"Do You Know This Woman?"

Lieutenant Gwen Parri
Chief Medical Officer, USSExeter

Lieutenant Saul Bental
Chief Tactical Officer, USS Exeter

"Mr Bental!" Gwen spotted the officer from the galaxy in the hallway, and she ran after him to catch up. "Could you spare me a moment?"

He stopped his brisk stride, turning toward the voice. He recognized the woman from the staff meeting - an officer from the Miranda, if his memory didn't fail him.

"Always, for such a lovely lady." He replied.

She smiled. "Please call me Gwen. You are intelligence right, that means you probably know a lot of people?"

Saul grinned. It wasn't the first time he was asked that. Ever since the academy, he gained a justified reputation as someone who knew a lot of people and could pull a lot of strings. It was intriguing that his reputation reached the Exeter so quickly.

"A lot of people." He repeated, agreeing. "Why do you ask?"

"I need some information on one of the galaxy officers, a crazy person." She said. "I need to know how insane this person really is."

Saul's narrowed his eyes. "Listen to me carefully, Gwen. I've encountered the patronizing attitude of the Miranda's crew over and over again from the very moment your ship reached ch'Rihan. If this is just another insult to my crew, I have to remind you that your direct superior is also from the Galaxy. Gesnapt?"

"Yes, I do and I apologize. I was not trying to be patronizing. Hell I am not the patronizing kind, but this nutcase has hurt my girlfriend and then I get very protective."

"We have a few nutcases." Saul admitted, registering the term 'girlfriend' on the way. "Who are you talking about?"

"A bloody marine, second lieutenant Branwen London." She said with disgust.

"You must be confusing her with Lieutenant Baile." Saul replied. "Yea, he's definitely on top of the nut list, off the record. What did he do?"

"I am unfamiliar with this lieutenant Baile. I'm talking about a female second lieutenant of Marines who first seduced my girlfriend and then accused her of rape."

"Seriously."

"Do I look like I am joking?"

"No. Seduced your girlfriend, you say."

"Yes." Came the terse reply.

Saul considered this for a moment.

"I know Branwen London quite well. In her core she is a very kind and bright person. The shy type, one that you would expect to see in the science lab rather than the marine barracks. Her problem is... where I come from there's a saying: 'Haia beseret', or in standard 'Living in a movie'. That's her. She grew up in... an unusual surrounding, and as a result she views the universe with a different visor than me and probably you. So no, I don't think she's insane, I think she lives in a movie."

He scratched his chin. Being a male, he already tried to imagine how could Branwen possibly be raped by another woman. The result was awkward at best. "Oh, and I think she'd rather kill herself than make love to another woman, let alone seduce someone."

"But she did. My girlfriend said that they played a game, she was pretending to hypnotise her, and this young woman played played along with a lot of enthusiasm. My girlfriend would never rape anybody, never, I believe her absolutely."

"What your girlfriend may regard as the heat of passion, Bran may regard as rape. Do you... know if Branwen asked your girlfriend to stop?"

In the back of his mind, he was much less calm than his exterior. If the other woman indeed hurt Branwen, she'd have a lot more than the marine psychologist's complaint to deal with. Saul was Branwen's knight; He pleged his oath in that dream where he saw the welsh as a girl in agony, hurt by her father. And while Saul's word wasn't very valuable in other matters, in this one it meant the universe.

"I don't think so. If she had wanted to stop, Anjoli would have done so immediately. I would say that your crewmate is totally to blame for what happened. She must be a very vindictive person, this could seriously hamper my girlfriend's career."

"If I were your girlfriend, I'd worry more about HER girlfriend than her career. Or did this happen before you two, umm, came together?"

"I am the one that worries about her career. We have been together for a long time, we are engaged to be married." Gwendolyn stated.

Saul raised a brow. "You're Human, like me, right? And you're OK with your fiance being with another woman, rape or not?"

"Yes I am human. And you don't understand, she houses too much appetite to just have one sex partner. It's just for the sex, no emotions."

Well, Saul saw and heard of stranger things, but since he hosted old-fashioned opinion in these subjects it was still strange for him. And if it was strange for him it probably was a dozen times stranger for innocent Bran.

"There you go, then. Your girlfriend is a liberal, while Bran is an ultra-conservative. Thus the source of the problem. Just because someone views the world differently doesn't make her insane. If you want, I can talk to Branwen about it once I get back to the Galaxy."

"Then she shouldn't have gone along with Joli in the first place." Gwen sighed. "Look, if you could just get her to drop the charges I would be very grateful."

"I'll talk to her, but I don't intend to convince her to do anything because neither you nor myself know exactly went on between Bran and... Joli. If I'll get the impression that Bran is blowing it out of proportion, I'll try to give her another perspective. She often needs one, and it'll only do her good.But if she doesn't..."

Something dangerous flashed in Saul's eye. "If she didn't blow it out of proportions, your girlfriend has a lot more to worry about than her next promotion."

Gwen watched him closely. "Are you threatening us? … How well do you know this Branwen?"

"A Starfleet officer doesn't threaten another officer, just as a Starfleet officer doesn't rape another. The former is as unthinkable as the latter." Saul replied mysteriously. "Wouldn't you agree?"

She smiled. 'I agree completely, Mr. Bental. It would be good if we could settle this quietly."

Saul experienced a moment of deja-vu. It was definitely not the first time someone asked him to close a matter quietly. However, in Gwen's case, it depended on the matter. He'll talk to Branwen, exactly as he told Gwen. And if this Joli person indeed molested Branwen, he'll make her wish she never toyed with the marine.

He doubted it'll come to that, though. From what Gwen told him, it sounded like a major misunderstanding.

Time will tell.

He just nodded politely, not committing to solve anything quietly at all.

"Thank you. I look forward to getting to know you better." Gwen meant what she said.

"Likewise."

With that Gwen returned to work hoping for the best. She missed Joli terribly, doing something to help her even here helped though.

"Confrontation, Part 1"

Vaebn (NPC - Stuart)
RNI Operative

****
Ki Baratan
ch'Rihan
****

Vaebn sat in a warm leather chair, looking out the ceiling to floor windows that lined one wall of the office he was sitting in. From his vantage point on the Tenth floor, Vaebn could see a fair portion of the city in the dim evening light, and to put it as simply as possible, Ki Baratan was now in ruins. Buildings that once formed the majestic visage of the city were rubble, smoke billowed up into the sky from the many fires that raged. Flashes from weapons fire could be seen all over the city as the Rihanna and Federation soldiers fought the Hydran invaders for every foot of his homeland.

It had been two days since he had seen Branak be killed by the two shady Rihanna, two days constantly fleeing their repeated attempts to subdue him. And he was tired. He had spent days without sleep in his youth when in the Rihannsu Military, but now it was different. He was older, not by much, but he was so tired now. He closed his eyes momentarily, letting thoughts of his wife and daughter fill his mind. At play in the garden, eating dinner together, sitting by the warm fire with the rest of the family, as their grandfather regaled them with stories. The images filled him with joy, and at the same time great sadness. The fire that had killed them had taken the rest of his family, parents, brothers, sisters, their children, the lot. Or so he had believed.

The shady Rihanna had told him that his brother was alive, though Vaebn, at the time, had dismissed it as a ploy to extract him from the room with minimal issue. But despite being on the run, Vaebn had done a little research and had located someone whom he believed might actually know where his brother was. An old family friend, a man who it seemed worked as an aide in the Senate, might have a bead on where his brother, Deletham, was. So here he was waiting in the man's office, though now that he was here, Vaebn had a feeling like something wasn't right.

Since when did an aide to the senate have such an opulent office? And with what would have previously been such a beautiful view of the city. A senator perhaps, but not an aide. At least none he had ever heard of. Mind you, it had been many a year since he had met anyone connected with the senate, so who knew what they did for their aides anymore. An explosion in the fashon district caught his attention for a moment as a small building collapsed. From here, he couldn't see who had caused it to collapse, not that it mattered. They Hydrans had done enough damage for it to take his whole lifetime to rebuild, and once he had found his brother, if he was indeed alive, he was going to make every one of those Hydrans pay with their lives.

Footsteps at the door alerted Vaebn to the arrival of the aide. Turning the chair to face the window and thus away from the door, he slunk down into it, to hide his presence and waited.

He opened the door with his key and stepped in. Looking around, he found nothing amiss, though he knew someone was in the room, the sensors had detected his or her presence before they had even taken a single step and had informed him. With disruptor in hand, he stepped into the room and turned on the lights. Carefully looking around he took note of every nook and cranny in his office determined to find the intruder. As his eyes skimmed the room, he caught the slightest reflection of a face from the other side of his chair.

Smiling slightly, the man aimed his disruptor towards it. "Come out Vaebn, I know you are in here. There is no point in hiding."

Vaebn slowly spun the chair around, showing his own disruptor at the same time. His eyes widened in shock as they saw who it was standing there in front of him. "Deletham? Is that really you?"

"Yes brother, it is." He replied, lowering his disruptor. "It does me good to see you again."

Vaebn lowered his disruptor and stood up. "How did you..."

"That's a long story, perhaps best left for another time. Suffice to say, my job drew me away that fateful night."

Vaebn nodded. "I heard a disturbance and fought off a couple of assassins before being forced to flee. How did you find me?" He walked around the massive oak table as he spoke, coming to stand in front of Deletham.

Deletham sheathed his disruptor and threw his arms around his older brother. "It is very good to see you brother." he said again as they embraced.

After a few moments, they released each other and Deletham closed the door. "I was on a mission to gather intel from what we had determined was a small Hydran outpost. Some Federation soldiers helped us and one in particular, a Deltan woman named Men'a'NoS seemed to think I was you. From the brief ensuing discussion, I found that you were alive and placed information in the right circles so that you'd come here."

Vaebn nodded as his brother spoke. "Yes, I met Lia a couple of times. Wait," he paused, realizing that his brother had let slip more than he should have. "You were on a mission? Who do you work for? The RNI?"

Deletham shook his head. "No, not the RNI. I work, or should I say, used to work, for the Tal Shiar. But in recent months I have begun disagreeing with some of the changes in policy that they have been implementing and I was forced to leave. I now work for someone else. But that's all I can say at present."

Vaebn nodded and hugged his brother again. "Do you know of anyone else in our family that survived?" He hoped somehow, beyond all hope that his wife and daughter might have survived, though he knew it was unlikely.

Deletham shook his head, "I thought I was the only one until I met the Deltan woman."

Vaebn turned towards the window, his mind reeling from the knowledge that his baby brother was alive.

Deletham followed him and placed a hand reassuringly upon his shoulder. "Things do look bleak, but we will prevail. We are Rihanna after all."

Startled, but for a microsecond, Vaebn and Deletham moved in sync for the cover of the table as the shady Rihanna and another thug burst into the room, with weapons drawn. It was the Rihanna that had been following him since he had escaped from the interrogation room, the one who had tried to tell him the Deletham was alive. How had he managed to follow him so easily?

"I suppose you are wondering how we continue to locate you, Vaebn..." he said with a smirk, "well to put it simply, you have a tracking device embedded in your back. But alas for you, that knowledge isn't going to be of any use to you, as today you and your brother die!"

~Steak and Ale~

Thyago Carneiro

Juna

The room was dark and quiet. The dark was not unusual. The dark helped hide the secrets that had passed underground in the tunnels and caverns carved out beneath the Romulan capital city over the last hundreds of years. If these walls were personified, what stories could they tell? How many deaths and injustices and revolutions and schemes had they been able to eavesdrop on? If they could talk, they would probably be creating as loud a cacophony as could be heard elsewhere in the tunnels. They were full of Romulan refugees, average citizens mixed among soldiers and Starfleet marines that had been stranded on the planet.

This room was quiet, though. Only three sounds could be heard - the soft, almost inaudible hum of battery powered electronics, the low rumble of refrigerated air compressors and the repeated clack-thump of Thyago Carneiro as he hobbled around on his makeshift crutches. There were few pairs of crutches in the Unificationists' stores, and he had been using his two mops for so long, he opted to stick with them rather than make some other injured person suffer. Besides, they were comfortable, now. He had bound the thick cotton cords into a well styled cushion, and tied a small hand hold onto the center of the mop shafts with twine. And, he had gotten pretty handy with them. They gave him such a long stride, he could easily outpace others as they walked. Stairs were hard, though, and these tunnels were full of them.

"Who's there?" a woman spoke out in the dark, startled by his clack-thumping as it echoed between the stacked containers that filled the storage room. This large room held a number of supples the Unificationists had been hoarding before the invasion. They were freely handing them out to the refugees that been invited in the tunnels as they were needed, but there were still large stores that were generally kept off limits. This was one of them.

"Ola, Dirty-babe," Thyago said as he found the long haired Romulan woman.

Juna sighed when she recognized him. "Stop calling me that. How did you get in here?"

"Um, through the door," he said, answering the question with questioning intonation, indicating he thought it was a silly question. "Over there. I walked. Well, hobbled, I can't really walk on a broken ankle. Crutched. I crutched in. Is that a word?"

She frowned, rolling her eyes at the Brazilian's constant babbling. "This room is off limits. There are guards posted at the door. I meant, how did you get past them?"

"You mean Raul and Scratchy?"

"Those are not their names."

"Of course they're not. I don't remember names. Who would name their kid Scratchy? I mean, adjective names in general are wierd, but Scratchy? I only call him that because he has some sort of rash on his chest. And then, Raul? If I remember, Raul's real name sounds like Raul," he explained.

"Their names are Sunok and Tr'maian. Which of those sounds like Raul to you?"

Thyago smiled and shrugged. He moved to a low top-opening refridgerator and hopped up on it, taking the weight off his injured legs. "You'd have to tell me which of those has the rash."

She looked at him and shook her head, giving up. There was a slight, slight amused smile on her lips. She resigned herself to his presence and returned her gaze to her inventory PADD as he continued. "Anyways, I told them I was here to see you."

"Why?" Juna asked, disinterested.

"I feel we've gotten off on the wrong foot. A bad start, I'm not sure why. I wanted to make amends."

"You threw me off a building," she said flatly.

He rolled his eyes, having heard this complaint several times already. "I saved your life. You know, from exploding shrapnel and glass. And other explody things. Besides, you didn't like me before that. You hit me."

"Yeah. You called me a prostitute."

"Sorry," he said, smiling. He paused to look her up and down and smirked to himself. "I think it was the leather pants. They were a bit prostitute-esque. Besides, you deserved it, you nerve pinched me."

"T'lel nerve pinched you. Not me."

"Oh," he replied meekly, having been defeated. "Well, let's forget about the past and start anew."

"No," she said and walked over to the freezer next to the one he was sitting on, to tally its contents.

He hopped down as she approached, and as she opened her freezer, he opened his. "What's in these anyway?" he asked.

"Meat," she said. "Romulan cattle steaks."

"Aww, nice!" he said, excited. He peered inside the freezer to find a number of large cuts of meat wrapped in white butcher paper and labeled in Romulan. The cold air streamed out and caressed his face, the motor humming steadily in the back. "Can I have some?"

"No!" she exclaimed, glaring at him.

"Come on! Let's have steak for dinner! I'll cook. I'm Brazilian, I know how to grill a good steak."

She opened her mouth to shut him down, again, but was startled as he let the freezer top drop from his hand and slam shut with a loud bam. The motor in the back started to sputter at the shock, and then quickly died. Her Romulan brow furrowed as she realized what had happened, her eyes seeking out his so they could shoot out lightning. His eyes were wide in fear, like a child who just got caught misbehaving. "I didn't do it!" he said quickly.

"You broke it!"

"No, I didn't. See," he said, and opened the freezer. No more cool air blew out at him. The motor had stopped.

"Okay," he admitted, "I broke it. But, its not my fault! All I did was shut the door."

Juna closed her eyes and sighed, covering her face with her hand. "Now, they're going to go bad."

"So, I guess that means we are going to have steaks for dinner," Thyago said smiling. "I'll go tell Raul to inform the masses." And he clack-thumped away before she could scold him further.

==========================================

"So, what do you think?" Thyago asked Juna after she had sufficiently worked through her cut of meat to develop a judgement of its taste. It had taken a lot of effort (a lot of begging and nagging, and some bribing of her associates), but he was ultimately able to convince Juna to eat dinner with him privately.

"Its the worst I've ever had," she said quickly without looking at him.

"Uh huh, that's why you've torn through it so quickly?"

"Its not good, but its better than the rations we've been dining on for the past several days."

He smiled, "Now now, doesn't it go against your Vulcan training to lie? What would Sauron think?"

"Its Surak," she corrected, looking at him finally. "And I'm Romulan, we do not share all of his beliefs. I have no problem with lying to you."

"So you were lying. You like it."

Juna moved to speak, but stopped when she realized he had caught her. She sighed, letting her head fall slightly to one side. "Fine. Its actually quite good, especially the spice rub. But, I still don't like you."

Thyago laughed. "That's fine. I'm glad you like it. I haven't been able to cook for real since I came aboard the Miranda." He reached out for the bottle of ale he had found and poored another glass for the both of them, her second, his third. It had taken even more effort than it had to get the dinner date in order to get her to allow him to open the bottle so they could drink it with dinner. But, once she took her first sip, she immediately became more willing to play along.

"I'm sorry you couldn't make it back to your ship," she said suddenly, her tone sincere and solemn. "I've never been off world, I can't imagine what it would be like to be trapped on an alien world with little hope of getting off."

"Its okay. There's not really any place I'm missing; I've always been a bit of a roamer anyways. Runs in the family, I think. Besides, we Brazilians live for the moment. One moment of pure bliss and glory can be worth a lifetime of suffering."

"That's an optimistic point of view," she said, taking another drink of ale from her glass. "So, there's no home you'd rather be, no people you miss?"

"Oh, sure. I'd rather be lots of places. No offense, I mean, you're tunnels are, um, nice. Neanderthal chic. A little smelly, though," he said, and she laughed, which caused him to smile. "And, of course, I miss my family and my old friends. But, I'm sure I'll see them again."

"What makes you so sure?"

"My father is on the security council, I'm sure they'll be sending reenforcements to retake the planet, or a rescue operation for the Federation citizens here, or at least arrange for our freedom somehow," he said, pulling another bite of steak from his fork.

"Your father is on the Federation Security Council?" she asked, a bit of excitement in her voice.

He looked at her and smiled out of the side of his mouth. "Does that get your Romulan spy blood hot? Knowing that you have a connection to a potentially powerful Federation politician?" She laughed slightly, scoffing and shaking her head in denial. "Oh, yeah it does. I can see the cogs turning already, planning out schemes and capers?"

"You're an idiot," she said, rolling her eyes, and he laughed. They sat silently for a moment as they continued to eat, his eyes on her waiting for her to ask more questions about his father.

When it was clear that she wasn't going to, he spoke. "So, you've really never been off world?"

Juna shook her head no. "My parents were shop keepers. They had no reason to leave for business, and they had no time for vacation. They became involved with Spock and Reunificationists when I was a child. I spend most of my time working down here, but technically, I'm a part time employee with my parents. Has your father always been a politician?"

Thyago smiled at the question, and thought about poking more fun at her. "Yeah. Apparently, when he was a kid, he used to mediate fights between my grandmother and my uncle, his older brother."

"So, did he encourage you to go into Starfleet?"

"Oh, no. No, he didn't want me going into Starfleet, actually. Though, I've met quite a number of other politico brats that were encouraged to join up. No, my father never pushed me into anything, he's only tried to push me away from certain things. I joined because I bought into the advertising, that its 'a good job, you get to go interesting places and do interesting things,' assim, assim, assado. And because I got tired of being a wannabe dancer/musician."

"A dancer/musician?" she asked, smiling. She was smiling a bit more than she normally did, but, then, she was now on her third glass of ale. "I wanted to be a dancer, when I was four."

"Is that a knock?" Thyago asked.

"I don't hear anything."

"No, haha, no, I meant, is that supposed to be an insult?"

"Oh," and she laughed, too, "Yes."

He took the hit and gave no response. There was another lull in the conversation as they finished thier meal. He shifted, leaning forward to place his plate on the mat in front of them, and when he leaned back, he was sitting next to Juna. She looked at him in a way that he had not seen before, at least not on her face. "You know," he said, "You would have made a beautiful dancer."

And then she leaned in to kiss him.

===============================

He woke up when he felt something next to him shift. He opened his eyes, but quickly shut them when the light from the electric lantern in the room stabbed his eyes and caused his head to throb. "Po," he moaned, his mouth dry and sticky.

The object next to him shifted again, jerked upwards and pulled the sheet away from his naked form. "Oh, Elements!" it cursed. She cursed.

He turned his head and looked up to find Juna sitting next to him, her naked breasts silohuetted by the back light. "Bom dia," he smiled, remembering what they had done last night.

She covered herself with the thin sheet and jumped to her feet, and he yelped as she left him completely uncovered. She paused, once standing, dizzy from the movement; clearly still a little drunk from the ale last night. "I can't believe...we...," she mumbled, "Oh, Elements."

She moved to the corner of the small room and gathered up her clothes, pulling on her pants underneath the sheet. Then, in one quick move, dropped the white cloth and put on her shirt, preventing him from seeing anything more than he already had. She looked back at him once she was more or less dressed again. He was still laying on the bedding mat, unashamed of his nudity, watching her smugly. "This didn't happen. If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you," she said, then opened the door and left.

"This was nice," he called out after her, ignoring the pounding in his skull. "We should do this again sometime. Call me."

"Trolling for Klingons"

Pilot "Stubbs" Taev, Saber Two, Saber Squadron, USS Galaxy

Somewhere on the Romulan/Klingon Border

================================

"Here Klingons Klingons Klingons Klingons! Where aaaareeee you?"

The disadvantage of looking for something in space is that space, by it's very nature - is big. Alone, millions of kilometers away from Ferengenar, the Federation and the Galaxy, Taev ws getting to understand just how vast space was, and just how small a single Starfleet fighter was. He could, of course, go to the rendezvous at Phoenicius System - but all that would await him would be a cold cell in the brig followed by a rather heated court martial.

And as alone in deep space as he was, the Ferengi pilot had no desire for that kind of warmth.

Still, he mused, it had only been a day - and it wasn't as if he hadn't prepared for the trip. Air was good, water was good, rations were... could be choked down as needed. And for desert? Taev had even taken the precaution of having a few bottles of Sluggo-cola prepared for zero-gee consumption. There was also another reason that it was good to be Ferengi (in addition to thousands others) in that he was far more comfortable in the cramped cockpit than most other Starfleet pilots.

~Now, if I could only scratch... that itch... under... damnit!~

====

Bridge, IKS Darchak

===============

"A Federation fighter? One only?"

"Aye Commander. One only. Bearing two-five-zero, six-hundred and eighty thousand kelikams at thirty percent light speed."

Commader L'Teer frowned and leaned over the tactical officer's shoulder, not believing her subordinate's report. "I swear Vamek - if you've been at the bloodwine again..."

"Commander - I swear!"

Seeing the readout before her, L'Teer couldn't dispute Vamek's accuracy. A single fighter, it's transponder openly signaling the craft's origin.

~Only one... interesting...~

She rose from the tac station and resumed her place in the Darchak's command chair. "Is it broadcasting?"

"Aye Commander, but it's complete gibberish. Federation Standard, but..."

"Just open the channel if it's beyond your abilities, Vamek", L'Teer sneered. The Klingon tac officer grumbled but obeyed, and the Darchak's bridge echoed with an alien song.

"Sluggo-cola, it's the best!

Sluggo-cola, it beats the rest!

Some are sweeter, it may be true,

But you can't beat Sluggo - for revenue!

For investment return, it's unsurpassed, All the lawsuits, are in the past!"

A dull, throbbing pain began to develop behind the Klingon commander's eyes, and she closed them, almost as if to shut out the alien wailing.

"Vamek - scan the fighter. What are the biosigns of the pilot?"

The tac officer performed the scan - three times, not believing the first two results. "Biosigns read as... Ferengi, Commander."

Like a drumbeat, the throbbing in L'Teer's head kept a painful rhythm with the Ferengi's song. ~Ferengi! Couldn't be a Bolean? Or an Andoran? Or a Tellarite?~

"Helm - lay in a course to intercept, and Vamek - for Kahless' sake, cut the damn channel!

"Getting (re)Acquainted"

-----

Arel
Jordan

-----

The jewel at Jordan's neck flashed, catching light from some unknown source and sparkling like a tiny beacon of hope to light the path of the lost and the weary.

Arel Smith scowled at it; it kept blinding her eyes.

"You want to put away your little ray of sunshine, Kit?"

"Hm?"

Jordan looked at Arel, having, for a moment, lost herself in The Zone, her attention focused on the information pouring from the tricorder in her hand. In a way, she found it amusing that Arel Smith had taken to calling her Kit, making her one of the few people in the universe who did that; although Jordan considered her a friend, they had never really had much of a relationship off the bridge or outside of the observation lounge.

Honestly, she didn't recall it ever happening before, but so much of before was a blur.

Like half a dozen others, Arel and Jordan had been divided into a pair and sent down one of the older and thus far perceived to be largely abandoned and unused tunnels. She was a little surprised at the choice, given what had happened when the two women had first seen each other after what was a long, and what was intended to be a permanent, absence. Frankly, Jordan had expected to be kept 'safe', deep in the central part of the resistance underground, or kept as close to Jii or Victor as possible. But they were doing their own thing and Arel was the next best.

