Disclaimers, ratings and warnings are in Part 1.

THE BADLANDERS

PART TWENTY SIX

Tom Paris sat in the passenger section of the shuttle Tiberius this time while Nick piloted. He had been right on so many counts about his father being the source of all unhappiness, all devious productions, all manner of evil, all sordid baseness of character with no sign of softening. The destruction Voyager was the final straw. He wasn't going to get away, especially now that they knew the truth. Especially when there were survivors to give evidence of that truth.

The man had no honour, no respect, no dignity, yet all those – or lack of them – were cloaked under masks of the aristocracy, of good breeding and good bearing. That Nick was his brother came as no surprise to him. That Kathryn was his sister evoked only the realisation that she had never seduced his father and that it was in fact the opposite.

Owen Paris violated her mother and Kathryn was born as a result of that. An innocent Kathryn, an innocent Gretchen Janeway whom, when he thought rationally about things now, was most probably poisoned by Owen Paris. Poison - his favourite elixir for murder.

But when you're a kid of seven and your father was lying behind you in his bed, holding you as if you were a woman, touching you, raping you, then all things he mouthed in those moments of his sexual ecstasy became believable to you. He believed them because it was the only way he could, as a little boy, wrap his brain around the evil cunning and the sordid business of incest of Owen McKenzie Paris. It was the only way he could even remotely assign a word – "justify" -  what his father did to him.

Yes, he thought with great anger and bitterness. He believed his father. When he was in pain, screaming at the forced entry and harsh guttural sounds his father made while violating him, all he could think of was that Gretchen Janeway and Kathryn Janeway and later, her sister Phoebe, were women who seduced him, then withdrew their favours and that was why Owen turned his affections – unnatural affections – to his little boy.

At seven he became good at believing and pretending. At seven he learned to endure the pain and unlawful entry which later became simply whenever he was sad, or angry, the inducement to have his Daddy rape him again and again.

Later he became good. Later he enjoyed the fucking and the grunting and the spilling of seed in his ass, in his mouth. Later he enjoyed taking the huge cock in his mouth and any urge to bite through the hardness quickly dissipating when Owen worked his way in fondling his little penis until it trembled stiffly and spilled.

Tom bit back an angry expletive.

At the back of his mind, he knew that there had to be a truth somewhere. Somewhere deep, hidden under layers and layers of his conscience, he knew that what his father had done , was still doing, was wrong.

He couldn't wait to grow up. Yet, even as a high schooler, whenever Owen Paris had an urge, it was to his son he turned. Tom would sleep in his bed, murmur sleepily when he felt another weight bearing down on it and then allowed his father to fuck him.

Even Owen Paris said he got good at it.

Tom bit back another angry expletive, trying to blank out the memories.

Yet he knew, as would any child systematically reduced to a sex object by a man who abused such positions of trust and gave the name "father" the ugliest association on earth, that he would grow up and be a man.

Even in his teens, Owen Paris had no idea how his own son played him. Take him in, play with him, fuck him, letting him fuck you, reduce a grown man – Starfleet's most revered admiral – to cry like a baby in the throes of sex.

One day, Tom knew, the boy was going to become a man. And that man was going to be his father's downfall.

There was only one journey Owen McKenzie Paris could take within the next forty eight hours: the journey to hell and there was no coming back. Tom had no compunction. He had none when he killed Jenny Delaney. He had none when he killed Torres.

Owen McKenzie Paris might very well be a total stranger.

Doctor Leah Brahms had uttered a cry of dismay when Harry and Eldred Dickson showed her their findings. It was Eldred in fact, who showed her the specs of the torpedoes – ones he designed – and showed her just how the programming had been tampered with.

"And from quite a distance, too, Doctor Brahms," he said, shaken that his findings were correct.

"Yes," Harry agreed, "the programming had been done from this office."

Harry showed the specs of Starfleet Headquarters, and pinpointed the location from where the encryptions had been done.

