(Takes place after "Down in Mexico." Once again, this is bloody and violent.)

"I Will Follow You Into the Dark"

John Walker
Mercedes Delgado
Kaylee Hunter


It took him two weeks to do it, researching everything he could on Mark D'Agosto, interrogating anyone who knew anything about him, his fucking groupies, where they hatched their little evil plans. John finally got a plausible location, still on Earth, a warehouse in Costa Rica. Two weeks was too long. Two days would have been too long.

There was no way, no possible way, that Mercedes and the children were still alive.

John told himself not to think like that, but it didn't really change the facts. If he'd had some fucking help, maybe he would have gotten here sooner, maybe there'd be a chance, but now . . . now he was on a suicide mission to recover four bodies. He had a godamned arsenal on his back, but he had no idea how many hostiles he would encounter in the warehouse. No less than 5, assuredly. Hopefully no more than 10. No entrance but the main one.

If John didn't die, he was going to shot to shit for a family of corpses.

Fuck it, John thought. If nothing else, he'd be giving his friend a proper burial.

He hoisted the Type III phaser rifle, gripping it tighter in his hands, and headed for the front door.

It swung open and Mercedes stepped out.

John lowered his arm. "Mercedes . . ."

Mercedes looked like Hell. She looked like something beyond Hell, maybe a lost soul tortured for two millenias before being spit back to Earth. Her uniform was in tatters. The only thing holding it together was sweat and blood, and of the latter, there was plenty, too much for one person. Actually, there was too much for three people. Her skin looked like it had been soaked in red. Her hair had been shaved off. Her left leg was broken.

John knew, because he could see the white knob of bone protruding from her shin.

One of Mercedes's arms hung limply at her side, twisted and useless. The other hand held a bat'leth. It was so bloody you couldn't see steel. From the way she was hunching, John would guess that she had broken ribs, maybe a whole set of them. One eye was completely swollen shut. The other stared distantly in space.

Mercedes fell to her knees and John ran to her. "Mercedes," he said. "Mercedes!"

But she looked through him like he wasn't even there.

Mercedes needed medical attention yesterday, but John didn't know the situation inside, where the other kids were, the bad guys . . . he had no choice but to leave her where she was. John took a deep breath and ran into the warehouse.

Fifteen minutes later and he was outside, puking again.

If the Delgado's home had been a blood bath . . . he didn't even know what to call this. There had been thirteen of D'Agosto's men. All of them were dead. He didn't know who the bat'leth had belonged to, but Mercedes must have pulled it from one of them. Most of the men had been chopped to pieces. One of them, especially small pieces. Two others' heads had been crushed in repeatedly against the wall.

Mercedes had done all of it, after two weeks of torture he couldn't imagine.

John didn't feel any pity, not once he saw the children.

Their bodies were hung by chains in the middle of the room. They had died at different times. There was nothing 25th century about their torture. It was medieval, Dark Ages. Jaime was unrecognizable; John only knew who he was because he was the only boy. And the girls, the little girls . . . .what these monsters had done to them . . .

Jaime and Ana had been dead at least a week. Carmela, the youngest, maybe two days. One of her arms had been pulled off.

John fell to his knees and wept.

The sunlight, which had been heavy and relentless against his skin, was suddenly obscured by something. John looked up, wiping his mouth automatically, and saw Mercedes standing in front of him. She wasn't exactly standing, more hunched and leaning to one side, but how she was even on her feet . . . John had no idea.

She was looking at him now. He wished that she wouldn't.

There was no emotion on her face. She looked dead.

This wasn't Mercedes.

"They made me watch," she told him. It was a clinical assessment, devoid of horror. "They made me watch the children, what they did to them."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

She looked at him a moment longer, nothing moving in her face. And John knew, right then, that the friend he knew was gone.

But when she said, "Let's go," he followed her anyways.

***

"That's awful," Kaylee said and then made a face at her own inarticulation. John knew how she felt. Some things, there just weren't words for. "What happened to D'Agosto?"

"He died in prison one night."

Kaylee looked at him. "Did you . . ."

"No," John said. "That was Mercedes. But I would have. And I wouldn't have been sorry."

Kaylee nodded. John could tell that she wasn't particularly sorry, either, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. Should she have more empathy for a monster?

He decided no.

"You know none of this, none of it was your fault."

John looked back at his daughter. She was leaning towards him, searching his face. "I made a choice," he told her. "It was the right thing to do for you. I'll never regret putting you first. But I didn't have her back and I should have. That one's on me."

Kaylee shook her head but didn't argue with him. She must have known that it would be futile. "It's horrible," she said, "but what happened, Dad, it doesn't change anything. Mercedes might have been a victim before, but now . . . . now she's the bad guy."

"There are no bad guys," John said. "No good ones, either. I've stopped believing in that."

"I haven't," Kaylee whispered.

John put his arm around his little girl and she laid her head down on his shoulder again. "Someday," she said, "you're gonna have to make a choice between her or me, Dad."

I won't have to make that choice, he thought, but out loud he said, "It's you."

"The Eagle, Ensign, and Anchor" Prologue, Part III

Colonel For'kel Arvelion- SFMC
Commanding Officer
188TH Starfleet Marines Detachment

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

(Cardassia Prime- March 15, 2386)

Nobody could have expected the Triad War to have broken down the path that it did. It had taken twenty Divisions of Marines, dozens of smaller sundry units, and the entirety of the Deltan and Cardassian resistances, but in a war the Federation cause seemed to suffer one reverse after another Delta IV once again flew a Federation flag, and the home world of Cardassia was once again rebuilding after another long, costly, devastating conflict. The Triad, with recent Klingon and Romulan triumphs, had been forced to the negotiating table. For the first time since the destruction of Deep Space 5, peace and tranquility; however delicate and precarious the balance, reigned.

The fighting had only stopped little over a month ago, and already the 'farsighted' powers that be had determined they should be ready for the next war. The last decade and a half had showed them that Cardassia could be a valuable ally, or a powder keg.

The last thing anyone wanted was the Federation to have a powder keg to deal with while the bleeding Quadrant Powers still negotiated amongst themselves. Unfortunately, Cardassia wasn't 'playing ball'.

The Cardassian people had been beaten, bloodied, raped, pillaged, and all around kicked around for, in their eyes, the last twenty years. The established powers that be, like Elim Garak, knew why this was; they were atoning for past sins. For the occupation of Bajor, the Dominion War and Federation skirmishes, the Maquis... the list went on. Veterans of those conflicts, Cardassian warriors who were actually as honorable and noble as they had been bread to think of themselves, understood their situation in these terms. All they could do now was rebuild.