Not that Jordan found it particularly necessary. She was more than capable of defending herself.

Jii and the 'leaders' wanted a far more accurate map of their resources, one, preferably, complete with any enemy positions top side. The Resistance, so far, was banking on the idea that the Hydrans didn't know these ancient tunnels existed and that they could turn them into a great tactical advantage. It might, possibly, become one of the few times in history that the low ground could turn the tides.

But Jordan didn't want to get too far ahead of herself. They could just as easily run into a Hyrdran stronghold or what have you.

"Sorry, I don't even notice." She rested her hand on it, the light dimming considerably before she tucked it underneath her sweater.

"What is it anyway?"

"I don't know yet," Jordan murmured, looking back to her tricorder, typing in a few commands. "It was there when I… came back. All I know is I can't take it off. We even tried to break the chain, but… not a dent. Not even with an engineer's plasma torch, can you believe it? I figure that, if there's anything to explain, They'll do it when they deem appropriate."

"They?"

"The Prophets. I guess. They left a lovely mark over my back, too. There's probably some horrible little prophecy about it somewhere in the basement of a Bajoran temple. But there's not really time to think too hard about it, right now, so I haven't."

"Ah." She said. Arel knew next to nothing about Bajoran mysticism (maybe she'd ask Edon about that some time) and the woman didn't look like she really cared to discuss it. So Arel switched the discussion to happier topics.

"I'm probably going to deck your husband before this is all over."

"I probably won't stop you," Jordan said. "Can I ask why though? Are you angrier that he left, that he left but didn't have contact, or that he doesn't appear to be sorry for it?"

"Hmmm ... the second one," The security officer answered as she trained her weapon on a particularly dark shadow which would probably turn out to be nothing. Better than sitting on her cot and doing nothing though. "Can't say I wouldn't have walked away either but a message now and then would have been nice. Pthak."

"It's nothing," Jordan said, shaking her head. "Relax. The Hydrans don't sneak well. And besides, Arel... you've known Jii as long as I have, haven't you? What about him made you think he'd reach out to anyone in his pain? That's the thing about the man. He's the one who fixes things, not the one who needs to be fixed. And he'll never let you see him in that position, ever. Not you. Barely even me, most of the time. And especially now... I don't know how things are going to be."

"Still doesn't mean he isn't an asshole." The security officer commented as she looked above. There was something indistinguishable up ahead. "What do you think that is?"

"It looks like there might be a camp some... forty two metres above us, give or take," Jordan said, looking upward. "Adjust your screener." She tapped at the device around her arm meant to mask their signs. "This is good, at least this thing isn't a waste of time."

Arel didn't know about that but at least it kept them busy.

They were silent for a while.

"How's..." Jordan blanked for a moment, looking at Arel for a long moment. "Korvin?" she finally managed.

Hopefully alive, Arel thought, trying not to flinch at the thought. "He's good."

"And James?" she asked. "Do you still pretend to hate each other?"

"We got married." Arel said and then grabbed Jordan as she almost tripped in surprise. She grinned. "Don't worry, it was just to get some Klingons off my back."

Barely recovering, Jordan looked at Arel with wide eyes. "And I thought my existence was strange... How long ago was this?"

"A few months ago." She narrowed her eyes. "And I haven't had the time to get a divorce, before you ask."

"Haven't had time," Jordan repeated, raising an eyebrow. "I see. That happens, I suppose; divorce can be a long, messy, and difficult thing, after all, especially in this, you know, highly backward and unreasonably modern age." She offered a grin. "So many hoops to go through. Particularly when the marriage is so fitting and well matched."

"With Mitchell?" She managed to throw all kinds of doubt and incredulity into his name; she'd become a kind of master at it by now. Besides doubting James was easier than worrying about him but at least he had a damn fighter.

Korvin had a teenage Vulcan to watch him. Fat lot of good that would do if the ship blew up.

"With Mitchell," Jordan agreed, frowning as she examined her tricorder. "It's so disgusting it works." She felt Arel's reaction and look back to the woman. "Hey. I'm just agreeing with you. What kind of example is he for anyone? Especially an impressionable child. Even if he is oddly attractive and intoxicatingly, pompously masculine, and, hell, let's face it -- unless something's changed? A great kisser."

Arel grimaced. "Do we have to talk about that? Bad enough him and Shinta have had sex. That's a visual that makes the stomach turn... Kahless, you two didn't do it, right?"*

Jordan made a face. "Nooo," she said. "All I remember is this disgustingly heated kiss against a bulkhead. I wasn't thinking clearly, that much I know. Almost ruined my relationship with Jii at the time; of course, everything's pretty fuzzy, from before."

The security officer bit back a comment about wishing she'd let Jii keep hitting her husband. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Jordan murmured, softly, turning back to the tricorder. "I...

um." She cleared her throat with a gentle shrug. "I guess being dead will do that to you, though. Right?"

"I guess." Arel replied with an echoing shrug. "I've never really died before.”

"You could ask Mitchell. Maybe he'd know" She said a second later. "He's ... not always a jackass."

"Maybe," Jordan said, "but I think our experiences are probably very different; and based on what Jii has said, about him before and him after and him in his youth... I'm not sure that it was really James Mitchell who died." She touched Arel gently on the shoulder. "And I know he's not always a jackass. Ninety percent of it is just show. Just like you being a bitch and me being a... well. Much harsher term. When people give you shit for it, they're just demonstrating their own ignorance and petty judgments. Only you know what there is between the two of you. And you shouldn't feel like you have to defend that to anyone -- me or Jii or even... James Mitchell himself, much less anyone else on the boat."

"I ..." Arel started, a bit of loss for words. "Well, shit. You came back a damned counselor."

"No," Jordan said, "I came back with no tolerance for bullshit."

Arel grinned. "Even better."

"The Home Front"

Captain John Daniels
Mezia Daniels

The Daniels Residence, Mars

===========================

It really only hit her when it was dinnertime. The noisy bustle of people coming to the table, plates and pans being passed, stories told, and moving chairs was all a thing of the past, replaced by the quiet of a house with no children.

It was empty nest syndrome, and even though she had been living with it since her twins went to college, Mezia Daniels had never gotten used to it.

In fact, she hated it.

Her youngest son and one of the twins, Bralin, was off planet hopping with a college exploratory class, trying to solve one great mystery or another. The other twin, Ezzie, had gone off to join her older brother Chris aboard the Miranda. That left three of her beautiful children many, many miles away, with only the occasional subspace message, and in the case of Chris and Ezzie, the news.

She had been a military--because when you came down to it, that's what Starfleet really was--wife for going on 24 years, and had accepted the times where her husband had been unable to be with her for one reason or another. She had followed him through hell and then some, never doubting him, just missing and loving him intensely. She had willingly and excitedly carried the children around the galaxy for almost 10 years, before her husband was able to secure a job on Mars to "settle the family."

It was times like this she missed being out there with him. Truth be told, she hated domestic life, and longed to be back out there with him--all of them, riding around in a great silver boat, being a physical therapist and enjoying the camaraderie of small town life that was a modern Starship. All she had left was her phenomenal Risan cuisine, and once again she was preparing it for just her and her lover.

The Deputy 9th Fleet Commander for Strategic Combat, Captain John Daniels, walked in from work like he almost always did, around 1800, and walked straight over to his wife and kissed her. They had managed to maintain a deep love throughout the years, something that had helped keep their marriage strong after all these years. Mezia was everything he could have hoped for, and she had bore him three incredible children, two of which had followed in his footsteps. He was fiercely proud of them all, and like a good father, worried when they were in trouble.

The news of the fall of Romulus had hit them both like a brick a few days prior. Luckily, John had been able to find out that Chris and Ezzie were both alright. Panic and debate had already overtaken the public, and now the clueless newsies were blathering on about what the Federation council should or shouldn't do.

They sat down to dinner and he smiled at his beautiful wife. Tanned skin, reddish brown hair and brown eyes made him wonder how he had gotten so lucky 26 years ago to meet her at the Risan University library of all places. He was trying to find a holonovel to kill some shore leave time, she was a student studying for something or other. One thing led to another, and the two never really left that initial state of bliss. Even now as the kids were in trouble, things were still relatively low stress between them.

"So is true what they said on the news? That their sending reinforcements to help?"

John nodded. "Admiral Murdock is leading the fleet himself. It's assembling as we speak."

"Are any of those new ships that they've been building at UP going to be ready?"

"The Wasp class still is in the space trials phase. Conceivably they could send her, but they won't. Don't want to show our hands yet. It'll be tried and true battle cruisers."

Mezia smiled. "Sounds like the Dominion War all over again."

"You're right, babe. Hopefully this thing defuses before it gets to that, but it doesn't look like it will. The Hydrans seem dead set on continuing their conquests..." John looked away for a moment.

"What's the matter hon?"

"I'm going. They're sending me and Tamka Arneson with the fleet to provide insights. I leave with the Illustrious tomorrow night."

Mezia's face almost lit up. Her husband was going back into space, but into battle and without her. "I understand. You are needed. I wish I could go with you."

John laughed. "Always looking for adventure. Makes me remember why I married you."

She got up and walked around the table to put her arms around him. "Just don't go getting yourself killed, ace. I have enough trouble making dinner for only two..." The humor hid her fear of what could be.

****

The next day

============

She had watched him pack. Now a Starfleet aircar waited outside their house. The home they had built together. The home that had held them on the ground for so long. Now he was freeing himself of those chains and she envied him, if even for a short while. She would have three loved ones in a fight at the same time, and while it scared her immensely to think of the possibilities, the pride in her chest that three of her own were standing up for the Federation overwhelmed her.

They released their embrace and a few tears were shed. Separation had never been easy on them.

John said his goodbyes and began to walk to the car.

"John!"

"Yes babe?"

"Bring my son and daughter home with you, alright?"

He ran back, kissed her deeply and smiled. "We'll all be having dinner before you know it."

And just like that, for the first time in a good long while, Mezia Daniels was the only one living in her house.

"Para Bellum"

Lt Th'Khiss K'aa
LtJG Chris Daniels

CIC Analysis Center, Deck 7, USS Miranda

========================================

This was becoming a more common occurence between Chris and K'aa as the weeks went on. They would meet multiple times before and after a battle to assess everything they could collect, process it, turn it into a strategy or lessons learned and send it off to the Starfleet tactical network.

This was the first time however, they had had one of their pow-wows in the midst of a battle. Commander Jaxom had given them the heads up to get ready for round two, and the department was gearing up to deliver a return gift to the Hydrans.

Chris waited paitently as his Gorn friend was delayed by something or other in his office. Once again he had taken on the responsibilities of the CTO as Shia was...absorbed by something else. The big reptilian took the responsibility seriously though, and the general curiousity in the CIC debated whether K'aa slept at all since Romulus.

K'aa eventually left the small office with a PADD in claw and made a beeline to where his human friend sat. "Chrisss - how fresh is the Hydran Fighter project in your memory?"

Chris drew a wary expression on his face. He pushed a button and on one of the holotables a fighter-centric replay of the battle played, while on one of the LCARS screens a schematic of the fighter appeared.

"All too familiar, man. Post-battle reports show that every fear and trepidation we had about the updates to their fighters was spot on.

Nearly every iteration we predicted was realized, and the one weakness we thought we could catch them in was adapted to with something I can only describe as a form of ana-proton shielding...not unlike what the T'Kith'Kin use on their vessels. You can see in the display that our fighters matched...well against them, but to no significant advantage. They didn't do much against our larger vessels though unless they came in large packs. The best thing we as a ship could do was pound the hell out of them until they broke. But, now that we have all the data that we should have had in the first place, we can beat them." He looked at his Gorn friend for his reaction.

The reptilian hissed quietly, looking at the large holo-display that was re-playing the final moments of the First Battle of Romulus. Chris had served with K'aa long enough to know some of his quirks when the big guy was deep in thought. Finally, after several minutes, K'aa came out of his reverie. "Hrsssssss... conference room in ten.. no - five minutesss. Bring a file and find our Hydran ssspecialisst. I've sssourced sssomeone in the fleet with sssome interessting ideasss - we're going to conference with the CTO of the Exeter, one Lieutenant Saul Bental."

Chris nodded. They didn't have a Hydran specialist onboard--he'd make due with probably Marcos or Veini. "I'll be there. Should we link up with other ships in the force?"

"Mossst other CTO'sss are occupied with repairsss and sssecuring ordnance", K'aa answered, accompanied with a shrug. "Ssstockpilesss of torpedoesss are thin until Starfleet'sss resssupply arrivessss.

It'll be the three of usss, and sssomeone from Intelligence I'm certain.

"Right. One other thing, K'aa...we're getting some tactical help riding in with the cavalry."

The Gorn's head nodded slightly. "Yesss... heard about that. With the Captain gone, sssome extra tac knowledge on the command level will be mossst welcome."

"Well, one's Captain Arneson from Starfleet Battlelabs...the other's the 9th Fleet Deputy Commander for Strategic Combat..."

"Hrnnnn... Arneson I know", K'aa remembered the human's thesis on fleet strategies and tactical coordination. "It'll be good to have that kind of knowledge available. The 9th Fleet's DCSC? You'll have to give me a name - I'll confessss I don't recall the individual."

"Captain John Daniels. My dad."

K'aa's bulbous eyes snapped from the holo-display to his human colleague and friend, peering at the human with a more focused gaze.

"Your sssire? That could be, ssssrrrrssss... ackward. I have ssserved with my own sssire in the Gorn fleet. I found the experience extremely... dissstateful. Fortunately, your relationship with the elder Danielsss is far better, yesss?"

Chris eyes narrowed. "I think it's sufficient to say that my dad and I get along great. However, I've heard that Captain Daniels is far different than Dad Daniels, so we'll see. I can promise you that I'm not going to side with him just because he's my father."

"I have no doubtsss asss to your ability and your commitment to the Miranda and the fleet, but the ssssituation doesss bring to bear sssomething I wasss going to discussss with you before your newsss."

K'aa offered Chris the PADD he had been carrying. "The Sao Paolo's CTO and ACTO were killed in battle with the Hydransss. While Captain T'Riel and Commander Singh are both capable officersss, the captain comesss from a sciencesss background and the commander from sssecurity. While it leavesss the Sao Paolo tactically weak and in need of a brevet ACTO, Miranda'sss CIC will be the main co-ordinator of the fleet effort."

K'aa once again looked at the tactical holo-display, seeing once again the waves of Hydran fighters eventually overwhelm the Federation craft. " I've been asssked to provide a suitable candedate for the posssition - you are more than suitable."

The last part stunned Chris. He had expected to go through this with his crew in the CIC, doing what he did best. But an ACTO chance?

"K'aa, if this is your way of getting me promoted I don't need it.

Glory is not my goal and it never will be. I just want to do my best to help my ship, fleet, and department win this war we're in. If you want me to go, I'll go...but my allegiance lies with this ship until then."

K'aa was silent for a minute, then answered in a more muted tone.

"Chrisss, I think we've ssserved long enough to know I'm no glory-hound - I do what'sss needed to perform the tassssk at hand.

Glory? Glory issss for Klingonsss and othersss foolish enough to ssseek it. Asss for getting you promoted - hrsssss... it sss not my posssition to do sssso. That liessss with you, my friend - I would not dishonor a friendship by 'doctoring' the booksss. Asss the Miranda goessss - I agreee, your place isss here, especially with Lieutenant t'Khnialmnae engaged on a diplomatic mission."

Chris thought for a minute. "If I need to go, I'll go. But let's see if we can't come up with a war plan first."

"Very well, on to the next order of busssinesss." The Gorn started to make his way back to his office. "The Conference room in three minutesss. I'll grab the scrollsss I've been working on and meet you there."

Chris furrowed his brow in cofusion. "Wait, what the hell do scrolls have to do with what we're in?"

K'aa looked over his shoulders at Chris, nodding. "Scrollsss. I've been doing sssome resssearch which isss bearing fruit. You'll sssee."

With that, the hulking reptile resumed his course and finally disappeared into the ACTO's office.

Chris shook his head. This had the makings of a very long, lisp filled story.

"Parental Supervision"

Captain John Daniels
Lt JG Chris Daniels

Bridge, USS Miranda
Mid-Day

==================

"Lieutenant?"

Chris startled from his trance. He was working his daily bridge shift and had gotten lost in reading the tactical reports from the various ships in the fleet. Word had started to come down the pipeline that the cavalry was coming, and hell was coming with it in the form of a pissed off Admiral Murdock. Finally, the council was giving them what they needed to win this fight.

"Yes Crewman?"

"Message coming through for you from the Illustrious. I set you up in the conference room."

Chris handed off the tactical arch to the standby officer and headed back into the plush room. He sat and entered his access code to see a familiar face on the screen.

"Dad!?"

"Hi son. How are you?"

"Good...kinda surprised to be hearing from you though. What're you doing on Illustrious?"

"Coming to help you all out."

"Huh?"

"Admiral Murdock is sending several senior level tacticians to the fight to assist you all in the planning and operations. Myself and Captain Arneson were volunteered."

"So...they don't believe we can do it?"

"Chris, that's not it. They just want some oversight. Most of the tactical officers in the fleet haven't handled a large fleet operation before. We're here as consultants to make sure you all don't overlook something."

Chris' eyes narrowed. "I guess I can see that."

"Don't worry son, I won't get in the way."

Chris shifted in his seat. "What did mom have to say about this?"

The elder Daniels laughed, looking at his son who bore a striking resemblance. "She of course wanted to come along. Always looking for adventure, that one." Suddenly, he went from father to

Starfleet Captain. "Anyways, upon my arrival I'd like to meet with you and your staff. Since

Miranda's the head ship in this fight, I'd like to get your perspective on things before we get started."

Chris nodded. "Yes Sir. I will make the arrangements. What is the arrival estimate?"

"Two days. Is that suitable?"

"We're still putting bandaids on things down here, but I think we'll be ready. I'll let everyone know."

Captain Daniels nodded. "Alright, Lieutenant. I'll look forward to it. Take care of yourself and patch me through to your sister if you would."

Chris nodded. "See you soon, pops."

"In The Trenches"

(Front Lines of Love and War)

Ensign Faylin McAlister, JAG
Corporal Tahna Oram, SFMC (NPC - Written by Stu)

(Seven days after the Fleet withdraws)

****

Ki Baratan

****

Oram dropped his rifle in anger. The impact resonating in the small room the team had just entered. They'd left a man behind and he was furious with himself for it.

The mission had been a success. The communications tower had been neutralized, hampering the Hydrans ability to co-ordinate their patrols. It would only be a matter of time before they recovered, but Oram didn't care. The Prophets hadn't been kind to them. They had taken the el-tee from them. A good man gone. And a hell of a marksman as well. Peeling his armor off, he dropped it to the floor, joining his weapon on the dirty floor.

Looking up at the sound of the door opening, he saw the young woman walk in. He smiled as he greeted her. "Hi Faylin."

"Where is he?" She stated in a short manner.

"Where's who?" He asked, not understanding who she was wanting to find.

"Steven Jonas..........Steve." Her demeanor remained cool, yet somewhat frustrated at his lack of knowledge concerning his team.

Prophets. Of course she had to be talking about the el-tee. "Oh, um...

you better come over here and sit down."

"No, I'll stand thank you." Her stance cemented and her features hardened.

"Um, I'm sorry Faylin, but he didn't make it." He watched as her shoulders slumped. Reaching out, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I didn't realize that you liked him. After what happened before we left, I assumed..." Oram stopped realizing that she probably didn't want to hear that. "um. I'm sorry."

"What happened?"

"Well, we completed the mission and were on our way back when we were attacked by a Hydran patrol. He was watching our six and was jumped by the biggest Hydran I've ever seen. Had to be at least a foot and a half taller than the rest. Knocked the rifle clean out of Steven's hands and began punching at him. The other Hydrans kept pushing us back with fire from their weapons, and my last sighting of him showed him holding his own against the huge Hydran. By the time we made it back, he was gone."

"Dead?"

The Bajoran shook his head. "No, not dead. He was missing. No trace of him, but some blood on the ground. We looked for close to twenty minutes before another Hydran patrol closed in and we had to evac.

Even his weapon was gone."

"He's fine then." She stated with a half smile, attempting to assure herself that he just wondered off somewhere. "And, I'll tell you why.

One, his weapon is not left behind. A sniper never just leaves his rifle. Two, um....Hydrans would have killed him out right.

Yeah....they would have..............." A defeated sigh escaped her, steeling herself, she refused to believe that he was dead. She had lost so much, loosing one more person that she felt close to would send her over the edge. "He'll be back....he has to."

A wave of nausea washed over her, another one. Frustrated, she excused her self to use the bathroom. Always a lady.

Oram stood waiting for her. She obviously wasn't well, though he couldn't tell if it was some bug or virus or if it was the news about Jonas.

He felt bad about Jonas' disappearance. But after all their searching, they hadn't found him, and there wasn't much they could do when the Hydrans appeared again.

"Are you alright?" he asked as she entered the room again.

"Fine. I'm going to go lay down for a while. I'll see you later."

She offered a small, yet tight smile as she turned and headed for her bedroom.

"I'm truly sorry Faylin. We looked for ages for him." Oram tried to reassure her.

"Everyone's sorry. Sorry Faylin, for the death of your parents.

Sorry Faylin, for Olivia's death....now it's, Sorry Faylin.....Steven's MIA. Everyone can just kiss my sorry ass!" She spat, turning and ignoring all further comments. Reaching her room, the echo of her slammed door could be heard throughout the upper level of the house.

ooc- If you get lost in the log, good. :) Tried to make it seem like Paulo was rambling.

"POW"

Pilot Paulo DiMillo, Vanguard Intelligence Liaison/AWACS Pilot, USS Galaxy

********

Paulo sat on the hard slab in the darkened room. He had been in this small room for who knows how long. He had lost count. Periodically the Hydrans would pluck him out and ask questions, and they never did it at a regular intervals. He hadn't slept well for the last few days, if it had been days. The second he started to fall asleep the Hydrans would come in and take him out for questioning.

He looked around and picked up a piece of paper. He didn't know what it was there. Most likely from the last occupant of the cell. He picked it up and started writing with a piece of charcoal.

I have no idea how long I have been here. It could be days, it could be hours, weeks even. The Hydrans seem to see it right to keep me more or less sleep deprived, barging in the second I start to fall asleep or so it seems. This has made it hard to tell how long I have been in here, for as much as I know they could let me sleep for a few hours before barging in.

They keep asking the same questions over and over. Asking about deployments of resistance fighters, what Starfleet has planned, etc. In truth, I have no idea about any of it. After I got separated from Fay I tried to make my way to the Romulan Capital City but ran across Hydrans instead of making it to the Marines.

Thinking back, I am not even real sure how I got separated from her.

HAH, I can barely remember how we grouped up. Must be the lack of sleep messing with me. I hope the Hydrans are happy. I don't think they will have to kill me, I think my own body will just shut down. After all I can't remember something so simple as how I met up with someone. Yet again, if I have been here for months, no, no beard yet. I need to shave, but it only feels like a few days worth of hair.

So, maybe I have been here 5 to 7 days, but yet again, how do I not know they didn't shave me? To confuse me more. I am not sure if that is something the Hydrans would do, but I am already confused enough as it is. Would be passable. Come in while I am sleeping, if of course they let me sleep, shave me some, and then make me think I have been here for a shorter amount of time then I actual have been.

Regardless, if they didn't shave me, I seem to been here 5 to 7 days. I was never meant to be in this kind of situation. Hell, I started out as an Intelligence Analyst. After that I was supposed to be the pilot in the back of the formation. Away from harm. Guess that part didn't end up so well.

***Pause***

Paulo looked up after the sound of repeated explosions. "What the hell," Paulo muttered as heard people yelling about various things.

***Resume***

Well, well. Seems like some people are causing havoc outside. I just hope they don't blow me up. I would like to get out of this hell whole after all. I kind of need to shave, regardless how long I have been here, and I am sure I stink pretty bad. Hopefully my next log will be from my quarters, or at least a cold pool of water.

***End***

Paulo tucked the paper in his pocket and stood away from the door as he heard voices yelling. A minute later the door of his cell was blown open and he saw a marine standing there. "Let's go Pilot," the Marine said telling right away that Paulo was Human and a Pilot by his uniform. He handed Paulo a phaser, "common, I don't got all day."

"I bet you don't," Paulo said taking the phaser and dotting off in the opposite direction.

"Solitude"

by

Lt. Robert West, Chief of Investigations, USS Miranda

In the long days fomr the start of the mission to the fall of Romulus to the current situation, Robert had been more or less low-key.

Instructed not to get involved because of the combat situations (which Robert was practically allergic to) he had been spending the vast majority of his time in his quarters.

His two favorite free-time activities, reading and playing chess with himself (something he was actually quite capable of doing, and doing well) had been serving him well so far. But his brain was becoming bored. There was nothing to investigate in a combat situation.

Murder was completely justified as self defense. Shoot or be shot, and there was certainly no mystery to any of it.