"Admiral Paris's office?" she asked, visibly shocked. "But Tom, he's your father!"

"Aye, Doctor. And what a father," he had replied bitterly. "See here? Right from his office."

"But anyone wishing to break into the programming of Voyager's computers or any of her critical systems, must have a level ten clearance if the ship is not in orbit or before launch date. Admiral Krog and I are the only ones with that clearance level for any vessel pre-launch."

"Well, it's here, in black and white as they say, Doctor," he told her.

"Do you realise what you're suggesting?" she asked.

This time it was Nick who spoke.

"Doctor, we realise all too well what a serious indictment it is. But it is true. For certain reasons – some of them personal – Admiral Paris, our sweet father, sabotaged Voyager to make it look like she was destroyed by the Maquis in the Badlands. Everything is here as you can see. The timing. It took Voyager two weeks from Deep Space Nine to reach the Badlands. The torpedoes were set to self-destruct when the first phaser fire within the plasma clouds came from the enemy ship. No matter where the Liberty hit Voyager, that first strike was to set off the first of the explosions."

"And, you say that Captain Chakotay knew this?"

"He sensed or suspected it at least. That's how he came to transport the remaining crew from Voyager."

"I…understand…" she said, her voice thoughtful. "What are you going to do now?"

"Well, Doctor," Nick said as he straightened up, "he must face the consequences, mustn't he?"

Tom thought Doctor Brahms looked relieved and he wondered absently if his father had made a play for the attractive engineer as well. It was something O. M. Paris would do. Approach the unapproachable…

He sighed, giving Harry a quick glance.

Saying 'sorry' wasn't going to be enough.

*******************

"We're here," Nick said as the shuttle touched down on the transporter pads at the far end of Starfleet Headquarters. There weren't many people about and Tom was glad that they could at least arrive without it being too obvious. They were simply officers of the USS Audensberg returning briefly for a well-earned break and to stop by Headquarters before leaving again. Even their commbadges were set on the identities of some of the junior officers of the Audensberg.

A useful camouflage. Owen Paris wasn't a stupid man.

"Have you prepared the message?" Harry asked, looking eager enough to be drawn into their little subterfuge.

"Got it right here," Tom replied, holding up the PADD and double checking that he could actually see the information, touch the thing for its physical presence. They had spent some time on Mars preparing and now they were ready.

"Good. I'm going to have to override the codes to his office door, understand?"

What was Harry's problem?

"That's why you're here, Harry."

"Dickson, ready?" asked Nick.

Dickson nodded, holding a small spray can ready.

"Good," Tom said, smiling. "Daddy changes his codes every week. A precautionary measure. No one else does it. One can see he's paranoid about being found out."

"Fine. I'll break it," Harry promised, looking aggrieved that they doubted him.

"Just checking."

Tom sighed. It was going to take a while before Harry trusted him again. He couldn't get the man out of his head, or out of his system for that matter; he knew he was falling headlong into a chasm where the young ensign enjoyed making love to the man who raped him first time round. But he didn't dream up Harry's responses. The man was as attracted to him as he was to Harry. He had sensed it that first day in the Liberty's cargo bay. Tom bit his lip.

His father had spoiled him for women, had drawn out of him every manner of response to another male person. It wasn't going to change. He was convinced of that. He couldn't stand Torres even though she threw her pussy at him from time to time.

Harry touched him, evoked something elemental in him. No, Tom thought, there wasn't going to be a woman around who would touch him in that way.

But any pursuance of those feelings, those possibilities would have to wait. Harry was busy frigging the door of Owen Paris's office and only three minutes later, the door slid open.

"Open Sesame…" Nick whispered as they stepped inside.

"When will he be back here?" Dickson asked, looking around furtively after he had sprayed the panel outside where Harry's fingers had touched it. He had to do the same everywhere in the office where their hands touched.

"He's at Palings right now - "

"Palings?" Harry asked.

"Our family home, or what's left of my family. Anyway, he will make his way here not long after he wakes up."

