Part five
To part four

---

"I'm here to see my husband," Chakotay said, though that should have been obvious, given that he was at what he was starting to think of as the prison's "Fuck Me" entrance.

The guard glanced at him and led the way. Processing was quicker, though no less invasive: only one guard fingering him from mouth to ass.

Paris no more prepared to see him, though: stumbled into the edge of the bed again. This appeared to amuse the guard on Paris's side; Paris flashed him a slightly abashed grin and chirped, "Thank you, sir!" with a dash of flirtation. Keeping himself out of trouble by heaping on the charm--as usual.

When Chakotay slid close, Paris flinched a little, but didn't pull away.

"I've been thinking about the transporter," Chakotay murmured tenderly into Paris's ear. "Sweetheart."

"Are you trying to get me hot and bothered? 'Cause that's not gonna do it." Then, when Chakotay only looked at him, Paris murmured, "What about the transporter?"

"There's an energy shield around this place. I'm thinking that if I can disable it, I might be able to get you out of here. But--but I may have to do something kind of ... dangerous."

Paris frowned at him for a moment. "How dangerous?"

Ah-- "Well, I've come up with some options. One is to just overpower the shield with pattern enhancers. Trouble is, it takes time to set up, given that I'd have to hide them every meter or so around the building, and it's a damned big building; and then we'd have to hope that nobody makes off with one or two at the wrong moment. And, it only works about half the time. I'd overpower the generator--short it out--but we already tried that. Kept pumping energy into the shield, hoping the feedback would fry the generator; only the excess energy seemed to get siphoned off--I'm thinking it got stored somewhere. We couldn't sense the generator from inside the station, so we tried to figure out where the generator is from outside the station, except the outside shielding is kind of--the rocks mess up the sensor signal." He looked around at the walls. "If they used the same rocks to build this place, I wouldn't be able to get a lock on you even if I did get the generator off."

Paris's mouth was grim. "So what's the dangerous part?"

"I thought," Chakotay said as lightly as he could, "I thought I'd try going between the shielding and the skin of the station--see if I can locate the generator or you or ... something."

Paris eyed him suspiciously. "Take the shuttle between--"

Ah-- "Shuttle's ... a little too big." He flicked a smile at Paris. Maybe Paris didn't remember the exact distance between the station and the sheath of rocks placed around it to shield it from cosmic rays. "Me ... an LPEG ... a tricorder--I could take sandwiches and have a pic--"

"Are you fucking out of your MIND?"

Okay, Paris did remember. Whoever had set up the place had packed the rocky shield a lot closer to the station than Federation safety standards permitted: some places, only a meter separated the spinning station from the jagged wall protecting it. That was going to lead to problems for the station down the line, but Chakotay didn't have to care about that.

"It's one of the options." Chakotay snapped. "I've been in tighter--"

"You can't beam in; you can't beam out." Paris was glaring at him, angrier than the situation warranted. "If you get in trouble, there's nobody there to help you...." His voice trailed off; he was still glaring.

"That's why," Chakotay said evenly after a minute, "I wanted to discuss it with you. If something happens, you're the one--"

Paris turned his back on him then: turned over to face the door into the prisoners' section. His back had healed; Chakotay looked at the tense shoulders for silent moment.

Paris jumped when Chakotay leaned over him and touched his arm. "I want you out of here," Chakotay murmured into his ear. "I'm sick of this place and these people; and I'm sick of you being in here. And I'm really the fuck sick of you getting hurt."

Tom turned onto his back and looked up at him for a long moment. "You mean that," he said finally. "You really mean that."

"Of course I do."

A flush brightened Tom's cheeks for an instant; and Chakotay saw the pink tip of Tom's tongue flick across his lower lip.

Chakotay sat back. Air suddenly seemed in short supply. Down, boy, he ordered himself wryly.

Tom shifted onto his belly. Chakotay's heart quickened. The view of strong back and smooth skin and round, firm ass was, he thought with amusement, not exactly helping.

"What?" he said, realizing that Tom had been speaking.

"I said, I appreciate the offer, but there has to be something else you can do."

Well, of course. "It's just an option." Really: Chakotay was no hero. If there were an easier way, he'd take it.