However there was a younger, more youthful philosophy embodied by one Crell Moset, the charismatic, insanely intelligent, hero of the T'Kith'kin occupation who'd gone from government minister to guerilla icon overnight. He offered a belief that said it wasn't Cardassia's fault... that the average Cardassian had little to nothing to regret. Yes horrible things happened during the occupation, but these were isolated, if numerous incidents and moreover Bajor was left all the better for the experience afterwards. Yes they sided with the Dominion, but only because Federation policy and the Klingon war had pushed them into doing so for their collective security; and when the Dominion turned their backs on their former Cardassian allies that simply proved that Cardassia needed to be exceedingly careful about interacting with foreigners... they could not be trusted, not any of them.

Thus, Cardassian society was fracturing along the same lines of the Federation, caught between caution and wisdom, and zeal and idealism. Between the old guard and traditional values, and those too young to remember, too young to have taken part in that troubled history, and too damn tired of having actions they were not responsible for being held against them.

Garak's government had returned to Cardassia Prime to re-assert its authority, backed by the formal Cardassian military (or rather what remained of it) and a slim majority of public opinion, reflected in recent elections.

Moset maintained a minority party of his own isolationalists, backed by his own private army of the hardened guerillas who had fought on Cardassia long and hard while their people suffered, with broad support among the 'lower' classes of Cardassian society, including the youth who bought into the idea of sacrifice for the government was the measure of one's loyalty, and that the elections had been a sham. It was a recipe for Civil War.

One that had to be nipped in the bud.

The Campaigning and mud-slinging turned into downright governmental hostilities. Cardassia, like Romulus, had always been renown for its political intrigue. On Romulus, said intrigue was the result of family politics and a highly complex honor system being played out on an interstellar stage. On Cardassia, the family connections were far more subtle, the end goal being, in theory, the glory of the Cardassian people through the Cardassian state. It was therefore a much messier proposition. There were no 'bedroom' negotiations, no offering of marriages to form political bonds, no veiled threats of humiliation or reduction in social status to coerce contemporaries... no behind the scenes assassinations... on Cardassia all of these things were FAR more direct.

Pops and his spotter had spent four days tracking through the remains of Kempok City, once a small but thriving metropolis of nearly 100,000 people, laid to complete ruins and vacancy by the Triad War. Hundreds, if not thousands, of localized radiation pockets throughout the city, the result of the destruction of the city's Antimatter Reactor power plant, had guaranteed that it wouldn't be settled for at least the next century. It was the perfect setting to hide a guerilla camp in.

Starfleet Intelligence had been tipped off that Moset would be making an exchange of some sort just outside the city's former recreational and athletic center. The President had made her choice clear; there was only one Cardassian government, and that was the government of Elim Garak. Moset had to be dealt with, and the sentiment seemed to be more than a courtesy to her Bajoran constituents. There was a definite tendency among many in Starfleet Command these days that force had to be met with force, preferably pre-emptively.

It was no small task seeking into the city. The local security department was squarely in Moset's pocket, and they were in the end the ones responsible for keeping people 'out' of the Cardassian version of an Aztec city. Their cloak suits made avoiding visual detection easy, and the myriad of jammers and technological equipment they carried with them guaranteed they wouldn't be picked up by casual sensor sweeps. Still, trying to get past the roaming patrols while remaining far enough away that their potential obstructions would not realize they were there was not easy.

They made extensive work of the city's old utility systems to gain entry beyond the initial wave of checkpoints. That brought them to the local court. From there, the pair slipped past dozens of 'unofficial' soldiers... Moset's militia and close body guard that kept him safe with a fanatic love for the duty.

One would never have known Pops was getting on in his operational years judging exclusively by his performance. The eerie emptiness of the city offered a veritable maze of buildings and complexes, frozen in time immediately following the evacuation, that you could jump into open windows, sneak through unlocked doors, and move across the perimeter of the town without alerting the dozens of patrol squads, or pair of attack fighters flying overhead in orbit around the town.

And this was 'before' Moset actually arrived.

Once they were in, the pair made their way to the town's legislative building. Could Starfleet have sent a fleet of ships to simply murder Moset in cold blood? Possibly, but that would result in forcing Garak to take an Anti-Federation stance for the sake of keeping his own people from Civil War, as well as devoting ships much needed to patrol the borders away from that valuable task. No, this was one of those instances where a mass onslaught from space via orbital bombardment simply wouldn't do.

Besides, Moset had ships of his own. Who wanted hundreds of crew casualties when you could send in two Marines, and stand a good chance of achieving the same results?

Once they made it to the legislative building, across a massive square from the meeting area, it became a waiting game. They knew the meeting would happen at 'some' point over the next week, the question of 'when' exactly was never answered though. Day melted into night, night back into day. Minutes ticked by like hours, hours like days, and the two Marines could have sworn a year passed before they finally heard the telltale signs of shuttle engines.

Sure enough, outside the window, a Cardassian shuttle landed. Moset's shuttle.

"Get the escape gear set up." the bleary eyed Pops ordered his younger counterpart as he readied his TR-116 rifle, the weapon of choice when you didn't want a lot of people following a phaser beam back to its point of origin or to be detected before it could be fired. He didn't hear the response, transcending into a zone where only his breathing, and the tunnel vision of his target, mattered.

The transaction started easily enough. Intelligence had known it would be a simple 'cash and carry' exchange. His spotter pointed out from the HUD of his standard issue Type III-B Phaser rifle that it looked like crystal... refined dilithium crystal judging by the EM spectrum when he switched modes on his rifle's scanning unit. Refined dilithium crystal... literally a ton, possibly more, all for crates of old weapons?

The transporter unit on his TR-116 'fizzled', indicating transporter blockers and scattering fields were in effect.

"I guess they don't want any uninvited guests." The spotter mused after hearing the tone.

Pops switched the scanner off. It looked like they would be doing this the old fashioned way. He activated the rifle's basic telemetry sensors, which provided wind, weather, and altitude targeting correction, then lined up the bright red retacle once again on Moset.

He silently cursed. It 'had' to be a windy day. Must have been what the great Bard meant when he wrote 'Beware the ides of March.'

He continued on with the rhythm, waiting for the perfect moment; the moment where years of Starfleet training, combat experience, and technological development would culminate in 'the' one and only perfect shot.

Though he hadn't really moved a muscle, Pops' brow was beginning to sweat. His body ached from hiding out with minimal movement for days on end, and the concentration he was experiencing now was the most intense workout he received since sneaking his way into the place.

The TR-116 fired its 11 millimeter, specially designed tritanium rounds from a 35 round magazine semi-automatically at an average muzzle velocity of 1.5 kilometers per second. The rangefinder in Pops' rifle indicated the round would need to travel 630 meters, meaning in less than half a second... point 42 seconds actually, they would know the results.

