Written by Jonathan Arnold, Susan Hill, Anthony Neff, Kat North, Wesley Street, Monica Veasey and Josetta Williams, plotted and edited by Wesley Street based on "Dark Emergence" by Kat North

The main chamber of the Arboretum was empty. Lieutenant Xavier St. Jean, Acting Chief Engineer, USS Endeavour, slowly strolled through the artificially sculpted garden. He ignored the warp-distorted stars dashing by the ceiling-mounted portals as the mighty starship barrelled towards its destination. Science Station 134. Battle.

I really ought to be in Engineering, he thought, noting the alert lights that cast a pink hue over the various pieces of flora. But what is there to do down there? We are as ready as we are going to be. All we have to do is get there. Lieutenant Blake has it under control for the time being.

The Kaferian apples appeared ripe and he picked one off of the alien tree. He rubbed the striped piece of fruit against his pant leg and took a bite. The juice dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand. For some bizarre reason, facing immanent danger and possible death made him hungry. He chomped the piece of fruit down to its core and carelessly tossed it into the bushes.

"I wish people wouldn't do that," a male voice from behind him twanged. St. Jean spun around on his boot. All of the other crew members were either at their battle stations or in their quarters resting. All of the non-Starfleet personnel had been evacuated. Or they were supposed to have been. Miller Watts, one of the ship's civilian horticultural specialists, stood behind him, leaning against a rake.

St. Jean jabbed a finger at him. "You are not supposed to be here!" he said angrily. "You were supposed to have been on a shuttle!"

Watts grinned his usual "aw-shucks" grin. "Gee, Loo-tenant Saint Jean, I guess I just didn't feel like goin'." Watts was one of the few people who refused to pronounce St. Jean's name properly, Saint Zhaun, but rather butchered it into North American English. He bent over and picked up the core distastefully. He tossed it towards a nearby replicator where it would be broken down and recycled.

St. Jean rubbed his forehead. "I think you are missing the point. It's not as if you were given a choice."

Watts dropped the rake into a nearby pile of mulch and began to spread it around a cluster of Talosian singing plants. "When you've lived through all I've lived through, Loo-tenant, you learn ways to get out of sticky situations pretty derned quick." He paused and turned his head. "Flea," he called. "Bring another bag of mulch, would you?" A little human girl stepped around a tree, dragging a plastic bag that was almost her size. She smiled when Watts said, "Thank you, darlin'."

St. Jean's eyes widened. "She's here too?"

Flea looked up at him with wide eyes that reminded him of his infant son. It tugged at a string in his heart. The girl was perpetually silent. Through examination, Doctor Montgomery had dispelled the notion that she was a mute but no one could recall the girl ever speaking.

Watts placed a gentle, weathered hand on her shoulder. "She wouldn't go either, sir."

The "loo-tenant" shook his head in irritation but then sighed, resigned. "I guess you two are along for the ride, then. Heaven help me."

Watts returned to his work. "So what are you doing here? The ship being under a red alert and all."

"I needed a breather. I just spent the last several hours prepping Engineering for battle. But I think we are ready to go. The crew is extremely focused and efficient." He looked down at Flea. The girl was at his feet, sitting cross-legged in the grass. She had bony little legs that stuck out from under her plain skirt like a couple of toothpicks. He leaned down and scooped her up into his arms. She was very light. Staring into her eyes he was surprised to see that they were very deep, almost knowing. Her lips formed a slight, almost motherly, smile and she patted him lightly on the cheek.

Watts laughed slightly. "Flea's real perceptive-like. She knows when people are worried. Is this hairy situation with the Khynah buggin' you?"

St. Jean nodded. "I guess it is. I've been in several engagements. This is nothing new to me. But... I don't know. I have a very bad feeling."

"You ever been in command?"

"Hmmm?" "Maybe you're worried about your people. You know. Your engineers."

"I never thought about that." He gently set Flea down and she walked away. "No, I have never been in command during a battle. I have always had the luxury of just having to follow the orders of my superiors. Now it looks like I'm going to be calling some of the shots."

Watts returned to his raking. "Feels weird don't it? I can relate. I was on Jouret IV at New Providence."

A frown twisted across St. Jean's features. "How could that be? The Borg totally decimated that colony."

"Not totally. I was working there as head horticulturist. When the Borg attacked I was working outside of the colony limits in the fields. I remember lookin' up and seein' that big 'ol black cube just hoverin' there in the sky. The noise was like nothin' I can describe. The ground started shakin' and I watched as New Providence was ripped out of the ground. There were a few others with me and I led them to some nearby caves where some emergency supplies had been stashed. We came out... oh... it must have been weeks later. There was nothing there. It was all gone. We were rescued by Starfleet a few months later during a follow-up survey mission."

The story amazed St. Jean. The simple gardener was more than he appeared to be. Suddenly the communications tone chimed. "Blake to St. Jean. Sir, could you join me, please? I would like you to take a look at some equipment packs that have been put together."

St. Jean tapped his comm badge. "I'm on my way, Darian." He nodded a silent thank-you to Watts and walked away from the quiet solitude. Watts continued his raking as the starship cut through the eternal night. As Ensign Theresa Sauter trod her way through the Engineering Section she lingered momentarily to absorb all that was happening around her. During her tenure aboard the Endeavour she had never seen her fellow engineers so tense, so focused. All of the shifts were now on duty as the ship slowly approached the science station at impulse speed. Almost all of the computer monitors were manned and were busily chirping and beeping as data was entered and retrieved from each one.

"Has anyone seen my torque welder?" someone shouted.

"Is this the latest schematic for the science station?" called someone else.

The roar of the many voices was almost deafening to the wee ensign as she watched a multitude of crewmen and officers rushing from here to there. The tension was almost unbearable.

"Excuse me, Ensign," said Crewman Bradford as he bumped into her, trying to get past in a hurry.

Sauter hurried to her nearby office cubicle, trying to hold back the many thoughts of peril that were swirling around in her head, like a black cloud. It had been several hours since the distress call had been received from the station. The Khynah had attacked an innocent Federation research post brutally and without reason. Or, as one could say, simply because they could. In her mind, they were ruthless killers. No, that was too kind a word. They were butchers, taking sadistic pleasure in their victories and refusing any sort of mercy towards their victims.

St. Jean had quickly called in all of his best people, those with whom he knew were very capable, and had divided them into away teams, relaying their orders from the captain. They were to beam over to the station and repair the damage that the Khynah had inflicted upon its environmental systems and restore power to whatever they could. He was to personally lead "Team Two," the second team, consisting of Lieutenant Toras Karrik, Lieutenants (junior grade) Sarah Thomas and S'Tarris, Ensigns Jason Alberts and James Guyle, and Crewmen Adam Evens, Ellen DuShane and Arnwatt Sy. His trusted associate and acting assistant chief engineer, Lieutenant Darian Blake was leading the first team, AKA "Team One." Blake was to be accompanied by Lieutenants (j.g.) Vella "Hyper" Nor and Colin Cornwall, Ensigns Copla and T'Yhin, and Crewmen Jordan Bradford and Richard Rhyms. And her. Faithful little Terry Sauter. She was on "Team One" because it was going to be the first Engineering party to beam over. She was not quite sure what that would be like, being with the vanguard, leaping into action like a ballet dancer.

