Disclaimers, ratings and warnings are in Part 1.
THE BADLANDERS
PART TWELVE
"Well, howdy, cousin Tom."
"I don't have cousins."
"You do have now, cuz. Seems you know of me too, judging by your reaction. Come in, come in," Nick invited. "It's your cabin after all."
Tom turned red as a beet, but not from blushing. He was angry as he advanced on Nick. Nick wanted to laugh. Had the man forgotten he carried a phaser he could have used on them, or had he been too shocked to see his double in his cabin? He guessed that lying blooded and burned in the cargo bay had made him unrecognisable, so it was likely that Tom hadn't seen the resemblance.
Tom forgot for a moment that Harry was also still there and freed from his bonds. The small diversion gave the young operations officer the opportunity to move in behind Tom. As Tom tried to punch him, Harry tripped him and he landed on the floor with a heavy thud.
"What the - ?"
"Your move, Harry," Nick said.
The next few seconds Harry kicked Tom in the belly, again and again, heaving as each booted foot found its mark. Tom gasped, the air whooshing from his lungs.
"You crazy bastard!" Harry panted between each thud. "You made my life a misery. I swear I'm going to kill you!" Then thud! thud! as Harry kicked Tom.
"Stop, will you? Stop! I can make it good for you," Tom huffed on the floor.
"What, you want to torture me more? Not on your life. Take that!"
After a few more kicks and punches, Harry stopped, heavily out of breath. He stood, wheezing as he looked at Nick. His eyes were wild, the shame and humiliation making way for extreme anger and retribution. Nick bent down Tom up by his scruff and threw him on the bed. Harry went for him again.
"I'll kill you!"
"Harry, that's okay. We're going to make him pay, right, Tom?"
Tom was busy wiping blood that trickled from the side of his mouth. Harry's boot probably nicked him there too. Tom went for his commbadge this time, tapped at and found it wasn't there. Surprised, he turned dazed eyes on them.
"Looking for this, darling?" Harry asked as he poked it about Tom's face before pinning the communicator on himself.
"Harry, check his console, will you? Disable some restrictions. My guess is this one had high level clearance from his boss."
"What happened to the others?" Harry asked.
"Tell you later. Now get on with it."
"Nothing to it, Nick,"
He dashed to Tom's console where he seated himself and started entering commands, working furiously, looked back at them in case Tom had found a way of escaping.
"Excellent. Now, Tommy boy, take off your clothes...slowly."
"You b - "
"Tut -tut, sweetheart. Not so nice when the boot is on the other foot. Slowly, will you? I want to see your titties."
Nick heard Harry snicker.
"And Tom's little cunt, too."
He had already removed Tom's phaser when Harry tripped him and now it was set on stun, pointed at Tom who started removing his clothes, looking very reluctant. Nick wasn't into kinky practices, but Tom wasn't going to know that. Let him think they were going to fuck his brains out. Hell, the man really did resemble him. They could have been identical twins, let alone just twins. They had the same hair, the same eyes, the same way the mouth clamped close. He sighed. Not now, his own revelations.
When Tom was finally naked, he looked sullenly at Nick, but before he could make full eye contact, his fist landed against Tom's mouth. Then another punch. He was beginning to see red. He pictured Jenny, powerless against the force of a gang who raped and beat her to death.
"Now think how young Jenny felt, you fucking gangster. Think about it, Tom Paris, before I beat some more of your brains out. How does it feel when you don't have your backup? Oh, they're on their way? I am soo afraid of them! Harry!'
"Nick, I - er...Tom, I mean, just sent out a ship wide communication that he's not to be disturbed."
"See there? You just told your friends you're out of commission for the next two days."
"And, he changed the codes to his cabin," Harry added. "It's impossible for anyone to decode it. Not even that fucking Klingon Torres."
"You will never get away with this..." Tom muttered groggily.
"Ah, my cousin, I get away with anything."
"Weren't you supposed to be in a Federation prison? Being fucked senseless by criminals?" Tom goaded him.
He wasn't going to lose it. He spent too much time in that prison thinking.
"Oh, but Tommy darling, why do you think you're defenceless now? I didn't get to be the leader in prison. Started beating everyone up, see? If anyone breaks in here unexpectedly, he's dead, man."
"It won't work, you know. I got a nice piece of Harry's ass - "
"Don't listen to him, Harry."
"That's okay, he's nothing now, Nick," Harry muttered, getting up from the console, approaching Tom and calmly kicking him in the gut again.
Then he walked to Tom's wardrobe and started rifling through it. He must have found something for he gave a whoop of surprise..
"What's that?" he asked.
Harry was mute for precisely two seconds after his whoop.