He had been keeping abreast of what was happening, of course. Knew all about the Hydrans, had worked out probabilities of success numerous times based on the current info, and compiled everything he knew about them in his head over and over again, as if eventually some new piece of interesting information would suddenly surface.

But in a photographic brain, no such luck could be had.

He was finding that he quite liked the alone time however. When he had first come aboard ship, there were so many bodies about it sent him into shock. His "special needs" were understood but really no one but is counsellor, and even she couldn't quite figure him out. But that was par for the course.

Arel's challenge to him was putting him off a bit though. His lackluster, no, horrid performance during his weapons test was almost embarrasing. He wasn't AFRAID of phasers...well, maybe he was...but he could do better.

"Well, I've got nothing better to do....I suppose" he mumbled, and made up his mind.

The firing range it was, then.

"Broad Side of a Barn"

By

Lt. Robert West, Security, Cheif of Investigations, USS Miranda

"THAT target? Please, I could hit that with my eyes closed."

"Yeah? I'm betting you're all talk, no action."

"Hey baby, I AM Action Jackson."

"Who??"

"...never mind, just shoot."

Lt. West was hoping the range would be empty, but his luck had never been one to pass up a chance to place a "kick me" sign on his back and there was no reason for it to start acting civilized now.

The pair, a couple of security flunkies, didn't notice his entrance, and went about their target practice and bantering uninterupted.

Robert decided that he wasn't going to find a better time and resigned himself to sticking it out.

"You've got to....get over this..." he muttered to himself as he approached the weapon storage rack. He quickly decided that he would start with a hand phaser. Baby steps, after all.

He found it difficult to even pick up the weapon. His hand reached out for it, and then suddenly stopped, as if blocked by an invisible wall. Recoiling, he tried again, with the same result.

"Come ON!" he commanded himself, and finally forced himself to take the weapon.

Turning to face the target area, he began to sweat slightly. He didn't like phasers, and he liked having one in his hand even less.

Holding the weapon out in front of him, he eyed his target, taking deep breaths.

"Its ok...its not going to bite you....theoretically..." he consoled himself.

Slowly, his finger went for the trigger, defying every instinctual urge in his body. Then, with a sudden lurch, he fired, yelped, and dropped the weapon to the floor.

He missed by a mile.

"What the hell are you doing in the firing range?!" came the voice of one of the flunkies as they both raced over to where Robert stood, "This area is for security personel only! I'm going to have to ask you to.....holy..."

He stopped short, finally getting a good look at Robert.

"Uh...I...I'm sorry Lieutenant....I didn't know...I thought some civilian...." the flunkie stammered, clearly on the edge of crying tears of laughter well into the next decade.

They both walked back to their targets, trying their best not to do something that might get them a reprimand.

Robert, flustered, upset and slightly embarrest, picked his phaser back up off the floor.

"This....isn't working..." he mumbled to himself, "Why is this...so hard...it shouldn't be..."

He took a quick look around the room, surveying things. The two security crewmen were now watching him, not wanting to miss the show.

He took note of every target in the room, calculated, and allowed his eyelids to close themselves as he thought.

"Just....relax..." he said to himself as he began to pull the trigger again.

7 seconds later, the flunkies mouths were agape, Robert was stunned, and every target in the room had registered a hit.

Robert West could ONLY shoot with his eyes closed.

"Atlantia"

Colonel Enaris Hagan
Wing Commander, Taurus Wing, USS Atlantia

Fleet Admiral Victor Murdock
Commander-in-Chief, Starfleet Operating Forces

===Starbase One, Earth Orbit===

Sitting quietly in the passenger seat of a shuttlecraft, Enaris Hagan shifted irritable. It was bad enough having to sit uselessly by while someone else piloted, but to really have no idea where he was going made matters far worse. He thought back to the previous afternoon, when a call had come through from

General Et'zet, who had, as usual, begun with no preamble, or really even a greeting.

"Commander Hagan, I am transmitting new orders for you, along with your immediate promotion and transfer. I apologize for the lack of a formal promotion ceremony, but it will have to wait. There simply isn't time at present. Congratulations, Colonel."

And that was it. Et'zet's image had winked out to be replaced by the most cryptic set of orders that Hagan had ever seen:

To: Colonel Enaris Hagan

From: Starfleet Starfighter Corps Headquarters, Titan

Report immediately for duty to USS Atlantia, Helios Base, Slip Three.

Special transport will ferry you from Titan Base to Starbase One to Helios Base.

That was all. He looked up the Atlantia immediately. He had never even heard of such a ship, and apparently no one else had either. Come to think of it, he'd never heard of the Mercury Yards - how was it even possible to have a hidden shipyard installation in a system as well-mapped and traveled as Sol? The official Starfleet registry showed only a name and registry number for the ship; no mission records, no crew manifest, no commissioning date, not even a class designation. "Helios Yards" turned up nothing at all. Enaris Hagan had no way of knowing, of course, that Helios Yards was Starfleet's top-secret proving grounds - a modern day place like the old American military's Area 51.

So here he was, sitting beside a petulant youth who would say nothing about the ship other than, "You'll be amazed, sir." Hagan was becoming uncharacteristically impatient.

The ordeal would be over soon, though. They had flown through most of the cavernous main docking bay of the reconstructed Starbase One, heading for a large secluded drydock. Then he'd been taken to a small slip, where a ship he recognized as similar to the Federation cloakship from the Briar Patch incident a few years back, but with a more stylized , reflective hull pattern - a stealth ship? He and the ensign transferred to the other ship, and made for their target:

Mercury.

The "stealth shuttle" moved on a direct course to a spot over Mercury's polar region. Metaphasic shielding kept the entire yard outpost free of the effects of being so close to Sol, though it was damn bright out.

Soon Hagan would be able to leave this infernal box for his new assignment - whatever that was.

The ensign clearly had an over-developed sense of the theatrical. He was purposely bringing the shuttle alongside the drydock, coming around the outer rim and obscuring the ship inside from view until the last possible moment.

The amateur theatrics, combined with the Atlantia herself, were enough to take Hagan's breath away. "What the HELL is that?!?"

Before him lay the strangest looking and largest Federation starship he had ever seen. It was oblong in shape, and at least a kilometer long, with four massive integrated warp nacelles surrounding the aft quarter. On both sides mounted at the bottom were large pods consisting entirely of hanger bays and fighter launch tubes. There were two smaller shuttlebays elsewhere on the main body for non-combat craft, but in this case, the ensign was piloting the shuttle towards the Starboard pod.

They set down gently in the bay, and Hagan stood, heading towards the aft hatch, entirely unsure of what he was about to see. The hatch opened, and in front of him was the largest docking bay he had ever seen on a starship. The deck alone had to be easily five-hundred meters long.

He walked out into the bay, looking dazed. All along the side were Valkyrie II's, Rogue V's, Scorpions, Warhammer-class runabouts, and some boxy winged craft that even he didn't really recognize. This damn ship was huge, and he had absolutely no idea what he was doing here.

A man in Command Red and an Admiral's uniform was issuing orders - clearly designed to prepare this ship for a quick launch. "Ah, Colonel Hagan, is it, lad?" the man said, addressing him.

Hagan turned around in shock. The last thing he expected was to see the Commander-in-Chief of Starfleet standing there, never mind hearing himself being referred to by name.

"Well, don't just stand there with yuir jaw hangin out, son." Murdock continued. "Let's get a move on, bucko. We've a lot tae do, and precious little time to be doin' it in."

The Betazoid pilot managed to shake off his initial reaction and form his mind around a coherant sentence. "Admiral Murdock, sir, it's um, an honor to meet you. My parents and sister all speak very highly of you, and I've become acquainted with your CMC."

Murdock nodded. "Aye, I know. Yuir father's the commander of the 32nd fleet, and the rest o' yuir family hasn't done too bad for themselves, neither. And Emersons's recommendation's one o' the many things that got ye this job, lad."

The Admiral continued, not giving the younger man time to comment again. "Atlantia's one of three ships of this class currently in production at Helios - her sister ships are the Pegasus and the Columbia, which is the class ship. I'm dredging up every pilot I can find in between here and the Romulan border to give her as many pilots as I can muster. She's the next generation of space-superiority starfighter carriers - and she carries three full wings - eighteen squadrons of fighters, plus a number of AWACS and SFMC hopper craft. "

The pilot jogged to keep up; it was hard to believe a man of Murdock's years could move with such purpose, but clearly, here was evidence to the contrary. Hagan was having difficulty hearing what the Admiral was saying about the ship.

Hagan ran his hand absent-mindedly over the Valkyrie II that they had stopped by - they really were beautiful birds. "Sir, I have to ask; there don't seem to be that many people around yet for a ship of this size, other than pilots. Is there even a second wing commander yet?

Hell, for that matter, is the fighter Division commander even assigned yet?"

"Yuir the CAG, Colonel Hagan. That's all gonna be up to ye - but yuir gonna have to do it en route." Murdock replied as they entered the turbolift to head for the bridge.

There was a prolonged pause as Hagan let the words sink in. When Murdock failed to fill it, the pilot asked, "Why the rush, Admiral? I mean, this morning, I hadn't even heard of the plans for this ship, and now I'm standing on her decks, ready to barrel out of drydock with half a crew. What's happened?"

"What's happened?" the Admiral snorted. "What's happened is that I'm mustering every Starfleet ship I can get my hands on, and crewing 'em with experienced officers, retired vets, and way too many kids right out of the Academy. What's happening, Colonel, is what always seems ta be happenin - but this time, it's a lot bigger. We're goin off to war."

Commander Jack Dawson, Chief Engineer, USS Miranda
Ensgin T'Jaden "TJ" Tagra, Engineering Officer, USS Miranda

Deck 40, Main Engineering

On the ride down from Deck 23, TJ counted his blessings. Broken ribs and punctured lung aside, he felt great; though the bruises where tough to get used to. He found turning certain ways caused some pain, so he tried not to turn those ways. Also, getting dressed, he did notice a hand shaped bruise on his left arm, 'Gonna have to talk to Daniels about her death grip'.

When he got into Engineering, he had to admit, things looked better than he thought. Most of the repairs seemed quick and messy, but considering the circumstances, he wasn't surprised. What did surprise him was that his station was still running. 'Must be people using it,' was his first thought, but that went out the window quickly. The Hellbore program was still running...with possible results.

Eyes wide, he hit his combadge, "Ensign Tagra to Chief Dawson."

Dawson couldn't get the image of a large cat limping away to lick its wounds as he worked through what felt like miles of optic cable. Repairs were coming along after the beating they had taken.

Tagra's interruption couldn't have come at a better time, though. "Dawson here, go ahead, Ensign."

"Sir, if you could, I'd like to see you in Engineering. There's something I think you should see."

Setting his tools down, Dawson indicated to the junior engineer he was working with that she should take over. "On my way," he replied.

Several moments later Dawson arrived in Engineering, happy to see that things here were progressing nicely. It didn't take long to located Tagra and so the chief engineer made his way over to the junior officer. "You know I'm always up for a good show. What have you got for me?" he asked.

"As crazy as this might sound, sir, how about a way to possibly partially defend against the Hellbore?" One would have to be blind and without a VISOR to miss the Chief's face, his eyes nearly falling from their sockets.

Too bad TJ didn't have a camera, it was kinda priceless.

"Before you go into a game of 200 questions, sir, I'm not saying that we can completely fend off a hit, but more to the point of using it to our advantage," TJ explained. Turning back to the screen, he displayed equations on one side, and schematics on the other, "From what I can gather, and understand, from our sensors, the Hellbore utilizes three specific frequencies in a style of spiral waveform I've never seen before. I think that's how it attacks our shields." He pointed to the schematics, specifically, the retuned shield generators, "If this model is as workable in real life as it is in theory, then maybe we can counteract those frequencies and absorb a majority of the energy. Then also possibly dumping it back into our systems, most likely the Cannon since it is uses so much power and would be able to charge twice as fast. Again, provided this actually works."

The ingenuity of this team of engineers on the Miranda never ceased to amaze, Dawson though to himself. He was a bit chagrined that he hadn't thought of this himself. Smiling he nodded. "Maybe hit it back with some of it's own venom. How soon can you have it set up?" he asked.

"That depends on the shield generators and the compatibility of these changes. They took one hell of a pounding," he replied. Turning back to the console and screen, TJ punched in a few more commands. The results where near instant and agreeable, "I'd wager it would take at least 8 hours with this current set-up. If I could set aside at least two hours, maybe I can get more out of this. The Hellbore's spiral waveform has the three frequencies riding their own spiral waves. The actual punch comes from the directed energy riding the Spiralwave Multi-Interphasic carrier beam." He stopped to consider that statement, "Correction, the punch comes from both working together and individually. Prophets, I'd love to get my hands on the blueprints." He stopped, realizing he was drifting off into an engineers daydream.

"Sorry sir. Also, if time allows before we engage the Hydrans again, I'd like to explore the possibility of finding out how we could even throw the Hellbore back at the firing ship, but I'm afraid that would involve building a separate and independent shielding system." TJ realized quickly that he was getting ahead of himself, "Aside from that, with what I've got, 8 hours is the time I can estimate. Streamlining it, maybe less than 4 hours at most."

Jack smiled. He knew that engineers had a tendency to over estimate the time that it actually took to finish a project. That way, if the project was finished before hand, it made them look extremely good in the eyes of the higher-ups. "Oh, I'm sure you could have it in under the 4 hours, TJ," he said knowing that Tagra was one of his better engineers.

"Alright, obviously we have no idea at this moment in time when we will be swapping phasers with the Hydrans so time is of the essence here. Get started as soon as you can and let me know if there is anything I can help you with to get it done even faster," Dawson said.

"Well, most of this is going to be programs, so that's not an issue," TJ replied while turning to face the Chief again, "This can work with every other shield generator being modified. It'll give us a somewhat multilayered shielding set-up. I'll need at least two people to help, mostly since I'm not allowed to handle anything over 10 kilos for the next 24 hours or so. And if I could, I'd like to work with the CIC since this might very well give us a massive tactical advantage."

His posture was a relaxed one, more so due to his ribs still aching, but his confidence in this new task was growing quickly. "Sir, I'm confident this will work. I will say that my only major concern is the Polarized Phase Generator. I don't think it can handle so many frequencies at once," he looked down at the floor for just a second. Anyone who knew TJ well enough would know that as the sign of faltering confidence in himself, thought he always found a way to bounce back from such moments, "Do you think it's possible to retune the phase generator into a Multi-polaric Phase Oscillating Generator? Its the only thing I can think of that can handle three to five spiralwave frequencies without shorting our systems to slag."

Dawson mentally examined the specs for the Miranda's phase generator. "We'll need to build a polaric splitter and then bypass the third and fourth junction relays in the generator, but it's possible. The trick will be timing the oscillations just right. If they're slightly off, we'll create a cascading effect that will throw the polarity of all the power conduits throughout the ship. But if we don't try, we might as well be dead in the water, right?"

"True," TJ nodded in agreement. He took notes to make sure he did the reworks right later, no need killing your own shields before the enemy got a shot off. "The Polaric Splitter will be the easy part, I can slap one together in less than 30 minutes," he looked up to face Dawson, "So, sir, who can I 'borrow' for this little project? Or should I ask after I further streamline this little project?"

It didn't take Dawson long to come to his decision. If TJ's theory would potentially save them from total destruction, he could spare to have someone working on repairs pulled off their current project.

"Take anyone you need. We'll compensate," he said.

"Alright. I'll send you the names when I get done here, sir," TJ replied matter-of-factly. "Um, what about the CIC? Who should I contact, or is there a specific way I should go about this? I've never worked with them before."

Dawson smiled. "Just let them know you're there on my authority. You're going to need to run a tap into the tactical systems sensors that are run through there to make sure the adjustments that the converter needs to make are as accurate as possible.

"Just as a word of advice, though, don't bump the holotank in the middle of the room. They tend to get a little...grouchy and even my position is not immune from the swarm that'll ensue if you do," he chuckled.

"Understood on both points, sir. And I'll take your advice to heart. Last thing I need is Lt. t'Khnialmnae or K'aa hanging me by my feet for breaking one of thier toys."

"Hampering Communication"

Doctor Kimberly Burton, Chief Medical Officer
Lieutenant Ella Grey, Chief Engineer

* * * Main Sickbay - USS Galaxy * * *

"I'll let you know if I start to feel any pain." The engineer calmly typed and then handed the PADD back to Burton and closed her eyes again.

"Oh no young lady, you don't get off that easy," Kimberly cautioned her quietly. Tapping the PADD against a knuckle she waited by the bed, "I may not have your whole file to hand, and I guess right now may not be exactly the best of times. But what is going on here?" she asked bluntly. Subtlety and tact weren't exactly high on her list of priorities right now, and she wasn't in the mood to play twenty questions in the middle of a war to diagnose someone.

Ella shrugged. She wasn't in the mood to make a play for the computer PADD. If Burton wanted her to answer, she'd give her back the means to.

Pausing for a moment Kimberly waited for a reply. Realising that one wouldn't be forthcoming without surrendering the PADD she held it out to Ella, ~ You have to wonder sometimes! ~ she thought to herself as she waited for Ella to type out a response.

*WHAT DO YOU MEAN?* Ella typed.

"I mean your voice is obviously not irreparably damaged, quite possibly the implant is hindering your voice.... And I have to admit the repair of the implant will not likely be a high priority I'm afraid, especially as it seems to be unneeded."

*I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES THAN FIXING MY IMPLANT, DOCTOR. NEVERTHELESS, I WILL NOT SPEAK WITHOUT IT.*

"Mind if I ask why not?" she asked, trying not to let her exasperation show.

The engineer gave a wan smile. *MAYBE BECAUSE I LIKE TO BE DIFFICULT*

~ Like so many others! ~ Kimberly muttered to herself again. "Look, Lieutenant, you were talking just fine a moment ago. Okay, the implant was doing most of the actual talking, your voice was fairly quiet, but there seems no obvious physical reason for you to have the implant, and as we're not in the habit of performing unnecessary surgery anymore, having moved on from the middle ages. So, as the Chief Medical Officer of the ship I have to ask why?"

*MIND IF I ASK WHY YOU HAVE TO ASK WHY?* Ella didn't want to be snotty with the doctor but she was so tired of being asked this question. Why couldn't people just accept and move on.

"Because someone who insists on having an implant implanted to replace their own voice unnecessarily can't expect the CMO to just let it slide without asking some questions. It seems to indicate an aberration somewhere, a problem. And fixing problems is what I'm here to do!" she insisted gently.

Ella took her time, letting the nurse help her sit up and adjust her pillow before answering. *I DON'T WANT TO USE MY REAL VOICE, IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT. IF THAT COMES ACROSS AS AN ABERRATION, WELL THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM, DOCTOR. I CONSIDER IT A NECESSITY. IF THE IMPLANT IS ULTIMATELY NOT REPAIRED, I WILL JUST RETURN TO HOW I USED TO

FUNCTION.*

"By using a PADD all the time?"

*THE IMPLANT IS MORE CONVENIENT, OF COURSE. BUT I'LL DO WHAT I MUST.*

"Okay then," standing Kimberly looked at Ella for a moment as if waiting for more, then shrugged when nothing else was forthcoming, "Lieutenant, for now there are more important injuries to heal. If your scans show no further problems I'll be releasing you I hope within a day or so. The implant will have to wait though, I just don't have the staff or the resources to fabricate and implant a new voicebox right now. Now, if you're content to use a PADD in the middle of a red alert that's up to you how you run your department, but if it interferes with your ability to manage your department in a crisis I'll have to take it to the XO," she warned the engineer candidly.

Taking the time to type out commands on a PADD could hamper communication in a battle, where seconds counted.

Gee, I never thought of that before, Ella wanted to retort but decided that it was best not to overly piss off her doctor. *DON'T LET ME KEEP YOU THEN, DOC*

Standing, Kimberly made to leave then paused, "Whatever it is that stops you from using your voice, I hope you reconsider that one day.

It would be nice to hear you," she asked with a small smile.

It would be nice to be heard, Ella thought sourly.

"The Life of a Scorned Sniper"

Second Lieutenant Steven Jonas
CO - Second Platoon,
Furies 188th Detachment, USS Galaxy

(Seven days after the fleet withdraws)

****

In the Streets
Ki Baratan
ch'Rihan

****

Steven struggled to walk, his breath coming in huffs as a broken rib pushed against the wall lining of one of his lungs. Blood seeped from numerous cuts and abrasions, and the makeshift bandage on his left arm was soaked crimson. His left wrist hung limply after the fight. He had assumed it was sprained, seeing as he still had a little sensation in the fingers, though it could just as easily be broken. He'd won the hand to hand fight with the Hydran, but had come off worse than he would have liked.

He had made his way to the fallback position that they had agreed upon and had waited for the team to arrive. While waiting, he had begun to wonder if he really wanted to go back. There was nothing there for him. No one loved him, no one seemed to give a damn about him. Most especially Faylin. She, it seemed, hated him, having paraded her latest toy boy in front of him, and calling him an asshole. Repeatedly. He felt sorry for the huge bastard. It wouldn't be long before he had the same thing happen. No, there was nothing back there for him. And yet, now, after the others hadn't returned, he found himself walking back towards the shelter, towards Faylin.

He'd fucked up, but that didn't excuse what she had done, what she was doing. It was petty. It was pathetic. And yet, despite all that he was returning, hoping that she might actually care. If his life was ever made into a movie, the audience would probably think him an idiot for returning, but Steven couldn't help it. He couldn't get the dark haired beauty from his mind. No matter the situation, no matter the time of day she found her way into his thoughts. Food tasted bland, his stomach had been in knots for days, and when he was around her, he often found coherent thoughts seemed to break up in his mind.

Of course, he was out of his fraken mind to think that anything could have ever occurred between them. They were like complete opposites. He was a grunt, she a JAG lawyer. She thought it was all one big game, while Steven thought it was as far from a game as it could get. She was an arrogant bitch, and he..., so they weren't complete opposites. He knew he was an arrogant bastard, much like her. He'd made one small mistake, and she, it seemed, hadn't called whatever she had with the huge black lieutenant a mistake. He loved her, and she, well, Steven had no idea how she felt about him. He seemed to constantly get mixed signals from her.

A noise down the way drew his attention. As quick as his hurt body would allow, he made his way over to a pile of rubble and set his rifle up on a piece of what remained of the nearby building and scanned the area with his scope. Within moments a patrol of Federation marines and Rihanna passed by, heading down a perpendicular street to him. He let the crosshairs of his weapon pause on each member of the team for a moment as he checked to make sure they weren't prisoners being escorted to gods knew where. He unconsciously paused the crosshairs a little longer on the huge black man that brought up the rear. Faylin's "friend" was heading out on another mission it seemed. Though concentrating on the scope, he could feel his blood boiling and heart pounding at the mere thought of that monstrosity putting his grubby hands all over Faylin. Steven had never killed a comrade in combat, and hoped to never have to, but for a moment, Steven wondered what if...

Pulling back from the weapon, he shouldered it and waited for them to leave before making his way slowly back towards the sanctuary that their little area provided.

On he walked, constantly looking around and behind him to ensure he wasn't being followed. After another hundred feet or so, he inexplicitly had the memory of what happened on the T'Kengra come to him for the first time since that night.

Their bodies intertwined, limbs flailing as clothing flew off in all directions. Their mouths were all over each other, kissing one another with wild abandon. His hands had roamed her body, caressing, fondling, holding. Hers had done the same to him.

Her body rose to meet his as his came down to hers. Then they drew apart, only to repeat the process over and over as they made love. Their bodies became one as the sounds of their passion filled the room.

Steven wiped the sweat away from his forehead and tried to push the memory away to no avail. His hands were shaking and his breathing ragged. He couldn't concentrate on the direction he was heading and was forced to find a spot to stop.

She was above him now as he lay on the bed. Her fiery hair dangled down over her face, as she bobbed up and down on him. His hands, were resting on her hips, guiding her. Every so often he caught a glimpse of her eyes, through the red hair, as they bore into his. Reaching up, he caressed her breasts, letting his fingers play with her nipples. A soft moan escaped her lips.

Steven turned his face up, towards the ch'Rihan sky. Thinking of Faylin playing her harp before their first date brought him back to reality, made him realize that he'd probably never get the chance to watch her play the instrument again. He felt a little embarrassed at the thoughts he had just had. Embarrassed and ashamed. They hadn't been in an exclusive relationship, having been on just one solitary date, but it didn't help him feel any better about what had happened. Thankful for the respite from the thoughts of that night, he turned back to the street before him and continued plodding along.

Gods, why did he keep thinking about Faylin!

"Botched Recruitment"

Principal Characters
Major Corran Rex
Lt (JG) Victor Krieghoff
Captain Nikolo

------------------------

His flight deck overrun with repair personnel and replacement pilots - Kettch was having a devil of a time training the new nuggets up to squadron standards - Major Corran Rex was taking a much-deserved break.

That break, of course, found him in the Galaxy's main shuttlebay, where a dilapidated (to all appearances) freighter sat, a relic of a former life. The Marianne had been Vorrin's ship. When Vorrin had died, his partner had taken her.

Now she was Corran's.

He ran his hand over the pitted hull, his thoughts drifting back to his and Victor's retrieval of the ship, months ago on Mosanalea...