Tom gave him a knowing look. "Are you looking at my ass?" he asked. "Darling."

Well, of course. "Just trying to figure out how you sit on that scrawny little thing," Chakotay said, "without losing your balance. Cupcake."

Tom turned his head and cast an appreciative glance at himself. "My ass has been admired by all genders from just about every planet in the Federation," he said smugly, sitting up. He smiled at Chakotay, gathering the sheet from under them. "You and I get divorced, they'll be lined up from here to the Alpha Quadrant. Snookums."

Well, of course. The door on Tom's side of the prison opened then; Paris turned a cheery smile on the guard and then ostentatiously kissed the air in Chakotay's direction.

Smug little-- Chakotay's slap caught Paris's ass just as he stood up. Good, hard slap, too.

Paris turned, surprised; then he grinned at Chakotay's grin. "You had your chance," he said. "You want to do that, we'll have to wait till next time."

"Promises, promises," Chakotay said; and Paris's laugh warmed the room long after the door was shut.

~ ~ ~

"Yer left! Yer left!" Boothby shouted. "Ye're droppin' yer left!"

Chakotay slammed his right into the Klingon's face, felt his opponent's right glove slide across his jaw. Dammit, he was dropping his left.

The bell clanged, and they went to their corners. Chakotay's opponent glared at him as he listened to the Klingons in his corner. Boothby kneaded Chakotay's shoulders and muttered into his ear, "Ye're gettin' clobbered out there." Then, "Damn, you're tighter than a Vulcan's arsehole."

Chakotay blinked. Who the hell had programmed that into the old trainer's vocabulary?

Boothby dug in deep with his thumbs. "This is supposed to be relaxing. Why aren't you relaxed?"

The bell clanged again, and Chakotay stood up, tried to ease the tension out of his shoulders. He could have answered the old hologram, but "I can still feel Tom's ass against my hand, and it's damned distracting" probably wouldn't help--

The blow rocked him, and he found himself kissing the canvas, Boothby haranguing him from a foot away. Yes, yes, he should have been focusing--

Chakotay spat out the mouth protector. "Computer, end program," he said; and it faded: the whooping Klingons, the frustrated trainer, the comfortable smell of the old gym. The humiliation--sort of.

He went to his quarters, stripped off the gloves, stripped off his clothes. Shower. Shower would--

Shower did, for about a minute and a half. Warmth of the water sluicing down his skin; smell of the soap; and about halfway into it, the inevitable happened, and he found himself sighing in frustration. Well, dammit, just get it over with--it was just a biological function which didn't mean anything....

Warmer water--pattering down harder--and he was groaning against the shower wall, eyes closed as he stroked and stroked. That was the hand you slapped Paris's ass with; and he tore his thoughts away from that, away from the fact that he could still feel that smooth skin, that firm ass. See that pretty lower lip gently worried by even teeth, the pink tip of tongue--

Chakotay jerked his mind away, mentally flicked through the file of images he'd used since his teens: soft mouths, tight asses, the expert slide of a Betazoid tongue along his cock, the soft laughter and gasps of the Deltan navigator he'd romanced.

He turned into the corner, rested his cheek against the tile. Warm water sliding over his skin, his hand around a hot cock, his cock inside an expert hand. Hips pumping, thrusting. Long legs, and a knowing smile; startlement and laughter in blue eyes--

And that was it, that was it, that was-- Him thrusting, the water caressing his skin, that cock and the slide of the pink tongue--

And him gasping, "Tom--Tom--Tom--" to the rhythm of his hips; which was it, was it, was--

There was an infinite minute, arched against the corner, mindless in pleasure; and then he was back in himself again, gasping and wobbly-legged. Leaned against the wall, eyes still closed, feeling the warmth of the tile against his body, listening to the water pattering over him and to the pounding of his heart.

He turned to face the water, opened his eyes. Damn it, Chakotay. That wasn't going to help the conjugal visits at all. Though, really, there wasn't-- He could have focused on Tom, or he could have focused on the delicious young Shiunta; and the Shiunta was married. Nothing else was getting him off.