"Ah..."

"Yes. Nick, how far are you?" he asked.

Nick turned to him, graced him a wicked grin.  "Almost done. Your voice is similar to Daddy's voice. I'm just piggybacking yours over his, mixing it smoothly so no one will know that it was Tom Paris who spoke and not Daddy."

Tom wanted to laugh at the way Nick pronounced 'daddy' precisely as if it were the worst swear word in the Federation. Dickson and Harry waited. Tom sat down at the vid-com. Harry had the imager ready while Nick and Dickson prepared to lip synch on Owen Paris's face - a recent archived recording of Admiral Paris. Tom  gave a deep sigh, his heart beating erratically. He breathed in and out slowly.

"It's now or never..." he murmured as he switched on the PADD.

He had the text memorised, so he looked straight into the imager Harry placed strategically on the desk. Anyone watching on a vid-com elsewhere would see Owen Paris's face with the sharp, steel grey eyes, the thin lips, the greying hairs brushed smoothly, neatly backwards. They would see his admiral's dress uniform, the rank insignia on the collar, the gold-over-black bands on the sleeves. They would see his grim appearance, the stern look, a look that would change as the message was read. They would never know that way Admiral Paris's lips moved, that it was overlayed on an older, different, completely unrelated message. Those movements were synchronised with what he was going to read.

He hoped it would work. He prayed it would work.

"Ready?" Nick asked, his face serious for once.

He nodded, looked one last time at Harry, at Nick, at Dickson, before he looked straight in the imager.

Then he began to recite the words:

"The President of the Federation, members of the Federation Council, all office bearers of Starfleet Command..."

*************** 

Morning at Palings didn't bring him the satisfaction he usually experienced after a night with Phoebe Janeway. The bitch had again outwitted him, smartly forming a firewall for Kathryn's kids. He had been itching in his loins and he had been wanting to taste Ethan for a good while. But every time that bitch in heat beat him to it.

It was time he sacked her. Then again, where was he going to recruit another virgin like Phoebe who had been just as scared as her mother had been when he fucked her senseless? But time with Phoebe had been spent teaching her everything she knew about sex and its dark perversions so that she bested any other woman he casually fucked in their bedrooms or in his office while their husbands were away. That, and a healthy dose of intimidation usually got them to comply. It got Phoebe to comply. The bitch could whack up a pretty storm squatting on his cock in his office while he fucked her.

Phoebe was easy. He played on her hatred for her sister and it worked to his advantage whenever she became intractable, not wanting to play with him.

"Just think how Kathryn would resent that I'm loving you this way, sweet Phoebe," he would purr in her ear. "Just think how much you can tell her how good I can be..."

And then Phoebe, quite angry, would slide under him and make his body tingle with delight for days afterwards. After Tom left, Phoebe became him, and her tight little ass lured him, enticed him just as much as Tom's did.

But he had a taste for Ethan and Ethan was as scared as hell. Not only that, his aunt suddenly got an attack of morals,  ready to front for the kid. Maybe he was getting old. Phoebe got quite protective over the kids. One night he'd seen them sleep and just as he was going to take Ethan out of the room, the bitch in heat came and flamed him all up with her seductive purring. He'd soon forgotten he wanted the boy as Phoebe worked him this way and that and kept him very, very busy.

But sweet mother of God, he wanted that boy. Just think how Kathryn would have minded that! But Kathryn was dead. So was that damn fool husband of hers. He had made certain that they were out of the way. Now the kids belonged to him and Phoebe and pretty soon Phoebe wasn't going to be enough to prevent him getting into Ethan's pants.

A quick shower and he'd be off to Indiana. It was time he taught Phoebe and Kathryn's kids a lesson. This time he was going to force the kid and force Phoebe and Lainey to watch. Yes, teach her a lesson. After that, he'd go to the office and see what's up. Some Maquis dissidents had gotten word out about rebels making their way to Earth. He had to take care of that.