During the evacuation of the ship's resident civilians, St. Jean had ordered his subordinates to study the station technical schematics. She sat down behind her desk and called up the "blueprints" on her padd. Ever since the first call had come in, Sauter had been too busy to think about what she might be encountering after transport. Finding herself too distracted, she put the padd down and began counting the tools in her equipment case for the hundredth time, trying not to think of the bloody massacre that had occurred just hours ago. She had never been in battle before. Not counting the fights with her brothers-- and they would always take care not to really hurt her. She was sure the Khynah would not be so considerate. Hair pulling was to be least of her of worries. Keeping her head attached to her neck was a higher concern.

Hyper zipped past Sauter's office in a blur, then stopped and back peddled to the open door. "How are you holding up, Terry?" she said, concern for her friend crossing her animated features and sounding in her high-pitched voice. Hyper knew Sauter was a high-caliber, top-rated Starfleet officer and would do what needed to be done without hesitation. But she also knew Terry Sauter from "Podunk," USA was a bit naive when it came to situations that concerned life and death. Hyper was fully aware of Sauter's inexperience in real battle... or in facing death. Hopefully, she would not have to engage in actual hand-to-hand combat with the Khynah, but she would surely have to face the reported casualties on the station. The dead. Would Terry be up to that? More importantly, would she?

Sauter glanced up and tried to smile. Her full red lips twitched slightly but failed to stretch. "Hyper. Hi. I'm doing okay, I guess. I'm just checking things out. Again."

"Terry," began Hyper, "hopefully we won't be running into any Khynah, but if we do..."

"I know, I know," said Sauter. "Be careful."

"No." Hyper looked Sauter straight in the eyes. The look she gave chilled Sauter's blood a few degrees. "Kill them before they kill you." The flat statement hung in the air like a shot from an ancient solid projectile weapon.

Sauter's mouth dropped open slightly. Surprise and shock registered on her face. She already had a fair complexion, contrasted by her dark hair, but she seemed to pale even more. Aside form Parrises Squares, Hyper detested hurting anyone even more than she did. If she could say something like this then Sauter knew she was in for far more than she could possibly imagine. She slowly closed her equipment case, the plastic latches snapping shut. "Hyper... I ... I don't know if I can..."

"All right teams!" came St. Jean's beritone voice from down the corridor. "Let's get going!"

Sauter managed a weak grin as Hyper nodded and dashed off. Grin fading, she inhaled deeply as she stood. She grabbed her equipment case and hurried out the door. Endeavour security teams had completed their initial sweeps and had not spotted any Khynah. Where they had gone, no one knew. As Darian Blake's party conglomerated on the transporter platform in Transporter Room 3, St. Jean gave them a set of final instructions. "Don't take any chances. Make the necessary repairs and get out fast. If you are attacked by the Khynah, shoot first. They will not hesitate to attack and kill you. Good luck and come back safe. And that's an order!" He hoped that was an order that could be obeyed. He turned and nodded at Lieutenant (j.g.) Audra McKay, who was manning the operator's console. "Energize," he said.

Her fingers slid the touch-sensitive sequence initiators forward. As the transporter beam locked onto the first team, Audra caught her friends, Darian, Hyper, and Terry, eyes and silently mouthed to them, "Be safe."

As the first of the two engineering teams dematerialized, the second team took their places and the ritual began again. When her eyes met St. Jean's, he coyishly winked at her and then he was gone. Even facing tremendous peril, he could still muster up his incorrigible ability to flirt.

Audra stood alone and still in the suddenly too quiet transporter room. Her thoughts ran wild. Would they encounter the Khynah? Would they survive? Would any of her friends come back alive? She had little time to ponder on these troubling ideas as the next team to beam over to the station began filing through the doors. She, once again, began her task of conveying her crewmates into danger and possible death. Darian Blake and company materialized in an empty corridor. They could not have beamed directly into the fusion generator room because of radiation interference in the area. Damaged conduits leaked lethal levels. They would all need decontamination and treatment for radiation poisoning by the time they finished and none wanted to risk staying too long. Hyper flashed her hand lamp around. There was minimal life support in this section. It was very cold but light flickered on overhead allowing the team to turn off their beacons.

Ensign T'Yhin, a lavender-skinned Saurian, checked the schematics on a padd in his webbed hand. "That way, sir," he sang, indicating a corridor that crossed ahead of them.

"All right, let's get this done." Blake took the lead, with Cornwall right behind. T'Yhin, Copla, and Jordan fell in line. Hyper moved to walk beside Terry. She was worried about how her friend would react to what they might have to face. Rhyms brought up the rear. "Rhyms, keep a watch on our backs," Darian added as they reached the cross corridor.

No amount of forethought could have prepared them for what they found in the corridor. A major battle must have been fought close to the generators. The corridors were littered with dead bodies, most wearing Starfleet uniforms. The gold of engineering and security barely shown through in most places. Colorful splashes of scarlet horror bathed the cloth, drying to a coarse brown. Here and there, green, violet, or blue blood would add a different slash of color to the pallet of the grotesque scene. Darian bit down on his lip and moved forward through the carnage. He hoped his team would be able to concentrate on his back and follow him through. For him, there was nothing he could look at to focus away from the death. The smell of decay was already beginning and he was forced to take shallow breaths through pinched nostrils to keep the bile from rising to his throat. There was almost no way to cross the floor without flesh or entrails squishing beneath his boots.

Hyper forced her mind to separate from what she was seeing. She concentrated on every step, terrified that she might slip and fall into the blood and gore that lay everywhere. She was half aware that the ice cold fingers she grasped belonged to Terry who followed behind her. Her boot brushed against a body and the limp head of the corpse rolled to the side. A mouth parted in a final scream of pain and fear, and sightless eyes stared up at her. It was then she realized that the head was no longer attached to a body. A Khynah blade had decapitated one of the Starfleet crew that had fought to keep their lives. Warm bitterness rushed from her stomach and into her mouth. She began to gag. She knew that if she started to loose control of her reactions she would never regain her composure. She fought to keep from retching but could not swallow it back. With horror she realized there was no where to throw up without desecrating one of the bodies around her further. A sob rose inside her and she held her hand over her mouth.

Darian heard the sounds behind him. He knew he had to act fast or the whole team would break. The threads of training were being pulled apart by the inhuman mutilation around them. "Nor! Get ahold of yourself!" he snapped. He stepped around Cornwall and the others to reach the very junior lieutenant. He grabbed her hard by the shoulders and shook her. "Clear your head! You have a job to do. If we don't get life support and power stabilized, more people could die! Concentrate on what we can do and put what is already done out of your mind. Nor, do you understand me?!?" The young woman nodded slowly. She looked him in the eye and though she looked bruised to the soul, she was back in control. He knew the crisis had passed. Apparently Terry was not the only one that needed to be watched after.

"What was that?" Richard Rhyms spoke from the end of the straggled line. His usually freckled face appeared gray in the light. "Sir, I think someone is coming!"

"Don't you get jumpy on me too, Crewman," Blake commented wearily. "Keep your heads, people." He turned to move back to the front of the line. But Rhyms insisted on the certainty of what he heard and then Terry thought she heard movement down the corridor too.

"Sir, I think we had better take cover," she said.