Find somebody else to fantasize-- Except it worked best when the fantasy was somebody he knew. Janeway was off limits; and so were the other women on the ship: he had to work with these people. He smiled ruefully. Harry Kim was ... not his type, and he had to work with him, too.

Chakotay sighed. Damned scruples. He was starting to understand why the holodeck had so many brothel programs. And a self-cleaning cycle.

He rinsed off; he toweled off; and he walked naked through the darkened shuttle, checking sensor readings and diagnostics before going to bed. Something niggled at him--lurked in the back of his mind. He realized what it was as he watched his hands on the comm. But you're MARRIED to Paris. And you have to work with him, too.

Chakotay sighed. Shut up. Just shut up. Then he found himself chuckling. Stupid situation, where he shouldn't even imagine sleeping with the guy he was married to. Marriage, he thought, is much more complicated than you envisioned.

He looked though the viewscreen--polarized for privacy--at the fire burning in the temple of the Cleansing God. And getting unmarried--that would probably be more complicated than he'd imagined, too.

It always was.

~ ~ ~

"Do I have to?" Paris brought the glass up to eye level, wrinkled his nose as he peered at the bright blue solution inside.

Chakotay leaned forward. "Why don't you make it more obvious that I've just handed you something strange?" he said through gritted teeth. "Sweetheart." Peripheral vision told him that a guard was coming over to investigate.

Paris blinked at him and lifted the glass to his lips; he was drinking as he turned innocently toward the guard.

Chakotay smiled fondly. "He just never wants to drink anything good for him," he chirped at the guard. "You know how husbands can be!" He stopped himself from batting his eyes at the guard--too over the top.

The guard gazed down at Paris. "You should listen to your wife," he said. "Especially if you want a nice blow job later."

Paris choked on something that had nothing to do with what was in the glass. He drank gamely until the guard was gone.

"Ah, god, that's nasty," Paris said, looking into the half-empty glass.

"I thought the hakra juice would help. Cut the chalkiness." Though chalkiness never seemed to be the problem with the stuff.

Paris was sitting very still. He had the inward stare of a man figuring out if he was going to vomit. "It's kinda thick," he said.

Oh, damn; don't throw up don't throw up don't throw-- "I wanted to make sure you got enough inside you," Chakotay said, watching him with sympathy. Bergar solution was pretty vile.

Paris slid a forefinger over his front teeth, looked at the blue smear on his finger. "I'd say you probably got it," he said. Then, grimacing, "Is there anything to--"

Chakotay slid his own half-empty glass of water across the counter. "Don't spit it back in the glass," he warned as Paris swished water around in his mouth.

Paris gave him an impish smile and swallowed. "I'm going to be pissing blue for a month."

"I needed something that would show up on the sensors."

"If this doesn't work, then...."

"I'll try something else."

Paris gave him a look. "Something other than that little trip outside," he said.

Yeah, well-- "Only as a last resort."

"Not at all."

"Like I said: only as a last resort."

Paris's mouth worked; he looked oddly angry. "Don't be so fucking stubborn," he said.

"That's pretty rich, coming from you." Good god: Paris was the stubbornest man in the entire universe.

Paris glared at him; then, to Chakotay's surprise, he picked up the glass of Bergar solution and downed the rest of it, though he closed his eyes and swayed for a minute after he put down the glass.

Good god, Chakotay thought, you weren't supposed to drink the whole damn thing! Nobody ever drank the whole damn thing!

He sat frozen in dismay, trying to calculate the toxicity of Bergar's while Paris visibly pulled himself together and rinsed his mouth.

"If this doesn't work," Paris said, "I don't want you going outside the station." He leaned forward urgently. "Do you hear me, Chakotay?"

"Yeah." Surely the computer could tell him what happened when a human drank as much of that stuff as Tom had--and how to counteract it. Surely if Tom collapsed, the Wieong'tha would let Chakotay know so he could administer the antidote-- He realized that Tom was still talking. "Of course."

"I really mean it," Paris said. "I'm really not kidding."

"No problem," Chakotay said. Though maybe that water would help dilute whatever poisons there were in the--

Paris was leaving with his lunch, his face grimmer than Chakotay had ever seen it.

