She looked at the doorway, clogged with bodies. She had taken a few hits, but none posed a major threat to her well-being.

Laser blasts didn't bleed.

There were an awful lot of dead people over there, though. eople she'd killed herself.

Kayla wound her way around the bodies to a smaller door on the other side of the room. The alarms had stopped, and there were no guards in the corridors.

She had to find Tom, assuming they had let him live. She didn't even want to think about what they would have done to him. She wouldn't have blamed him if he'd told them where she was just to make them leave him alone. But then, she realized, Tom didn't know where she was.

She pressed herself up against a dark wall, trying to blend in, while a few guards traveked past. she stareted scooting along the wall tow ards the door they had come out of. She tripped against an upraised panel in the floor.

Turning to investigate, the two Tiasonar saw her. They started to bring their guns up, and Kayla shot them.

She darted into the room. her heart leaped when she saw him. Tom lay, motionless, on the floor, his torn back to the doorway.

"What now?" he asked bitterly. His voice quivered slightly, and he stared breathing faster.

"It's me, Tom," Kayla reassured him. She set the gun aside and untied him.

"Took ya' long enough," he said dryly.

Kayla ignored the comment, moving around to face him. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn't. Tom's stomach was torn and bruised. He had a gash above his eyebrow that was seeping blood. Both of his eyes were rimmed in black, and swollen nearly shut. His nose looked broken.

"I look great, don't i?" he asked.

"Can you walk?" Kayla asked, ignoring his sarcasm once again.

"I can try." He attempted to get to his feet, but his legs collapsed under him. "No," he said, painfully stating the obvious.

There was only one thing Kayla could think of to do. She wasn't strong enough to carry him someplace safe. She retrieced her gun and smashed it against the ground. Removing the piece she wanted. She crawled back to Tom, holding the object firmly against the palm of his hand.

the object stung him as it bit into his flesh. Once Kayla was sure it was imbedded properly, she began readjusting the controls.

Black cords extended from the device and wrapped around Tom's arm. They cut off his circulation, making his arm hurt, but he trusted Kayla. Not that he could stop her even if he wanted to. Not in his condition. He looked at Kayla. Tears streaked her face, and he wished he could wipe them away the way he had before.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, again without speaking aloud.. She leaned forward and softly kissed his lips. "Tell the Doctor not to remove this until you are at least one light year away from the planet. She pressed the small blue button in the center of the device. "Goodbye, Tom," she whispered.

Kayla vanished, and Tom looked around, startled. People sat on bio-beds, waiting for treatment, and the Doctor had appeared next to him. The Doctor tapped his commbadge. "Sickbay to bridge."

"What is it, Doctor?" Janeway's welcome voice replied.

"Lieutenant Paris has just appeared out of nowhere.," He informed her calmly.

"On my way," she said sharply, cutting the communications link. Less than three minutes later, the Captain was standing next to the Doctor at the side of his bed. The Doctor had already begun to treat his broken bones and lacerations.

"What's that?" He asked as he was injected with ah hypospray.

"You were poisioned. That was the antidote," The Doctor pushed past the captain without further comment.

"Tom," Janeway said. She started to lay a hand on his shoulder, but was afraid to touch him. She placed both hands flat one the bed instead. "What happened down there?"

"They beat the crap out of me," he replied dryly.

"Why?" She demanded, ignoring the sarcasm.

"They wanted to know the phase variations on our shields, and how we evaded their whatever-it-was that was supposed to knock them down," he answered.

"Captain, look at this," the Doctor broke in, holding up Tom's arm. The black cords had loosened enough to allow blood to circulate, but were still painfully tight.

Janeway stared down at the device for a moment, then looked back up at Tom. "What is it?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. But it had something to do with getting me here," he replied.

"Should i remove it?" The Doctor asked.

"Yes," Janeway answered without hesitation.

"No," Tom contradicted quickly. "Kayla said to wait until we were at least a light year away from the planet."

"Is Kayla all right?" the captain asked.

"I don't know. She seemed okay when she put this thing on me. They've probably caught her by now, though, Who knows what they'll do to her." He knew that however hard he tried to cover it up, the captain would know how frightened and concerned he was for the girl.

"I'm sending an away team down to get her," the captain said sharply.

