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Lieutenant Tom Paris awoke to a loud thud and a sharp pain in his knee. "Son of a... What's going on?" he thought from his groggy state. He then looked up and saw his bed looming over him. "Damn! I fell off the bed!" He began to stand up, until the terrible pain from his wounded knee stopped him where he stood... uhh sat. "Damn, what a way to start a day!"

The young lieutenant reached over to the night table near his bed and used it to aid himself in rising to his feet. After limping over to his closet, he grabbed a fresh uniform, climbed into it, and put on the his black boots.

He glanced at his chronomer. It read 5:53 hours. It looked like he was going to be a little late for his shift today. After stopping to glance in the mirror and making sure that every golden-blond hair on his head was in place, he hobbled his way out into the corridor and toward sickbay.

"Well Mister Paris, you don't seem to have any major injuries." the ship's holographic doctor stated as he examined Tom with a medical tricorder. "You seem to be very prone to injury, Mister Paris. You can't even seem to keep yourself healthy from your own bed," he remarked in that disapproving way he had.

"I just can't seem stay away from you, Doc." the injured man said, smiling.

"Yes well, perhaps you should consider getting restraints. I'd be more than happy to provide them."

"Thanks, Doc, I'll think about it," he said smiling and laughing slightly.

As the doctor healed his knee, Tom thought about how he and The Doctor had had this relationship since they had first met. Well, since The Doc became "conscience" anyway. The hologram cared about him. Those clever comments he made, and they were very clever he had to admit, were just The Doctors way of showing affection. At least, that was what he hoped.

"All better."

"Thanks, Doc. See ya later."

"I'm sure you will."

"You're late for your shift, Tom," the voice from the center of the bridge came in response to Paris' exit from the turbolift.

"Sorry, Captain. I had a minor injury. The Doc was taking care of me in sickbay."

"Let's just hope it doesn't happen again. We wouldn't want our best pilot hurt now would we?" Kathryn Janeway said in a flippant, half joking tone.

"Thank you, Captain. I knew you'd understand." Paris took his seat at the helm of the starship Voyager as the ensign that had been manning the controls stood up.

The bridge was quiet for a moment, and then Harry Kim, the young ensign who had come aboard Voyager fresh out of the academy, spoke up, "Captain, there's a planet straight ahead on our current course that looks like it could provide us with a good food supply.

"Is there any sentient life?" Janeway asked.

"None, Captain."

"Well then, let's check it out. Mr. Paris continue on our current course and enter orbit when we reach the planet."

"Aye." Paris' sat back and waited for Voyager to come in range of the planet, then his expert hands guided the starship into a proper orbit for an away team to beam down. There would obviously be an away team.

"Chakotay," the captain said to her first officer, " send for Mr. Neelix and take an away team down to scan for edible plant life."

The Native American man stood up from his chair beside the captain and headed for the turbolift. As he did so, he tossed back, " Paris, Tuvok." In response, the two men left their posts and joined their commander in the lift.

The away team arrived on the alien planet in a whir of transporter blue. The three Starfleet officers immediately pulled out their tricorders and began to scan the area. Neelix, the chef and self-appointed morale officer, slowly turned in a circle to examine the area by eye.

"I still don't read any life signs, Commander," Tuvok, the Vulcan who ran tactical and handled the job of chief of security, stated flatly.

"Neither do I," Chakotay responded. "Looks like we're alone here. Tom you go that way. Tuvok you can take that direction. Neelix go that way, and I'll take over here." he ordered as he pointed in a different direction for each member of the group

Tom watched Tuvok turn in the direction he was assigned, then he wearily turned to his task. He fixed his eyes on the tricorder and liked the results. There was plenty of food here that would be edible for Voyager's crew. Hopefully it would be better that some of the stuff Neelix had cooked lately. "Where did that guy learn to cook anyway?" Thankfully, right now the ship was doing pretty well on energy and supplies. Of course, anything that could be easily acquired would be gladly accepted by the crew.

He took another look at his tricorder. Everything was the same as it had been the last time he'd looked. As he turned and looked back at the other three going about their business, he spotted something glowing bright green off to his left. He aimed his tricorder at it and walked in its direction. "Hmmm... That's odd."

"Commander, there's something over here I think you should see." he said calmly after tapping his comm badge.

"I'll be right there, Tom."

As he approached the object, he could see something that looked like writing inside it. He reached out to touch it. The instant that his finger tips came in contact with the cold, smooth surface of the rock, it became warm. Then the surroundings of the planet were gone.

"Tom!" shouted Chakotay as his comrade disappeared right before his very eyes. He couldn't believe it. It was like something had just engulfed him from the ground up. Tapping his comm badge he barked, "Tuvok, Harry, come quick. Tom's just disappeared."

He approached the position where Paris' trail of flattened plant life ended, and Tuvok and Neelix soon followed.

"What has happened, Commander?" the Vulcan asked in his typical emotionless Vulcan tone.

"I don't know. Tom called me over to look at something and as I was coming over, he just disappeared." Chakotay explained.

"I do not read anything unusual," he said as he scanned the area with his tricorder. "Perhaps we should return to Voyager."

"I think that's a good idea." He tapped his comm badge and reported to Janeway, "Captain, we have a problem. Tom has disappeared."

"He's what?"

"Disappeared. I don't know how. He found something. I don't know what though. He was gone before I could reach him."

"I'm beaming you back up. I'd like to know what happened exactly. We can scan the surface from the ship and I'll send down a team to search the area."

"Yes, Captain."

The away team disappeared from the planet, that had mysteriously taken Tom Paris, in the same blue whir by which they had appeared.

Benjamin Sisko sat in his chair in the Operations center of Deep Space Nine. The station was located right next the worm hole that led to the Gamma Quadrant. The same worm hole that the Prophets maintained. The Prophets, as their name implies, had brought may prophecies to the citizens of the nearby planet. The Bajorans. Most if not all of those prophecies had come true, as far a Sisko could tell. As he stared at the image of the worm hole opening on the view screen, he wondered what sort of thing the Prophets would bring to Bajor next.

Today was a slow day, and he was enjoying watching the swirling blue shape of the "Temple", as the Bajorans called it. But as everyone knows all good things must, the beauty on the screen came to an end. The sight he had been enjoying was replace by an ordinary starfield. The worm hole had closed.

Sighing, he turned his head and was shocked to see something appear on the deck out of nowhere. The figure quickly became a man in a red Starfleet uniform. The uniform wasn't the current style, but the style that had been worn only a few years earlier.

"Welcome to Deep Space Nine," he said in a slightly sarcastic tone. "Now could you please tell me what you're doing here in Ops and just who the hell you are?"

The strange man looked around in disbelief, and then the gaze of his sky blue eyes fell upon Sisko.

"Well," Sisko said impatiently and noticed the two pips on the mans collar, "Lieutenant?"

"I... uh... I don't know." he muttered in confusion.

At that moment, Sisko's eyes were drawn to an object lying on the deck beside the man. It was round, flat, and luminescent. He didn't like the look of it. "What is that?"

The young man looked somewhat embarrassed and said, "Well... I don't know that either. . . Sir"

Sisko felt he should trust this man and he relaxed a bit. He smiled. "Looks like you're a load of information aren't you. Could you at least tell me where you're from?"

"USS Voyager, sir."