-------------------------------

Several Months Ago

****

Atlantis Sector

Mosanalea Free Trade World

An Unknown Location

"Well?" The Grazerite Captain snapped from the good side of the portable holding cell's force field. "What have you got to say for yourselves? Why are you here?"

Victor considered that for a moment, and then stood up from his seated position on the floor, waving a hand at Rex to keep him there.

"Because you," he said in the voice that Rex had grown used to hearing since they'd reached Mosanalea, the one that was alive and not dead and lifeless like the one Victor used aboard the Galaxy, "brought us here, Captain, remember?" He smiled and one of the men outside the force field raised a weapon in response. "Don't tell me that you've forgotten already? The dim lights in the warehouse? The soft music of the sirens? Your sweet whispered nothings?" He shook his head sadly.

"Don't tell me that it was all a lie, and that it meant so little to you?"

The Grazerite's face darkened visibly. "Why you..."

Victor cut him off. "Oh, you do remember! I'm so glad - I'd hate to think that you wouldn't respect us in the morning."

One of the men behind the Captain smirked for approximately half a second before putting a scowl back on his face.

The Grazerite raised a threatening finger. "Listen, you arrogant little..."

"Oh no, Captain," Victor assured him, "you don't have to worry about that. I'm big enough for the both of us."

Nikolo's finger curled into a fist. "Do you think that this is a game, mister?"

"A game?" Victor looked around at the cell. "Oh, well... yes." He turned back. "Don't you? I mean really... a Mark VII-A Portable Holding Cell? If you were serious, you'd have used a Mark IX at least, maybe even a Mark XI-B if you were smart." He took a step over to the force field door and bent his head to look at the field emitters. "And these emitters haven't even been upgraded with the replacement parts that were mandated by Circular 19982-6-Alpha last year, which is a shocking lack of proper maintenance on your part by the way. Starfleet issues those Circulars for a reason, you know. That one was sent out because all you need is a small piece of wire...." He produced a piece of wire from his pocket, jabbed it into the juncture of the field and the emitters and watched as the force field dropped with a 'vork' sound."...to do this."

The troopers all leveled their weapons as Nikolo reached for his.

Victor shook his head. "The fact that you left me with the wire is another reason I think this is a joke - second-year Academy cadets do a better job of searching than that. On top of that, you've only got three personnel in the room with you, and one of them currently has the safety on his weapon engaged. Frankly, I'm insulted." He dropped the wire and leaned against the doorframe of the cell, ignoring the leveled weapons and the red-faced agent who was flipping his safety off. "Now, are you going to keep playing silly-ass games, Niko, or do we need to really see whose pair is bigger?"

Corran's jaw dropped as he watched the entire display from his partner. None of this was a style of behavior he'd ever witnessed in the man..

Not that he wasn't enjoying it tremendously. Silently, he resolved to ask later just who this man was and what he'd done with the dour Victor Krieghoff Corran knew.

The Intelligence Captain turned to the Trill then. "What about you, Major? Anything to say for yourself?"

"Me?" Corran just shrugged with a bemused smile. "Nah, I don't really have anything to add, Cap. The Lieutenant here seems to have covered it. We are, after all, simply two men on leave."

"Two men who're still Starfleet officers, and still subject to regulations - "

"Two men who are outside of Starfleet jurisdiction, Captain. This is Mosanalea. It has no treaties with the Federation, and we have no official status here. What we do on this world is, frankly, none of Starfleet's - and especially Starfleet Intelligence's - business."

Corran clarified. "So your whole "bad cop" attitude is pretty much empty. And tells me one thing."

The Grazerite raised an excessively wrinkled eyebrow. "And that is, Major?"

"You want something from us." Corran supplied, pointedly stepping forward out of the downed field.

Nikolo looked at him for a moment, frowning.

"Oh, come on, Niko," Victor prompted from the door of the cell. "It isn't like you haven't done this before." He pointed at Corran. "He's the good cop, the one that wants to leave everyone smiling and thinking they've gotten what the want, when what's really happened is that he's stolen them blind. You, you're the bad cop, all gruff and blustery and threats and saber-rattling to intimidate everyone into giving you what you want. You're just rattling your saber so loudly that you've forgotten that you're supposed to be on the same side.

Stop playing games and just talk to each other and sort this out."

It was still jarring to Corran to see Victor so casual. And observant when it came to personalities. Victor was observant normally, that was true.. he was usually just a lot more.. quiet about it. And he did that whole "silent death killer man" thing, as 8-Ball called it.

The Grazerite's eyes narrowed. "If I'm the bad cop, and the Major here is the good cop, then what does that make you, Lieutenant?"

Victor's smile widened and the men behind Nikolo raised their weapons again. "Why, if you're a very, very bad boy Niko, I'll show you. How's that?" The air in the room seemed to shift in some way, to become denser, as if a weight was pressing against it, as though something as trying to force its way into the room. "I don't think the Major would like that, though," he continued, meeting the Captain's eyes. "He's very particular about his looks, and red doesn't strike me as being his color."

"Dunno, Vic." Rex shrugged. "Me, I'm getting real tired of wasting time in here. We've got the info we wanted."

"Hrmmm," the Grazerite said after a second and looked away.

Victor nodded and the sense of pressure in the room receded. "Much as I'm enjoying this and all, don't you think that it would be much simpler to do what the Major asked and just tell us what you want and let us decide if we're willing to do it for you?"

"No joke." Rex muttered. "I know, Cap, with my amazingly good looks that it's hard to tell, but I'm an old man. A very old man. And I'm finding more and more that I have absolutely no patience with head games or word games or all those little things that you spooks do to keep yourself alive." The jocularity dropped out of the Trill's tone, and any pretense of youth faded out of his eyes as he locked them with the Grazerite officer. "Tell. Us. What. You. Want."

Nikolo's forehead moved in the way that signified a frown among his people. "There's a datafile we need retrieved."

"There now," Victor smiled. "That wasn't really so hard, was it?"

Corran's eyes narrowed in doubt that it was that easy, but he spoke nonetheless. "Now, now, Vic. Let's let the man talk. Maybe he actually has something worth hearing."

"All right," Victor nodded. He seemed about to say something else, but stopped himself - the effort required was clear to Corran, although someone that hadn't spent as much time with Victor wouldn't have realized it - and just nodded.

"Captain?" Rex prompted.

"A datafile," the Captain repeated. "It has information on it that you..." he looked at Victor "...that talks about a series of supply caches set up by the Cardassians during the War for use by units operating behind the lines if the Federation overran DS9 and began to use it as a staging base. We're not certain what's in the caches, but given their intended use, we suspect that there are biogenic weapons and other revenge weapons in with the more mundane armaments. We thought the file had been lost during the retaking of DS9, but it appears that it wasn't. Someone on the planet has that file and intends to sell the information contained within it to individuals that... don't have the Federation's best interests at heart. We need it back - or destroyed. Back is better, but verifiably destroyed will do. You two... you're positioned to get access to the man with the file after that little show today."

Corran nodded, not surprised by any of it. "Who's got your padd, Nikolo?" Any pretense of chain of command had been abandoned.

"A piece of local garbage named by Julian Ganz," Nikolo growled.

"Ahhh." the Trill replied. "And the scan gets clearer. Let me guess, you can't touch him because of his Syndicate connections. Someone he knows someone high up, and you can't get him without tipping him off.

But we, who're on leave and after him for our own reasons are perfectly clear to do it, right?"

The Grazerite frowned, his eyebrows and heavily wrinkled skin drawing together in an almost comical effect. "We can't be THAT predictable."

"I've been around."

"I suppose asking if you're certain that Ganz has the datafile is a waste of time, so what else can you tell us about it, Niko?" Victor asked. "Size? Format? Do you know if he's decrypted it yet? What kind of media is it on? Is it on a Cardassian data chip, or is it roaming loose in Ganz's mainframe like a rogue rhinoceros in an Andorian crystal farm? "

As Victor pressed Nikolo for information, Corran's mind was turning.

Or rather, Rex's mind was accessing Vorrin's memories, trying to turn up anything else that might be interesting to Starfleet Intelligence.

"Of course.." he finally whispered.

"Of course, what?" Victor said with a sudden frown. "Don't tell me that..." he contrived to look shocked "...Niko is holding out on us?"

He shook a finger at the Grazerite. "Now that's just unfriendly after all we've meant to each other, Niko. You'll hurt my feelings... and if that happens, well... mama spanks!"

Corran held up a finger to Victor momentarily and locked eyes with Nikolo again. "The Marianne."

Nikolo froze, and then swore under his breath for a moment - therefore confirming Rex's suspicions.

Victor looked back and forth at the two men. "I don't know what Niko would do," he finally said to Corran, "but *you'd* never refer to a living woman as 'the' like that - which means you're talking about a ship, right?"

"Vorrin and Keil's ship," Corran clarified for Victor's benefit. "You want her engine core."

"Actually no, I don't," Victor said with a shake of his head. "But from the way Niko over here is looking like he just sat on that saber he was rattling - point first - I assume that he does. Now why doesn't someone tell me why, hmmm?" His smile was back, and the sense of pressure was building in the room's atmosphere again, compressing it as if the wings of an impossibly large ethereal bird were beating behind him. "I get angry when people don't tell me things I need to know... and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"Four words," Nikolo clarified. "Zero point energy reactor."

Corran closed his eyes. He hadn't thought about the Marianne, or what doodad that Vorrin and Keil had picked up in years. Although, really, "doodad" was a great disservice to what the thing was.

"They're nice words, they really are," Victor said, the temperature in his voice starting to dip and the words taking on a distinctly chilly feel, as if they had a physical form and shape that could be frozen.

"But they don't really mean anything to me. Now if I were an engineer, they might – but I'm not. What I am is… getting angry."

Corran was the one who clarified. "Vic, you know why they can't get transwarp to work?"

Victor looked at Corran for a moment. "Besides the obvious - 'because it doesn't work' - no." He frowned, and again there was the sense of effort that Corran recognized but the others in the room missed and the words leaving Victor's mouth lost their frozen edge. "Explain it to me."

"It's all about power curves. Same reason shields fall in a battle.

It's always about power - the antimatter reactions we use for power create amazing amounts of energy, but there's only so much of it to go around. A functioning zero point energy reactor is something the Federation - and none of its members - has ever been able to create for any length of time. Well, keep it stable, I should say. The amount of power it can put it is, literally, without limit so far as we know." the Trill explained, slipping into the didactic tones of one of his past hosts, who'd been a physicist.

"So you had one of these things back then, and Niko here wants it now so we can all drive very fast and not worry about running out of fuel or creating subspace potholes?" Victor asked.

"More or less." Corran confirmed. "I'd imagine it's got some other applications, too."

"Is there a datafile?" Victor turned on the Grazerite. "Or were you lying about that?"

"There… is a datafile," Nikolo admitted.

"And you thought that while we were busting up Ganz to get the file, your boys could just slip in, pick up this hot little power core, and spirit it away in the confusion?" Victor continued. "

"Hrmmmm….."

The words leaving Victor's mouth started to chill again. "Yes or no, Niko? They're both simple words, just pick one – the truth would be nice for a change – and say it. C'mon, you can do it; you remember how to speak the truth, don't you? You just pucker up your lips and.…"

"Yes," Nikolo ground out.

"Ah, there we are, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Victor whispered, the soft words flying out like razor-edged shards of ice. "I appreciate that. I don't like it, but I appreciate it. I've never been happy about being a stalking horse or puppet for anyone, and today isn't the day where I'll suddenly decide that I want to. Good for me, not so good for you…" He stood up, and the sense of pressure in the room increased; one of the guards taking a step backwards, as if pushed.

Corran placed a restraining hand on Victor's shoulder, silently reigning this new side of his friend in. They'd certainly have to talk about this.

There was a pause, a moment where Corran wasn't certain that Victor had heard him, and then Victor nodded once. "All right, partner," he whispered, his voice unchanged. "But the next time he lies to us, someone's going to be screaming." He smiled once, and for a moment wasn't Victor any longer, but something else, someone else – someone that Corran danced with every time he flew a mission in his fighter.

"Remember that, Niko," Death whispered, and then slipped back inside Victor to hide just out of sight.

"I've got no problems with that." Corran murmured, and turned to face Nikolo. "Allright, Captain. Let's talk."

"Guerrilla Warfare" part I

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Lt. Pierre Basset

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"Get out of the way!" For'kel shouted as a dozen Marines made their way down to what had become a haphazard medical area. He'd left with sixteen... four of which were outright dead, two more were critically injured to the point they couldn't walk, and the rest of them had various injuries... mostly light burns or lacerations. All except Private Lawrence 'Shifty' Williams who'd managed to get through the whole damned thing without a scratch so far.

As if losing four people already wasn't enough, the two in the makeshift cots were on death's door themselves. One was Sergeant Tam'iil, a Benzite... the second was his officer, Lieutenant Dana Collins. He'd already lost Cougar... losing her would be... well, that was better left an option not considered. "Get a damned doctor here, now!"

"You heard the man, move it!" 'General' Elaithin ordered, coming in on the heels of Forkel's team. Jii's team - himself, Jordan, Arel, Krieghoff, and a dozen marines had been on their own, simultaneous mission, another POW rescue.

Which they had.

The Hydrans had been ready for them this time, with only a few actual prisoners - the rest had been holographic fakes. Though the team had sprung the POWs - including Lt. Commander Spa'an, the Miranda's Chief Science Officer, they'd ended up only rescuing five people. And for that, nine people were dead - four from Arvelion's squad, five from Elaithin's. And everyone on Jii's team was wounded. Arel was sporting a long gash down her left arm - even the seemingly-invincible Krieghoff had been injured. Jordan had what looked like it might be a nasty concussion. (Though really, it was damn hard to tell if her mental state was "altered" these days.)

Not that they hadn't taken their fair share of Hydrans. But this war wasn't a numbers game - losses affected Elaithin & Arvelion's forces a lot more than they did the Hydrans, who seemed to have a near-endless number of replacements.

Victor checked the tell-tales built into the Hazard Team uniform while the medical teams swarmed the wounded. Nothing critical or even debilitating, just painful; he'd had so many broken ribs at this point in his life that it really wasn't worth seeing a doctor for them. He'd tape them up and take something for the pain if it became a problem.

Irritatingly, he wasn't short of breath thanks to his damned illegal lung's improved oxygen extraction ability.

The fact that everyone was injured wasn't an issue for him. Neither was the fact that they'd only rescued a few POW's from the Hydrans.

What was a problem, though, was that one of the POW's that had not been present physically had been Petty Officer Third Class Jerald Owens, Sciences. His hologram had been there, but Owens hadn't. The Hydrans had possessed him long enough to make the hologram, but after that, they hadn't needed him any more. Victor had known that as soon as he saw the holograms flicker and fade. Now there were only two of his sheep left to find, only two more chances to keep from failing them again.

For'kel watched the two Romulan doctors run over to attend to the victims. After a quick diagnosis, volunteers lifted the stretchers up to carry them off toward a medical room... the Colonel managed to give the Lieutenant's hand one last squeeze before they disappeared. There was a slick of blood in his palm... his or hers he didn't know, nor did it really matter at this point. This whole trying to stay stoic thing was 'really' getting on his nerves. It seemed no matter what they did, no matter how successful they were, they continued losing people... drip and drop really. They freed hundreds of POW's, and lost a dozen of their own doing it. They disabled the planet's sensor grid to give any rescue fleet an advantage, and they lost four, possibly six because of it. Of the five-hundred Marines the 101st had arrived with, a hundred and thirty were all that remained fit for duty. The rest virtually split between dead and severely wounded. The non-stop pace of constant ambushing, engaging, and breaking off attacks, regardless of how effective the tactic was proving objectively, was taking a terrible toll. Not just physically, but mentally.

Wiping his eyes with the back of a bloodied and soot-ridden sleeve, For'kel gave orders to one of the Sergeants to see to it basic treatment was administered to his Marines before walking over to the 'command center' as it existed. The walk took far longer than he remembered, though it might have something to do with the harrowing experience that, although he'd never admit it, had him quivering momentarily. They still had a duty, a day, to get through after all.

"All right, the planet's sensor grid is disabled. What's next?"

Pierre moved in with the group rapidly pushing his way past several others of the refugees. Sweat was dripping off of his forehead all the way down to his chin and his short hair glistened in the dim lighting.

He gave the stretcher to one of the medical staff for them to take the marine for treatment. Pierre took a second to sit down, knocking his rifle off of his shoulder. He grabbed it before the weapon hit the ground and sighed. Lord knows it would take WAY to long to readjust the emitter assembly. He set the rifle down slowly next to him and looked to the deep gash on his arm. He sighed and looked back to the other marines that were around him. What a frickin' day. He looked back over to For'Kel, "Sir, If you want me to I can get patched up real quick and go topside as a lookout. Make sure none of the little bastards followed us here."

"Yeah, make sure your injuries are tended to first." For'kel gave a weary nod. It was more then just concern for losing another of his own... blood can be used to track or reveal concealment. He wanted the man to be as invisible as was possible. "There's an observation point about a hundred meters down the main avenue. Take up a spot there." He also wasn't about to let the discovery of a look-out reveal the exact location of their position either. "Don't shoot at anything unless you're made out. Understood?"

Pierre smiled slyly. "Aye, Sir. But that would mean that I don't get to shoot anything while I'm up there, because I'll be damned if I let them see me while I'm alone. It was only a fluke that made me leave position on the mission. But, yes, sir, I will make sure that I am most careful. A ghost in the shadows. You know me, Sir." Pierre smiled and made a quick salute to his commander, sitting back down and picking up his rifle again, adjusting a few of the power settings and looking around to see if anyone around would have a new power cell. He also motioned on of the medical officers over, asking him to tend the wound quickly so he could be on his way.

Elaithin looked almost paternally at the young Marine as 'Colonel Arvelion addressed him. When For'kel was done, Elaithin came up alongside him. "Looks like yours turned out about like mine."

Pierre looked to the officer, standing up quickly as the man started talking to him. He was still just out of the academy, so it was still ingrained into him to do things like that. He looked to his arm and to the wound that Elaithin had and smiled slightly.

"Seems like it, Sir. Nothing worse then that wound I got at training down my leg. I was unconscious for an hour from loss of blood before they could get the whole thing controlled. And still, I'm sure worse wounds will be to come later anyway. No need to worry over the scratches."

"You're young." Jii replied. "You'll live, kid." As Basset left, he turned to face the senior marine.

"They're getting smarter, Fork." the Bajoran said. "Adapting quicker to these tactics than we thought they would - I think they've been dealing with a resistance already back in their own space. There were some rumors awhile back about a Lyran revolt."

"It's a possibility." For'kel had to admit, although speaking was something that took a bit more effort than he actually wanted to exert.

"We're going to have to get unpredictable." Elaithin said thoughtfully. A beep from his chrono interrupted his next statement, and he let out a small curse. "Hell." he muttered. "Let's go. The Romulans - and the rest of our little 'council' are waiting. We'll have to get patched up later."

For'kel nodded in concurrence. He hated dealing with this 'Sela', and most Romulans who he'd come across. Hell, even the ones that had sniped at him at least did so for honorable, if misguided reasons.

He'd prefer their company over the Admiral's any day.

'Commander Spa'an caught up on the way, walking next to them.

"'Commander." Jii greeted him honestly. "It's good to see you, circumstances aside."

"It is likewise good to see you, though I would suggest it is precisely because of the circumstances that it is so." That any of them -- himself included -- were still alive was something of a surprise to the Vulcan, one eclipsed only by the unexpected presence of the Elaithins. "By all logic, you should be dead," he stated as if it were some well-known law of physics.

Jordan gave a worn smile as she replied. "I get that a lot."

"Guerrila Warfare" pt II

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

Elaithin and Arvelion led the way into the small room, and were joined only a few minutes later by Jordan, Arel, and Victor. Spa'an accompanied them as well. Waiting already were two other Starfleet people - Pete Shaw and one of the Engineer's who'd joined Miranda since Jii had left it, Thyago Carneiro. Elaithin and Arvelion had found the young Engineer's strangely distracted perspective to be helpful so far - particularly when it came to unconventional thinking.

Also present was the perpetually scowling Admiral Sela, along with Jii's own contact - and the apparent leader of the Unificationists, given that Spock wasn't on-planet just now - Kerec, one of his deputies, Juna, and the Senator, tr'Khianalmae. Elaithin hadn't been surprised at the man's charm, or that he was Shia's father. He had been surprised by just how much he liked the old coot, however. But then, Jii found he took something of a perverse glee in irritating the woman. It was childish, he knew, but somehow he couldn't help it. He also wondered if he was getting more "ornery" - as Damon would have put it - as he aged.

"You're late." Sela noted frostily.

"Sorry." Elaithin replied flippantly, though he was anything but. "I'm afraid fighting the Hydrans doesn't work on an exact timetable - which you'd know if you ever got your own hands dirty." If he didn't make the observation, For'kel would.

Sela scoffed. "My own value to this "resistance" is as a strategist and a leader, not a soldier, 'General,'" she said, sarcastically emphasizing the adopted title.

"Well, we've got different ideas of being a leader, Sela." Elaithin shot back. "So let's strategize, then."

"What are we strategizing again?" Thyago asked, and a few members of the council sighed, including the Romulan woman, Juna, "Are you guys planning on raiding another prison or something?"

"Hardly," came a retort from the Rihannsu contingent. "This meeting is meant for discussions of a more global strategy."

"Oh, I see. Its big picture day today. Got it," he said, clicking out the side of his mouth. There was a pause, during which a few pairs of eyes continued to gaze at the Brazilian with an annoyed glare. He mistook them as glares of waiting, waiting for his input into the larger strategy, but he was an engineer, not a tactician. Thyago Carneiro rarely, if ever, thought anything through beforehand. "Um, so, I think the best strategy would be to defeat the Hydrans," he said, well aware the suggestion was obvious and entirely unhelpful.

Juna sighed again, and leaned back in her chair, turning her gaze elsewhere. Under her breath, she muttered, "Idiot."

Jii slipped a palm over his mouth, covering the smirk that arose at the young Engineer's remarks.

Pete almost wanted to laugh at the concept of coming up with a strategy. No matter what they seemed to toss at the Hydrans, they were there and ready. "Coming up with any kind of strategy is going to be hard at best. We are dealing with an enemy that has had time to study us in depth and all we got on them is that they have a few bigger guns and whole shit load more people!"

Victor never spoke up in these meetings, never said a word, just stood there in the shadows and watched. This time, though, prompted by the realization that he had only two chances left to save the missing crewmen he'd remained behind to find, he spoke up, "No. We know that they require an exotic breathing mixture. We know that they're clumsy in uneven terrain. We know that they don't like being out of their combat suits in a combat zone. We know a great many things about them, Major. What we don't know is what you *want* to know: how to make them all go away with the single pull of a trigger."

Pete wanted to strangle the Galaxy officer sometimes, and he had only known the man for a week. "Okay, besides all that stuff I glanced over, how the hell do we make them frustrated enough to leave this planet, or how do we kill them all while leaving the planet more or less unharmed?"

Victor leaned forward, his face half in and half out of the shadows.

"We can't, Major, because there isn't a way to *do* that. If there was..." he paused for a moment and the shadows seemed to move around him, making his face into something that wasn't human any more. "If there was," he said with a chilling shift in his voice, "then I would have already done it."

Pete sighed as he slumped down into a chair. He was never thinking of dying on a planet, especially not Romulus. He always thought he would find a nice young lady, have many kids and settle down on some planet far away from war. But fate, yet again, decided to stab him in the back.

Victor tilted his head to the side and studied Pete for a moment.

"Unless, of course," he continued in that same, not-quite human voice, "the rules of engagement have changed and you will accept killing everyone on the planet to kill all of the Hydrans here. I know how to do that, Major."

"Yeah, so I do I," Thyago said. "I imagine those ancient nuclear weapons we found under the city park could do that."

He was referring to the several hundred year old nuclear fusion bomb warheads strapped to the arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles he, Victor, Shaw, Thral and the Romulan Maiek had found the other day hidden beneath the capital city's largest park. They had been crossing the park to reach an isolated set of tunnels housing an encampment of Unificationists and other refugees when they were attacked and caught in a surprise skirmish with a few Hydran soldiers.

During the fight, they had fled into a camouflaged sewage drain and stumbled upon the long forgotten silos. "I'm going to vote no on that one," Thyago said.

"I, for once, agree with him," Juna said, glaring at Thyago through the corners of her eyes. He caught the icy stare and tossed up his hands in a mildly confrontational manner, but Juna ignored the motion.

"I don't think blowing up half the planet with tactical nukes is going to do it... I think the high IQ boys back home may just have objections over that... and I am not talking about the diplomats and politicians," Pete said as a small chuckle went through the room. "We need something else."

"Not to mention that we are NOT going to blow up this planet." Admiral Sela said sternly, in a tone suggesting *that* particular train of through was now thoroughly derailed.

"And for once." Jii muttered under his breath. "I'm with Sela. No blowing up the planet. So if that's out, we need to come up with other options."

"Guerrilla Warfare" part III

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"And for once." Jii muttered under his breath. "I'm with Sela. No blowing up the planet. So if that's out, we need to come up with other options."