Suddenly, something he had said registered. Good god: "I'm really not kidding." I'm really not kidding WHAT?

~ ~ ~

Because--damn it--even that concentration of Bergar's simply made Tom show up the the sensors as a diffuse blue glow. A vague glow that got vaguer as the hours passed. A vague glow that was soon joined by the vaguer glow of the prison waste system as Paris pissed blue and shat blue and--Chakotay winced at the computer's scenario--probably vomited blue.

Chakotay fiddled with the sensor readings and made a nice little three-dimensional holographic map of the waste system--or at least of the system in Paris's part of the prison--but that was about it. The damned waste system was closed, as were all the waste systems on the station. No chance for Paris to swim his way out through muck to freedom.

Certainly no way for Chakotay to lock on to a nice, clear, Bergar-enhanced image and beam it the hell out of the damned prison.

At least not from this angle.

~ ~ ~

"--began to develop the distinct impression," Janeway said, "that we were being lied to. Which, of course we were."

Of course they were: it seemed to happen every third week in the Delta Quadrant.

"In fact," Janeway went on, "our people had been imprisoned, on the overmarshal's orders. Though he kept insisting it was to protect them from the rebels. The dungeons, of course, were the safest place in the palace, once the rebels started shelling." Her mouth twisted sourly; she'd been taken in, and it wasn't sitting well with her. "Luckily, Neelix was suspicious from the beginning and had made friends with the guards--mostly by bringing in food. He managed to smuggle in weapons and-- Well, we finally got them out. Tuvok is still in sickbay."

That could have been me, Chakotay thought. Only, no, it wouldn't: like Neelix, he would have realized that the friendly overmarshal plagued by anarchic rebels was really a callous dictator clinging to power in the face of a revolution. In her drive to engage each new culture on its own level, Janeway could be pretty blind to what might really be going on.

"Unfortunately," Janeway said, "the overmarshal's allies haven't been very forgiving. We've had running battles and ambushes across three systems. It's starting to wear."

He smiled sympathetically at her rueful grin.

Then, "So, how are things?" she asked.

"Comparatively good," he answered. "Tom's teaching his friends poker." He warmed at her chuckle. "I'm ... studying our options." Her eyes narrowed at his pointed innocence; she didn't pursue it. "And doing this." He gestured toward the ice planets circling outside the shuttle: he'd streamed his reports to Voyager inside his transmission to Janeway. Astronomy being less dangerous than anthropology, he'd pretty much stuck to data concerning the storms on the second gas giant and some interesting wobbles in the orbits of the inner six moons of gas giant number three.

Left out the study of the effects of Bergar's on the human body and its aftermath: Paris's guards deciding that Chakotay was trying to poison his husband so he could take off with a lover. After Chakotay had laid out that evening's meal, a guard came over and switched Paris's food with Chakotay's, then stared meaningfully at Chakotay while he choked down the roast chicken he'd meant for Paris. It's replicated; it's just like the replicated vegetables YOU eat, Chakotay kept reminding himself; but it still felt like eating something that had had a little birdy life all its own, and there was a hint of greasiness that-- He'd managed to get back to the shuttle before vomiting up what seemed like everything he'd eaten since he was thirteen. Now, he just handed the basket across the table to Paris and watched him parcel out the food under the humiliating glares of the guards.

"How's Tom really doing?" Janeway asked.

"He has good days and bad. You know Paris." He smiled blandly at her.

She studied him for a minute. "It won't be that much longer," she said.

"No," Chakotay said. "It won't."

Something she heard in his voice firmed her jaw. She opened her mouth to say something when a red alert sounded on Voyager; "Sorry, have to go," Janeway said, standing up. Then, crisply, "Give my best to Tom." She gave him a meaningful look and switched off the transmission.

He knew her, had watched the expressions on that lovely face long enough to know what she was thinking, what she was stopping herself from saying. And, what she hadn't said was, "Be careful. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Follow Starfleet protocols." She hadn't said those things because, just as he knew her, so she knew him.

And she knew that he was perfectly capable of ignoring Starfleet regulations if the objective was worth it. After all, once a Maquis, always a Maquis.