"I don't get it. How come he has a picture of Captain Janeway in his room?"
"Okay, Tom. Your move. Care to tell my friend Harry how you come to have a picture of this Starfleet Captain?"
"My father is going to kill you both should you ever make it out here," muttered Tom. Nick had taken the same cuffs and bound Tom's hands behind his back. He lifted Tom's chin.
"Who, do you mean? Owen McKenzie Paris? Same man who tried to fuck Janeway? He fucked a Janeway alright, but not Kathryn Janeway. Her mother was his victim."
"That's not true! Kathryn and her mother seduced my father. They're whores."
"Daddy told you that, huh, Tom? The same man who fucked his own sweet little Tommy boy so the poor kid didn't know if he should be a girl or a boy? Since you were about five years old?"
"You - you - " Tom heaved, unable to mask his anger this time. Nick knew he hit a nerve, a very raw nerve. He would have liked to kill O. M. Paris himself for violating little children. He would have like to kill O. M. Paris himself for a few other crimes.
"Ah, he was into little children, right? You couldn't escape, Tommy boy and believe me, I really share your anger here. But your little sister didn't escape either, did she? Neither did a very great friend you used to have. Went by the name of Freyne Detroit, one time crack flyer, sometime prison inmate. Told me a few things about you..."
Tom struggled violently against his restraints. Nick glanced at Harry who looked shocked out of his wits at what he was hearing. Nick struck Tom's face.
"Sit still, you dickhead. We're not finished. So you grew up, developing your father's deviant ways, only you liked young ensigns like Harry here. You even teamed up with your own friend, Freyne Detroit until he decided to call it quits. Called you a sicko."
"He was deranged."
"Nick," Harry began, "what's that about Captain Janeway's mother?"
"You know anything, Tommy boy?" Nick asked Tom after slapping him through the face again, a stinging blow that snapped Tom's head.
"Cut it out - "
For which he was paid doubly when Harry's fists landed squarely against Tom's jaw.
"Talk to me, Tom," Harry ordered.
"I don't know. My father said she was evil. She seduced him and so did her daughter. I hate that fucking bitch."
"Correction, Tom Paris. Your sweet Daddy raped poor Gretchen Janeway when she wouldn't give him the time of day even after she was married to Admiral Janeway. Now I am going to tell you that not many persons know this. They were given to think that Gretchen Janeway was a bitch in heat who invited Paris into her home and took it off for him."
"If that's how it happened, that's how it happened."
"That's not how it happened, sweetheart. Gretchen Janeway had a great friend who had an equally great son. Alan Johnson was Mark Johnson's father and Mark Johnson was locked away somewhere he couldn't get near Kathryn."
"I know nothing about that - "
"I guess you wouldn't. You were too angry and too busy being your Daddy's pussy boy."
"Why, you - "
"The man has no honour, no pride, no humanity. Pity he's your father, Tom," Nick said, feeling sorry for the first time for Tom Paris.
"Nick, about Captain Janeway."
"Ah, Tom, I suspected only what the doctor in sickbay corroborated. See, he studied your DNA, courtesy your skin under Jenny's nails. You share the same DNA with Captain Janeway. That makes her your - "
"Sister?" Harry asked, completely surprised.
"Aye, Harry. His sister. Though to give Admiral Janeway credit, he raised Kathryn Janeway as his own daughter. Gretchen is dead now, and so is Tom's mother."
"How did she die?" Harry asked.
"You're gonna tell him, Tommy boy?"
"She - she committed suicide. Took my sister with her too. I wished she had taken me with her," Tom said, his words hollow. "I wish she had taken me with her too. Left me with that fucking bastard who never left me alone again. Not even when - "
"You started at the Academy..."
"Yeah," Tom sighed.
Nick started beating him again, helped by Harry who kicked him till he rolled off the bed on to the floor.
"No more..."
That incited Harry even more. The blows rained on Tom until he was a mass of blood, his body limp.
Nick nodded to Harry and together they dragged the naked Tom out of his cabin, down to the turbolift at the end of the corridor. Crew who passed them stopped and gaped.
"Tried to kill me," Nick said. "Right, sweet Harry?" When Harry nodded vigorously, he added, "now we're taking this prisoner back to sick bay. He's not going to trouble us again."
In the turbolift Harry expressed his shock.
"They thought you were Tom."
"Of course they thought I was Tom."
"But you said you weren't related."
Nick sighed heavily, pictured his mother, single parent star of the medical school in her time.
"My mother was also a victim of Owen Paris," he muttered.
"But - but that makes Tom - "
"My brother. Yes, I know. I've always known."
"And Captain Janeway - "
"Not a word of this, Harry."
************
END PART TWELVE