Finally the wind calmed down. The sound of thrusters over-head would be the perfect mask for the sound of the chemical propellant. Pops took the opportunity, he made the shot.

The round was specially designed for maximum accuracy, a 'soft skin' sabot providing guidance in flight that gave it ray gun like performance. The bullet would hit where it was aimed at ranges of up to 1.4 kilometers even if the shooter hadn't taken into account the multitude of variables that such an event came with.

What all the technology in the universe could NOT compensate for however, was sheer dumb luck.

In that 42 one-hundreths of a second, Moset had shifted forward to take a step. He hadn't even completed it when the round struck, but it was enough that the round, originally aimed for his chest, and which would have torn through his torso and major organs before exploding in his gut, struck his arm instead.

The bullet penetrated, and the explosive round went off. Moset was thrown one way, his left arm, from half way between elbow and shoulder on down, flew in another.

It felt like forever, but in seconds Moset's men were on him, and his meeting partner was on the way to his own protected shuttle.

"Shit!"

"Don't worry about it, he'll bleed out." Sergeant Qalling, his spotter, offered. "We need to get out of here now!"

Sure enough, one of the fighters was already heading their way.

If only Qalling had survived that fight... if only Moset had stood still for a miniscule of a fraction of a second longer, then perhaps the following story would never have happened.

"Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums"

John Walker
Mercedes Delgado (npc)


It had been a lousy couple of months. Getting to Denobula, the saboteur. Burning the saboteur alive. Conspiring terrorist attacks and talking to T'Pei. All in all, John was almost glad when Mercedes announced that she'd be revealing Phase Three of her plan. Might as well just get whatever atrocity she had over with and move on to the next job.

This wasn't the life he wanted Kaylee to live. He'd have to figure out what to do with her, once she grew up. She couldn't stay here. She deserved more than this.

He couldn't imagine sending her away.

Laughter and a slew of Klingon curses came from behind him, and John sunk in his chair a little, closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He may have had some doubts, raising his only child to follow in his bloody footsteps, but Korath, apparently, held no such concern. Korth, his 14 year old son, the one that Kaylee looked at when she didn't think John was watching, was here today in order to learn the subtle art of tricking an entire planet into war. Korth and Korath were doing their whole Klingon thing, boasting, giving each other manly thumps on the chest, and it was all giving John a headache.

There were no warriors here, only murderers.

How did Korath not know that?

Cause he's a psychopath, John reminded himself. Cause they're all a bunch of psychopaths. Psychopathic or not, their little fiendish plan on Denobula was working. Phase One had gone without a hitch. Phase 2 had also gone well. The atmosphere on Denobula had gotten ugly damn quick---too many suspicious accidents, too many rumors flying around. The Hawks were untrustworthy; the Hawks would attack anyone who wasn't on their side. The Denobulans needed to do something, go on the offensive, protect their home.

All they needed, John knew, was just a little push. And Mercedes was about to give that to them. She would drop kick their collective asses into war.

Here came Phase Three. Nnerhin actually sat in his chair, taking notes.

Useless bastard.

Mercedes wasn't one to mince words. "The operation will be launched tomorrow at 0900 hours. We will hit three targets across the city, marked here, here, and here." She pointed to the map, where there were three large X's. John didn't recognize any of them---if it wasn't a bar, then he probably hadn't been there.

"What is the nature of the attack?" Nnerhin, of course. Godamn pencil pusher. Anyone else would have just asked, 'What we killin' em with?'

Mercedes looked at the half-Romulan. "Biological," she said.

John winced. He hated that shit.

He was much more comfortable with demolitions. A few explosions set around the city, or possibly a suicide bomber. Mercedes had used those in the past. The idea used to turn his stomach, but that really took a lot these days. Biological warfare still could sometimes. Mercedes had a knack for finding the uglies.

Today was no exception. She started posting pictures of past victims. John didn't turn away, but he wanted to. Their skin, their faces . . .

"The disease is airbourne and highly contagious. The subject first presents with a rash and a mild fever. As time passes, the fever will continue to elevate. The subject will begin experiencing nausea, muscle spasms, difficulty breathing. Lesions will appear on the subject's face. Often, he will experience hallucinations due to the fever. Finally, paralysis will begin working its way up the body, beginning in the lower extremities and moving its way up to the lungs and heart."

As Mercedes continued showing pictures, something became readily apparent to everyone in the room. John's mouth dropped open and Mercedes noticed. "Yes, Commander Walker?"

"These pictures," he said slowly, "they're all of children. Kids"

"Yes."

John shook his head head. You'd think you'd stop being shocked by these things.
"Mercedes---" he started, but Mercedes cut him off.

"This particular pathogen is most lethal to children. Infected subjects who are over the age of 13 may get some mild version of this, usually the rash and the fever, often some scarring from minor lesions, but it is very seldom fatal. The rate of fatalities for children under the age of 13 is is 99%. There is no known cure. Only Denobulan children will be harmed."

"Only Denobulan children . . ."

"Yes," Mercedes said. "No soldiers. No one we can use."

There was a stunned silence in the room. For the first time in years, John didn't seem to only person disturbed by this turn of events. Several of the officers looked uncertain, although John could see them trying to mentally pep themselves up. Korth looked particularly horrified. It was an unusual expression to see on a Klingon's face. Nnerhin looked mildly nauseous. The only person seemingly unaffected was Korath."

Nnerhin cleared his throat and resumed his notetaking. "The targets?" he asked.

"Two schools and a children's hospital."

Well, Jesus, Mercedes, John thought. Why didn't you throw an orphanage and a petting zoo in there too?

"Estimated casualties?" Nnerhin asked.

"Hard to specifiy," Mercedes said. "Easily, 1,000 children, but depending on how quickly the Denobulans can quarantine the disease . . . we could quite possibly manage 2."

"Two thousand children?" This was from Korth, who was now standing on his feet. He took a step towards Mercedes, his eyes a little wide. "How can you commit such an act?" he asked. "How can you even think of it?"

Mercedes turned cool eyes to his father. "Control your son," she said, "or remove him."

Korth spun to look at Korath. "Father---"

"Be silent, Korth."

Korth shook his head. "But, Father---"

"I said silence!"

Korth struggled. John watched him, wanting to obey his father's commands but unable to do so. The outrage and horror were just too much. "This is madness," Korth said. "There is no honor to be had in murdering children." Then, to John's complete surprise, the Klingon boy turned to him. "You have a daughter," he said. "How can you condone this?"

John said nothing.

Korth spit, disgusted, and turned back to look at Mercedes. "You are insane," he declared.