Kerec interrupted them then. "We've found someone else I believe can be of assistance to us." the Unifcationist said in a neutral tone, gesturing for someone else to step forward.

"Gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself." The Romulan seemed sincerely humble. The short, portly, middle aged male had the look of aged experience. He carried himself well, confidently but not cocky.

"I am Commander Roval of the Rihannsu Naval Intelligence Branch.

Several months ago in the Delta Quadrant I met one of your fleet Ensigns...a Daniels from the Miranda. Having interacted with him before these unfortunate circumstances arose, I tried to find him again... however, since he is decidedly not on the planet, I came to the nearest garrison I could find."

"And what would be your purpose in finding the nearest garrison?" Pete really hated it when Romulans suddenly showed up from out of the shadows. It wasn't something he was getting used to, even after spending a little over two weeks on this hell hole they call a home planet.

"My purpose, sir, is to offer my services and knowledge to you so as to aid in your resistance."

"Unless you can come up with a strategy that will catch them off guard, then I don't see a lot of help coming from your direction,"

Pete said flat out.

"You are fighting an invading army with what weapons you brought from your ships. Tactically, I can not offer you a strategy. I am a man of knowledge, not of action, you see. But what I know could drastically aid you in this resistance."

Pete's eyes widened a little at that, but didn't speak up this time, deciding to bow out to someone of a higher rank.

"Then it would behoove you to share your knowledge, Commander, as it is your planet we would liberate," Spa'an cooly observed. Had he not been captured, the Miranda's science chief would not even have been with this group. His only interest, save from locating his missing science officers, was to meet up with some others well-placed in the resistance and to debate the merits of abandoning the unification idea entirely. As far as Spa'an was concerned, battling the Hydrans was nothing next to the futility of trying to unite two what he considered incompatible cultures, ancient history and genetics notwithstanding.

"During the Dominion War the Empire came to the realization that an invasion of this planet was a plausible option for more than one species, the Federation was included at that time. Very quietly, Rihannsu Naval Intelligence, Tal'Shiar and Senators began placing certain... ahh... weapons caches around the planet in order to provide for common defense in the event of a hostile takeover attempt...and to aid an insurgency against said invaders should they succeed."

"Caches?" Pete repeated. "How much are we talking about?" He asked as he grabbed a padd to jot a few things down.

"I didn't know about this," Juna said, looking to Kerec. "Did you?"

"No." the Unificationist shook his head, scowling. "Not a word of it.

But I can't say it suprises me."

"Nor I." Sela chimed in. She had a strange look on her features, as though there was something else she could add - but chose not to.

Jii wondered if anyone else had caught it. He had the feeling he'd be having a private conversation with Admiral soon - the sooner, the better.

"Huh." Jordan muttered, softly from her position on the floor against the wall. "There was an intelligence report at one time that maybe something like that might be going on, but it came off more as an extreme and paranoid reaction by an extreme and paranoid senator; no one put much weight in it, so we didn't even think twice before we decided not to pursue it. Am I the only one who finds it funny it wasn't only a serious discussion, it happened? Funny and a little disturbing anyway "

"How big of an insurgency were there plans to equip?" Juna asked, essentially repeating Pete's question.

"Scattered around this world are enough small arms and explosives to last each member of the planet for several months. You open these arsenals and you can do that which is most beneficial to an

insurgency: arm the people. The Hydrans will have no knowledge of the locations because no official record was kept of them. I, along with only a few others, was blessed with this knowledge, and of the tunnel system that connects the bowels of this city to others."

"Each member of the planet?" Thyago exclaimed. "Like, every citizen?

All billions of them? That's whole lot of guns!"

Roval nodded. "We planned for the worst."

Pete's eyes widened as he jotted some numbers down. "Depending on what is in these caches, it could help turn it. The Hydrans would not expect the resistance to suddenly become so well armed." He handed the padd over to For'kel and then picked up another and started coming up with plans on how to use the weapons.

"How dated are the weapons?" Victor asked when it became apparent that no one else was going to. "Were they top-of-the-line at the time, or what was in storage because it had been replaced with something better? What kind of maintenance will they need after storage?"

For'kel accepted the PADD with a sigh. "So let me get this straight, you buried weapons all around Romulus?"

"Yes."

"Weapons that could just as easily be discovered by the Hydrans and used against you?" For'kel sighed, it was less a question then an accusation of idiocy. He 'really' needed to get the hell off this planet before it became contagious. "Lieutenant, you said something about old nuclear weapons?"

Roval cut him off first. "Excuse me, Colonel, but unlike the Federation my people are not so brash as to believe that a few lightly armed infantrymen can defend a planet against an invading peoples, which you were obviously unable to do here. The weapons are slightly dated, yes, but are in working storage so they would be ready to use within a short time of their find. And about them finding a cache...let them. There's dozens others that only a select few know about. Of course, if this troubles you, I could just take my knowledge to another resistance group. You arm the populace, you reinforce your men, and you may just stand a chance against the Hydrans." It had been awhile since the old man had needed to show some of the fight in him, but it was nice to see that his attitude was still there after so many years in the delta quadrant.

"No, yours just believe they can enslave and invade the territories of others at will without repercussions." Days of trying to be diplomatic with the arrogant ass holes that seemed to compose the higher echelons of Romulan society had finally worn on For'kel too long. "My mistake. Now, shall we get back to the matter at hand?"

It was a veiled warning, one given even as he felt his fist tighten up, and plotted the swiftest course for Roval's face in his mind. Too many of his people had been lost for 'their' planet for his taste to let some Romulan Intel operative speak to any one in uniform in that manner.

"Fork." Jii whispered, placing a subtle hand on the man's forearm. Not that he didn't agree - Some of these Romulans were downright cold about the notion of Starfleet people dying to defend a world that wasn't even theirs. And Arvelion's unit had suffered some of the worst of the casualties.

"Guerrilla Warfare" part IV

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"Fork." Jii whispered, placing a subtle hand on the man's forearm. Not that he didn't agree - Some of these Romulans were downright cold about the notion of Starfleet people dying to defend a world that wasn't even theirs. And Arvelion's unit had suffered some of the worst of the casualties.

"So, I know you're not Human, but are you familiar with Earth history?

During the 'Cold War,' near the turn of the millenium, the USA and Russia built up these massive arsenals of fusion bombs, so they could destroy the world a hundred times over," Thyago said. "The things we found are like those."

"They're from the Kaeirean War era, most likely," Juna said, filling in the blanks about the weapons. "One of the last inter-nation state wars before Romulus was unified, about six hundred years ago."

Thyago continued, "I think we counted about a dozen missiles. Each has a deuterium fusion warhead with a plutonium fission first stage, and each warhead is attached to a missile capable of reaching near Earth orbit. Or, um, Romulan orbit. There was automated machinery maintaining the warheads, they're all still functional. I don't think all the missiles are still launch capable, but most look like they are. The warheads are removable, they're not very big, a little more than a cubic meter."

The Stagnorian liked that response, and turned to 'General' Elaithin.

He really hadn't had the heart to tell the guy that among Marines, 'General' was a term used for either faulty equipment or bumbling/disliked leaders, or those who were incompetent and demanded the right to interfere anyway... none of which actually applied, mostly. He found it damn funny still, but managed to keep its meaning under wraps.

"We know the location of the Hydran's logistics and reinforcement camps," he said. "If we managed to sneak a few of those weapons into the next transporter cycles, we'll be able to destroy a few of their ships. More importantly, they'd have to stop sending reinforcements and supplies by transporter, or risk losing even more ships."

"Agreed." Elaithin nodded. "We need to find the ones capable of reaching orbit, too - punching a hole in that shield of theirs at the right time could come in damn handy. But the others - we can easily purpose those towards ground operations." he started going over some details in his head. "The first strike needs to be a major one - the barracks they established outside of town will do nicely."

"It won't be easy, but it is doable," Pete replied. "It's also something the Hydrans wont expect, so after a few of their capital ships crash and burn they may just pause and rethink what they are doing and that could give us and the fleet enough time to move in and retake the planet before they know what happened to them."

"It could, definitely. But it will unquestionably really piss them off. We have to keep in mind here that the problem we're facing is not necessarily that we're outmanned and don't have 'guns'," Jordan said, pushing herself to her feet and leaning against the wall, hands pressed against it to steady herself. "Rather, it's the *type* of weaponry. Unless there are whole starships hidden in these things, we're still going to have a tremendous disadvantage. The Hydrans have technology at least comparable to the Federation; because of our dampening fields and so on, they can't isolate us when we're underground, but when we're above ground it's a different thing; they may not be able to pinpoint our exact coordinates, but they can get a pretty damn idea. And unlike us? If we piss them off enough, they're not going to hesitate to blow us into space dust. They have no problem destroy the cities or perhaps even the planet as a whole; their move here was to prove to us that they could do it. And they have. If holding the planet itself becomes too great a liability, they are going to destroy that liability."

Elaithin was watching Sela's reactions this time, much as he had through much of this discussion. Again, there was something there. She hid it well, but...

"So... you're saying you want to hide out until the cavalry arrives?"

For'kel raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that he disliked the idea completely, but strategically as long as the Hydrans had to expend forces to subjugate the planet, they couldn't finish off the Romulan fleet. They needed time more then they needed anything else... time to get reinforcements.

"No, that s not what I'm saying," Jordan said, shaking her head emphatically, though that was probably a bad idea -- unless there really were stars orbiting her. "Of course we should fight, just like we have been. Of course we should do everything we can to weaken their defenses. But we need a backup plan! I know you all are tired of hearing about it, but I'm going to say it again: we need to find some way of communicating, some how, any way, outside of the system.

I think that should be one of our primary goals! Not just irritating our enemy. I mean hell, any one who knows anything of the Fleet's leadership know that Murdock, for better or for worse, won't back down from a fight. He's going to be here as soon as he can get here from Earth, that's the way he operates, it always has been. And we should do what we can to get the information we have to him so he and the fleet are as prepared as they can be."

"Your strategy is logical, given the circumstances," Spa'an apprised, turning to the former captain's heretofore former wife. "However, most of the Romulan communications infrastructure has been destroyed or is in the hands of the Hydrans."

"How," Thyago asked.

"Simple, really. We hope that the Romulans who created those theoretical bunkers actually did so and had the foresight to include communications technology, and, I hate to be the one to bring it up, but we take prisoners. And we get information from them." On this, Jordan looked directly toward Victor. "Any way we can."

"Guerrilla Warfare" part IV

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"Fork." Jii whispered, placing a subtle hand on the man's forearm. Not that he didn't agree - Some of these Romulans were downright cold about the notion of Starfleet people dying to defend a world that wasn't even theirs. And Arvelion's unit had suffered some of the worst of the casualties.

"So, I know you're not Human, but are you familiar with Earth history?

During the 'Cold War,' near the turn of the millenium, the USA and Russia built up these massive arsenals of fusion bombs, so they could destroy the world a hundred times over," Thyago said. "The things we found are like those."

"They're from the Kaeirean War era, most likely," Juna said, filling in the blanks about the weapons. "One of the last inter-nation state wars before Romulus was unified, about six hundred years ago."

Thyago continued, "I think we counted about a dozen missiles. Each has a deuterium fusion warhead with a plutonium fission first stage, and each warhead is attached to a missile capable of reaching near Earth orbit. Or, um, Romulan orbit. There was automated machinery maintaining the warheads, they're all still functional. I don't think all the missiles are still launch capable, but most look like they are. The warheads are removable, they're not very big, a little more than a cubic meter."

The Stagnorian liked that response, and turned to 'General' Elaithin.

He really hadn't had the heart to tell the guy that among Marines, 'General' was a term used for either faulty equipment or bumbling/disliked leaders, or those who were incompetent and demanded the right to interfere anyway... none of which actually applied, mostly. He found it damn funny still, but managed to keep its meaning under wraps.

"We know the location of the Hydran's logistics and reinforcement camps," he said. "If we managed to sneak a few of those weapons into the next transporter cycles, we'll be able to destroy a few of their ships. More importantly, they'd have to stop sending reinforcements and supplies by transporter, or risk losing even more ships."

"Agreed." Elaithin nodded. "We need to find the ones capable of reaching orbit, too - punching a hole in that shield of theirs at the right time could come in damn handy. But the others - we can easily purpose those towards ground operations." he started going over some details in his head. "The first strike needs to be a major one - the barracks they established outside of town will do nicely."

"It won't be easy, but it is doable," Pete replied. "It's also something the Hydrans wont expect, so after a few of their capital ships crash and burn they may just pause and rethink what they are doing and that could give us and the fleet enough time to move in and retake the planet before they know what happened to them."

"It could, definitely. But it will unquestionably really piss them off. We have to keep in mind here that the problem we're facing is not necessarily that we're outmanned and don't have 'guns'," Jordan said, pushing herself to her feet and leaning against the wall, hands pressed against it to steady herself. "Rather, it's the *type* of weaponry. Unless there are whole starships hidden in these things, we're still going to have a tremendous disadvantage. The Hydrans have technology at least comparable to the Federation; because of our dampening fields and so on, they can't isolate us when we're underground, but when we're above ground it's a different thing; they may not be able to pinpoint our exact coordinates, but they can get a pretty damn idea. And unlike us? If we piss them off enough, they're not going to hesitate to blow us into space dust. They have no problem destroy the cities or perhaps even the planet as a whole; their move here was to prove to us that they could do it. And they have. If holding the planet itself becomes too great a liability, they are going to destroy that liability."

Elaithin was watching Sela's reactions this time, much as he had through much of this discussion. Again, there was something there. She hid it well, but...

"So... you're saying you want to hide out until the cavalry arrives?"

For'kel raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that he disliked the idea completely, but strategically as long as the Hydrans had to expend forces to subjugate the planet, they couldn't finish off the Romulan fleet. They needed time more then they needed anything else... time to get reinforcements.

"No, that s not what I'm saying," Jordan said, shaking her head emphatically, though that was probably a bad idea -- unless there really were stars orbiting her. "Of course we should fight, just like we have been. Of course we should do everything we can to weaken their defenses. But we need a backup plan! I know you all are tired of hearing about it, but I'm going to say it again: we need to find some way of communicating, some how, any way, outside of the system.

I think that should be one of our primary goals! Not just irritating our enemy. I mean hell, any one who knows anything of the Fleet's leadership know that Murdock, for better or for worse, won't back down from a fight. He's going to be here as soon as he can get here from Earth, that's the way he operates, it always has been. And we should do what we can to get the information we have to him so he and the fleet are as prepared as they can be."

"Your strategy is logical, given the circumstances," Spa'an apprised, turning to the former captain's heretofore former wife. "However, most of the Romulan communications infrastructure has been destroyed or is in the hands of the Hydrans."

"How," Thyago asked.

"Simple, really. We hope that the Romulans who created those theoretical bunkers actually did so and had the foresight to include communications technology, and, I hate to be the one to bring it up, but we take prisoners. And we get information from them." On this, Jordan looked directly toward Victor. "Any way we can."

"Guerrilla Warfare" part V

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"Simple, really. We hope that the Romulans who created those theoretical bunkers actually did so and had the foresight to include communications technology, and, I hate to be the one to bring it up, but we take prisoners. And we get information from them." On this, Jordan looked directly toward Victor. "Any way we can."

"I can assure you that the bunkers are there. I have seen them myself recently. The local ones are still stocked. And they would make excellent holding cells and interview rooms for detainees." Roval was suddenly re-engaged, having not been deterred by that Colonel's rantings. He had never met Jordan Elaithin, only read of her, and aside from her being supposedly dead, he was now well familiar with her trumpeted capabilities. "I am at your service, ma'am."

Now that sent alarm bells racing in the Stagnorian's mind. If he were in a mood to be more diplomatic about it, he may have cited how such information is of dubious accuracy at best when obtained. Instead however he was, perhaps unnecessarily, blunt. Pounding both fists on the table, he immediately stood up, and exercising the extent of terse Standard he knew, replied "Hell 'fucking' no!" For'kel didn't have his wife, didn't have his best friends, didn't have much of a unit left, and didn't have a guarantee he'd even see tomorrow. The one thing he 'did' have to hold onto was a moral code, and he wasn't going to give that up to anyone. "I'm not about to betray an oath I took to defend the Federation for the sake of convenience!"

"But you know what?" Jordan countered, the most animated Jii had seen her since that night in Kerec's home. " We're not in the Federation right now. And if we don't do this? There might not be a Federation.

And those Intelligence Gathering Techniques? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they've saved our collective asses more times than you people," She swallowed to collect herself. "Will ever know.

Because we did our jobs. That's the way I see it, right there. It's black and white really. But doing it the way we have been is accomplishing little but keeping us alive every miserable day. Isn't it about time to start actively achieving something?"

Oh how he wanted to pull that phaser. Instead, For'kel simply turned to face her, glaring angrily. "How 'dare' you." By now, the search for words was incredibly difficult. Not that they were scarce... just the opposite, he didn't know where to begin. "I am not going to sit here and allow you to belittle the sacrifices made by thousands of people as insignificant simply so you can get your way. Quite frankly, people like you make me wonder if the Federation is 'worth' saving these days." There it was, out in the open for all to witness and consider... the ultimate question.

Did the end really justify the means?

"None of us are in any position to criticize anyone about the worth of the Federation, right now," Jordan snapped. "Any one of the people that have been lost are my people too; the people on the Miranda and on the other ships were also *my* friends, and I respect each and every one who has fallen since this catastrophe began. It is not for you to act as though you are alone in that! Regardless of the high and mighty horse you think you're sitting on. Last I checked? We're all underground here trying to survive. This is the situation we are in. And believe me. I would much rather not be in this position, suggesting what I just did, but it's the only assertive thing we haven't tried. It needs to be considered, however awful it is. It's not much worse than systematically slaughtering them like we have been, and at least we have an opportunity to perhaps learn something."

It was at this point that Senator tr'Khnialmnae interupted. "Ladies and gentlemen!" His tone was harsh, in a fatherly sort of way. "I am not proud to say that I have heard these same arguments uttered by my own people for actions and politics much more benign than this invasion of my home. Colonel," He turned to For'Kel. "The only way the deaths made today will be insignificant in any way is if the Hydrans wipe out everyone in the galaxy.

Take this to heart." His eyes turned to Jordan next. "And while I am loath to take up sides, I believe that SOME intelligence gathering

*IS* neccessary. We need to know WHY they have come, besides 'We did it because we can do it.' That's not the way Hydrans operate. Now, let us continue with productive arguments."

"Agreed." Elaithin said, speaking up in the silence that followed.

Looking directly at his wife, he continued. "But I have one final thing to say. We're NOT tortuing anyone. We WILL follow the terms of interstellar law regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. I don't care what we do within those bounds, but we're not crossing that line."

"Oh, please!" Sela sputtered aloud, a look of clear disdain. "Listen to yourselves! Arguing over the moralities of data extraction when the fate of the Empire - adn your Federation - is at stake! If you want to have a moral crisis, I suggest you do it on your own time."

"I said "no", Sela." Elaithin said flatly, drawing himself up to his full height. That full "command presence" - honed through years of starship command - was in effect now - this wasn't an issue the Bajoran was going to bend on. "It's not enough just fight. We have to be worth fighting for."

"Then leave it to those of us without such quaint qualms." the Romulan leader said, with a voice just as full of steel.

"Do it," Elaithin replied, "And I'll kill you myself."

off: Takes place before Guerrilla Warfare series

"A Woman Thing"

"General" Elaithin Jii
Cmdr. Arel Smith

****

Underground Resistance Camp

****

She was sitting on a crate in one of the empty rooms, going through the motions of eating the Romulan slop that they had called food on this planet, when he found her.

Luckily, Arel had finished cleaning her mek'leth, which she had promised only Hydran blood to this mission, otherwise she might have drawn it on him. But then again, maybe not. Her fists were just as effective.

"Looks like your blade's getting a bit more use than it's used to."

the Bajoran former captain opened with. Things had been tense between him and Arel since she'd joined the Resistance - more so than he'd expected. He suspected he knew the reasons why - and they weren't much of a surprise, truth be told.

Arel didn't comment other than to shove more food in her mouth and move her weapon to a place where she couldn't easily reach it, just in case he pissed her off even more in the next few minutes.

"So.." Jii started gamely. "Silent treatment still, eh?"

"Not nice to talk with your mouth full." Arel said evenly.

"Never stopped you before." he grinned, attempting to lighten the mood

- or at least lower the woman's defenses somewhat.

"A lot can change in nearly a year." She replied with a shrug that didn't smooth any of the accusation from her eyes. "Can I help you with something ... General?"

He rolled his eyes at the title. "Prophets - please don't call me that. It's fine when it's irritating Sela.. but it's ridiculous. I'm a Captain. Or was, anyway."

"You either are or you are not." She said sternly.

"Am then." he acknowledged. "Always will be. But the uniform's gone, Arel. It was too full of holes. You remember telling me that?"

"Yes, I remember." Arel replied. She didn't add that he had been able to deal with that until Jordan had died. She did, however, choke down another bite full of food.

"So is that why you're mad at me then? Because I walked away?"

"You're one of the last people I ever thought would do that but no."

Arel said. "I understand why you walked away." Like she'd told Jordan,

*she* would have probably walked away as well.

Jii looked around at their surroundings, and decided, silently at least, that she was right - he hadn't really walked away. From the uniform, maybe, but not the job. "What, then?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Permission to speak freely, Sir."

"Of for .. " he rolled his eyes. "You don't have to ask that, Arel.

You never did, even when I WAS your Captain."

The "was" did it, Arel thought even as she started to stand up and toss the plate of food aside. "Fine. You seem to be free of the foggy brained mourning process now. Pull your head out of your ass and actually *think* about why I could be angry with you!"

She stomped off.

"Hey, hold up." he said, catching a hand on her shoulder to restrain her before she headed through the shoddy doorway. "We're not done."

Arel's whole body tensed as she fought the need to turn around and swing at him. She turned around instead. "Oh, yes we are. And if you don't want two mechanical hands, Captain, I'd suggest backing up."

Elaithin grinned as a strange light came into his eyes. "Last I recall, we had a tie, Arel. You wanting a shot at the title?"

The security officer frowned. It wasn't a smart idea, just wasting energy that could be used later on the Hydrans, plus the whole 'violence not being the answer' crap that therapists always spewed.

But fuck it, Arel thought. Can't change a person's nature, right?

"Sure." Arel said before turning and punching him hard in the stomach.

Jii started back, the punch having caught him by surprise - Arel didn't usually go for the gut like that. He coughed as the air went out of him, and stepped back to get his bearings, years of martial arts training moving him instinct as he took a position opposite her - just out of reach.

"First one's free." he noted as her body language shifted to match his

- it was a routine they'd played out hundreds of times over the years, though granted, usually in a starship's gym - either back in their days on the Galaxy, or the last five years on the Miranda.

He came in with a high kick, catching Arel on her shoulder and spinning her around - which she used the momentum from to land a kick of her own, going for his midsection again.

He gave a nod, acknowledging the point and returning it with a snap open-palmed strike to her own chest.

Arel made an oomph sound and then quickly responded with a backhand, which he easily blocked. He missed the following jab which connected with his jaw although it wasn't as stinging as she would have liked which was probably because she had been blocking the roundhouse kick to her torso.

It was good, Arel reflected again, that her weapon was out of hand (she'd been pissed enough to leave it behind when she had left the

room) but it was still a simple matter of adjustment. It was the same kata but now her hands became the weapon, each strike she hoped like a slice of a blade.

They entered into a furious pattern of blows, one striking the other, neither ever gaining a true upper hand.

As their fighting began to slow, (but not stop), Jii began to talk again. "So, you ready to tell me what's bugging you yet?" he asked.

"Because I'm not part Betazoid. And just because I'm married doesn't mean I understand women."

"You think this is a woman thing?" Arel spat at him.

"If it wasn't, you'd have told me by now."

The security officer stopped mid-action and glared at him. "You asshole."

Then she moved her right hand away from her body and tried a move she'd never done before. She snapped her fingers.

And while his perplexed eyes moved to follow her hand, she kicked him in the balls.

"What I've learned from my marriage," She told Elaithin as he struggled not to collapse onto the floor. "Is that it's best not to insinuate that it's the woman's problem."

He coughed, closing his eyes, and holding up a hand in surrender.

Prophets, that hurt like hell...

"Marriage?!" he sputtered out. "When.. who?"

"MAYBE YOU'D KNOW, YOU FUCKING taHqeq IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO LET ANY OF US KNOW THAT YOU WERE STILL FUCKING ALIVE ALL THIS TIME!" Arel yelled at the top of her lungs before moving to kick him again.

Jii's eyes went wide. "THAT's what this is about?!"

He shook his head, trying not to laugh. "Arel.. hell.. you know where I was those seven months, before I came here? Most of the time, I was out of communications range. And when I got back to Bajor, and Jordan was.. returned to me - I sent Jaal a message! He never responded!"

"I don't fucking care, you could have found a way! You left us with no word of where you were going, if you were ever coming back, if you weren't going to just go jump off some cliff somewhere because of Jordan..." Arel's eyes went into their antarctic mode. "And don't you dare laugh at me, Elaithin Jii. I'll kick your damned vocal cords in."

