know what's wrong," Paris snapped irritably. He closed his eyes and seemed to squint up his face. Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes again. "I need to stop doing that."
Everyone was staring in disbelief. B'Elanna, too, couldn't believe her eyes. Tom had seemed to waver, as if he was about to completely vanish, then had just as suddenly re-formed, all trace of translucence gone.
Paris scowled at everyone. "And for my next trick, I'll disappear completely." Standing, he marched out of the mess hall.
* * *
The mood of the officers' meeting was foul. The engineering team had finally gotten the transporters and environmental controls working again. Lieutenant Torres and Ensign Kim had finally rigged up a complicated sensor array that could penetrate the gas of the nebula, but only in the direction they aimed it.
"We'll be out of here in fifteen months," Torres growled. "If we'd had impulse, we'd be out in two days."
Janeway frowned. Things were truly going terribly. Voyager couldn't afford a fifteen month delay. That was the primary reason they'd chosen to enter the nebula, rather than trying to go around it.
She'd also received word from numerous sources that Paris had nearly vanished again. Janeway was beginning to get very concerned about him. He had some control over what was happening, but Torres had said that he'd seemed surprised when her hand had gone through him.
Now he sat to her left, obviously brooding. She understood his feelings, but right now she needed her chief helmsman. "Tom, any chance you can use the currents to speed our travel?"
"Only until half-way," he replied. "After that, I don't know. It'd be a rough ride, though."
Janeway nodded sadly. "I'll address the crew. Dismissed." She waited until nearly everyone had left before saying, "Mr. Paris, we need to talk."
The pilot sighed and turned back around. "Yes?"
"Harry, B'Elanna, and Neelix all informed me that you faded out again yesterday, while in the mess hall. I thought you had this under control?"
Paris scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I thought I had, too. Apparently, I was wrong."
"Why does this keep happening?" Janeway asked herself. She didn't realize she'd said it aloud until Paris spoke.
"I think it's because I keep wishing I could turn back time. Make sure none of this happened."
"I think we all wish that, Tom..." she began, then trailed off. "Tom, you're doing it again."
"That's just what I was hoping for," he answered, then vanished completely.