"No," she said, "I'm not. The Denobulans will be a great ally, Korth. This tragedy will propel them against the Hawks. They will fight the war alongside us. Their loyalty will be absolute."

"It won't be loyalty. It will be vengeance."

"Vengeance is a great motivator," Mercedes said calmly.

Korth turned to look at his father again. "You cannot allow this to happen!"

"I can," Korath said, "and I will, and unless you wish to cause further shame and dishonor to our house, you will silence this instant."

"But---"

"Korth!" Korth shut up as Korath took a step toward him. "In every battle, there are losses. A war cannot be won without them."

"But they're children," Korth said, and he sounded, hushed, almost broken. John felt himself feeling sorry for the boy . . . clearly, his father had never been a monster in his eye.

He was now.

Korath turned away from his son and turned his attention back to Mercedes. "Yes," he said quietly. "They are. A warrior does what he has to do."

Korath's tone brooked no argument. It was clearly meant to end the discussion, and for a moment, it seemed like it would, as Korth almost seemed to sink into himself. Then, just as Mercedes opened her mouth to talk again, Korth lifted his head and stepped forward, out of his father's reach.

"No," he said. "I'm sorry, Father, but it is you who have brought shame to our house. I will not allow this atrocity to occur." Korth stared at Mercedes. "I would die first."

John nearly groaned as he got to his feet. Clearly, the kid was more honorable than his father. He was also stupid as hell. Korth was looking at Mercedes like she expected him to take his challenge, step up and fight to death or something. It was honorable and it was naive and it only proved how young Korth really was. The boy didn't see himself as a child, but really, he was only two years older than Kaylee herself, and he needed someone to look out for him, explain how things on the Perdon worked. There would be plenty of years later when he was a man grown to fight injustice. This was not the place for it. Today was no day to be a hero.

John took a step toward Korth, intending to take him outside before things could escalate. Mercedes would not hesitate to kill this boy if he endangered her mission.

John knew that, he knew it, but he couldn't keep from being shocked anyway when Mercedes pulled a phaser from her belt and, before John could move, shot Korth in the heart.

"Small Victories, Painful Defeats....the Quest Continues"

by Cap'n T'risia

Hours had passed since the time ship, Twain, was secured by the Black Pearl. T'risia had ordered the ship's computer cores disconnected, and returned to the Pearl, with haste, those being the most valuable components. In addition, she authorized the looting of the Temporal Scanners, the Temporal Tansporters, and the Temporal Drives. Her goal was to install the drive on the Pearl, if possible, as well as installing the Transporters in a cargo bay. Without the scanners, they would be useless, of course...

The job, in fact, was harder than one might have imagined, and one imagined the job was pretty hard. With the rapid interface of the cores, the crew of the Pearl was at least able to set up a technology tutorial on the one functional holodeck. This streamlined the process, but required the continued looting of components from the Twain, and installation on board the Pearl. All of which, ironically for the situation, took time. Time was the one thing that would be best that they did not spend...after a passage of some of it, this time period's authorities would search for them.

All of which failed to impress, or occupy the time of, Cap'n T'risia.

The eccentric Vulcan woman was entombed in her Ready Room, poring over the huge volume of historical data available to the time ship's computer core. She squinted at the workstation, searching with her green eyes for the proverbial needle in the haystack, the tiny event that had driven her. Her door chimed once, then twice, then a third time.

Finally, she threw an empty bottle of Rum at it, as was the ceremony. The door opened, admitting Lucas walker, and the small monkey, scampering behind him. She did not look up, merely distractedly mused that Guardian of Forever could have simply told her wahat she needed to know...

"Excuse me Cap'n," began the dark haired gentleman, but we're having trouble getting the temporal drive online." Her looked a bit worried, but not about the ship. More about the woman before him.

"Why? Arr..." replied T'risia, distractedly.

"The power drain with the drive is huge...more than we're really configured to handle."

"So It's a time machine. When we are using it, it would be illogical to use any other part of the ship. Set it up like the cloaking device....where it would take priority over most systems. Arrr."

"Very well..." said Walker, studying her. She had been studying for hours now, hours... "Have you found it?"

"No."

He straightened his frock coat, and said, "I assume that when you do, we'll time jump, and attempt to save 8-Ball's life?" He sounded hurt....neglected, upset.

"No."

A long silence fell.

And continued.

"Excuse me, I think you misheard me. I'm assuming that we'll save 8-Ball Hunter from her fate."

"No. Arrr," was the distracted reply.

Flustered, Lucas sat down, and the monkey sat with him, oddly calm. "But isn't that the point?"

T'risia shook her head, not really paying attention as she spoke. "No. Never. It is illogical."

"Huh?"

"In order to change that one event, we would have to save her from death."

"Right, right...I assumed that was what you were after."

The Vulcan lectured, slightly, rising to the subject. "That is the one thing that I cannot succeed in doing. If I were to save her from death, I would never be motivated to create the Pearl. If the Black Pearl does not exist, then I would not be able to save her. It is a Prime Causality Paradox. Either she survives, and we are unable to exist to ensure it, or, more logically, history unfolds as it is intended, and we are here, in space and time, as the timeline demands."

"But Kirk changed time often enough?"

She turned, and looked at him. "You see, Mr. Walker, that is a typical misconception. Kirk traveled through time through slingshot, and made sure to not change any events. Further, the action of the Guardian was to stop an event from happening that should not, thus preserving the timeline. If McCoy had succeeded, the chain of events would have led Earth in a different direction. Most documented time jumps have this issue....where events in the past are already accounted for, or paradoxical."

She drank some Rum from the bottle, as Lucas considered this. "Then what is your mission? If not to save her?"

She arched a brow, and returned to work. "The goal of many Pirates, Mr. Walker...revenge."

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

After the passage of several more hours, she had an answer. A partial, fragmented answer, and one frought with irony.

It was T'pei.

T'pei was responsible for 8-Ball's death...and at this point, was most probably lost in the time stream, via the Guardian, due to T'risia's own actions. The actions that had actually gotten her the information at all. She picked up her cane, and leaned her cheek of the sculpted head of it, that fit her hand so well.

Touching a comm, she simply said into it, "Inform me as soon as the Temporal Scanner is online. We have a new search."

“The Lament of Rogues”

A final tale of the dark future.

Starring:

Captain James Lionel Corgan
Second Officer T'lan

Location: Over the Guardian Planet, Year 2402

James felt the tingle of molecules being converted to energy, and back again, as he transitioned from the ruined, wind swept landscape of the Guardian Planet to the inside of The Stolen Heart's transporter room. Deckhands ran to his assistance, and even his doctor tried to wave a tricorder in his face, but Corgan brushed them all away. He tried to contact T'lan on the bridge, his badge refusing to chirp, internal communications were down. He stormed through his battered ship, ducking under broken beams and flinching away from crackling electric wires, as he found the only operational turbolift on the ship to transit his way to the bridge.