Nursing his injuries, Jii sat back down on the pile of crates Arel had been on when he came in. Silently, he patted a spot next to him, indicating that she should sit. Reluctantly, she did so.

"I didn't know where I was going then, Arel." he said quietly. And then, little by little, the entire tale spilled out. His fight with his brother that had led to his departure from Bajor, the alcoholic depression he'd found himself in, being saved and dragged out of it by Damon Greyhart, finding his sense of self and purpose again on Mosanalea.

And all the rest of it, too. His decision to find a way to restore Jordan to live. What had happened with the Guardian, the Iconian Gateway, temporal investigations, the bounty hunters, the price on his head...

And finally, with the Prophets, with Jordan's being returned to life.

He held back on how different she really was now - he didn't understand it enough to be telling other people. Finally he related how'd they'd come to Romulus, and why.

"You've been busy." Arel said when he had finished. She frowned then, feeling a little bad about fighting dirty, but not completely bad.

He'd taught her too after all. "I was ... concerned about you."

"Hell, *I* was concerned about me."

"Are you better now?" Arel asked. "Jordan's back and all ... I know you it broke you when you lost her but she's back." *

"I am." he replied. "It's.. it wasn't just her dying. You remember Vulcan?"

"Yes."

"I watched all of you die. Every last member of the Miranda's crew, except for me and Jerri. I nearly died myself, in that fight with the Operative. And because of the Guardian, all that was undone, except for my.. injuries."

Arel remembered *that*, too. She'd been on the Bridge when the timeline had been restored and they were all suddenly alive again - except for Elaithin, who'd appeared with a flash of light, broken and bleeding out on the deck in front of everyone.

"I almost didn't survive that, Arel. Not just physically. And then, loosing Jordan again only two months, later... I shut down. I couldn't think about anything but her, and our kids. And I knew I couldn't take care of them, and I brought them to Earth."

Elaithin Jii [1:35 AM]: He grew wistful for a moment, thinking of the twins. He and Jordan would have to return to Earth after this. He'd been away from Connor and Aria far too long now. "I didn't start to function again until Mosanalea. But I just.. I couldn't let go of the idea that Jordan's death was *wrong*. That it wasn't supposed to have happened."

"Maybe it wasn't. Your prophets brought her back for a reason."

"I wish I knew." he shrugged. "And after she came back.. hell, what was I supposed to do? Go to Murdock? "Oh, I know the Miranda's got a new Captain and all, and I resigned from Starfleet, but I'd like my ship back. Pretty please?"

He snorted.

But Arel nodded seriously. "Yes. You are. The pthak owes you that after what you've done for the Federation."

"I made my choice, Arel. I had to give up everything in order to get my wife back. It was a fair bargain. You're married now - you should understand." he said sincerely. "It's a choice I'd make again and again. I don't know what the future holds, but I doubt I'm ever going to sit in the Captain's Chair again. And if I do, it probably won't be the Miranda's."

"Would you want to if you could?"

A faraway look entered his eyes. "In a Centauran minute."

"That's a start." Arel said. "Now are you okay, old man, or do I need to get your wife over here to help you up?"

He snorted again. "I'll live." As the stood, he looked a her quizzically. "So who'd you marry, anyways?"

Arel gave him a bright smile knowing the blow that she was about to land.

OFF: Takes place during Parts II through V of the 'Guerrilla Warfare' series

Corporal Pierre Basset

________________________

Street Level

Ki Baratan

16 days after the Withdrawal

________________________

Far away from the political bickering that was happening in the tunnels he had just came from, Pierre found his way back to the surface. Slowly he peeked his head out from the tunnel exit, just enough to let his eyes see the street and buildings around him. He surveyed the area several times with his eagle eyes, and the targeting monocular that was over his right eye was feeding him tricorder information as well. From everything he could tell, the place was deserted. Pierre picked himself up and exited the tunnels completely, bringing his phaser rifle up to bear. As the barrel came up, the targeting crosshairs popped up into his field of view, fed into his dominant right eye by the targeting monocular.

Pierre moved quickly into a thick group of shadows not to far from the exit of the tunnels. He stopped and looked around again. He had gotten his arm patched up just like the Colonel had told him to, and he had even managed to find a fresh power cell for the phaser rifle he carried. Now he was out doing what he loved the most (even in this ungodly hell); Stalking, Hunting, Waiting… all of it was his art. His eyes surveyed the buildings slowly again, checking room for room to see if he could see any life signs. So far… nothing. He pushed himself up off of the wall he was leaning on and moved out of the shadows. He crouched low as he moved along, keeping his rifle aimed down range at all times. He knew where he had to be go, where the Colonel wanted him to be at, but there were so many better positions that he could take around here. Hell, just down the next block was a building twice as tall he could use as a crow's nest.

He slumped against the next building, covered in shadows again. He closed his eyes for just a second, contemplating just how bad of a hand he had to have been dealt to end up HERE on his first big mission. All those years of marine training, and sniper training, all to end up on the loosing end of an invasion force. And now they seemed to be trapped from the task force under the 'Blue Sky of Doom' as he lovingly referred to it as. The unnatural blue color that whatever field that was gave the sky had proven to be a real moral dump for him. Psychological Warfare sucked. He opened his eyes again and looked upwards towards the heavens and its unbelievable hue. There had to be some way to take down that field, or at least control it. He shook the thought out of his head, things like that were left for higher ranking people. Unfortunately there was just as much a shortage of them as there were gun totting infantrymen.

Pierre moved off down the street again, keeping an eye on things as he moved. For now he would just stick to the spot he had been instructed to get to. It would provide a good enough field of view over the area. And if he wanted anything better, he could always move again later. It only took him a little bit to reach the building. He looked it over slowly, trying to thing of the best place to go in it. The roof would be a great position.. But then again, with orders to hold fire until fired upon, then it would take too damn long to get back down and into the tunnels to be any good from there. "Ground floor it is." Pierre's voice was low and smooth, with still a slight hint of the French accent he tried to hide.

He moved to the entry way and slowly pushed his head into the open doorway, checking the room inside before he entered. No one was home. He stepped inside and slowly moved through the building, checking it room by room on the ground floor to make sure he wasn't going to get any surprises, and to check to see if any booby-trap had been left behind. Once he was sure he was alone in the building, he moved over to the corner room and the blown out windows. He dropped to one knee and popped the bipod mounted on his custom rifle. He moved over to the window and placed the bipod on the sill of the window for support before he settled into a comfortable position.

Pierre smiled as he sat there. Now was the best part about being a sniper. The part where you get to sit and relax for a little while while you wait for some unlucky bastards to show up. The only part that sucked was the general "Hold Fire" order he was under. He was good at covert operations like this, where he was just an observation/listening post.. But he still loved to be able to level the group that came at him before he fell back to a different position. It was so easy to. The first shot always took them by surprise, the second shot was when they figured out what was going on. And then it was a race to pick them off before they found good cover. Once they were under concealment and cover, it was jut like playing the 'Whack-a-mole' his father had back on earth. When they popped up, you knocked 'em back down. But right now, without any targets, he couldn't even do that. So he just sat there and waited patiently…..

"Geriatric Reflection"

Ensign Robert Mathieson, MD USS Galaxy

Personal Log – I don't know what th' fekkin' date is

I'm old.

Wipin' green blood off me 'and it reveals spots an' wrinkles I'd never noticed 'afore. Th' skin seems thinner, almost paper-like, an'

th'veins 're showin through more n' they used to. Sometimes there's a tremor when I try t'keep the 'ands steady. Not much of one, but it's there.

I'm tellin' meself it's stress, 'cos th' surgery an' treatment's a bad as it gets 'ere, but I'm a bloody bad liar. Sure, we're runnin' out o' almost everythin', an' we're stretchin' painkillers whenever possible. The wounded 're comin' in at a steady flood – Colonel Spoons an' Major Peach-Fuzz' doin' their jobs an 'keepin' th' troops occupied-like - but I've been in worse. Th' only thing's changed 's me – I've grown too fekkin' old fer this shit.

I shoulndn't a' said "I've been in worse" – that's a lie too. I've been in different.

Cardassian War.

Front line triage.

Funny 'ow doin' some o' th' same things over an' over makes ye think o' the past. We were runnin' out o' supplies then, too – but that was a battle, an' all I ever saw were soldiers, men an' women who expected th' cold hand o' their passin'. They stepped off th' transport knowin that th' next step might me their last – an' they could retreat if th'

command was given. Bloody fierce fightin' that, but that's war – soldiers die in war jus' like th' rain falls from th' sky. Nothin'll change that as long as there's folks willin' enough t' kill fer somethin'.

This, now, is different. Right now, I jus' finished removing th' leg jus' below th' hip of a Romulan little girl no older'n nine. This was 'er 'ome – she 'ad nowhere t' run to. Disruptor wound, untreated fer days an' gone gangrenous – an' 'onestly, I couldn't tell if it was a Hydran or Romulan weapon. 'Suppose it doesn't matter. Christ! Like I said, different.

Some o' th' Romulan doctors 're a funny lot – an' I don' mean "funny – ha-ha". I'm makin' no statements that we're in th' best part o' th'

city, but th' expression on some o' their faces is like a Gorn pissed in their oatmeal. Funny is that some of 'em prefer treatin' Starfleet troopers over their own people – like th' little girl. Figure she was a street kid r' something – one look at 'er an' they all suddenly 'ad better things t'do. Back on' Cheron it wasn't as bad, but followin'

up on treatment of the radiation victims 'ere on Romulus, I noticed that th' "best people" got th' "best medicine". Pisser was that most people sufferin' from tharalon radiation from Cheron were workers – all they got was a cot, some generic painkillers so'd they be quiet, an' a place t' die. Real "funny" – I'd smack th' jokers in th' gob if I weren't so fekkin' tired… or old.

Kid's movin' now. I'll keep a close watch on 'er. She got a general fer th' amputation an' a local fer th' stump, but not as much as I'd like t' give 'er – I gotta make it last. Last thing I need's a kid

wailin' in th' ward. Th' way things're goin', well… a couple o' days

if we're lucky, an' in almost four decades o' medicine I've *never* heard of a doctor bein' lucky near a battlefield.

An undertaker – sure.

She's a cute one – despite th' ears. Nine. Me grankid'd be 'bout that age if things had been different'. Nine. 'Opefully she'll see ten.

Christ I'm old.

OFF: Takes place during Parts II through V of the 'Guerrilla Warfare' series, and it actually has a title this time…..

"Observers Wanted"

Corporal Pierre Basset

________________________

Street Level

Ki Baratan

16 days after the Withdrawal

________________________

Far away from the political bickering that was happening in the tunnels he had just came from, Pierre found his way back to the surface. Slowly he peeked his head out from the tunnel exit, just enough to let his eyes see the street and buildings around him. He surveyed the area several times with his eagle eyes, and the targeting monocular that was over his right eye was feeding him tricorder information as well. From everything he could tell, the place was deserted. Pierre picked himself up and exited the tunnels completely, bringing his phaser rifle up to bear. As the barrel came up, the targeting crosshairs popped up into his field of view, fed into his dominant right eye by the targeting monocular.

Pierre moved quickly into a thick group of shadows not to far from the exit of the tunnels. He stopped and looked around again. He had gotten his arm patched up just like the Colonel had told him to, and he had even managed to find a fresh power cell for the phaser rifle he carried. Now he was out doing what he loved the most (even in this ungodly hell); Stalking, Hunting, Waiting… all of it was his art. His eyes surveyed the buildings slowly again, checking room for room to see if he could see any life signs. So far… nothing. He pushed himself up off of the wall he was leaning on and moved out of the shadows. He crouched low as he moved along, keeping his rifle aimed down range at all times. He knew where he had to be go, where the Colonel wanted him to be at, but there were so many better positions that he could take around here. Hell, just down the next block was a building twice as tall he could use as a crow's nest.

He slumped against the next building, covered in shadows again. He closed his eyes for just a second, contemplating just how bad of a hand he had to have been dealt to end up HERE on his first big mission. All those years of marine training, and sniper training, all to end up on the loosing end of an invasion force. And now they seemed to be trapped from the task force under the 'Blue Sky of Doom' as he lovingly referred to it as. The unnatural blue color that whatever field that was gave the sky had proven to be a real moral dump for him. Psychological Warfare sucked. He opened his eyes again and looked upwards towards the heavens and its unbelievable hue. There had to be some way to take down that field, or at least control it. He shook the thought out of his head, things like that were left for higher ranking people. Unfortunately there was just as much a shortage of them as there were gun totting infantrymen.

Pierre moved off down the street again, keeping an eye on things as he moved. For now he would just stick to the spot he had been instructed to get to. It would provide a good enough field of view over the area. And if he wanted anything better, he could always move again later. It only took him a little bit to reach the building. He looked it over slowly, trying to thing of the best place to go in it. The roof would be a great position.. But then again, with orders to hold fire until fired upon, then it would take too damn long to get back down and into the tunnels to be any good from there. "Ground floor it is." Pierre's voice was low and smooth, with still a slight hint of the French accent he tried to hide.

He moved to the entry way and slowly pushed his head into the open doorway, checking the room inside before he entered. No one was home. He stepped inside and slowly moved through the building, checking it room by room on the ground floor to make sure he wasn't going to get any surprises, and to check to see if any booby-trap had been left behind. Once he was sure he was alone in the building, he moved over to the corner room and the blown out windows. He dropped to one knee and popped the bipod mounted on his custom rifle. He moved over to the window and placed the bipod on the sill of the window for support before he settled into a comfortable position.

Pierre smiled as he sat there. Now was the best part about being a sniper. The part where you get to sit and relax for a little while while you wait for some unlucky bastards to show up. The only part that sucked was the general "Hold Fire" order he was under. He was good at covert operations like this, where he was just an observation/listening post.. But he still loved to be able to level the group that came at him before he fell back to a different position. It was so easy, too. The first shot always took them by surprise, the second shot was when they figured out what was going on. And then it was a race to pick them off before they found good cover. Once they were under concealment and cover, it was jut like playing the 'Whack-a-mole' his father had back on earth. When they popped up, you knocked 'em back down. But right now, without any targets, he couldn't even do that. So he just sat there and waited patiently…..

"Daughter of the Empire" Part One

Featuring, from the IKS T'Kengra;

Captain Qel

K'Vol, first officer

Lieutenant (Jg) Chandrakala Lakshmi Eshe – Engineering Assistant IKS T'Kengra
Medical Officer Mortan (written by Rob Snow)

And from the USS Galaxy;

Lieutenant Dhanishta Eshe - Assistant Chief of Engineering USS Galaxy
2nd Lieutenant Steven Jonas, CO - 2nd Platoon, SFMC, USS Galaxy
Ensign Keldan - Operations Officer, USS Galaxy
Michael McDowell - Civilian Engineering Specialist

***Location IKS T'Kengra, Sick Bay***

(Set one day after the Romulan and Federation Fleet withdrawal from the 'Fight for Romulas', directly after "Heart of the Federation")

Dhanishta frowned at Qel, her jaw dropping with surprise, "You have an alliance with us." she reminded him, baffled at the Klingon stance to stay out of this conflict turned war. "You made a stand with us *and* the Romulans during the Dominion war. Will you turn your back on that now, when we need you the most?"

"I do not make the orders Dhanishta." Qel replied flatly folding his muscular arms across his chest, as if the High Council would send in Klingon soldiers to liberate Romulus! Dhanishta had been away from the homeland too long if she thought that they would ever aid such a traitorous enemy.

"Then you should start!" Dhani shrieked. She had seen such destruction in the last 24 hours, there were so many people that she cared about on the Galaxy, never before had she felt the need to protect them, felt the need to restore the balance. "This is ludicrous, don't you see? If you sit back now and watch then you are just like the Romulans!"

In a flash his eyes widened, lurching forward he advanced on her faster than a ravenous cat on a mouse; hauling her up by the scruff of her gown he thrust his face into hers, "Watch your tongue Trill! Family or not I will rip it out and feed it to the gagh!" His fist shook with the rage that surged through his being at the insult, his eyes burned into hers, his breath hot across her exposed skin.

"I will not!" Dhanishta defied staring him out as she balanced on the tips of her toes, her own rage burning inside. "If you are stupid enough to sit by while the Hydran obliterate us, being called a Romulan is the least of the insults you and the rest of the Empire will receive from me." she spat angrily.

He roared with anger, tossing her aside like a piece of garbage, the force almost cascading her over the bed that Michael sat on, in fact Michaels position on the bed was the very reason that she didn't go hurtling over it!

Immobile, save for the faint rise and fall of his breathing, Mortan stood and watched. If the Trill was so stupid as to insult the Captain so, to his face, then she deserved what she was about to receive!

Michael got hold of Dhani at the last possible moment just before she was about to fall off the BIO-bed. He had seen the argument coming but not this. For a split second he liked wide-eyed at the Captain of the T'Kengra, but next that look turned into a dark one. If anger could be daggers, then Qel had a few stabbing in his back right now.

Steven stood watching the proceedings as Kala mopped at his face with a piece of cloth; the hit previously from Qel had caused him to bleed. And since Mortan wasn't likely to make his way over with Qel in the mood he was in, she had obviously taken it upon herself to tend to the wound. When Qel tossed Dhani around, he moved to intercede, but was stopped by Kala, who was holding him back as she tended to his jaw.

With her hand firmly on the center of his chest she held him, counterbalancing the surge in his stance as he moved to intervene, "This is not your fight." she whispered to him as she moved her body in towards his, dabbing the blood from his mouth gently. If he wanted to do anything heroic he would have to push her aside first, and with force as she evened her balance; ever ready on the T'Kengra!

Steven turned his eyes from Qel to look at the woman holding him back, the woman who had saved his life the day before. "He assaulted a woman," he whispered back, wanting to not gain the attention of Qel at the present. "I can't let that go unpunished."

"We were raised on Qono'S." Kala explained quietly, hoping that in itself would make him understand. Anyone who knew of the Klingon race was usually aware of their customs and warrior nature.

Steven nodded in understanding. "Very well, but if he does it again..."

"If he does it again, she will be dead." Mortan said simply from nearby, "do nothing, or you will join her," the doctor warned him.

Dead? Michael clenched his teeth as he overheard the Klingon Doctor saying that. He wouldn't have heard it if the BIO-bed he was sitting on had been further away. ~Over my dead...~ there the thought stopped. If he had to be realistic, then he would probably be dead before he knew it, if he choose to pick a fight with Qel.

Dhanishta's eyes narrowed as she straightened herself up. Pushing herself away from the bed, ignoring the knock to Michael she ran a hand through her hair; pushing the loosened strands back into place. Biting back the pain that rushed through her body from the collision she glared up at the back of Qels head, determined to make him see her point.

"*They* let the Jem'Hadar cross their space." she said, stalking Qel with her eyes as he walked away from her. Laying out their offences, striking them off on her fingers she continued, "Had the indecency to sign a non aggression pack with them, watched with glee as another power devoured this quadrant. Thousands fell at their hands, Federation *and* Klingon, citizens and soldiers alike. Thousands fell while the Romulans watched. They did nothing." her voice finished low and menacing, almost matching the low rumble that vibrated through each word Qel uttered.

Roaring with laughter he turned round slowly, rocking back on his heals as the laughter emanated from the pit of his belly, so aggressive was its tone; fueled by the anger that surged within him, "And you expect the Klingon Empire to aid them when the tables turn?" he hissed ridiculously.

"You are no diplomat Dhanishta." he quipped shaking his head in mild amusement. His lips curled as he snarled, "You have just made the argument of why we should do nothing!" His laughter would have been infectious had he been standing with his own kind. But with this audience, he was the only one who found that statement to be amusing, "It is pretty convincing, wouldn't you all agree?" he mocked her, gesturing to the occupants in the room to join.

Michael sighed. Indeed, after what the Romulans did it was not really surprising to understand the Klingon's view. But it also seemed like he was not thinking about what might happen in the not so distance future if the Hydran's would be allowed to just continue their rampage.

"He's got a point." Kala interjected, still cleaning Jonas up, "We have no idea what the Romulans did to incur the wrath of the Hydran. How can the Empire agree to take sides in this battle?" she asked rhetorically.

"That maybe so, but I have the feeling the Hydran's won't just stop at Romulus." Michael said and he left it at that. Everyone in the room would know what he meant.

Steven sighed. "Politics... It's all politics. Soldiers are dying, women and children are likely being butchered in their homes, whole fleets have been wiped out and you want to sit on your arses and let it all pass you by while you snuggle in your warm beds and discuss politics with the council." He was staring at Qel now, knowing full well that the large Klingon could strike - which Steven was now prepared for - or perhaps issue an order to dump him off the ship.

Kala grabbed his face turning his head sharply to face hers, squeezing his already cut and bruised cheeks together so his lips formed the infamous fish pout, "I suggest that you shut the hell up!" she told him quietly yet with a definite force in her voice. Her bright green eyes flashed at him with both concern for his wellbeing and anger. "In fact I make it an order!" she added quickly, intensifying her vice grip on his face as she felt a movement in his cheek muscle.

"And if I decide to disobey your order?" he asked quietly and with difficulty due to her grip on his face. He knew she was only looking out for him, having had a lot more experience on a Klingon ship, so he didn't really expect an answer. Focusing inwards, he lowered his breathing, relaxing, calming himself.

Her eyes widened at his reply. She held his face until his eyes settled upon her and she felt his death wish dissipate; at least for the moment. She was going to have to keep her eye on him. Letting this guy loose with a ship full of Klingons was like throwing a chicken in a room full of foxes!

He leaned forward, closer to the flame haired woman. Her perfume was an enticing mix of passion and pleasure to his senses. "Thank you" he whispered, "I think I'd have lost my head if it wasn't for you."

Kala simply smiled with her full red lips and nodded.

Dhanishta moved quickly to intercept Qel before he reached the marine, pulling his focus back to her before he broke every bone in the boys body, "They were stupid enough to believe that the Dominion would leave them be." she said, her tone turning aggressive as she recalled their cowardly deeds. Her eyes narrowed on an unseen image of the past, venom seeping through her icy stare, latching on to her words till they too dripped.

"They were blinded by hatred, too consumed by the prospect of conquest to see that the Dominion would turn on them." her contempt for the Romulans actions in the early days of the Dominion war, was, without a doubt, clearly evident. And then she turned on Qel, "Are you *that* naive too?" she accused, "Are you really stupid enough to believe that once the Hydran are done taking Romulas that they will stop there?"

There was a long silence. Keldan, having listened carefully to the back-and-forth argument, was hesitant to interrupt. There was obviously something much more personal going on between Dhanishta and Qel than Federation-Klingon politics, but it had been too long since he had known Dhani and her sister to understand their present situation. In any event, he couldn't remain silent anymore.

Michael gently got hold of Dhani's arm. "Dhani, maybe we should let this rest until tomorrow. We're not getting anywhere and everyone is worn out right now, or half drunk."

Dhani brushed Michaels comment off with a raise of her hand. She was too caught up in this argument to let it lie. To sleep on it would be doing a huge injustice to all the blood that had already stained the molecules of the galaxy.

Steven was awed by the passion the Engineer was showing. He didn't know her well, but the silence that followed spoke volumes for the character of her words. He was tempted to add more to what she had said, but decided to see how the others reacted.

Dhani was letting her emotions get away from her...something Keldan wasn't sure he had ever seen in the entire time that he'd known her. Things would keep escalating unless someone calmed things down. Qel and Dhanishta seemed to be fueling each other on. There was already one war going on outside these walls. There didn't need to be another one inside them as well. He tried to inject some objectivity into the discussion.

"Captain, tell me at what point do you think the Council will realize that it is in its own best interest to take up arms against the Hydran? I know the Empire places little value on lost Romulan lives, but there is a fundamental shift of power going on in the quadrant. The Hydran are no doubt entrenching themselves on ch'Rihan as we speak. The Federation has already vowed to stop Hydran expansion, having met with limited

success and paying for it with many lives. I find it hard to believe that the Empire doesn't have a plan of action for dealing with the Hydran."

"Believe what you will," Qel brushed the Talarians comment aside with a wave of his hand, "the Empire is prepared. We Klingons are 'born' battle ready!" he said clipped, emphasizing his words to the point that his fangs twinkled in the light.

Dhanishta didn't wait a beat to continue her hounding, "You saw what they did to our fleet." she said gesturing wildly, almost hysterical, "You saw how fast they took that planet, and you know from your own experience that the Romulans are not a push over. And they have just been flattened, within hours!" Her words would have echoed in the room had the atmosphere not been as thick as congealed targ blood! Everyone here knew what the Romulans were capable of. They had all studied the history of this enemy, turned ally, turned hapless victim.

Steven nodded in agreement. He wasn't going to add to her words. She was doing well enough and he doubted Qel would be any more accommodating to anything he'd say.

"Maybe they do deserve this fate." Dhanishta said coldly, "But does the rest of the Alpha Quadrant?"

Qel roared in annoyance. "A Klingon would never turn from Family or Honor." he shouted, his voice carrying through the deck plates, "Neither are here in Romulan space Dhanishta! I obey the orders of the High Council. I do *not* question them!" he shouted slamming his fist down on an empty biobed, the covers leaping in the wake of the sudden movement.