Darian felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "All right. Move!" He started off at a quick jog, trying to dodge bodies and limbs, sliding a few times in blood or other body fluids. His team kept pace right behind him. An access hatch near the base of the bulkhead ahead was bent and barely hanging from its brackets. "Inside! Quick!" Blake tore the hatch away and shoved Cornwall inside, Nor, Sauter, the other ensigns, and finally Bradford, Rhyms and himself. He pulled the hatch back against the opening and held it with the tips of his fingers.

Footsteps were unmistakable now. A group of people were coming up quickly behind. Only the curve of the corridor had kept them out of sight. Blake and his team held their breath. Sweat began to break out on their brows.

Three beings that fit the description of the Khynah appeared. They wore simple uniforms in vivid tones of orange, red, and brown. Wicked-looking knives stuck from their belts and they also carried some sort of phased energy weapons in their hands. They passed within inches of where the engineers hid. The tension in Blake's arms was so great he was afraid that his fingers would tremble and he would drop the hatch that covered them, giving them away and condemning them to the same fate as those dead outside in the corridor. But finally they were out of sight and then out of hearing.

"Security reported that the station was clear!" hissed the hulking Jordan Bradford.

"They did," Hyper answered. "And obviously they were wrong." Suddenly all of their communicators rang with the warning cry of someone on the station. "It's a trap! They were hiding! Waiting for us to...!" His words were suddenly cut off.

"Blake to Endeavour." They were keeping their voices low but urgency bled through his tone as he spoke into his communicator. "There are Khynah soldiers on the station! I repeat, there are Khynah soldiers on the station."

"Forrester to all Endeavour crew." The captain's voice answered with force. "Hang on. We will not leave you. We have engaged a Khynah ship and cannot lower shields to beam you back aboard. Just hang on!" Frustration and rage edged his voice. He was helpless to retrieve his subordinates from danger and could only offer limited protection from space. "We're on our own now. Let's go." Darian opened their concealment and they all crawled out. Every team member was pale and Blake knew that the blood was gone from his own face as well. They set off, all of them aware of the danger that they were in and equally aware of the importance of their task.

"Wait, where's Terry?" Hyper pulled Darian to a stop. He looked back and saw that they were one member short.

Hyper and Blake knelt at the opening to the access hatch. Terry huddled inside, knees drawn to her chest. Tears beaded at the corners of her icy eyes. "Ensign, give me your hand." Darian tried to coax with a firm tone.

"I'm not going!" she said with equal firmness. "They'll kill us all, just like they killed everyone on the station!" "Terry, we have to move now. We have to get power back up so that we can defend ourselves and the others. Without power and life-support, they will kill us all!" Hyper was brutally honest. Her friend was afraid but there was no use trying to reassure her that the situation was not dire. Instead she tried to instill a sense of purpose into the other woman. "Dammit, help us out here! Staying in there is suicide! Now move it!" She gave a hard yank on Terry's uniform jacket sleeve and nearly drug the small woman out. Blake grabbed her other arm and Terry no longer resisted as they helped her out into the corridor.

She wiped water from her cheek. "I'm sorry. You're right," she whispered. She joined the rest of the group that was waiting ahead.

"Keep an eye on her," Darian told Hyper.

"I will," she promised.

Two more corridors were strewn with more carnage and they were in sight of the reactor. The group huddled against the bulk-head and caught sight of two Khynah guarding the entrance. Then three more moved into sight and joined the first two. Apparently they were expecting Starfleet personnel on board the station now to attempt to repair life-support and power first. They were ready to ambush them. The team silently moved back out of hearing range.

"There's another generator two levels up," Hyper suggested. "Let's make for it. Maybe they aren't guarding every reactor, just the ones near our beam-in points."

"It is two levels up and on the other side of the station," Darian countered. "And who knows how many Khynah patrols will be between here and there." He was intimately aware of how close every member of the team already was to their limits. He knew they would never make it across the massive station. "We don't have time for that. We will have to take control of this one and repair it. There are eight of us and only five of them."

Hyper wanted to argue further, then she saw the look in Terry's eyes. It was echoed in the faces of the others. Blake was right. They had to act now or they would soon be paralyzed with fear. She nodded her compliance and Blake outlined a plan of attack. Darkness and cold overwhelmed the senses. St. Jean and his team materialized in a corridor without life-support. Oxygen remained but there was no gravity or light. In the dark the feeling of null gravity was even more disorienting. He flipped on his wrist beacon and saw a foot float past its beam. He grabbed the attached leg just as Toras Karrik, an Andorian, flipped over. The transferred momentum pushed St. Jean towards the floor and he had to throw out an arm to protect his face.

"People, find a handhold against the wall and stabilize yourselves," he ordered. The walls were already beginning to take on frost as the hull temperature dropped from lost heat. Fine ice crystals hung in the air. James Guyle looked like he was fighting down sickness but he was handling it. Many people had a hard time without gravity. The others appeared to be fine. "Let's move."

St. Jean led the way. Their progress was slow and careful. They moved forward by kicking off of bulkheads and walls, even off of ceilings a few times, but they had to be careful of loose floating objects that hung in the dark like strange phantoms of incongruity. Without gravity, every moment had a consequence that took practice to anticipate. The last thing he needed was to have one of his team injured.

He sailed around a corridor junction. Something wet and slick slid along his cheek. Involuntarily he swiped it away and the motion altered his course a little. He bumped into the wall and then hung on for support. The others gradually caught up to him. He shined his beacon down the corridor. Drops of thick red blood hung in the air as perfect beads of lost life. Several corpses floated, gently bumping into each other and against the walls. There were four security officers and a couple of Khynah. Entrails and limbs also floated in and out of the light. St. Jean dropped his arm and pointed the beacon at the floor, away from the horror. It looked as if a battle had taken place not too long ago.

A voice came over the communicator. "It's a trap! They were hiding! Waiting for us to...!" The words were suddenly cut off.

Seconds later the captain was speaking. "Forrester to all Endeavour crew," calm steel came through. "Hang on. We will not leave you. We have engaged a Khynah ship and cannot lower shields to beam you back aboard. Just hang on!"

The cold of their environment was nothing to the ice that filled them now. The slaughter was visibly before them and now they knew without a doubt that the enemy was still with them. They were trapped inside a faltering space station with vicious murderers.

"Oh, God," Ellen DuShane whispered as if in prayer.

"We have to get life support operating or we could run out of air and heat before the Endeavour has a chance to rescue us," St. Jean pushed. He knew he had to get his people moving forward before the shock wore off and the numbness left them vulnerable to fear. "Come on."

Jason Alberts floated close to DuShane, almost protectively. They moved even slower now, as if the confirmation of danger had thickened their blood. Something bumped against his thigh and Jason turned his light on it. A mustard gold turtleneck was caught in the beam. Then the body twisted and rolled over. The face was immediately recognizable even beneath the blood stains of a deep knife gash across the forehead. It was Sharon Williams, a middle aged woman who had left the Endeavour with a cocky sureness about her abilities to protect herself and her crew in any situation.

"Shit!" Jason involuntarily shoved at the body with his foot, trying to get away from it. He floated back against DuShane and she grabbed his arm to steady him, clutching him in fright. Wrenching free, he jerked away and pushed in the opposite direction. His momentum carried him past St. Jean and the rest of the team. He flung himself through the retched debris of flesh and through the corridor. His heart hammered and he gulped for breath as he waited on the other side of the morbid spectacle for the rest to catch up. St. Jean said nothing about his flight. They were all relieved to be past it and dreaded seeing more.