Then he felt a strong shudder from the ship. Was it a photon torpedo hit? It didn't feel like it. It wasn't so direct. It felt as if the ship was plastered with a big outside explosion. The ship bucked and rocked, James lost his footing as it listed forty degrees, then righted itself. The turbolift dinged, opened up to the bridge.

His bridge crew was in worse shape than he was.

T'lan stood over the body of a Starfleet Hawk Marine, his neck snapped and a purplish bruise on his traecia, while she was fierce and dominant. Two of his Andorian veterans were wounded in front of piles of dead Marines, his young Space Boomer helm officer sported a wounded shoulder but was otherwise making his console and the ship dance. Communications Officer Machitty hunched over a mess of wires trying to hotwire his console back to life.

“Report!” James ordered.

Dora, the Stolen Heart's cybernetic computer, read the report. “Warp engines damaged, maximum limit set to Warp 4. Communications down. Port phasers, aft phasers, and shield grids 3 and 5 are damaged. Shields at 12%. Crew casualties are at 10%, no fatalities as of now.”

T'lan added, “And we haven't had the worse of it. Most of the opposing fleets are down. It's degenerated into a slugging match.”

“Hostiles?”

“The Doves are leaving us alone. The Hawks are shooting us on sight. We're apparently wanted in connection to an assault on a raider squadron.”

James smirked, “I wonder what gave them that idea?”

T'lan drolly answered, “You did, sir.”

“So I did...” James asked, “Babe, it was a mess down there. I was attacked by Arel of all people! And Victor and Kaa were going at it... I think our old friend's a Changeling, dear. We can't rely on him anymore. In the mess I didn't see Allison go through the portal. Did anyone transit?”

T'lan replied, “Yes sir. Multiple temporal signatures were detected. I have no way to tell if it was Allison.”

“Then we got to go back, T'lan. Helm! Get us back in range of the planet.”

T'lan interrupted, “James! We cannot! Kaa's fleet... he brought a Protocol 34 weapon. We're barely pushing our warp just to get out of the way of the planet's destructive wake.”

To that, reality started to sink in. Allison, alone on the planet, now destroyed. That bridge to her was forever cut off. If she had transited at all. There was a real possibility that she had not succeeded, and her best only lead to her death on a barren rock.

~”No...”~ James decided to hold onto a shred of hope, ~”She was with the Doves. They would take care of her. M'Kantu's more a father to her than I was. He wouldn't let her fall prey to this planet. He'd take care of my babygirl. And if not... she's scrappy like her old man. She won't fail. Besides, T'lan said there were temporal transits. I gotta have faith that my babygirl made it...”~

He made the conscious decision to leave. “Helm... set course for Boomer Fleet 7. We can't stay here. We're in no shape to stick around.”

“Aye sir!” The young helmsman set course. The Stolen Heart left the battlefield in good order.

But it left some questions burning in James and T'lan's mind. James was the first to break the silence after one minute, “Shouldn't something have happened? Shouldn't time have changed by now?”

T'lan answered, “Temporal theory would suggest that if the time line has been changed we would not notice. Yet alternate reality theory would suggest that instead our realities diverge further, thereby leaving both realities to continue on their course. The only way this reality would not occur is if a vital choice has been denied or stopped to make this reality. James, any option chosen and we may never know the effect for years... or even at all.”

James grumbled, taking off his officer's jacket and slumping it on the captain's chair, “Somehow, I find that very dissatisfying.”

“It does feel unresolved, James.”

“Yes.” James brushed off debris on his captain's chair, and slumped down, letting the weariness of an aged warrior take over, “But I feel very certain that nothing's changed. All we can do is forge ahead. T'lan... if this reality dies or not we still have work to do while it lives. We have to get Allison back, OUR Allison. Since Victor's no longer an ally, we'll have to find another way.”

T'lan added, “And regain our finances. You did spend our savings on the other Allison.”

“And I didn't regret it.”

Dora had a piece to add, =/\=”James, my body is hurting all over! Not the biological portion... the metal extension. By current prices it would be more worthwhile to buy a new ship.”=/\=

“Babe.” James patted the armrest of his chair, “You never let go of your ship. Don't worry, I have a plan as always. Back at McKinley Station ruins we scanned a New Orleans Class ship in perfect condition. It somehow survived the Earth blast tucked in dry dock. I think it needs a new owner, don't you?”

A couple of the crewmembers went pale. T'lan said, “Are you sure? Isn't that graverobbing?”

“Graverobbing, battlefield recycling, resource reallocation... sure beats letting the Hawks or Doves get their hands on it. And who knows... we might be able to fix up The Stolen Heart. But lets face it... we didn't start the war, and we sure didn't destroy the Earth. But we did try to help people and keep the peace, even if we weren't enough. I think it's fair that we get to use the Federation's resources to carry on her missions... even in spirit honouring her codes is enough. I just can't stand the idea of someone else using her ships and guns for oppression. Best we get to her first, and anything else that isn't bolted down..”

“Sir... are you suggesting we rebel?”

“Why not?”

T'lan thought it over, “No reason.”

He rose up from his chair, “We're the last people to embody the spirit of the Federation, everyone. You won't find it in that sad mess that calls themselves 'Starfleet' anymore. You won't find it in the dozens of petty warlords that's taken over the coreworlds and colonies. You'll find it in us... in the freebooters, the spacers, the farmers, the rogue traders, the roustabouts, rapscallions and wanderers. You'll see it when we explore strange new worlds, seek out new life, new civilizations, when we help out our fellow sentients, create kinships, create bonds of trust and pay for it with responsibility and duty... even blood and sacrifice when needed. You'll see that spirit when we do right by our neighbors.”

James paused. When he was on a roll it was hard for him to stop. Being preachy was his vice. “Our blood enemies the Klingons became our staunchest allies when we sacrificed our best ship to try and save their colony from Romulan attack. Then the Romulans became our friends when we fended off an invasion to their homeworld... and asked nothing in return but their friendship. The Cardassians were our allies after we helped them rebuild their homeworld from the devastation of The Dominion War. That's THE FEDERATION! If we'd taken that example years ago, learned from it, adapted it to The Triad War's needs... we may still have a Federation!”

He sighed, “But failing that... and being given the here and now... we can only honour that example. We must carry on, and do right by that code. If we do that... we will have our Federation back.”

James ordered, “Engineering, get those warp engines back to full. Whatever it takes. We have a lot of work to do. And T'lan?”

“Yes sir?”