"They aren't here!" Dhani screamed almost jumping up and down with her own frustration her fists curling at her side, beating upon the air.

"And if they were their orders would not change!" he bellowed back at her. His fist wrapped round the edge of the bed till his knuckles turned white, "The Empire cannot aid the Federation in this battle. We will not waste our warriors on Romulan Peta'Q!" he leaned in closer his voice lowering "We Klingons like to indulge in war, but we know when one is worth fighting for. This one is not!" he growled his eyes fixed on her.

Dhanishta fumed, "When the Hydran are done picking the bones of Romulas they will come for you. They will not stop once they have the taste of victory on their beaks. Don't be fooled Qel. You will be next. Your sons and daughters will perish. And if you sit back now, if you do nothing *now* you will not have time to grieve for the error of your decision. You will not have time to reflect when you are dead!" she shouted,

totally enraged with him.

A stony silence descended upon the room as these two giants of stubbornness glared at each other, nostrils flaring, jaws clenched, only the sound grinding of teeth could be heard over fatigued breathing.

"Guerrilla Warfare" part VII

Elaithin Jii
Jordan Elaithin
Commander Arel Smith
Lt. Colonel For'kel Arvelion
Major Peter Shaw
Lt. Commander Spa'an
Lt. Thayago Carneiro
Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Corporal Pierre Basset
Admiral Sela
Senator tr'Khianalmae
Kerec
Commander Roval
Juna

============================

The Undercity, Ki Baratan,

16 Days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

============================

"Then leave it to those of us without such quaint qualms." the Romulan leader said, with a voice just as full of steel.

"Do it," Elaithin replied, "And I'll kill you myself."

Silence reigned across the room as the two leaders stared at each other, both refusing to back down. The tension in the air was practically a physical thing.

"There's no need for torture," Victor said into the heavy silence, his voice like a razor of ice cutting through the air. "I'll just ask them what we need to know and they'll tell me."

Sela - unsurprisingly - gave a derisive snort. "And why is *that*, Lieutenant?"

"Leaning forward again, Victor smiled, the expression mingling with the play of the shadows on his face, making it into the face of someone else, something else, a face that everyone in the room recognized from daily contact these last few weeks. "Because they always tell me everything," Death whispered in a voice that wasn't quite human any more. "All I have to do is ask in the right way."

Although chills ran up and down her spine, Arel was suddenly jealous that she couldn't do that to people. It would make her job so much easier some days.

Once again the Senator interjected. "I believe that such unilateral actions fall under my purview, Captain Elaithin." He stared hard at the Starfleet officer, his gaze slowly shifting then towards Sela.

"After all, in the absence of the Praetor and the Empress I am the senior official on this planet. There will be no 'cruel and unusual punishment,' as your late 20th century labeled such activities." His own gaze was hard enough that even someone as stalwart as Admiral Sela knew when to back down.

"Um," Thyago spoke up again, once the argument had cooled again. "I meant, how are you going to send a signal. The Hydrans turned the sky purple! I mean, they've clearly put up some sort of satellite network that's transmitting some sort of shield over the whole planet. If nothing else, I'm sure this network blocks communications signals.

You'd have to take down the satellite network before you could send out a message."

Yeah, she respected them all right, enough to believe that in the long run it didn't really matter. Turning back to the table, he had to admit... the task force could probably use the information. The Romulans probably had a cryptographic code or two that wasn't yet broken... the trick was getting an appropriate transmitter. "To get a message out of the system we're going to need a subspace antenna. If we raided the local Hydran headquarters, not only can we get the needed information from their computer banks, but we can send it without the Hydrans jamming."

"I can lead a team to one of the bunkers and check it out," Pete finally said after a long pause. "We still have a few good combat engineers left and I am sure we could get one of the communication relays working. Without looking at it, I can't tell you the range though."

Roval looked around the room. It seemed like a safe time to re-engage himself. "I will stay here and begin giving you the locations of the weapons caches. Who should I provide them to?"

"I'll go with you." For'kel gave Pete a nod, the veiled double entendre likely revealed to the Betazoid Marine. "I might be a Colonel, but I'm still an engineer." As far as he was concerned, it was an option... one that would save them from having to deal with torture, and one that would provide much more reliable information.

Although he knew the Marines would be in, the Starfleeters still tended to pay more attention to Jii and Arel, while the Romulans of course had their own leaders. His gaze fell on them all now. "Are we all in on this?"

Elaithin and Sela were still occasionally glaring at each other. "We are." Elaithin replied first. "We'll use the nukes to further destabilize the Hydrans, and then to take down the shield. We secure these bunkers, and we can use the comm systems there - provided you're on the level." he said, shifting his gaze to the Romulan intelligence operative.

Roval looked at Elaithin. "I am, sir. The weapons will be there.

The communications systems are simple, but with...Federation ingenuity, you should be able to fashion some help out of those as well. There are 5 of these caches within the general vicinity, although from what I've seen, you should take three of them before you venture to the other two, which are quite close to Hydran camps."

"Very well." Sela conceded. "And we will begin interrogating our prisoners. Within the bounds of interstellar law, of course."

"Of course." Jii said, his eyes narrowing. "And just to be on the safe side.. Lieutenant Krieghoff here will be present at all interrogations, as well as one of the 'Colonel's Marines."

"A praetorian will also be present, to observe and uphold the law,"

tr'Khnialmnae spoke. "I trust RNI as much as I trust Tal'Shiar," he continued, "and while I am sure your marines and 'Lieutenant Krieghoff' are trustworthy, the Praetorians are my peace of mind in such gray scaled activities." Again, a subject he would not relent on. Aehkhifv understood that Elaithin would more than likely submit to such: Praetorians were known for strict obedience to those placed in direct superiority of them. The Senator had made it clear Sela was not to be acknowledged, much less listened to. Any protests that the Admiral would make on this particular topic would fall on deaf ears.

"Roval can I get that information?" Pete asked. After a second the Romulan handed him a padd with the information on it. Pete looked over the information. "Fork, I suggest we use three teams. Some of these are spread pretty far away and having the three teams just gives that much higher of a chance of success."

"There is a simple access code which I have annotated on the PADD. If the lock has failed, you phaser rifle should be enough to blow it off the door. We did not design these to be hard to get into."

"That's hardly surprising." Elaithin replied, and leaned onto the table. "Allright then. Let's get down to details.."

"Anomaly"

Elaithin Jii
Major Peter Shaw

------------------------------

The Undercity, Ki Baratan

18 days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

------------------------------

(Takes place one day after "Necessity")

Pete walked down the narrow hall towards a door that was guarded by two marines. He gave a quick salute before one knocked on the door and stuck his head in. "Sir, Major Shaw here to see you."

"Send him in."

"The General is ready to see you," the Private said and Pete walked in and looked around the room. It was on the darker side, like the rest of the Mansion. "Nice digs," Pete said as he looked around again.

"Usually I don't get called down here, so what's up?" Pete really didn't care about ranks with the man in front of him. Especially since technically the man wasn't even in Starfleet anymore. How he had become to be leader of the resistance was by sheer fact that people where used to looking up to him, and he was in the right place at the right time. Doesn't mean Pete would have rather had someone else. He trusted the man. Didn't mean he was going to call him sir.

Jii looked around at the makeshift office - it was a supply closet, essentially a place to have conversations, bereft of anything else.

His and Jordan's bunk was located off to the side. She wasn't in it at the moment, as she was on one of the scouting runs that was mapping the undercity - though due back any minute now.

It was one of those runs that Jii wanted to talk to Shaw about. "Pete.

C'mon in." he said informally. Truthfuly, this "General" business was making him a bit uncomfortable - but it made the enlisted marines more comfortable with him, and it bugged Sela, so it was worth it. "You and Collins were mapping tunnel forty-seven this morning, right?"

"Aye," Pete replied as he pulled out an older Romulan padd and set it down. "The damned thing runs under the southern part of the capital, and even has an exit about 2 clicks from the city. The best part is that it's the southern region that many of the Hydran forces have gathered. Not really sure why they are there, I just know they are they. I don't think they even know the damned thing is down there.

We didn't run into one patrol and it didn't seem like we had set off any security devices."

"Right." Jii replied, looking at the tricorder scans. Sliding an isolinear chip into the data port, he called up another scan. "Take a look at this, though."

Pete got a little closer so he could see better. "What the..." Pete said as his mind started to race.

"The blue is your scan - the red is one done by Arel and Jordan on another scouting trip this morning. See the intersection?"

"Yeah," Pete replied as he tried to remember seeing something like that, but couldn't for the life of him.

"The intersection only appears whenever you combine the maps."

Elaithin pointed out. "So I'm thinking there's something down that way we want to check out."

"Aye," Pete replied. "Have any team members in mind?" Pete paused a second before going on. "I was hearing rumors about secret underground storage of weapons dating back to the Earth-Romulan war.

This could be stashes of those."

"You, me, Arel, Jordan - couple of Marines. Figured we could check out one of that spies bunkers, while we're at it. Make a day of it."

"I'll be ready in ten." the Marine replied.

"Good man." Jii replied. "I'll meet you at the south exit."

"Necessity"

Elaithin Jii
K Jordan Elaithin

------------

Day 17

------------

The conclusion of the meeting left her whirling. The head trauma from earlier mixed poorly with the arguments, discussion and decisions. She was left feeling queasy and out of balance. Jordan broke from the pack as soon as it was possible, weaving her way through the central tunnel system she'd come to know so well in the nearly two-- or was it three?-- weeks-- or was it years?-- she'd been there.

Of course, part of the trouble was that as she sat there in the dim lighting, a candle on a rock by her side and her head against the smooth stone wall, she realized she didn't really remember what had just happened. In the meeting. Or in the situation when she bumped her head. Or what led to it. Or even, why they were there in the first place. She had vague recollections, but that was more because of constant references around her. She remembered pieces of conversation, feelings around certain people; she remembered having long talks with Victor and with Arel Smith, though what they were about Jordan could hardly say with any confidence and she recalled only pieces. Instead, she acted out of habit, out of training from long, long ago the circumstances of which she couldn't recall, and she reacted out of instinct, feeling her way through like a blind man in a foreign place.

She felt his presence, though didn't see him. Instead, she was staring into the flame of the candle, flickering in the stillness of her crevice. "I wasn't..." Jordan cleared her throat, trying to find the confidence and voice she'd had in the meeting, and she turned her head, looking at the shadowed form of her husband. "I don't know who that was. I'm sorry."

"Who? The person advocating torture?" Elaithin replied pointedly. His arms were folded across his chest - the whole of his posture showed he was expecting a fight. "I seem to recall that being you."

"I know," she said, her voice meek and near to silence as she turned away again, looking down at the ground where her fingertips rested in the dust. "I heard it. But I don't know where it came from."

While she'd made those harsh remarks during the meeting, to be honest - they hadn't surprised Jii at the time. Jordan did what it took - even if sometimes that meant the moral lines got a bit crossed. It was a feeling he was familiar with - he'd had to travel down that road way too often, too.

Which was why he refused so strongly to go down it now. But that had been Jordan at least. This meek, quietly apologizing woman in front of him now, though... who the hell was that?

The fight went out of him with the observation of her behavior, and he frowned. He was still leaning against the door, though. "Jordan, what is it?"

"Why did you do it?" she asked, looking back up as a tear dropped down her cheek. She brushed it away with her fist, stealing herself against the emotion. "Why?"

"Do what?" he asked, honestly confused. That, of course, made it the second time in as many days that a woman had perplexed the hell out of him. He doubted it'd be the last, too.

"Go through all you did, just to bring me back," she said. "Why?"

He moved past her, then, into the small room where their cot lay to the side. "I don't know what you're talking about." he said evasively - and unconvincingly, to boot.

"It was wrong, Jii. It wasn't your place to do what you did. And it wasn't... if you had been on the Miranda? This might not be happening...

it's..." She cleared her throat, her voice still soft and almost non existent. "Why would you tell Arel and not me?"

He shook his head, chuckling slightly. "These walls are too thin."

"They are solid stone," she said.

"You heard us talking yesterday?"

Somehow, she managed to her feet, turning to watch him.

"I wouldn't have expected that. From you," she said, speaking what it all boiled down to.

"Expected what? I wasn't hiding from you, Jordan. It just... didn't seem important. I..." he faltered over the words. "I'm not sure why."

"No. That you would go on that odyssey of yours in the first place," she said. "That you would abandon the Miranda and the crew. All because of me. It just..." She fought back tears and raised a hand to her face. "I don't remember a lot of details anymore, Jii; but I remember why I did it. Why I switched the badges, why I-- it's because the universe needed more from you. Because you needed to be here, because... I couldn't have been useful to anyone without you."

"And maybe I needed you more than I needed the universe."

"You don't get to decide those things."

"My life, Jordan. I get to make that call." he replied stubbornly. "I did because I had to. I did it because you're my other half, and I do need you.

I always said I never needed anybody - I even said that to you, when we got together. That I didn't need you, but I wanted you."

He closed his eyes, leaning his head against the wall, behind the bunk that he now sat on., searching for the words. When he found them, he met her eyes again. "I was wrong. Jordan, you're as necessary to me as the air I breathe. So yeah, I'd do it again. But I didn't feel like I needed to brag to you about it."

She was silent for a long time, trying to breathe through the emotion in her throat to keep the tears from falling, because she knew if she started, she wouldn't be able to stop. Jordan dropped her eyes away from him and shook her head.

"You just asked a favor, Jii," she said softly. "And the Prophets are like anything else. They expect favors to be repaid."

"I know."

"But you did it anyway."

"Nothing's free, Jordan." he said softly, reaching out and taking her hand in his. For the first time in a long time, he was conscious of how much smaller she was than he, and how fragile she seemed now. His hand seemed to overwhelm hers as he closed around it. "And we'll figure everything else out like we should: together."

"But Jii... I don't know that I'm me anymore."

"Nobody is, Jordan. Day to day, minute to minute, we all change. You died.

We burned your body and spread the ashes. This second chance of yours is a gift from the Prophets - or a favor, if that makes you feel better. That...

experience... is bound to change you." he replied.

"No, Jii, you have to listen to me," she said, taking her husband's hands tightly, pulling them against her chest, eyes staring at him. His fingers incidentally brushed the jewel around her neck. "It is more than the gift of a second chance. And it is a gift. I know that, I feel it. But this isn't my body. Instead of the scars from childhood on my knees, I have a Mark of the Prophets on my back. There is this jewel around my neck and I can't take it off. And I don't... Jii. I can't explain but I don't know what's going on."

"I know all that." he replied, a strange small smile. "And there's only one thing for it."

"Jii," she murmured.

"Have faith." he replied earnestly. It'd been a long time since he'd said anything of that nature - and never to her.

"I have more than faith, Jii. I'm proof."

"Well, there you go then."

"I just wish that I could show you what I mean."

"Hey," he said softly, pulling her down to him. "As long as we help stop the universe from going to Hell, we'll have all the time we'll ever need."

"Unexpected"

Acting Captain Jaal Jaxom
USS Miranda

==The Phoneicous System==

It was early during the alpha shift and Jaal was making his rounds around the ship checking on the progress of repairs and the condition of those injured in sickbay. Nothing was one hundred percent and wouldn't be until after the Miranda was put to drydock. The Trill's estimation was about six months minimum but the acting first officer, Jack Dawson, was much more optimistic.

Jaal left main engineering walking briskly to the turbolift shaft. His silent ride to the upper decks was broken by his commbadge. "Captain,"

the device spoke with his younger sister's voice, "Sensors are picking up two approaching ships. They aren't quite close enough to positively identify."

"I'm on my way to the bridge now," Jaal replied, "I want them IDed by the time I get there."

Moments later the doors to the bridge slid open. Jaal walked onto the bridge and straight to the operations console. "What've we got Ensign?"

Janeen squinted at the display. "It looks like one Klingon ship and one Reman." She looked up at her brother. "It seems strange there's only two and they're not the same."

Jaal's brow furrowed with concern. "What's their heading?" He already knew the answer by looking over her shoulder but he thought Janeen needed the practice.

Janeen consulted her readout again, "They're on an intercept course,"

she looked up again, "straight for us."

"On screen," Jaal ordered.

The main viewscreen shimmered to life. Dead in the center were two forms oddly different from each other but looking equally menacing in the inky blackness of space.

"Can we tell what their status is?" Jaal asked standing straight and folding his arms across his chest.

Janeen tapped a few keys in rhythmic succession. "There seems to be a lot of local radiation interfering with long range scans."

Jaal turned to the science console, "Cernu?"

~I am adjusting the sensor array now Captain,~ the Q'Loren answered. A few tense moments passed then Cernu spoke again, ~One Klingon battlecruiser. One Reman scimitar. They're not at red alert but their shields are up... weapons are not powered up... they are traveling at typical cruising speeds for their vessels' class.~

"Ramirez, put us between them and the fleet. Daniels, raise our shields," Jaal moved to stand in the center of the bridge right behind the helm and ops consoles. "Dakota, hail them."

Dakota Harris began tapping away at her console. A moment later she said, "They're receiving but not answering."

Jaal wished to hell he knew what they were up to. What could Klingons and Remans possibly want? To help? Jaal thought it unlikely at the moment. Klingons had never gotten along with the Romulans. The Remans were recently set free of the Romulan yoke they'd lived under for so long. Were they ganging up on the Romulans to kick them while they're down? Would they attack the Starfleet ships knowing they were aiding the Romulans?

"They're within weapons range," Ensign Daniels spoke from the tactical arch, "And slowing down. They're at impulse speed now."

The unlikely pair of starships grew larger on the screen. Jaal watched them intently as if trying to acertain their intentions by the way the vessels flew.

"They closing... and slowing down some more," Janeen informed the rest of the bridge. "How close do we let them get?"

"Steady everyone," Jaal spoke more confidently than he felt at that particular moment. "Let's not jump to conclusions just yet."

"Sir," Daniels spoke again, "They've stopped and are holding position at point seven five kilometers dead ahead."

"Now they're answering our hails," Dakota spoke up from her side of the bridge.

"Put'em on," Jaal ordered.

The screen switched views to show one Reman and one Klingon in split screen format.

"I would like to speak to Captain Summers," the Klingon stated formally, "I am General Vergh of the IKS Darchak." The Reman said nothing for now.

"I am Commander Jaxom. Unfortunately, Captain Summers was killed in action against the Hydrans over Romulus."

Vergh nodded, "Then he rests in Sto'Vo'Kor with other great warriors."

Jaal kept his eyes on the screen, "Yes, he does. Now I need to ask what your intentions are here."

The Klingon let out a short chuckle. "News of your valiant but ill-fated attempted to stop the Hydrans has reached General Xiamek and I. We recognize their advances for what they are... Invasion... and don't wish to see them advance further."

"And even push them back to where they came from," Xiamet added.

"In short Commander, we are here to help," Vergh finished.

Jaal looked at both men on the viewscreen and across the ether of space. Were they telling the truth? Was this a trick? What could they possibly do with just two ships?

"We greatly appreciate the offer," Jaal replied cautiously but showing no weakness, "But what kind of help can you offer with only two ships?

The Hydrans have a space-born beast they control that can destroy ships with a single swipe of its tentacles."

Vergh shook his head side to side. "Foolish Trill! Just like the rest of Starfleet you only look with your eyes! Have you forgotten who you are talking to?" The Klingon gave one, short, nod to someone off the screen.

'Shit.. this is it,' Jaal thought holding back his panic. Possible manuevers were already racing through his head to gain the upper hand.

There were only two of them after all. While the Miranda was out of torpedoes, she still had her phasers and one canon left. Plus, the rest of the fleet was behind him. Even though they were in bad shape, they could still fight.

The operations sensor display lit up like Christmas tree. "Jaal!"

Janeen's eyes went wide as she stared at over two hundred new contacts now showing up on the sensors.

"I'm reading over two hundred and fifty ships decloaking Sir," Daniels spoke where Janeen's voice had failed momentarily.

"Two hundred sixty-four Klingon ships," Janeen gave the exact number without hiding the awe she felt, "... and at least three dozen Reman scimitars... Three hundred ships in all."

"I told you Commander," Vergh's expression was a large, toothy grin, "We are here to help and as you can see... we mean it."

"Like I said," Jaal answered, "We 'greatly' appreciate it."

"Possession Is Nine-Tenths Of The Child"

Primary Characters:
Victor Krieghoff
Arel Smith

------------------------------

The Undercity, Ki Baratan

18 days after the Withdrawal

Hydran-Occupied Romulus

------------------------------

Arel sat slightly away from the cots, watching the sleeping survivors while she cleaned and sharpened her mek'leth.

The "General" had ordered her to catch some sleep and in the interests of camp unity she hadn't told him to fuck off. But she couldn't sleep.

Didn't even want to actually. Somewhere, hopefully, Korvin was waiting and she didn't, couldn't, sleep until she was sure he was safe.

So she checked her weapons and kept watch for the others and tried to keep her mind empty.

A faint hum, like a short transporter signal sounded from one of the nearby corridors, followed a moment later by another. There was a pause, and then the sound was repeated again. This time, her eyes caught a small flicker of light that accompanied the sound.

Two seconds later, a massive hand was wrapped around her neck while her blade was resting about a half second away from slicing the "intruder's"

carotid artery.

"You should be more careful." Arel snarled at the dark man before her.

She could see now that he had been doing some gear maintenance of his own - the strange noises had been coming from his Hazard suit - but adrenaline kept her from drawing back her weapon.

Victor looked at the slighter woman. "I'll remember that, Commander. I trust you'll remember too, after I phaser you unconscious the next time I intend to perform weapons maintenance."

Her eyebrow arched upwards as she pulled the mek'leth away. Krieghoff likewise stepped back. "One day we'll have to see who really is better, Krieghoff. But not today. Suit badly damaged?"

"Why would it matter which one of us is better, Commander?" Victor asked. "Are you going to do something that would require me to kill you?"

She snorted.

"Then worrying about that is pointless." Victor looked down at the Hazard Team uniform. "The suit, now that is worth worrying about. The last time I wore one, it almost killed me. This one seems to be doing...

better... but I haven't been drowned in it yet to see if the same problem will occur." He frowned and looked back up. "I needed to make certain there wasn't any damage to the equipment stored in the suit's buffer after I recharged it - I assume that was what triggered your homicidal impulse?"

"I thought someone had beamed here." Arel replied with a nod.

"And you were going to kill them all, yourself?" Victor shook his head.

"Did you alert anyone? Warn them that something was happening, or just charge in, mekleth bared?"

"What of it?" She growled.

"I doubt what I think on the topic is really of any importance to you whatsoever, Commander; but in case I'm wrong: I think that you were ...greedy."

Whatever she had been expecting, that certainly wasn't it. "Oh really?

How so, Sparky?"

"You were going to kill them all yourself, weren't you? What would you call that?"

Arel frowned. "Defense."

"And if one of them got lucky? Or there were more of them than you'd thought? If they had a weapon of mass destruction with a deadman switch that you set off when you started swinging, what then?" Victor's pale blue eyes met hers. "This isn't a contest to see who can count the most kills in honorable combat, Commander. It's a war - and you have a child waiting for you to come home. Act like it."

Surprisingly, Arel didn't pummel him into ground beef. "I can't, Krieghoff. I'm a fighter, that's what I do. I'm not so Klingon to believe in fair combat with the Hydrans, this slice on my back from some pthak piece of forshak proves that."

She took a breath. "Besides, I can't be a mother here, can't let myself ... feel that way. I'll go crazy not knowing."

"If they're alive?" he asked.

"HIja'" Arel replied with a slight incline of her head.

"What is their name? The child's?" Victor's eyes never left hers.

"Korvin." She replied with a flicker of a smile. "Korvin Smith."

Victor frowned and looked up at the stone overhead, concentrating for a moment in silence. "No," he said quietly after a moment, an underlying chill creeping into his voice. "Too far for someone that isn't one of mine." Without looking away, he added, "Give him to me."

Although she understood, Arel felt possessive nonetheless. "He's mine."

"If you give him to me," Victor replied, his words still soft, but the underlying chill they rested on grew stronger, starting to raise the hairs on the back of Arel's neck, "then I'll know. I always know when they're mine."

She looked at him curiously. "Why would you do that?"

"So that you'll know," the answering whisper came. "You want to know, don't you?"

Arel felt her throat tighten. "I want to know."

"Then give him to me. It won't work if you don't."

"For now only?"

"I can't be around children, Commander. They don't have the filters and barriers to shield themselves yet, so they know what I am as soon as they see me. They scream, they run, they hide, or they stand there and shiver in terror and soil themselves. Why would I want to have a child present all the time, doing that to them? It's bad enough that I do this to adults that work around me all day, but to a child? No." He turned to look at her. "I will return him to you when you ask it."

She could feel her body shuddering at the thought of giving up her son to this man, this ... non-man, but something also feel relief at the prospect.

After all, who better to protect someone from death than Death himself?

"I give him to you... for now."

Victor nodded and turned back to stare at the ceiling and frown up at the blank stone for a minute, and then another in silence, the air around them seeming to shift in quality, as if something was pressing down on it, condensing it, making it heavier until it was almost a palpable thing, pushing her back from the man with his eyes on the ceiling. "Ah," he said finally, without explanation.