In fact, Chakotay was willing to bet that she was counting on it.

~ ~ ~

There are other constants in the universe, of course. For example, once an over-excited Shiunta, always an over-excited Shiunta. And--more perilous--once an oversexed pilot with an attitude problem, always an oversexed pilot with an attitude problem.

"--Because then they start talking about their sex lives, and I don't have anything to say."

Oh, good god, this was dangerous territory, especially since the wall behind Chakotay was getting another rhythmic workout and especially since Paris was on his belly, looking at Chakotay through his eyelashes. Flirtatious--that was the word Chakotay was trying not to think. And "obvious": that was the other word Chakotay was trying not to think. "Make something up," Chakotay said, resolutely not looking at Paris's ass. "Cobble something together from your exotic past." Yep: not looking at all. Damned warm in here, though.

Paris gave him a look that was half amusement, half exasperation. "Too much material: I won't be able to remember what I told them." Grinning. Baiting him.

Smart-ass. "Okay," said Chakotay. "This long--" He held his hands about half a meter apart. "--and six or seven times a night."

"I didn't know we were talking about me." Paris laughed.

"Oh, we were supposed to be describing you?" Chakotay held out one hand, thumb and index finger about five centimeters apart. Grinned at Paris.

Paris hooted and slapped at Chakotay's hand. Reached up to grab him--

And the wrestling match evaporated in a flustered heartbeat. Chakotay watched the decision being made in Paris's eyes: touching was a baaaaad idea. Paris flushed, then cast him a sly look; the temperature of the room went up a notch or two. The thumping was speeding up.

They managed to make the infinitismal scoot away from each other look nonchalant.

"Besides," Chakotay said as if nothing had happened, "if you told them the truth about me, they'd just all want in on the action."

"Yeah, but then I could rent you out," Paris said lightly. "Think about how much money you could make."

That sparked a memory, and Chakotay found himself snorting with laughter. Laughing with embarrassment when Paris made an inquiring sound.

"It's--" Chakotay looked away from him, felt his face warming. "I-- I fantasized about being a rent boy." He grinned at Paris's hoot of laughter. "I was fifteen and had no idea what prostitution was like. I was just really, really horny and thought it would be great to have sex all day long." And why the HELL is this coming out of your mouth, you idiot? Paris would never let him forget this; and once they were back on Voyager.... Professional. Just because they were thousands of miles from Voyager and were sitting here naked didn't mean he couldn't stay professional--

"Luckily, I had a holodeck," Paris said, laughing. "I ran the rent boy program a couple of times--carefully disguised, so my parents wouldn't find out. But that wasn't the one that got me in trouble with my folks...."

Chakotay quirked a questioning--and apprehensive--eyebrow. What the hell could be worse than finding your son prostituting himself on your holodeck?

"The H. M. Bark Endeavour. Captain Cook's first voyage." Paris flirted a wary glance at him, then relaxed when Chakotay didn't laugh. "Exploring the Pacific wasn't the fantasy life my father had in mind for his Starfleet son," he said wryly. "He was ... upset. But I loved that program." His face softened; his eyes grew thoughtful. He rolled onto his back, hands laced beneath his head, his mind apparently very far away. Chakotay jerked his gaze up to Paris's face. "The ocean, the ship-- It was wonderful. I explored coral reefs, swam with dolphins, had the occasional bloody fight with sharks--it was just great."

The sea? Paris's parents had had fits about a holodeck program of the sea?

"The best part was not having to come up for air," Paris went on. "Holodeck with the safeties on: I could just swim and swim and dive as deep as I wanted. Just like I belonged in the sea." His eyes and voice were dreamy.

Chakotay was thunder-struck: he'd never seen Paris like this. Was a love of the sea anywhere in Paris's Starfleet files? He found himself relaxing, caught up in Paris's dream world.

"And sailing the ship--that was fun," Paris went on. "Those sails. The dolphins swimming beside the ship. All those tropical islands to explore." He laughed. "And, of course, whoever wrote the program made sure there were a lot of half-naked island women--" His hands slid out from under his head, gestured as he grinned at Chakotay. "--with really big breasts...."