“Nuhir... she must have a funeral. A dignified one. She'll be cremated in a sun, in the way of her people, and so that she will never be used again. It'll be at 09:00 hours.”

“Aye sir. Consider it done.”

****
Alpha Centauri, Year 2406, Hawksley Industries Industrial Complex, Administration Central Tower, CEO's office.
****

Sipping Saurian Brandy straight out of the flagon, whilst thumping the flagon onto an expensive oak desk, Lysander Van Der Puls Hawksley enjoyed the view of his transparent, duranium and transparent aluminum reinforced office dome and the expansive greenhouse full of the only functional rain forest still left on the heavily industrialized planet, then swept his beady eyes towards the expanse of factories like a cobweb of tarnishing metal over a ugly brown and grey landscape.

Alpha Centauri was experiencing a second renaissance.

And it was all thanks to Lysander's guidance.

When he heard four years ago that Rebecca was dead and James Corgan was missing, he presumed his exiled, imposed by the couple after they found out his time machine (and his blessing) sent Allison (of this timeline) to the future, to be over.

He'd retaken Hawksley Industries with a vengeance.

No trade or stock buying rules anymore, it was all localized and Alpha Centauri hadn't privatized a business to that extent in centuries. Using some Ferengi trade partners still versed in the old ways, he initiated a hostile takeover that broke every Federation rule... if they still were in effect, which they weren't.

That brought Hawksley back to pre-Civil War standing. Rich, powerful, and with a vice grip on the heart of former Federation technology and raw materials production. There were plenty of buyers from the Hawk Faction, and even through covert channels to the Doves. As long as the two sides, so diminished since The Battle at the Edge of Forever, kept pounding each other to nonexistence, he didn't care. When they were gone, there was always the Klingons, the Hydrans, the Dominion, the Romulan Star Republic, or whomever wanted his goods. It didn't matter.

He was rich. He was powerful. He was not only the most wealthy man in the former Federation, but Governor and Generalissimo of his own planet. Alpha Centauri was his!

And all his enemies were dead and gone. There were a few, but malcontents in his own realm to which he could easily quash. Rebecca, the only woman who could outthink him, was dead. James Corgan, the only man that dared try to play in Lysander's league despite lacking Hawksley's intelligence and vigor, was gone. The Hawks and Doves lacked leadership on his par, since most of their brightest commanding officers were gone as well.

Lovely! It was life just the way he liked it.

His attention was brought to a display screen, turning off stock and profit projections as it showed the sensor readings of two Federation ships.

“Well, if this isn't interesting...” Lysander brought up a visual. An Excelsior class, old but in good shape, and a New Orleans class vessel flew in tandem. Tower control brought the two into orbit, as they circled around the planet Lysander ordered a very detailed scan. Both ships were heavily armed, the Excelsior being a Lakota variant battlecruiser with some unknown modifications, the New Orleans was at pre-Civil War post-Dominion War spec. “Not bad.” Lysander tipped his felt hat, ~“Respectable. They must be rich.”~ Was all he thought. It wasn't uncommon to see ships so heavily armed these days, Federation space was very dangerous. It was unusual to see intact original spec ships, however. It raised his eyebrow. Most ships these days were cobbled together, hap hazardous to fly, well below the technology of the other races, or they were new and recent designs that were nowhere nearly as good as pre-Civil War ships. He called up the registry on both vessels.

The Excelsior was identified as the I.S.S. Stolen Heart. ~”Sounds more like a yacht vessels than an armed cargohauler.”~ Lysander thought, reading its registry. It was based out of a Space Boomer Fleet, their home planet was in the former Romulan Neutral Zone, a now Romulan colony. That too was not unusual. Boomer Fleets, neutral ones, tended to be registered from alien ports, but most preferred Orion registries. ~“Why Romulan for this one?”~

The other read as the I.S.S. Weasel's Luck. It too was registered by the Romulan Star Republic. ~”Smeggers have an odd sense of humour.”~

Both ships didn't have owner registries, or it was not showing. That raised his alarms.

“A little paranoid... are you? Lets find out who owns you before I tell you to smeg off.”

He created a linkup with Romulan Star Republic's Embassy on Alpha Centauri to find the pertinent data. The uplink was a little slow, and the Romulan receptionist was a little paranoid. No matter. Gold pressed latinum was a great keycode.

The data he requested came in.

His face turned pale and the Saurian Brandy in his stomach wanted to launch right out.

Both ships were registered to James Lionel Corgan.

“Smeg me...”

A warning light came on, and when he gave it it's attention, he found that the planet's main geothermal power grid was going down. He saw an explosion plume at the main power junction, the one connecting the power plant to Hawksley Industries headquarters. The lights went down, the displays dimmed to minimum power.

“RESERVE POWER! NOW!”

Lysander, smug in this little victory, wasn't worried about any hostile takeover from James Corgan. The man didn't have Lysander's brains or strategic brilliance. He couldn't know about the starships Lysander owned, the ones that would only take fifteen minutes to get here, and would pound James ships to scrap metal. Nobody could know that the MA/AM generators under his office could last him years on reserve power. He had more forcefields than god had angels, and an army of corporate raiders that would turn any invasion into mincemeat.

He recalled his ships positions and warmed up the communications array for deep space transmission.

Only by relay, his defense force ships were chasing a fleet of vessels that outnumbered them three to one.

That was when his sensors went down. Another explosion could be seen from his office, as a large satellite dish tumbled into the industrial complex. Another went down, and a third was destroyed. The backup arrays were all down.

“SMEG!” Lysander punched his console rewarded with a sore fist. “Who could do this?! James can't do all that! He's an idiot!”

Reception called urgently on his console. He answered reluctantly, “Can you go away right now? I know the power's out and we have no communications! You're supposed to do something about it!!!”

The receptionist was panicking, hiding under a desk while phaser fire danced over her head, “Grand Governor Sir! The office is being stormed by raiders!”

“SECURITY!!!!!!!”

On cue, his entire computer network crashed. No power, no forcefields, no way to call for help.

Smeg didn't seem an appropriate word anymore.

“Oh shi...”

*BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!*

The front office door, probably the last exported mahogany to come from old Earth, exploded in fine expensive splinters.

Out of the smoke and dust came a phalanx of armed troops, dressed in the florid individuality of the space boomers, their common symbol of the rocketship orbiting a planet their only identifying mark.

Out of the phalanx were three people. The first was a Amazonian Vulcan, sporting her beret and her favorite phase polaron rifle. The second was a surprise to Lysander, because he thought her dead when Earth was destroyed. It was the biological CPU portion of the Temporal and Alternate Reality Transporter (or T.A.R.T. for short), a petite and thin Andorian whom stumbled a little as she walked, but was assisted by robotic walking cables that sprouted out of her back. Her antennae were wired with cybernetics while here eyes were covered over with goggles. Out of place, she wore a flowery sundress.