Finally they reached the environmental control system junction. A little tension eased as they were able to do something. They began to work, knowing that their time was limited before they would likely gain the attention of the enemy, but they would be supplying precious life-support to their crewmates and perhaps the bare essentials to fight back.

There are many possible futures. The streams of time are continually being shifted and diverted by the decisions made by the infinite number of living beings in existence, resulting in an infinite2 number of potential outcomes. In one future, mathematically more likely than many others but still just as unlikely as many more, it is 75 years in the future and Darian Blake is an old man. And he is dying. Determined to have his exploits as a Starfleet officer immortalized, he has called upon the talents of his great-granddaughter, a rising star in the field of literature. She sits at his bed side, quietly recording the story being told by Great-Gramp Darian.

Blake raises a hand, withered and spotted with age, and gestures toward the ceiling as he re-counts his first engagement with the dreaded Khynah scourge, so many decades ago. He can still see the young faces of his crewmates, many of whom were now dead and buried, too many before their time. Sometimes he slips and calls out to them as if he is still there. Time has not been kind to his mental facilities. But he is still able to speak coherently.

"...and there we were! Trapped on the science station with legions of Khynah around us! Many of us wanted to run. But our objective was clear. We had to get past the soldiers that were guarding the fusion reactor room and get the damn thing operational. There were five of them and eight of us so the odds were in our favor. Of course we were aware that there were other soldiers on the station but that didn't bother us. We were focused on the goal.

"So Hyper, she was our warp specialist, she suggested trying a controlled overload of some nearby conduits. Fry all the Khynah. Too risky, I said, being so near a fusion reactor. Then Terry, oh, she was as so young back then... Terry thought a diversion would be good. Grab the Khynah's attention and ambush them. I agreed to that idea. But there was only one hitch. We needed a volunteer to lead them to us.

"Copla volunteered.

"Copla was a skinny guy. So skinny, on a windy day he had to be careful not to be blown away. Of course there weren't too many windy days in outer space but... ah, I'm getting off track. Oh, yes. Copla.

"We snuck down the corridor, around the curve so we couldn't be seen, and got ready. We drew our phasers and took aim. Copla, he tip-toed the opposite way, right towards the guards. They must not have been paying attention because he was within arms reach when he started screaming and hollering like a mad man. Looked like a Klingon targ in heat he did." Blake began to laugh but then started to choke on phlegm caught in the back of his throat. His great-granddaughter gently tipped his head up and gave him a few sips of water until his coughing fit died. When Blake had calmed down he continued on. "So Copla turned and ran, ran as fast as his skinny legs could carry him. We could hear the grunting and barking the Khynah were making so we knew they were on the way. But... just as Copla turned the corner... a blast of Khynah disrupter discharge struck him from behind, knocking a smoking hole through his chest.

"You know what the worst thing is about death? It's the smell. You can't reproduce it on a holodeck. You never forget. Copla was lifted from the deck, and hit the bulkhead with a loud crunching sound. He then sagged down, a trail of wet blood dribbling downwards from where he had impacted the wall.

"We were so horrified by the sight, we almost forgot what we were doing. Then I got angry, angrier than I could ever remember being. I wanted all those bastards dead so I opened fire with my hand phaser as they came around the corner. The others followed suit. We got three of them. Heavy stun. Lucky for them I was so blinded with anger for the callous murder of my crewmate that I never raised the power level on my weapon.

"But two got through and then everything went into slow motion. One rushed Crewman Bradford with a knife which looked as big as my arm. Serrated edge. Looked like you could cut through titanium with it, let alone slit a throat. But Bradford was a big, burly man and he grabbed the Khynah soldier's arm, the knife quivering inches above his face. They struggled for a few moments, each trying to get the upper hand. The muscles on Bradford's dark face twisted and stretched with strain and his teeth were bared. Bradford was often taken for klutz but in this instance he was a warrior, pure and true as any you might find in Greek mythology. Luckily for our resident Hercules, Terry had managed to get behind them and shot the soldier in the back with her phaser, dropping him like a sack of rocks.

"However, Terry forgot to check her own back and the other Khynah tackled her, knocking her to the deck. T'Yhin, rushed over to help her but the Khynah troop pulled out his own knife and swung it at him. His neck was nearly cleaved from the rest of his body as Saurian blood sprayed everywhere. As T'Yhin fell, I happened to look over. The sole Khynah was on top of Terry, straddling her, his knife in both hands over his head, the knife ready to come down and pierce her flesh. She didn't even scream. She just went limp, ready to accept her approaching death. But I wouldn't let it happen. I leveled my phaser at the soldier's torso and pressed the trigger with my thumb. The yellow beam of light streaked away from me, hitting the alien directly where I had aimed, knocking him unconscious. We pulled the ensign out from under the unconscious alien butcher. She opened her eyes and then grabbed me in a hug, when she realized she wasn't dead.

"As we pulled ourselves together, I told them to leave the bodies. We didn't have time to tend to them. We had a job to do and we got to it. We gained access to the fusion reactor and began repairing it..." "Almost...," Ellen DuShane muttered as she and the others worked diligently. Then, as if given life by some unseen deity, light flooded the area, and a low, background hum emanated into the room, signaling the rebirth of the environmental control systems.

And that was when they felt it. As though grabbed by a large, invisible hand, the entire team and their tools were yanked to the deck by the restored gravity system. Ellen turned from her prone position to survey the chamber. "Everyone okay?" she queried.

Various nods gave her the answer she sought. "What about you?" Alberts asked, noting that she had one hand on her back and one on her forehead.

"I'm fine," she managed. "Nothing than an entire bottle of aspirin wouldn't cure!" Alberts grinned a little and stood, then helped her to rise. Everyone dusted themselves off.

"Well," St. Jean remarked, "good work, everyone. Now, let's get back to the transport site before we run into any of our uninvited guests." All nodded and headed in the direction of the site.

Ellen glanced at her surroundings once again. The sight of the bodies was somehow less eerie, now that they were not floating aimlessly about. She still shuddered at the carnage and noticed that Adam Evans was having a slightly worse reactions. She gently grasped his arm and looked into his dark face. "We'll be all right," she comforted. "We'll get through this, I promise."

"I sure hope so," Evans said, trying to remain grounded. He made a face and closed his eyes.

Ellen's grip on his arm tightened a little. "Hang on," she continued. "Just don't think about it."

"How can I not?!?" he protested.

"People die every day."

"Not like this!" "Okay, you're right about that. Just do your best to block it out, like I'm trying to do."

"How are you doing it?" he asked.

"I'm imagining that I'm back home in New Orleans, at my Gramma's house. It's by the river, the Mississippi. And it's spring time, and I'm siting outside on the porch, and a cool breeze is-"

Just then several of the alien Khynah came around the corner, weapons drawn and ready. St. Jean and his team quickly drew their phasers. He slapped his communicator. "St. Jean to Endeavour. Emerg-" he tried, but had to duck behind some crates as he was fired upon by one of the aliens.

That as when the other officers and crewman began to fire their weapons, but the Khynah were a little quicker. A fierce volley of energy exchange which quickly began to heat up the room.

There was loud static and what sounded like the captain's voice over the communicators but in the din it was impossible to make out what he was saying. Whatever it was it most definitely was not good.