Chakotay found himself laughing. Okay, typical holodeck program. And typical Paris. But still: the teenaged boy sailing the south Pacific on James Cook's crew, swimming through vibrant seas--that was a Paris Chakotay hadn't known about.

The thumping next door was reaching a crescendo, accompanied by some suggestive yelps. "Shouldn't our little love tryst be over by now?" Chakotay asked.

Paris smiled slyly. "I was real good this week," he purred. "We got an extra four pentals."

Well, shit. Twenty more minutes. Paris's smile broadened; he looked meaningfully toward the sounds next door and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Chakotay gave him a quelling stare.

"This doesn't have anything to do with my almost poisoning you, does it?" he said.

Paris's laughter was--mercifully--louder than the sounds in the next room. "Oh, god: the look on your face when he switched our meals," he sputtered.

"I thought I was going to throw up my toenails," Chakotay admitted.

Paris was sitting up. "And I'd kill for a hamburger. I'm sick of your vegetarian food." He looked impishly at Chakotay. "I'm supposed to use our extra time to remind you that I'm your husband." The impish look was sliding into sultry; his low voice was silky with innuendo. "Smack your ass a little." He had slid very close. "Make you whimper with pleasure. Ffffuck you into submission."

Room was getting damn warm. Chakotay looked at Paris's hand, which was resting just above Chakotay's knee. Warm hand. Lively, too. "Lieutenant Paris," he said crisply, "I'd remove your hand myself, but something ... unfortunate might happen to it."

The hand was removed, but Paris was unabashed, even when Chakotay gave him that glare he'd learned from one of Starfleet's finest--the kind of glare that made a guy's testicles scramble back up inside his body for protection. Paris just grinned at him, bright-eyed and impish.

"You know," Chakotay said conversationally, "I wouldn't piss off the guy who decides what I eat. Just pointing that out."

"But you're so cute when you're mad," Paris purred at him, tugging at the sheet beneath them.

"Don't you think that's a little cliche?"

Paris dipped in close. "Whatever works," he said huskily.

And then he very gently put his mouth on Chakotay's.

There was an instant there where Chakotay was too surprised to react, though, really, he should have been expecting it; it was the kind of thing Paris would do.

And then there was an instant there where Chakotay's lips parted and--

And then he managed to get a grip on his damned libido and jerk out of the kiss.

Paris was frozen in place, mouth partly open, blinking at him, deliciously flushed. Then, "Well, now--" he started, just as--mercifully--the door behind him opened.

Paris snatched the sheet from under Chakotay and was through the door in an instant, chirping, "Thank you, sir!" to the guard.

And just before the door closed, he turned and looked at Chakotay. In his eyes were appraisal and approval.

And promises that took away what remained of Chakotay's breath.

He spent the rest of that afternoon not looking forward to supper that night, since Paris would be Paris and would be immature about the damned kiss which Chakotay wasn't going to discuss. At all.

And, yes, Paris was Paris, smirking at Chakotay, who ignored him. The guards, luckily, had apparently decided that their point had been made and let Chakotay set out the food himself.

Ah, yes: the food. Nice, nutritious--

"Did we discuss the brussel sprouts thing?" Paris asked, peering at his food.

"Did we discuss the not pissing off the guy in charge of your food thing?"

Paris laughed and leaned forward. "You kissed back," he said confidentially.

He was not talking about this. "You surprised me."

"You surprised me." With an impish gleam in his eyes.

Chakotay took a somber bite. Not answering. He was not going to answer.

"At least you put more cheese in it this time," Paris said, digging in. A silent moment when the taste registered. "Not that it improved things." Paris swallowed with a moue of disgust. "Is that broccoli?"

"Yep," Chakotay said. Good old nutritious vegetable lasagna.

Paris was dissecting his with his fork. "Is that niala root?"

"It's good for you." Added an interesting note of muskiness, too.

"And pakril? That's nastier than leeola root." Paris was arranging the lasagna's component parts around the rim of his plate with a suspicious eye.

"It's good for you." And, "Quit that," Chakotay said through gritted teeth, "before the guards decide I'm trying to poison you again." Good god, the man had no discretion at all.