The third man Lysander identified right from the start. He wore a parade uniform, lacking Starfleet icons but replaced with Space Boomer pins and badges. He still wore his Starfleet ribbons and medals, but had the look of a general and a pirate. He was heavily armed, a phaser rifle in his hands and a sword and phaser pistol on his belt.

“James? You did this?”

James Corgan just gave a shrug, “I had a little help from my friends, and I'm not talking about Bob Seger. But the invasion was my idea, and so was most of the plan.”

Lysander couldn't believe it, “It was you? How?”

James didn't give much of an answer, “You and Rebecca were the braintrusts, but I had to be self made. It's given me experience you two lacked. Such as how to do an effective ground combat operation. Guess you missed that at the Wolf 359 Tactical School. Oops.”

“You won't get...”

“Please Lysander, before you go into the hackney villain lines, let me speak. I need the T.A.R.T. Now. It better still be in Hawksley Temporalwerks and it better be unlocked. If it isn't... you die. Get me?”

“Smeg off!”

“Wrong answer. Transporter room, beam in the executive officers.”

Lysander's entire Board Room was transported to his office, with guarding Space Boomers training rifles to their heads. Unlike Lysander most were not military men, and were sniveling and afraid by the time they arrived.”

“Ok.... they die.” Corgan said with no uncertain terms, “Unless you comply.”

Lysander quivered, he tried to be brave. It was bravery fueled by arrogance. This was James Lionel Corgan! I knew his combat record, but he was in no way in Lysander's league. There was no way James could outthink him! “Go ahead. Try it. I don't care. Kill them all. We don't negotiate with terrorists.”

James smiled. The board wailed. A few of them even had time to curse. Weapons unlocked safeties with a clack.

And James unfurled a neat little package, a bandolier of knives.

“Hear that boys?” James addressed Lysander's board executives, “He doesn't care whether you live or die. Tell you what. Each of you gets a knife. If he doesn't unlock the T.A.R.T... you get to go Ides of March on his ass. Just do me a favour and make it slow.”

Lysander piped, “WHAT?!?!?!”

A Ferengi snarled, “Don't bother with the knife. I'll tear his lobes off with my own pointed teeth!”

James grinned and shrugged, “Sorry Lysander, but you can always count on self preservation as a strong motivator. Are you going to give me what I want, no trouble? Or are you going to let your executives make a hostile takeover all over your nice clean floor?”

Lysander was quick to answer, “Alright! Alright! I'll smegging well unlock the T.A.R.T.!”

James tucked the bundle of knives in his coat. “Thank you.”

“Smeg you.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.” James tapped his communication badge, “Bring the guest of honour to the Temporalwerks. Get backup generators hooked up. We got the company's full co-operation.” He turned the badge off. “Dora?” He addressed the Andorian cyborg, “Are you ready?”

Dora responded quite pleasantly, “To get back at the Arrogant Prince and bring the Chrononauts home? You bet!”

James ruffled her hair, "That's my girl!"

T'lan asked, "What do we do with him?" She contemptuously pointed to Lysander.

James shrugged, "Don't worry. He's mostly harmless."

Lysander had never been more insulted in his life.

And it was James' sweetest moment.

(follows immediately after "Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums")

"Stairway to Heaven"

John Walker
Mercedes Delgado


There was a long moment of silence when Korth's body hit the ground. Then Korath fell to his knees and howled. No, screamed. This was not the Klingon death howl---it had nothing to do with releasing his son's spirit. This was all about a father watching his only child die.

John, now spattered with Korth's blood, took an unsteady step backwards. He looked from Korath to Mercedes. Her phaser was still in her hand.

She looked completely calm.

Korath didn't bother to look up when he said, "You killed my son."

"I did," Mercedes said. "He would have tried to prevent the mission."

"He was my son!"

"Yes," Mercedes said, "and he made a choice. Now, it's your turn to make one."

Korath did look up at her then and, slowly, he let his son's body sink back to the ground. He stood up to his full height and took a step forward. They stared each other down. All that was missing was the tumbleweed.

Nobody moved.

"Are we going to have a problem?" Mercedes asked, her fingers tightening their grip on the phaser in hand.

Korath stared at her. Worlds could have risen and fallen in the time it took him to answer. Finally: "No. No. Korth . . . made his choice."

Mercedes nodded, satisifed. She turned around to focus again on her photo display.

Then Korath stepped forward and did the most un-Klingon like thing John had ever seen a Klingon do. He drew his bat'leth and charged, closing the gap between him and Mercedes in seconds. Mercedes's back was still turned to him as Korath raised the blade over his head. He started to bring the bat'leth down.

"Mercedes!" John yelled.

For one brief, awful moment, John saw the pictures of the dead children and regretted calling out the warning, when he could have just let her die. This wasn't the Led Zeppeling singing woman he'd met in the prison camps, and this wasn't the loyal friend who'd helped him find his little girl on Earth---this wasn't the Mercedes he once knew, but when Korath raised that blade, that's who he saw. Calling out had been a knee jerk reaction.

It might have also been a mistake.

Mercedes turned in time to fire her phaser and pull back, but she couldn't get out of the way entirely. Korath's bat'leth landed high near her left shoulder and tore all the way down, from her collarbone to her waistline. Mercedes screamed as she was forced to her knees, her flesh ripping open like a garment torn at the seams. Korath fell forward and landed face down. He didn't move. The phaser had been aimed at his face.

"Sonofabitch!" Mercedes screamed, suddenly not nearly so calm. John ran over to her, stepping over Korath's body to do so, and tried to get a look at her wound, see how deep the cut was. He couldn't tell, not in the bad lighting and with Mercedes hunching in on herself. It could just be the makings of an ugly scar, or it could be that her organs would be sliding out the left side of the body. John didn't wait to find out. He put a hand on her shoulder and then tapped the commbadge hidden in his pocket. "Walker to Perdon," he said. "Two to beam up straight to Sickbay."

"Aye, sir," the Transporter Chief said, and seconds later they were on the Perdon. John lifted Mercedes onto a biobed while she swore a mile a minute and Dr. K'Vara came running over. "Captain!" she said.

Mercedes arm came up immediately and she aimed the phaser at the doctor. K'Vara stopped moving. "Get. Back," Mercedes said.

"Mercedes!" John said.

She ignored him. Blood was covering half the bio-bed, but her hand was still steady. "Captain," K'Vara said. "It's me. I won't hurt you."