"Merde," St. Jean muttered as he both watched and participated in the fray against the hostile invaders. One of his shots connected with and knocked one of the Khynah from it's feet, tossing it to the deck. Unfortunately, the Khynah weapons were more successful. S'Tarris, Sy, Thomas, and Evans did not survive long enough to see the others being taken hostage. Great-Gramp Darian slept for several hours. When he awoke again, he saw his descendant waiting patiently at his side. "Where were we?" he rasped.

"You had begun repairing the fusion reactor," she told him.

"Oh, yes... Well, not too much to tell you like that. I'd done jobs like that a hundred times before. Anyway, we finished in record time, got the reactor up and purring like a kitten. With power restored to the necessary sections, we packed up our things and prepared for the quick march back to the transport site and back to the Endeavour.

"Too bad that wasn't going to happen for some of us...

"We were passing through a darkened section of corridor when I heard a loud scratching sound. I held up my hand, signaling the others to halt and be silent. The scratching just got louder, like toenails on metal.

"'What is that?' Hyper hissed.

"All of a sudden, panels started dropping out of the ceiling and crashing to the deck with a loud CLANG! Then came the ear-piercing wail of a dozen alien voices screaming in unison. They dropped down like a breached voles' nest. The next thing I saw, Lieutenant Cornwall's head was rolling towards me like a bowling ball. One of the Khynah warriors was dropping his decapitated body to the deck. I tried to draw my phaser but as soon as I did, it was swatted away. I heard it clatter in the darkness behind me. I saw a flash of metal as a knife was raised over my chest. Crewman Rhyms hollered something like, 'Sir! Look out!' and jumped in between us. The knife sunk into his chest and his life-blood began gushing everywhere.

"The men and women under me began screaming and yelling in panic. I remember shouting for everyone to run and hide. I shoved my way through all of the toppling bodies, jumped into the closest Jefferies tube hatch, and began climbing. It was a long time before the howling beneath me faded away..." St. Jean's team was walked, at phaser and knife-point to a destination unknown to its members. They noted the scrapes, pock-marks, and burns which now adorned the once smooth bulkheads and walls of the corridors through which they were led. Alberts and Ellen happened to be walking side-by-side.

"You'd better make good on your promise to Evans, DuShane," Alberts warned. "Because being in New Orleans, even a holographic one, sounds really good right now."

"Oh, you can bank on that promise, Ensign. That much and more. I'll even throw in dinner, New Orleans style!"

A guttural bark sounding like "No talking!" came from one of the Khynah off to her side.

She leaned in a little to Alberts and whispered, "And if I had my Gramma's voodoo doll kit with me, I'd make that creep sorry." Alberts chuckled quietly, glad for the laugh.

This time, very clearly translated through the Starfleet officer's universal translators, came "I said no talking!" The Khynah was more forceful this time, giving her a painful poke in the ribs with his phaser.

"Oh, all right already! Geeze!" She rolled her eyes and glanced at St. Jean, who shot her a look which could have been read as, "What are you trying to do, get us all killed?!?" Ellen merely responded to his expression with raised eyebrows and a shrug.

They reached a rec-type room where several people were gathered, clearly as hostages or prisoners. Ellen counted five Ferengi, six Benzites, and thirty-nine humans, not including herself and the rest of her time. She also counted fifteen Khynah. The various clothing worn by the humans indicated that they were part of about three or four different groups, with a few civilians mixed in as well. Some of the hostages were standing, while others sat, and some were crouched. "Over there!" one of the Khynah indicated, poking Ellen again in the ribs with his phaser, but this time she didn't respond other than to head in the direction which the alien had indicated. The others followed her to any empty space on the floor where they all decided to sit.

"Damn!" Ellen whispered.

"What is it, DuShane?" St. Jean asked.

She had almost expected to be chewed out for what she had said to the alien in the hallway. But that didn't happen. She regarded him for a moment, then responded. "I put on the wrong boots this morning!"

"What?!?" Toras Karrik the Andorian cried out, then caught herself. She leaned in to DuShane. "We're sitting in a rec room, being held hostage, after trying to do repair work amidst floating dead bodies and nearly being killed after finishing and you're concerned about your boots? What's with you?"

Ellen's eyes narrowed a bit. "That isn't what I mean." She looked up and around her, at the Khynah which were circling the room, phasers drawn and ready to fire at the first person who so much as sneeze the wrong way. She then returned her gaze to Karrik. "I meant that in my other pair of boots, I always carry a spare communicator. I even made a little pouch on the inside of it so it would be easier to conceal. If I had it, I might have been able to contact the ship and have them beam the Khynah out of here and into space."

"It would have been a good plan," St. Jean agreed. "Except for two things: one, the radiation leakage is probably still too high, and, two, you didn't bring your other boots."

Ellen shrugged and shook her head. "Well, I would've felt better if I had, even if I couldn't use the commbadge immediately." She looked at the empty spot on her chest where her usual communicator was normally, resting as if it were some content little pet.

"Well," said Ensign Guyle, a middle-aged man from Scotland. "I for one don't intend to just sit here and do nothing!" He was about to rise when St. Jean grabbed him and forced him back into a sitting position. "Ensign, if you do not remain seated, the Khynah are most likely going to kill you! Not to mention possibly a few of the others here with us. So, for the sake of all of the survivors, I order you to stay put and don't move from your spot until I feel it's safe to do otherwise!" He then surveyed the remainder of the team. "And that goes for all of you. Understood?"

They all nodded. Except for Guyle. He shook his head. "I have a wife and three kids. And I'm going to see them."

Guyle moved so quickly that none of the other members could have stopped him. This grabbed the attention of the nearest Khynah. "What are you doing?" the alien grunted. The ensign did not answer, but simply head-butted him. Various gasps came from around the room. The Khynah pushed the ensign backwards and fired upon him. He dissolved into a flash of energy, leaving behind a slight stench which was now the only evidence of his existence.

The same Khynah regarded the rest of St. Jean's team. "Just so that you know what happens, should any of you try anything like that fool did," he said with an eerie calm.

Hyper crawled through the Jefferies tube, ignoring pain shooting through her left knee. Blood was caked around the rip in her pants leg, but she didn't dare look inside for fear of what she might find. She was hot and tired, and after crawling around in the abandoned tubes for hours, she wondered if she would ever find another living Starfleet officer on the station. More, she wondered if there was anyone left to find. She shook off the grim thought and continued traipsing through the compact crawl space. Despite her fatigue, she did her best to keep her senses alert, constantly looking for Khynah soldiers.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of crawling through one endless tube, Hyper approached an intersection. The tunnel ahead broke off into four separate tubes horizontally and two tubes vertically and she scarcely knew which way to go. At the crosslink, she decided it would make a good place to rest a bit. Careful not to make noise, she leaned herself against the wall of the tube, gently placing her leg straight out in front of her to minimize the pain. Equally as careful, she laid down her weapon, mindful to keep it within reach should she need to use it.

As she leaned back, fatigue came over her and she fought drowsiness. Her eyelids were heavy, but she did not fall asleep. Just when she had begun to go over warp field calibrations in her head, a quick way to keep her mind alert, she thought she heard a noise above her. Before she had time to react a hand reached down from the darkness and covered her mouth. She fought with all her might against the force, but whoever had a hold on her was not letting go. She tried biting and kicking, despite the pain in her knee, but nothing worked.

Just when she thought she was at the end, a human face popped down in front of her. It was a man, wearing Starfleet mustard gold. Slowly she stopped struggling and soon realized it was the man who had his hand on her mouth. "Shhhhh," he pleaded.