Paris flirted a sidelong glance at the guard who was frowning at them and philosophically scooped lasagna into his mouth. Smiled broadly. Chewed eagerly. Swallowed and smiled fondly at Chakotay.

Ass, Chakotay thought, trying not to laugh. But at least they weren't discussing the kiss.

"Man who cooks like this," Paris said, "would need to kiss as well as you do. Otherwise, he'd get no action at all."

The impish grin again when Chakotay gave him a quelling look. Not talking about the kiss. "I'm thinking of deep-frying the brussel sprouts next time," Chakotay said thoughtfully.

Paris choked on a mouthful of lasagna. "You win," he said.

But the mischievous expression on his face hinted otherwise.

~ ~ ~

"--pretty well. End of entry." And, Chakotay asked himself, just when did you start lying in your log entries? Because his own adjustment to life in the damned station wasn't going "pretty well": life in the damned station was becoming fucking tedious. All those years you spent longing for a peaceful routine, he thought ruefully, you had no idea how damned DULL it would be.

Hours open for meditation, for reading, for all those little things he'd never had time for in Starfleet, as a Maquis, on Voyager. He'd had almost two months of it, and he was about to start bouncing off walls. He'd never realized that he'd actually enjoyed the trouble Voyager seemed to get into every week.

Research. He needed to throw himself into some project, learn about the people of the other systems, about the station. Map the fucker, in case--a thought slowly dawned--in case there really was a weak spot in the prison wall that nobody knew about because nobody looked for it.

So, mapping the station became his project. Carrying a tricorder as he walked the byzantine streets, organizing the resulting information.

The tricorder confirmed what he already suspected: that most of the material used in the station's construction did nasty things to sensor readings. Most of it was Starfleet-final-exam material: triple images, phantom readings, areas that couldn't be read at all. He patiently combed through the information, compared it with other readings, weeded out the phantom stuff, combined information to fill in the blanks.

The map just reinforced something Chakotay had already known: that an awful lot of the prison was inside the Wieong'than part of the station, where non-Wieong'tha were forbidden to go. It would be tough to get into that section, anyway; the few gates were heavily guarded. And even if you managed to get in--via, say, a handy jet-pack--the penalty was a very public and painful death. The skin of the last individual who tried it still hung outside the prison.

But, Chakotay wondered as he stared at the map, what did things look like from outside the station? Probably he'd get those damned lousy sensor readings. But he could sort through them and--

Don't be stupid, a little voice inside his head said very distinctly, and he snorted and blanked the screen with the map on it. Stupid to think that he'd get some sort of miraculous reading from outside the station--the kind of reading that pinpointed Paris for a quick escape. Stupid.

So he focused on his astronomy and collected information from other space travelers and worked his way through Paris's favorite dishes and reported to Voyager.

"--that the overmarshal has a surprising number of allies." Janeway was looking frazzled. "Either that, or pirates: we seem to run into an awful lot of both. It's exhausting."

A word she didn't use unless she meant it. Chakotay felt a familiar tightening in his gut at the dispirited tone in her voice, the fatigue etched on that lovely face. He looked at his hand, clenched on the conn, and consciously relaxed it. No use getting worked up at the thought of Voyager dodging and fighting her way through another hostile section of the galaxy; no use fretting over the thought of the crew--down by two--wearing itself out. Nothing he could do except try to find information that might be useful.

"We're hoping for a little reprieve," Janeway went on. "We think we've found a hiding place."

"Sounds like you need one," Chakotay said. He didn't pursue it. Despite their encryption algorithems, somebody hostile could be listening in.

"Unfortunately, we've still got pursuers who tend to appear out of nowhere. Oh--and Neelix has a new dish." Janeway's eyes sparkled. "A lobe worm that he swears tastes like chicken, though the crew has yet to agree. Unfortunately, the worm has a phenomenal reproduction rate, and Neelix seems to have an endless supply. But Harry Kim is convinced that--"

The signal evaporated into static. Chakotay double-checked the frequency, tried the other possibilities. Ran a diagnostic on his own transceiver.

Nothing.

He tried hailing again. Nothing but the static of deep space.