"Krieghoff," She warned. "I don't take disappointment well."

"He is alive, Commander," came the response. "He will stay that way. I won't give him permission to die now that he's mine."

She felt feel better, a bit lighter. But also suddenly very tired.

"Thank you." Arel whispered.

There was a moment where the pressure on her seemed about to increase - and then with an almost audible 'snap' it was gone, and Victor was merely Victor again. "Most people don't," he observed.

"Most people don't what?"

"Thank me," he explained. "Most people don't, even the ones that are mine."

Arel shrugged. "I'm not most people."

"Perhaps," he agreed. "But you are more like them than you want others to believe. Certainly more like them than you are like me."

"I don't believe there is anyone in the universe quite like you, Krieghoff."

His response was a second in coming, but spoken with a sense of absolute, unalterable and unshakable assurance. "Exactly like me? No, I think no one else is what I am. But like me in some ways? Yes. Many people can be *like* me for short periods of time. The difference is that I can't set what I am aside like they can... this is what I am all the time."

"Why?"

"Because that's the way things are, Commander. I can change - I can see it within myself now that I know to look - but some things about me can't be changed, no matter what you, or I, or the girl I left on the Galaxy want. They just are."

"It's your nature," she stated.

"Yes. I am what I am, no matter what kind of mask I wear to make those around me feel better about it."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say as they weren't really friends. Except one thing. "The Hydrans won't get you as long as I'm there."

The smile was different this time, somewhere between amusement and sadness. "You shouldn't make promises that you can't keep, Commander."

"Who says I can't keep them?" She growled. "I can't promise you won't get a little bruised but you'll stay alive."

"I'm not the one you want to keep alive, Commander," he replied. "There are others that are more important: the General and his wife, the surviving sheep that I was given, Lieutenant London who cares for the wounded... and you."

Are raised an eyebrow.

"Of course, you, Commander," he answered. "If you die, then Korvin is mine because I can't give him back to you... and that's a more powerful guarantee than even my forbidding you to die, isn't it?"

"Clever." She replied. "But you're still mine to protect."

"It's not the same, Commander," Victor observed quietly. "Protect yourself."

"You're not the only one with sheep to shepherd, Sparky." Arel said, smacking him on the back as she passed by. "Thanks again."

Victor watched her walk off, only answering as she was almost out of earshot. "I hope you still have cause to thank me when this is all over, Commander."

OOC - occurs before Cliff's "Unexpected" post.

"If You Can't Dazzle Them With Brilliance..."

Pilot Taev, Saber Two, USS Galaxy
Saber Two

========

Boredom, to a pilot stick in a cramped cockpit for over twelve hours, is it's own distraction. While sensors were on and fully operational, Taev was occupying himself by savoring his Sluggo-cola and resigning himself to the fact that if a cloaked Klingon fleet doesn't want to be found – it doesn't want to be found!

Another fatalistic resignation was the court-martial that awaited him upon his return to the Federation. Sipping the bitter beverage, the Ferengi reflected deeply on his upcoming fate, unaware of the bright light flashing on his HUD indicating a decloaked warship behind him.

Bridge, IKS Darchak
===============

"What do you mean he hasn't noticed us yet?" L'Teer growled. A Federation Ferengi pilot. Inconceivable.

"Target has not altered heading or speed, Commander. Weapons remain offline."

The female commander's frown slowly melted to a mischievous grin.

"Let's make sure he's awake. Arm the main disruptor cannon – full charge. Target ten feet above the fighter's canopy and fire when ready." The grin blossomed to a wide, fanged smile.

"Singe him, but don't fry him… yet."

The Second Officer at tactical nodded and targeted the fighter.

"Charging…. Firing disruptor cannon!"

Saber Two
========

Red light the color of the brightest, bloodiest sunset bathed the small fighter, waking Taev from his dark dreams of brigs and profitless servitude.

"PFFFFFFFTTHHHHHHHHTTTTT!"

The bright red of the disruptor fire was quickly filtered to a sickly pale green as the Sluggo-cola formerly in Taev's mouth now coated the inside of the canopy.

And his shield controls.

And his navigational controls.

And his life support.

"Oh no" was the only small, quiet whimper the Ferengi could utter as his fighter craft surged forward under the power of short circuits brought about by the most popular soda in the galaxy.

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

The makers of Sluggo-cola would like to remind consumers that while Sluggo-cola is an excellent, refreshing beverage for the refined pallet, under no circumstances should it be brought into contact with electrical devices, leather goods, non-glass or polypropylene containers, precious metals excluding gold and latinum, small children, Boleans and other cobalt-based life forms, ferrous alloys of any kind, concrete, wood and other fibrous products. If contact is made with eyes, pay your physician top latinum immediately and have it seen to. The makers of Sluggo-cola accept no responsibility for the mis-application of this beverage, and urge you to drink responsibly while investing in Sluggo-cola common shares on the Ferengi Exchange.

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

Bridge, IKS Darchak
===============

"By Kahless! Look at that!"

The tactical sensors of the Darchak recorded some of the most daring, intricate fighter maneuvering ever witnessed by the Klingon Defence Force. Changes in speed and heading were inhumanly complex, and the daring of the pilot defied imagination. The bridge crew of the Vor'cha cruiser rose to see the stunning aeronautics.

"Ghuy'cha! The petaQ's on a collision course with the bridge!"

Taev's fighter streaked passed the fore part of the Darchak while performing a tight roll, the tip of the fighter's wings periodically tapping the spine of the cruiser's top hull.

Saber Two
========

"I'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodie

I'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodie

I'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodie"

The Ferengi's high pitch dirge matched the frantic pace of his attempts to clean the fighter's canopy of the green, sticky cola, and he finally cursed the Federation's shortsightedness for not making a more absorbent flight suit. Slowly, as the light green gave away to the pitch black of open space, the controls ceased sputtering and sizzling.

~Thank the Nagus that's over! What in the name of hostile takeovers was that?~ Taev's unspoken question was answered as the Darchak's aft came into view.

~About time!~ Angrily, he swatted the comm toggle on his console and hailed the warship.

"Kling…"

The high-pitched, terror-induced squeak of Taev own voice startled himself, and he lowered it to a more baritone level he felt the Klingon's would respect, or at least not ridicule.

"Ahem… hmmm.. Klingon warship: this is Pilot Taev of Saber Squadron, USS Galaxy. Lower the forcefield to your shuttlebay and prepared to be boarded! NOW!"

~The last bit was a nice touch. They'd respect that sort of nonsense", Taev thought as he silently waited for their reply. ~Well… whatever they plan – it's better than a court-martial!~

"Daughter of the Empire" Part Two

Featuring, from the IKS T'Kengra;

Captain Qel

K'Vol, first officer

Lieutenant (Jg) Chandrakala Lakshmi Eshe – Engineering Assistant IKS T'Kengra
Medical Officer Mortan (written by Rob Snow)

And from the USS Galaxy;

Lieutenant Dhanishta Eshe - Assistant Chief of Engineering USS Galaxy
2nd Lieutenant Steven Jonas, CO - 2nd Platoon, SFMC, USS Galaxy
Ensign Keldan - Operations Officer, USS Galaxy
Michael McDowell - Civilian Engineering Specialist

***Location IKS T'Kengra, Sick Bay***

(Set one day after the Romulan and Federation Fleet withdrawal from the 'Fight for Romulas', directly after "Heart of the Federation")

Steven watched as Dhani tried to goad him. He could see veins in the large warrior Captain's neck starting to bulge a little. Sliding off the biobed with a wince, he walked over to Dhani. "Hey," he said in a near whisper, but loud enough for Qel to hear. "there's not point arguing with him. He's a stubborn old fool who can't see past the arrogance that his people share with the Romulans. And what happened to the Romulans will most assuredly happen to the Federation and the *mighty* Klingon Empire."

Dhanishta whipped round, her face scrunched up with anger. The sound of flesh on flesh echoed through the room as Dhani backhanded him across the face, making that now two assaults he had undergone since being brought aboard this ship.

Steven rubbed at his jaw yet again. Man that woman had a temper on her. He'd have to watch out in future he decided as he steadied himself on one of the biobeds that graced the room.

"Know your place!" she barked at him her eyes darkening by the second. The heat of the argument was spilling out in all directions. It would be hours later, after she had cooled down that she would realize what she had just done; something that she was famous for on the Galaxy as it happed.

Turning on the Federation Marine in anger Mortan growled audibly and clenched his fists, "If you wish to live to walk out the door you will silence your tongue human!" he snapped.

In contrast to Steven, Michael knew Dhani for quite a few more years and so he kept his mouth shut. For now that is. He would talk to her later. Right now he just shook his head. She had gone too far already, and with hitting a fellow Officer she made a bad situation worse.

"Do not think for a moment that your candid remarks are gaining any favor with me. Qel is my father by bond, do not disrespect him, his ship, his crew or his authority…"

~Like you are doing?~ Kala interjected, her voice ringing inside Dhanishta head like a dammed church bell.

Dhani's eyes flicked to her sister, who was calmly sitting on the edge of Keldans bed, arms folded, watching the shinagans unfold. Kala's eyes widened as Dhani's locked onto her, implying that she did indeed expect an answer to her telepathically communicated question.

For a moment Dhani was speechless, unsure of what had transpired; all of it a blur of heated emotions. She looked at Jonas who was rubbing his smarting cheek, eying her with a look of contempt.

The moment she turned again towards him, Steven thought he'd respond, but decided instead to do the opposite. So he turned away from the woman and walked over to Kala's location.

Frowning deeply she went to apologize, but the words just lost in her throat; her mouth opening and closing, like a fish out of water she gagged on the air.

The doors open and K'Vol totally oblivious to the drama within stepped through. He lingered in the doorway, waiting for his Captain to acknowledge him before he spoke. Looking around the room he could sense the tension and hostility. It didn't take a Betaziod to realize there was bad blood in the air.

Qel's eyes did not leave the petite form of the Trill before him; they bored holes into her skull. "What is it?" he barked at the unwelcome intruder, knowing that the looming figure would be here to seek his council.

"Captain," K'Vol started coming to attention, even though the eyes of his superior were not directed at him, "if we are to change our course, now is the time to do so."

Qel fumed, his head turning menacingly, "Have we received new orders from the High Council?" he asked angrily over his shoulder, almost biting each word out.

K'Vol looked puzzled, "No Sir…" he replied.

"Are you challenging my command of this vessel?" Qel shouted across the room as he pivoted on the ball of his foot and advanced on his first officer, heavy steps filled with rage vibrated the deck plates.

"No Sir!" K'Vol replied looking past his Captain to the people in the room, wondering what the hell had happened to aggravate Qel.

"Then do not presume to know my mind!" Qel bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth, "Our orders have not changed, neither have mine! We are to continue on course understood?"

"Understood Captain," K'Vol responded inclining his head. His eyes however looked up, locked on to Kala, his expression questioning.

She simply shrugged; mouthing to explain things at a later date, now was certainly not the time.

"Return to you station!" Qel instructed forcibly.

K'Vol nodded again and left the room shaking his head once he was out of sight.

Qel paused in the doorway, taking a deep breath to cool his boiling blood.

The interruption had calmed the air, or so Dhani believed, "Qel help us. Please?" Dhani begged lurching forward in her stance.

"You test my patience child!" Qel growled under his breath. She had long since past the 'beginning to annoy' him stage and was promptly and swiftly passing trough the 'aggravating stage' and on to the 'looking for a beating stage'!

"Dhanishta do not disrespect me, alliance or not, daughter of my House or not, I will throw you off my ship!" he warned her through gritted razor sharp teeth.

"No Qel, you misunderstand." she crossed the room, her tone softer as she placed a hand on his arm, "Help *us*." she indicated to those present.

Qel frowned, "The Council has made its decision Dhanishta, we are not to get involved, you are a Federation officer..."

"Forget that." Dhani broke in quickly waving her hand through the air as if that gesture alone could erase her allegiance to Starfleet, "Forget about the Federation, forget about the Romulans. Help *me*."

"Dhanishta..!" he growled all patience now lost.

"Help me as your daughter, as a member of your House. The Council has no jurisdiction there." Dhanishta pleaded, her tone softer yet still determined.

He sighed, closing his eyes. She did not understand the politics of her request. He himself despised the bureaucracy of it all. But the ramifications spread wide. This did not just affect him and his place within the Klingon army, but the Empire as a whole, and more so that that, the Empires place in the galactic powers. They were conquerors, not saviors, and certainly not saviors of Romulans. No matter his feeling towards the Federation, he could not defy the High Council.

"Or does this mean nothing to you?" Dhani shouted at his silence, pulling down the gown she wore to show him the brand he had seared into her flesh years before.

He turned to look at her arm, inwardly he smiled as he recalled that day when he welcomed her and her sister into his House, branded them as they pledged their allegiance to their 'second family', as they had called it.

"If you stand there and tell me that all we have been through was for nothing, that this means nothing to you, welcoming me and my sister into your house was a mistake, that her serving with you for all these years means nothing to you now; when I ask for your

help, and may I remind you that not once before have I asked this of you." she wagged an accusing finger at him, "Not once have I turned down any request from you either." she added, the emotion clear in her voice, as it was through the trembling of her body.

Qel watched, slightly amused by her actions, a ghost of a smile dancing on dark toned lips. He was beginning to wonder if it was indeed a mistake allowing outsiders into his House. Maybe his slightly more liberal view was indeed incorrect and he should return to his original xenophobic stance. Yet as he watched the passion she displayed, so different from the sensible woman that he had indeed welcomed, he paused to contemplate.

She continued, rising into hysteria, "I stand here before you as your daughter, as a daughter of the Empire, asking of my brethren to aid me against my enemies, offering you the chance of battle, a worthy battle at that; for the lives of all our sons and daughters. And you turn your back on me now?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, not moving from his place by the door as she frantically gestured to the air. In all his years he never recalled seeing this woman so impassioned. Perhaps it was the trials of war, the pressures of her new position? Whatever the reason he did not care, her willingness to fight however, that touched something inside him. Could he deny her the right to die in glorious battle? Would he deny that right to any of his offspring of blood? No. Indeed there was something he recognized in the ranting Trill before him; himself.

She stormed across the room enraged, tears misting her eyes, "I will erase ties with you, with the Empire" she hunted for a dermal regenerator pushing past Mortan in her frantic search, "I will remove this mark of your betrayal from my existence." she was blinded

by the tears that were misting her view, the rage shook her weakened body.

Qel chuckled at his own realizations, not paying attention in the slightest to Dhanishta's ravings, though in retrospect perhaps his unguarded display of amusement spurred her on…

"I will erase this!" she shouted furiously brandishing the regenerator, "and you can drop us off wherever you like, but believe me when I say that you will pay for this. Your acts this day will be avenged!" she screamed wiping her eyes from the tears that had welled she activated the generator.

Qel crossed the room to stand before her, with an almighty display of prowess he ripped a bio bed from his bolts with one arm, sending it spinning across the room behind him, clattering loudly on the metal floor. Snatching the generator out of her hand he looked down upon her silently amazed at how she controlled her trembling so that she could return his gaze without any traces of fear; this was more like the woman he knew, he realized as she pulled herself up before him, removed all traces of emotion from her face. His eyes saw into her very being; she did indeed have the heart of a warrior. "That will not be necessary." he growled.

USS Eagle "The War Prayer"

Featuring:

Captain Leonard S. Striker
Commanding Officer, USS Eagle

Master Sergeant Robert "Pliers" Sykes
Chief Technican, Black Hawk Group

Commander Jackson "Nightmare" Hunter
CAG, USS Eagle

Lieutenant Cameron "Helios" Ward
Gate Keeper Squadron CO/CAG SecOFF, USS Eagle

Major John J. McCandless
131st Marine Special Mission Force CO, USS Eagle

Major Salu Digby
Chief of Intelligence Operations, USS Eagle

============================

Location: CIC, USS Eagle

Leo Striker took a deep breath as he looked over the orders that was in front of him and looked at the assembled officers that had only recently become apart of the Eagle's senior staff. "Ladies and Gentlemen, by vote of the Federation's Security Council, we are now formally at war with the Alliance and are to set course at once for a rendeouzs with the remains of the task force that was over ch'Rian prior to the start of the engagement." Leo said in a serious tone to show that he was all business at the moment.

The youngest officer in the room, Lieutenant Cameron Ward of the SFFC, looked a bit confused before he crossed his arms over his chest and simply asked "remains sir?"

Leo nodded, "Yes, we lost two good ships in the engagement and that's only the tip of the iceberg." Leo said solomenly.

"The Hood and Concorde are both gone, all other ships are rumored to have sustained moderate to major damage and we are still getting data both combat and regular in at the present time." said the quiet but serious tone of the Eagle's intelligence chief in Salu Digby from where she stood next to the captain. Digby was a lithe woman with short brown hair and brown eyes who while having an attractive appearence could be colder than a winter on Rua Penthe.

"We lost the Hood?!" shouted a slightly round man in his late years who wore the uniform of the SFFC with the rank of a Master Sergeant. "I served on her under DeSoto and yur telling me he's dead?!" the man said, his tone speaking volumns about his disbelief.

"I'm afraid so, Pliers." Digby said to the Master SGT who then simply nodded and took a step back. Chief Pliers had served on numerous ships of the fleet during his long life and some joked that this would be his second major conflict against the Hydrans to which the El-Aurian would simply smirk and pat the person on the head.

"I'm sorry about my outburst, the Hood was one of three ships that I was on the longest. Ta hear that she's gone makes me angry." Pliers said at which point Leo walked around the situation table and placed a hand on the older man's left shoulder.

"Pliers, I'm positive that Desoto died with his boots firmly planted on the deck of his ship. I was there too once, remember?" Leo said in a comforting tone that made Pliers look at his captain and nod solomenly.

"So, what's the plan once we get to the meeting point captain?" Cameron asked in a professional tone, trying to hide his reaction from the news from his fellow officers.

"We kick the Hydran's asses out of our galaxy and make sure their damned homeworld is ash afterwords!" Major Jack Hunter said, as the Eagle's current CAG, it was known that he lost a quarter of his family including his future wife when the Breen attacked Earth during the Dominion War.

Leo turned to face Hunter, "That's not what Admiral Murdock said in his orders to the battlegroup, Jack. What I need from you right now is to know the current ready status of your squadrons." Leo said in his professional tone.

Jack refused to be baited, "Black Hawk, Raptor, Gate Keeper, and Eight Ball squadrons are all packed, locked and ready to fly screaming into the black to show those damn Hydrans the error of their ways." Jack said pointedly.

"You mustn't hate your enemies, son. It clouds your judgement." Pliers said from his spot next to Ward. "The group's tech crews are more than willing and ready to jump at a moments notice..though I'm not too sure about a couple like that Kastos kid. He seems a bit too..." Pliers said, trying to think of a nice way of saying it.

"Greener than a Vulcan trying to eat real texan chili?" came the suggestion of Major John J. McClandless, the Eagle's marine detachment commander. "The kid helped get my unit's pelicans in full working order but he did seem a bit green under the gills, I know the rest of your deck crew are all vets but where did you get him from?"

"Kastos or "Jammer" as he's called on the deck due to his electronics knowledge got drafted by Pryde." Pliers said and that brought a snicker from Ward's throat.

"Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I've already got the Eagle's Hazard team working in conjunction with normal ship security forces to cover everything. When the battle starts, I want all marines doing a forced combat landing on the planet while our squadrons keep us covered. Jack, I want Raptor squadron doing heavy cover for the venteral shields since they are the weakest at the moment, our engineering staff is working their collective asses off to ensure that all shields will be up to max and running normal by the time the shooting starts." Leo said and the heads around the table nodded. "I'll be sending out further info and orders once I get them from the old man of the fleet, dismissed." Leo said at which point the various officers started to leave the room but Salu stopped and turned to look at Leo.

Leo was standing with his back to the doors with his head lowered. She strained her ears but she could hear her captain saying something.

"Prophets, Lord of the Interstellar Void, watch over this spaceship and those who travel within; Lay Your hand upon her yoke, that she may not loose her way; Spread They cloak over her hull, that she may be protected from the storm; And guide us always towards the bright and beautiful worlds you have prepared for us, when life's journeys we set aside at last...Amen."

Salu quickly left the room with a confused look on her face but she ran into Commander Hunter and Sergeant Norris. They spotted the confused look on her face.

"You saw and hear the captain's little prayer did ya?" Jack said in a slightly questioning tone.

Salu, still confused could only nod.

"It's an old habit, it's an old modified spacer's prayer from during the time of the first conflict with the Hydrans only the deity that was spoken to depended on the world ya came from." Pliers said with a rueful smile on his face. "My grandfather told me that Malcolm Striker, Leo's great grand-daddy said that once when the two served on another ship that bore the name Eagle during that battle." Pliers said and then he reached out and ran a hand across the smooth plating with the rueful smile still on his face.

"In short, Salu. It means simply Lord, I hope that I don't fuck this up." Jack said before smirking and heading off towards the hanger deck with Pliers behind him, leaving a still but now slightly less confused intel chief in their wake...

"Confrontation, Part 2"

Vaebn (NPC - Stuart)
RNI Operative

****

Ki Baratan
ch'Rihan

****

"Damn it, how could I have been so stupid." Vaebn muttered. "It was there in front of me all the time and I missed it."

"Do not mind that now brother," Deletham said, "we have bigger things to worry about. Like how to get out of here."

"How good is your aim Deletham?" Vaebn asked as he looked up at the light above the table. It was the only light source in the room and with night fast approaching it would give them a slight advantage.

"Good enough" he replied in a whisper as his eyes followed Vaebn's and he realized what his brother had in mind.

Vaebn stood, his hands raised in surrender and moved around the table. "Why are you doing this?"

"Simple Vaebn, I have been tasked with your death and so it is done. Goodbye!" He raised his disruptor and prepared to end his life.

The beam from Deletham's disruptor cut through the bright light in the ceiling, sending the room into darkness. Vaebn dived to the side, rolled and drew his own weapon and fired at the Rihanna. Missing, he moved again, as the return fire narrowly missed him. Firing again he felt satisfaction as his assailant's body slumped to the floor.

As the emergency lighting kicked in, Vaebn could see that both Rihanna were now dead, Deletham having dispatched the second of the two.

Vaebn sighed in relief. It was finally over. Looking over at his brother he smiled. He had missed his little bro more than he would admit and seeing him again brought life to his tired bones. "I'd been running from this one and his men for two days straight. I'm glad it's finally over."

"It's hardly over, Vaebn" a deep voice called out from the doorway.

Vaebn turned, disruptor raised. He recognized the voice from his childhood.

"Put that down you foolish boy. Unless you want me to hurt this one..." he said as he pulled a young girl into the room.

"di'Ranov (father)" the little girl called out, as the man's strong arm held her to him.

Vaebn looked at the girl. It was her, a little older, but it was his Paenhe (daughter), of that he had no doubt. "If you hurt her, I will kill you, Khaiell" He said loudly to the son of their former nanny.

"Hardly." he snorted, "now, drop your weapons or else!" He squeezed the girl's shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain.

Vaebn took a step forward but stopped as Khaiell put a small disruptor to her head.

"Now move over there." he waved towards the window.

Vaebn complied, as did Deletham, who had been quiet until now. "How did you survive the fire?"

"Survive?" He laughed. "I set the damn fire you idiot. I sent the assassins. I killed your family. Save for you two that is, and young Sindari here."

"Why?" Vaebn asked.

"Why?" Khaiell repeated softly. "Yes, I think I will tell you why. You remember when we were young, you two and your brother always picked on me. You always teased me, laughed at me, made me feel worthless. We were a part of the family, my mother and I and you treated me like dirt. Well one day I had had enough and I left the house. I'm sure you remember that day. It was the day your sister told your father that she was pregnant to the off-worlder. Initially I wandered the land, meeting many new and interesting people, learning a great many things. I learnt how to be devious, to manipulate people, to hurt them, torture them, and I met some new people and joined them on their mighty quest."

He paused, to open a bottle of Romulan Ale that Deletham stored on a sideboard. Taking a swig, he continued. "I came back, in time for your family reunion, filled with vengeance and anger and in my new position, I sent assassins to your house to murder you all. It was a foolproof plan, and yet they still managed to bungle it up. I went into hiding, as I planned and plotted to help my new friends. In fact, here's one of them now." He raised a hand to the doorway as a Hydran entered the room.

Sindari freaked and screamed at the sight of the purplish tri-legged creature.

"Easy honey" Vaebn called out. "he won't harm you."

"Okay, daddy." She called out as she stopped her whimpering.

"Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've been supplying my new friends with all the intel they could handle. Troop strengths, transport inhibitor locations, shield frequencies, key locations and buildings, important people, Galae sizes and weaknesses and the like. I've been doing it for almost three years now and well, finally they have come to wreck MY destruction upon the filth that has become the Rihannsu people. They are my sword and through them, I will cleanse this planet of the corrupt and unjust and remake it in my image. And the last piece of my plan involves the deaths of the two of you. The last two remaining members of the tr'Jaihen house will die tonight."

"You are a traitor to the Rihanna" Deletham spat.

"SILENCE!" Khaiell shouted. "You are the ones who are the traitors. And for that you will both die."

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