Nor looked into the man's dark pleading eyes and gently nodded. Slowly he removed his hand from her mouth. "Sorry," he explained, "I didn't want to startle you into bringing a brigade of those animals in here." Gently he massaged his right hand, now bleeding from tooth gashes.

"I'm sorry too," Hyper said, looking at the man's hand. "Who are you? And what are you doing skulking around in here?" she demanded suddenly, paying no attention to the rank pips on the man's collar.

"I could ask you the same," he said, but there was no hostility in his mellow voice. He extended his other hand. "Name's Parr. Lieutenant Commander Reed Parr. I'm the station's operations chief."

Nor nodded to him, firmly shaking his good hand, now displaying the proper deference. "Nice to meet you, Commander. But what are you doing in here?"

Carefully Parr leaned himself into a sitting position next to Nor, easing himself against the wall without a sound. "I was doing some repair work in the station's air-handling system when all hell broke loose. It took me a good hour to climb up this far." He looked down the shaft off to their right. It seemed to stretch down into infinity. Then he glanced Nor over. "Since you don't know who I am, I'm guessing you're not from the station."

She shook her head. "No, I'm from the Endeavour. We arrived several hours ago." Her voice trailed off.

"I take it things aren't going well?"

"An understatement."

He nodded. "Every time I've dared to pop out into a corridor, all I've found were dead officers and civilians. Damned Khynah," he swore.

"I got separated from my team," Hyper continued. "We were ambushed, but I'm hoping to hook back up with them."

"It sounds like a plan," Parr smiled. "Looks like you could use some help with that knee." Keep it moving, Blake! Darian kept muttering to himself. Hours had passed and he knew he had climbed more in this day than in every holodeck rock-climbing simulation he had ever participated in. He worked his way steadily up through the station's network of Jefferies tubes. Every so often he would crawl out into a horizontal shaft and mover laterally through the station, in hopes of throwing off anyone who might be pursuing him. On one such lateral jaunt, he came to a sealed hatchway. Rather than backtrack his steps, or worse, get caught in an ambush waiting for him, he decided to open the hatch and continue.

After several minutes fiddling with the latching mechanism, the hatch cover groaned and whipped open. Blake instantly caught himself in a moment of horror, hurling his body back away from the open hatch in front of him. An atmospheric forcefield hissed in along the opening which looked directly out into the cavernous spacedock portion of the station. The tube didn't continue. The drop was at least fifty decks straight down.

The initial shock wore off, and Blake began to look around inside the massive bowels of the starbase facility. Despite the circumstances, it was a fascinating view. He had never seen anything quite like it before. All around the enclosed bay numerous small ships were moored to pylons or hovering in gravity docks awaiting repairs or supplies. Off on the far side of the huge bay he noticed several smaller Khynah transport craft darting in and out of the area. They seemed to be confining their operations to that side of the facility and for now he seemed safe.

As he assessed the situation, he soon realized he would have to crawl back through the tunnel from which he had just come, a dangerous prospect. Though he peered out into the docking bay another idea soon came to him. Docked all around the portion of the spacedock closest to him were any number of vessels. If he could manage to make it inside one... the possibilities soon overwhelmed him and he started optimizing his chances of success.

Out of all the ships moored beneath him, the lone vessel which would suit his needs was a Ferengi ship. After another hour trying dead-end passageways and hatches that would not open, he finally made it down to the Marauder. Accessing the ship was easy enough and somehow he was not surprised to find it deserted. If any Ferengi had been on board, they would have already made a run for it. Being boarded by barbaric, murdering pirates was bad for business after all.

By the time he had traipsed through the long and annoyingly low-ceilinged corridors up to the ship's bridge, Darian knew the ship was too big to operate by himself. But along the way he had seen many things which might be useful in his team's fight against the Khynah, provided there were any of them left. Learning their status was now his first priority, salvaging what he could from the ship was his second. The relatively low power of his comm badge had prevented him from contacting other members of his team, with the radiation and Khynah dampening field in effect, his signal could not get through. But he had hopes of using the Marauder's comm system to boost his signal and get through to his team. Once on the bridge, he started about the task of patching his communicator into the ship's system.

Thanks to his brother, Brendan, the task was relatively easy. Back in the Academy, when the twins were attending together, Brendan was studying for a diplomacy final, part of which was background on the Ferengi Alliance government.

Darian had helped Brendan study, and by learning some of the governmental and economic terms, it had been miraculously easy for him to apply his limited vocabulary to the Ferengi ship's computer system. Within minutes he was transmitting, and he made a mental note to thank his brother when he got back to the ship.

"Blake to anyone who can hear the sound of this transmission," Darian kept repeating. But after nearly thirty minutes of trying, he was afraid that no one was receiving him, or else there was no one left to receive. Frustrated and dejected, he tossed the oddly shaped Ferengi microphone onto the computer console in front of him and laid his head down.

"I hear you, Darian," a static-filled voice strained through the comm system at last. Blake's head popped up, listening to make certain he had not been hearing things. "Blake. This is Nor. Respond, please."

After making a few adjustments so that he could receive Hyper's transmission more clearly, he answered, "Hyper, thank heavens you're safe. Did you find anyone else?" he asked hopefully.

"No one from the team..." she replied cryptically, "but I do have someone with me who might be able to help us."

He was puzzled by her secretive response, but he also understood the need for them to be covert. After several minutes of explaining his plan so as not to openly give it away, Blake got a fix on Hyper's location and used the triangulation of her signal to lead her and her guest to the Marauder. It was a long, slow process, but they arrived at last.

As Hyper limped into the airlock, she rushed to Blake and gave him a small hug. Then he turned and introduced her escort. "Lieutenant Darian Blake, I would like you to meet Lieutenant Commander Reed Parr, station ops chief."

The two men shook hands. "You said there were some things aboard we might be able to use?" Parr asked.

Darian nodded.

"Then we'd better get started. There isn't any time to loose." Terry pressed her body against the cold metallic bulkhead of the corridor, only centimeters way from where the passageway made an abrupt turn. Quite possibly she was more afraid now than at any other time in her life, but to her amazement she felt in control. The clammy coolness against her cheek heightened her senses and she now felt, more than heard, the soft steps of someone approaching her position from around the corner. She raised her hand phaser to should level, keeping it snug against her body and forced herself to wait. As the unidentified being approached, Sauter prepared herself to act with deadly force. These aliens were ruthless and savage. There was no margin for error when dealing with them. She knew she would have to immediately identify the enemy, then strike to kill without hesitation. She had made a conscious effort to toughen up her will and only hoped now that her body would cooperate.

The footfalls sounded closer and her prey rounded the corner just as Terry brought her phaser to eye level, nudged up the power level, and prepared to fire. She raised her head ad looked it in the eyes and was suddenly horrified. This was not the horrendous creature she had thought she would face, but one of her own. Only fractions of a second had kept her from firing on him and she let the weapon drop to her side with a gasp.

Bradford detected the movement, startled, then brought up his own weapon and froze. "Ensign?" he asked, his voice more a query of disbelief than of puzzlement.

"I thought I was the only one who escaped capture." Terry sighed with relief. "I'm very glad to see you, Jordan, but I nearly vaporized you. One less second of hesitation and you would have been burnt toast."