He looked at his hands shaking on the conn. An interrupted signal didn't really mean anything. Something could have gone wrong with Voyager's transceiver; something could have gone wrong with Voyager's computer. There were a lot of small things that could have gone wrong. An interrupted signal didn't necessarily mean that something had gone drastically wrong with Voyager. Probably he'd catch her signal any minute now.

That was something he was still telling himself four hours later, staring fruitlessly out at empty space. He'd hailed Voyager a thousand times; he'd reconfigured the transceiver to pick up the faintest signal. He'd sorted through unintelligible communications from unknown ships and filtered out stellar background noise, hoping to find a fragment of a Starfleet signal.

Nothing.

And now he had to go back and have supper with Paris and pretend that nothing worrying had happened, because he wasn't sure anything worrying had happened, and it was no use alarming Paris until he was sure.

Until he was sure Voyager was truly missing, and he and Paris were alone in the Delta Quadrant.

~ ~ ~

When he told Paris a few days later, over Hungarian goulash, he was glad he'd waited. Chakotay had spent most of the intervening days at the edge of the system, hailing, monitoring, hoping.

He'd even ventured out past the heliosheath into interstellar space, stupidly awash with guilt: leaving the star's gravitational influence seemed like abandoning Paris. Here he'd sat for hours, the shuttle's signals damped down so passing merchant ships wouldn't notice him. Monitoring comm channels, pumping everything into sensors, filtering out noise from the star's Oort cloud, shamelessly eavesdropping on comm chatter.

And finally hearing some useful information, relayed from ship to ship across a couple of star systems, via primitive subspace communications.

"I lost Voyager's signal," Chakotay told Paris at supper that night. "Got cut off and can't seem to pick it up again."

Paris froze, and Chakotay watched the color drain from his face.

"Probably something minor," Chakotay went on. "A busted transceiver--you know how things can go wrong. Could just be the star that went supernova in the L'rrc system. Voyager wasn't that far away; you know how those things can louse up communication."

He left out that it was possible that Voyager had been too close to the super nova; Paris's face told him that he was considering that possibility himself.

Paris very carefully put down his fork. "They were being pursued, you said. Ambushed."

"There wasn't anything in the conversation that hinted they were under attack. It's probably just that nova lousing up communications."

Paris was studying him, looking for a hint that he was lying. "But if somebody got in a hit before Voyager picked them up on sensors...."

"I doubt the shields would be down."

"Something big enough can still get past--"

"Is something wrong with your food?" Damn: they hadn't noticed the guard coming up behind Paris.

"No, sir! It-- We're just worried about friends." Paris picked up his fork and poked at his food.

"They were near the L'rrc system," Chakotay explained to the frowning guard.

"Ah!" said the Aiildan man sitting next to Paris, waving his chopstick-like eating utensils. "That was a terrible thing! It swallowed up the whole system, including the mining colonies! So many deaths!"

"Ah!" the man's wife chimed in. "My brother's wife's third cousin was just leaving that system when the star expanded. His ship was very nearly caught!"

Up and down the room, beings on both sides of the counter muttered or clucked in sympathy.

Mollified, the guard went back to his post.

"You need to eat," Chakotay said to Paris, who was shoving food around with his fork. "It won't help us to keep speculating. We can both come up with a hundred things that could have happened--just drive ourselves crazy. I'm sure they're okay."

His own appetite seemed to have vanished, but he forced himself to eat his vegetable curry, pleased when Paris finally followed suit.

A pleasant chat would do wonders for morale. "And how is your brother's wife's third cousin doing now?" Chakotay asked the Aiildan woman.

"Ah! His cargo was the last cargo of zahao crystals to leave that system--he'll be able to sell it for ten times what he would have gotten before the nova! The Star Being has always had his best interests in mind," she said happily as she dug into her food.

"All praise to the Star Being," her husband murmured reverently.

Paris was staring at the Aiildans, fork halfway to his lips. Chakotay blinked and took a cleansing breath. The dangers of the universe, he thought, were sometimes nothing compared with the dangers of having a pleasant chat with one's fellow beings.

And finding out what was really going on inside their heads.

[To part six]

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