"Yeah. My second-in-command just tried to bissect me. I don't think so. Get the fuck out." Mercedes turned to John. "You do it."

"What?" John stared at her like she'd grown a second head. In the better light, he could see that the cut wasn't quite as deep as he'd originally thought, but it was still aways above his skill set as an engineer, pilot, and executioner. Mercedes read the look and glared back at him. "Just do it," she said.

John shook his head but shrugged and took the medical tricorder from the doctor. "Sorry," he told her.

"But---"

Mercedes tightened her hand on the phaser and K'Vara fled.

Once she and John were alone, Mercedes cried out and let the phaser drop to the ground. John stepped over it. "You know," he said, "it's not like Korath just attacked you without provocation. I doubt the good doctor would have tried to kill you on a whim."

"You can never let your guard down," Mercedes said through clenched teeth. Her face was absurdly pale. "She could be Korath's best friend for all I know."

"I don't think Korath had any friends," John said.
"Motherfucker certainly doesn't have any now."

John paused at that and then continued what he was doing. "I'm going to give you something for the pain," he told her. "You okay with that, cause otherwise . . . you're in for a very bad afternoon." He looked over her. "A worse one."

Mercedes laughed dryly and closed her eyes. "Do it," she said, and John injected her with the hypospray.

As he worked, trying his best not to make a butcher's job of her body, Mercedes became considerably looser, although she stayed conscious. Her eyes were a little vague but open when she asked, "Are you on his side, John? Korath's?"

"Korath's dead," John said. "Not a good side to be on, Mercedes."

"Not what I asked."

John sighed. "When have I ever given you cause to doubt me?"

She looked at him or towards him, anyway. She was having a little trouble focusing her eyes---from the medication or the blood loss, John wasn't sure. "You weren't there," she said. "When I needed you."

"I know. I'm sorry for that."

"What the fuck does sorry do for me now?"

John glared at her. "I have been with you," he told her slowly, "every godamned step of the way, haven't I? I should have protected you and your family before and I didn't, I couldn't, and I'm sorry. But I have spent the last six years of my life trying; I brought my daughter into your Hell . . . and that means nothing to you?"

Mercedes laughed. It was a low laugh, mirthless, almost hurt John to hear it. "Dios mio, I am so damn sick of hearing about your daughter. Oh, Kaylee needs me; I have to protect Kaylee."

"Shut up."

She didn't. "Kaylee," Mercedes said, "is the reason you weren't at my back; Kaylee is the reason Carmela and Ana and Jaime are dead. Or did you forget about them---is it only your child that means a damn?"

"You think I could forget about something like that?" John still had nightmares about the bodies he had found. "I am sorry, Mercedes, for what happened to you and yours, but don't you put those deaths on my little girl."

Mercedes closed her eyes and tried to tug away from him---not the best call, considering he was still trying to put her together. "Hold still," John hissed. "Or did you want to die before you could kill a thousand children?"

"Before we kill them, John. Unless you were planning on backing out?"

John said nothing.

Mercedes snorted. "You and Korath are so alike. You won't see it, but you are. You'll just go ahead and kill everyone in the universe if it means that your family gets to survive. You don't care about the cause---you don't care about the mission. I'm trying to create a better universe---"

"By destroying it?"

"By killing the bad guys."

John laughed. "You really don't get it, do you? We are the bad guys, Mercedes."

"No, we aren't," she said. "No, we aren't! We are doing---"

"---what has to be done."

"Yes," Mercedes said. "Yes." She tried to sit up again, and the pain must have been excruciating. John wondered if he had given her enough analgesic.

"Jesus," he said, "stop moving. God, you're such a stupid bitch."

"And you're a pendejo who's wasting time. Stop fucking around and finish this."

John's lips twitched a little at that. So did Mercedes. If there weren't so much blood between them, it would have been a nice moment.

Mercedes settled back on the biobed and was so quiet that John thought she had passed out. She hadn't. "I thought Korath was a true believer. I thought he'd do anything for the cause."

"You should try to sleep, Mercedes."

"Would you have tried to stab me in the back like that?"

John went still. "Don't ask me to choose between you and my daughter, Mercedes."

"I'm not," Mercedes said. "I'm asking you to choose between her and the universe." She shook her head. "If the Doves don't win this war, the D'Agosto's of the the universe will be in every corner. They'll be preying on every innocent person alive. You could find Kaylee instead of me in that fucking warehouse."

But don't you see, John thought desperately. You've killed at least the number of people D'Agosto has. You've become your monster, Mercedes. How can you not see that?

But she didn't. He could tell, just by looking into her face, pale, exhausted, zealous. She looked so zealous.

Insane.

"You have to make a choice," she said.

"Not that one," John said. "I can send Kaylee away." He didn't like to think about it, but he knew now, after seeing what had happened to Korth. "I should have done it, a long time ago. It was selfish, to keep her with me. I was trying to protect her, but---she has to go. That's all there is to it."

"You can't send her away," Mercedes said, sounding honestly surprised. "She knows too much about us."

John stared at her. "She's just a kid," he said.

"No one's just a kid anymore." Mercedes looked at him. "Kaylee's either one of us or she's not. If she's not . . ."

Mercedes closed her eyes. Sweat dripped down the side of her face. John had almost finished patching her up, but he stopped and took a step back. "You're talking about killing my daughter."

"If she's a liability, yes. Is she a liability, John?"

John said nothing for a long time. Then, "No. She's not."

Nobody spoke for awhile.

John finished his makeshift job. Mercedes was only half-conscious by the time he did so. He watched her lying on the biobed. "We can never leave you," he murmured. "You'd never let us go."

"Can't," Mercedes said. "Can't afford to."

John nodded.

Mercedes opened heavy-lids and blinked slowly at him. "It'll get better," she whispered. "Things will . . . get better. You'll see. Once . . . once we complete the mission . . . all the missions . . .we're making the universe a better place."

John felt tears slide down the side of his face. Mercedes used her good hand to touch his cheek. "You understand, right?" she asked. "I need you to understand."

"I understand," John told her.

I understand you're forcing me to make a choice.

He turned away from his friend and started rifling through the doctor's medicines. When he found what he needed, he came back. "I'm going to give you something for the pain. It'll help you sleep, Mercedes."

"Okay," Mercedes said.

And she barely nodded as John gave her an overdose of sedatives.

He smoothed her hair back, away from her forehead, and watched his old friend lying there. Without thinking about it, he started singing an old song, a Led Zeppelin one. "And as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our soul, there walks a lady we all know, who shines white light and wants to show, how everything still turns to gold."

Mercedes eyes fluttered open once. "Hey," she said. "That's . . . one of my favorites."

"I remember," John said quietly and watched her until she stopped breathing.

7217