Bradford's eyes opened wide. "Then I thank you for your patience," he quipped. Suddenly the grinding clank of a large hatch opening reached their ears and Terry's body tensed again. This time the sound of many feet approaching could be heard and there was no attempt to hide the movements. Terry looked around frantically and her eyes lit briefly on an access ladder.

"Quick, into the Jefferies tube!" she ordered Bradford with a raspy whisper. No explanation was necessary for the crewman. He quickly scrambled up the ladder into the tube and then reached down and helped her up after him. Together they moved a couple of meters from the entry way and stopped. Terry took advantage of a tiny atmosphere sensor and popped it out of the panel in front of her using the hole it left behind as an observation port to view the corridor below her. The sight that met her eyes made her catch her breath.

Lieutenant St. Jean was marching grimly down the corridor, a Khynah phaser rifle stuck up under his ribs by a surly looking Khynah guard. Behind that mismatched couple walked a group of several prisoners. Terry could make out the faces of Alberts, Karrik, and DuShane as the group passed, followed closely by a squad of armed guards.

When they had passed from her sight, Terry sat back and looked at Bradford's questioning eyes. "It's St. Jean's team. They've been captured," she informed him. Then turning and scrambling away on all fours, she called back over her shoulder, "Come on, we have to follow them."

Being the senior-most utility systems specialist on the Endeavour gave Terry a decided edge in a Jefferies tube. When others had been studying the deck by deck layout of the station while preparing for this mission, Terry had given special attention to the Jefferies system spanning the ship. She knew that most of the tubes on the station followed the same route as the corridors and so, with Bradford doing his best to keep up, she continued to crawl hoping to keep pace with St. Jean's team and their captors.

The pursuit took a number of twists and turns and they suddenly found themselves crawling through a long stretch of straight away, which Terry reasoned must be taking them to the far side of the station. Just before her knees gave out, the group stopped and were herded into a large exterior room on the station. By checking out the coordinates listed on the tube's access panel, Terry and Bradford were able to identify the room as a part of the recreation facility.

Terry removed another sensor in a portion of the tube above the large room and was able to peer down and watch the exchange within. The captives were pushed roughly through the doorway and forced to lie face down on the floor. There was a brief scuffle and Terry watched in horror as a Starfleet crewman was vaporized. Guyle, she thought.

"Just so that you know what happens, should any of you try anything like that fool did," grunted a Khynah in guttural English.

Tears welled up in Terry's eyes as she watched the spectacle below her. She felt powerless to help her friends. Again and again she tried to formulate a rescue plan in her mind, but the odds against them seemed too great for any plan to be successful.

Bradford moved towards her and took a turn looking down through their self-made view port at the scene below. After a few minutes he turned to Terry and asked the very question she continued to wrestle with. "What can we do, Ensign?"

She dropped her eyes and shook her head. "I'm not sure," she admitted sadly.

"Blake to Sauter," a disembodied voice suddenly rang out, breaking their somber moods and causing them to startle.

Terry slapped her communicator. "Yes, Lieutenant, this is Sauter. I read you," she answered, unable to keep the excitement and relief from her voice as she answered.

"Status report," Blake barked.

"I am in a Jefferies tube above one of the recreation rooms with Crewman Bradford. Lieutenant St. Jean and several of his party members have been taken prisoner and are being held here. We have a good vantage point to observe the situation but are powerless to render assistance."

There was a slight pause and his voice returned. "Sit tight, Ensign, and wait for further instructions. The station's ops chief, Commander Parr, Lieutenant Nor, and I are working on a rescue plan. We will be in touch shortly."

"Understood, Lieutenant," she answered as she turned to smile at Bradford.

"Blake out," was the reply and then the hard business of waiting began.

"Well, I'm glad we were able to slave that Ferengi comm system into a Starfleet tricorder and bust through that interference," Parr said, proudly patting the makeshift transmitter. "But that doesn't help us free our people."

Hyper sighed and rubbed her eyes. The situation was horrendous. Her friends and crewmates were either dead or captured and it was up to the three of them to save them all. The weight of their responsibilities was nearly overpowering. She glanced at Blake. If he was starting to crack under the strain of leadership, he certainly was not showing it. Typical leader. Always putting on a good front, sometimes even pretending he knows what he is doing even if he has no clue. She took a deep breath to center herself and nearly regretted it. The Ferengi vessel had a bizarre odor, like fermenting beer and fish eggs. Maybe one of the refrigeration lockers which housed their tube grubs or whatever had broken down. Keep on task, Nor, she chided herself.

Blake was hunched over the low central command terminal. Nothing on the ship was suited to human stature and it made work all the more difficult and irritating. The branching syntax of the Ferenginar standard language whirled past as he scanned through the Marauder's systems. A D'Kora-class vessel had many mechanical, digital, and electro-plasma elements to it, some of them so alien he did not even recognize them. "Nothing in these data banks is giving me any idea on what to do," he finally said. "God, this is frustrating."

Hyper sat down on the deck, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes, looking as if she was going into meditation but she continued to speak. "What are we trying to do?" she asked in a low tone.

"We're trying to find a way to release the prisoners being held in the recreation hall," said Blake. He looked at Parr. "I know there has to be other groups in other parts of the station but there's nothing we can do for them right now. There's no way to locate them and it's too dangerous to go out looking for them."

Parr nodded. "Agreed. Reluctantly, though." As Hyper quietly worked the problem through her mind, Parr and Blake bounced several ideas back and fourth.

"How about hacking into the station security system and flooding it the anestizine gas?" suggested Blake. "Knock everyone out now, sort it out later."

Parr shook his head. "Won't work. The security control grid is damaged and even if we could get it up, there's no guarantee that anestizine will effect Khynah biology. We may just end up hindering our own peoples' rescue attempts. What about using this ship's weapon's systems? Do you think a high intensity Ferengi phaser beam set on stun would be able to penetrate the station's hull without rupturing it?" "It's your station but if I had to guess I'd say, I doubt it," said Blake. "What if..."

"Is this ship umbilically hooked into the station's central power system?" Hyper interrupted, her eyes opening as she stood.

"Well, we are hard docked," said Blake as he glanced at the instruments around them. "Warp core, structural integrity, and inertial dampening are in cold shutdown. Environmental support systems are at standby for maintenance work. We're on the station's synthetic gravity field. Navigation... tactical deflector system off-line... Yeah, I'd say we are, Lieutenant."

Hyper walked up to where he was standing and began inputting commands into the console. "I'm theorizing that we might be able to send a low-intensity ionization pulse through the EPS system to the rec room power junction."

"That would shock everyone into synaptic shutdown, no matter what the race," said Parr. He glanced at Hyper. "You're brilliant, Lieutenant. Sure wish we had you on this station's Engineering department." But then his smile turned into a frown. "But wait... how do we get it directly to the rec room junction? There must be dozens of active EPS lines still operating that the pulse might follow. We need to get it to the rec room in one shot."

"That's easy," Blake interjected. "We know the direct power route from here to the rec room is, so we can just shut down any branch-off EPS conduits."

"Sounds good to me," said Parr. "I'll go out into the docking corridor, find a computer terminal, and get to work on that. You two stay here and find out a way to send that pulse."

"Right," Hyper said and, true to her nickname, began inputting commands at, what seemed to be, lightspeed. She paused only to ask consult her personal tricorder or to ask Darian for a translation of an unknown Ferengi technical phrase. "I think I can build a low-level ionization charge in the navigational deflection system."