But first, coffee and the daily news. He grinned to himself. He had an itching cock that stiffened just at the thought of Ethan who looked like Tommy, but he wanted to see what's going on in the Federation. Maybe Quark got married, or something, to a naked Ferengi woman.

He sat down after his got his steaming coffee and had taken his first sip before switching it on.

Then Owen Paris frowned.

He saw his own face. A sad, own face that looked like it was close to tears. A sad, own face that talked with his voice.

He frowned, then he turned ice-cold. Ice, ice cold. All colour drained from him. His blood vanished. He was nothing but a shell - flesh and bone that could see and hear.

"...that I have plotted to kill the President of the Federation. My time is near and this is my confession to the world. I am no longer able to keep this hidden from you. It has been too much, too much to bear this terrible burden and torment. I have falsely accused several individuals of crimes they have never committed. I have committed crimes against the persons of Captain Chakotay, and have wilfully turned him into a killing machine by altering his memories..."

"Oh, my God... This cannot be..." Owen Paris whispered, the words emitting as puffs from his lips. His eyes bulged, remained open, but he felt how all the tiny capillaries crack and bled. He was transfixed, paralysed with shock. He sat, the coffee cup tilted from his lifeless fingers and spilled over his pants. He never felt the way his skin burned.

The voice - his voice, his face - droned on. He had absolutely no doubt that every person sitting at their vid-coms was listening, watching.

"I sent the vessel USS Voyager on her maiden voyage to the Badlands and destroyed the ship through remote controlled self-destruct sequence of her photon torpedoes. I have killed the entire crew of Voyager. It is my pain. It is my indictment that I am guilty of committing these crimes.... It is my torment forever..."

"No...no!"

"I cannot lie any longer," his own, sad face continued. "Captain Chakotay uncovered a plot that I have engaged the Cardassians to destroy a member of our Federation - the homeworld and all the inhabitants of Vulcan. For that I took action against him in the moist heinous way possible."

And the real own face, own mouth of Owen McKenzie Paris:

"I must go...I must stop this... Who on earth is responsible for this?" he wondered as he tried to stand up, his body suddenly stiff. But he couldn't keep his eyes off the screen.

"And therefore I hold no one responsible but myself. I cannot face the world otherwise. It is my decision to bring to end this..."

"No!"

"This useless life..."

He didn't bother to switch off the vid-com as he rushed outside and ran to the shuttle that was always ready for take-off barely fifty metres from the house. Within a minute he was airborne. He was blinded his fury and confounded by what had happened. That wasn't him there in his office. It only looked like him. It only sounded like him. Fear sat in him and began to eat at him from the inside. He would never admit to such deeds. Never! Never!

That he was accountable, guilty of every one of them.

Conspiracy!

Someone was going to pay for this.

When he touched down, it took him seconds to realise he was at the farmhouse in Indiana. He had his phaser ready.

Someone was going to pay. Someone who played firewall long enough. Before the Federation Law Enforcement people came for him he was going to get her.

He was not prepared for the welcoming party that met him just outside the house.

There they stood - Kathryn Janeway, his daughter by a woman he raped. Chakotay whose memories he purged violently from him. Tuvok, who helped Kathryn steal the transponder he had hidden so carefully.

Ethan Janeway.

Lainey Janeway.

Phoebe Janeway.

"Phoebe!"

But Phoebe stood her ground. She looked resolute. Her eyes were bloodshot like she had been crying, but she look resolute, pursing her lips as he approached her. Who then but Chakotay and Kathryn to push her back so that when he reached Phoebe, they were standing, protecting her and the kids?

"You're dead, Phoebe. This is a conspiracy!"

"It's over, Owen," he heard Kathryn say. "There's no more running for you. It's over!"

That was when he got blind as he pulled the phaser, set on kill and fired at Ethan and Lainey.

"No!'

Phoebe lay on the ground in front of them, writhing in agony.

Didn't he kill her?

*********

END  PART TWENTY SIX

PART TWENTY SEVEN

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