Darian, standing at an aft station, said, "I'll bring the nav deflector on-line."

"Okay, coming up now." She inputted another series of commands. "Building static pulse."

Parr jogged back into the chamber. "I was successful. Nobody saw me. Did you contact your people in the Jefferies tube and tell them to stand ready?"

"Oh, no I didn't," said Blake and he moved to their communications array. "Blake to Sauter. Stand ready and be prepared to move on my signal."

"Acknowledged," came Terry's reply.

"Still building," Hyper said slowly. "Preparing for charge release in five... four... three... two... one... CHARGE AWAY!"

"NOW!" Darian yelled over the comm. Like a pinball in the ancient machine in the 1950's diner holo-simulation that Hyper was fond of, the pulse of ionized energy from the Ferengi deflector dish raced through the station's power systems, keeping only to the lines that were still operating, like the metal ball in it's track. Nanoseconds later, when it hit the recreation hall junction, it overloaded the box and the energy pulse spilled out into the chamber, climbing along the bulkheads and decks like a thousand electrical snakes. The second the charge hit a humanoid, the energy temporarily short-circuited the electro-chemical pathways in the brain, painlessly knocking him or her unconscious. The effect was not unlike demagnetizing one of the old-style rear-projection television units used as decoration in the diner simulation. But this process was not permanent. Those who had been sitting simply slumped over and those who had been standing, toppled over, their bodies hitting the deck with a thump. Terry and Bradford poised themselves to move quickly. Sitting by the hatch above the rec room, they concentrated on breathing deeply as their hearts pounded in anticipation. Seconds seemed to pass like hours and then suddenly the command came through from Darian, "NOW!"

Bradford opened the hatch and Terry dropped through and landed cat-like on the deck below. She was followed quickly by Bradford who, in his haste, nearly landed on the petite ensign. She scanned the bodies lying about her and turned to him. "Grab their weapons," she called out. Even as their mad dash to retrieve the Khynah phasers began, the bodies lying about them began to come back to life. Toras Karrik was the first to regain her feet. Terry noticed this and chalked it up to Karrik's hearty Andorian physiology. Bradford then tossed a confiscated phaser rifle to Karrik and she caught it but looked at it dazedly.

Terry decided it was time to sort the good guys from the bad. "All you Khynah slime devils move over where we can see you!" she ordered as fiercely as her small, high-pitched voice would allow.

St. Jean and Alberts staggered to their feet and were handed weapons by Bradford. They trained their sights on individual Khynah and began to heard them together into the center of the room.

Ellen DuShane managed to roll over and sit up but her head was spinning and standing up was not an option for her. She tried to shake the cobwebs away and get to her knees but almost keeled over from the stabbing pain near her left eye. It was then she put a hand to her head and felt a large lump of bruised tissue on her left temple. It was tender to the touch and it amazed her that she had no recollection of how it got there.

Karrik started to move forward but suddenly felt her legs being swept out from under her. She fell backwards and hit the floor hard, knocking her breath away. One of the Khynah took advantage, lunged for her phaser rifle, and wrenched it quickly from her hands. As she started to back up, DuShane summoned all of her strength and launched herself at the Khynah's back. Roaring in anger, the alien shook himself loose trying to lose his passenger, but Ellen hung on and began kicking him as hard as she could with the reinforced toes of her boots.

All of this happened within a matter of seconds but it gave Alberts enough time to come to DuShane's aid. He held onto the barrel of his phaser rifle and swung the butt end at the alien's head, making hard contact with his skull. It immediately fell the deck and DuShane released her grasp, staggering a few meters away. Alberts then reversed the rifle, trained it on the midsection of the Khynah and, using his weapon's most lethal setting, vaporized him in a fraction of a second. All that remained was a scorch mark on the floor.

St. Jean watched the scene play out and then, confident that everyone on his team and was all right, turned his attention to Terry. "Sauter, have you been in contact with the Endeavour?" he shouted in her direction.

"Lieutenant Blake contacted me and told me they are working on a rescue plan now, sir."

St. Jean considered this for a moment. "I think we had better stay put and try to defend ourselves until help arrives," he announced. "Let's clear the room of this vermin and seal the door."

The Endeavour crewmates pushed, shoved, and in some cases, dragged the snarling aliens from the rec room, then closed the hatchway. Using their phasers, they welded it shut from within. Terry then went to DuShane's side and examined her injuries. "How are you doing, Crewman?" she asked with great concern.

"I've been better, Ensign," DuShane answered with a slight smile. "I'm afraid my equilibrium is off. I can't stand up without getting dizzy."

"You sure seemed fit when you attacked that Khynah!" Alberts quipped. "You went after him like a Circassian razor cat!"

DuShane's smile broadened. "It was just a gut reaction," she explained with a shrug of her shoulders.

A loud clanging noise outside the door drew their attentions in that direction. "How long do you think that door will hold them?" Terry asked, almost rhetorically.

St. Jean took it upon himself to answer. "Not long. Perhaps a few more minutes." He turned to them with a grim, yet determined and almost macho, look on his face. "Take up defensive positions around the door and prepare to fight," he ordered like a Klingon general, rather than the chief engineer he was.

Everyone moved at once. They pushed the civilians into the most protected sections of the chamber. Wherever possible they tried to position themselves behind barriers; knocked over tables, chairs, and such. Terry stood behind a toppled desk and trained her phaser on the door. Alberts and St. Jean stood behind a mechanized weight lifting machine and did the same. DuShane crawled over to an overturned bench and sat on the floor behind it, resting her phaser on the bench's edge, and Karrik ducked behind another desk, her waving antennae the only parts visible from the door.

Everyone waited as the noise outside the door grew louder and soon they were aware of something new. The door was beginning to glow and bend inwards. It was being melted by intense phaser fire and would soon give way to the attackers.

Terry watched, barely breathing. She wondered what it felt like to die. She promised that she would try to give a good account of herself before she succumbed, but she knew intuitively that their chances of survival were almost nil.

A hole slowly appeared and grew in the door. Pieces of molten metal dropped into puddles. Terry shuddered and began to depress the trigger stud on her phaser as the first Khynah leaped, snapping and growling, through the hole. She felt a radiating sensation and was sure she had been hit, when all of a sudden she realized that the sensation was a familiar one. She was dematerializing! Then, as she and the other crew members and civilians disappeared in mini-particle storms, she lifted her eyes and smiled at the Khynah in front of her, happy to be embraced by her ship's wonderful technology. "Thanks Audra," she whispered and vanished completely. "It worked!" Parr nearly screamed in ecstasy.

"Yes!" Hyper shouted, shaking her fists in the air while doing a little victory dance.

"Well done!" Darian said, clapping his hands. "Let's get out of here! Blake to Endeavour..."

Unknown to them, the Khynah in the nearby transport craft had detected the energy surge coming from the Ferengi vessel and had sent a squad to investigate. They stormed through the Marauder's hatch, into the interior and began to systematically search it. They reached the bridge hatchway and found it sealed. Their demolitions expert attached a detonator with explosives to it and blew it open with ease. The resulting shrapnel managed to kill one of the human males but then the other two, the other male and the female, had begun to dematerialize in a shower of sparkles from their cursed Starfleet transporters.

The Khynah soldiers howled in warrior's anger over the deceased body of Lieutenant Commander Reed Parr.