"I wouldn't do that, Captain," Tom warned, He hadn't meant it to come out as sharply as it did. Reigning in his anxiety, he added. "They almost killed me. And i think thye were mostly just having fun." His eyes and tone were as serious as he had ever been. "They're worse than the Cardassians. They'd take pleasure in slaughtering everyone you sent down there. And believe me, it wouldn't be a quick and painless death." He flinched as the Doctor injected him with something else.

Janeway was appaled. She and Tom's father had been captured by the cardassians when she was an Ensign. It was an experience she stillhad nightmares about. She couldn't imagine a race of people more cruel than that.

She suddenly realized what Tom had been through. She knew she had to get Kayla back somehow, but how could she throw someone else down there? They would be tortured, and perhaps not as lucky as Tom. No, she couldn't risk any more of her crew.

She had to find another way to rescue Kayla.

Fenat removed his knife from his belt and advanced on her. He sliced her cheeck, and Kayla felt warm blood slide down her face and drip off of her chin. This was only the beginning. Kayla concentrated on Chaz's face, and he grabbed it, screeching in pain. She smiled. They might be able to tie her up, but they couldn't keep her from fighting back with her mind.

She began laughing, "You are such cowards!" she jeered. "You have to tie up a female who's only half your size. No wonder you weren't accepted to the Elite forces!" She threw her head back and laughed harder. If she could annoy them enough then maybe...

Fenat draged her forward and cut the ropes off. "There, Female. Let us see what you can do untied!" he snarled.

Kayla rose quickly to her feet, looking around. She had to force herself not to let her gaze pause on the lazer gun lying discarded in the corner.

She stared at Fenat until he became enraged. She was challenging him and he knew it.

He leaped at her, but she ducked into a rool and escaped his charge. Chaz's turn. He pointed a gun at her even as Fenat charged again. Kayla waited, her attention focused on Chaz's trigger finger. It tightened slowly, and she dropped to the floor as he fired. The beam hit Fenat, who was unable to abort his lunge for her in time. Tumbling to the ground, he lay still. Chaz ignored him, turning toward Kayla. She fired the lazer at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. Chaz fell to the floor.

Breathing hard, she made her way back to the control room without being apprehended again. If she could get her commbadge working, or if the communications console hadn't been too damaged. She switched on the monitor and almost laughed in relief.

She entered an access code and hailed the Voyager.

Chakotay's angry face appeared almost immediately. "What?" he demanded. Seeing Kayla, his tone softened. "Kayla!"

"I don't have much time," she whispered. "Is Tom there?"

"He's in sickbay," Chakotay replied.

"Good. Tell Captain Janeway to get out of here. You have to be at least a light year away from the planet before you're out of it's transmission range. It'll kill him if you take it off before then. If he keeps it on for longer than a few hours, he'll lose the use of that arm." She looked around nervously. She was still whispereing, trying to keep anyone from finding out where she was.

Mission failed.

An alarm sounded; the same nails-on-a-blackboard screeching. Kayla snarled a curse. "Go." She said firmly, and ended the transmission as the Tiason entered the room. They immediately opened fire.

"Go ahead, commander."

"I've got some new information and some new orders, Captain."

"On my way."

Chakotay slumped back into his chair. "Bridge to engineering."

Torres here."

How are those Warp nacelles coming along?" Chakotay wanted to get out of here, as fast as possible, but he wanted to bring Kayla along when they left.

"I've almost got them, sir. I just need another hour." Torres replied, sounding as if she had been doing laps around engineering. "We won't be at peak performance, not by a long shot, but we'll at least be able to hit warp three."

"That's all the time you have, B'Elanna. Make it faster."

"Aye, sir," Torres replied hastily, and he cut the transmission.

Janeway stepped onto the bridge. "Report, Commander," she said crisply, seating herself.

Chakotay leaned over. "Kayla hailed us. She said at least a light year away, or we won't be out of it's transmission range, and that if we leave that thing on for more than a few hours, he'll lose the use of that arm. Then she ordered us to leave.

Janeway looked concerned. "It's already been on for over an hour, that gives us less than an hour to retrieve Kayla and get out of here.

"How is engineering coming along?"

"I talked to Torres, she said less than an hour."

Janeway tapped her commbadge. "Bridge to transporter room two," she said, leaning back in her seat.

"Transporter room two."

"Can you get a lock on Kayla?" she asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

"Not while she's under cover. If she could make it back to where she was beamed down i could," the technition offered. "The transporter already has a lot of the information it need in memory, i might be able to compensate for the energy disruptions.

"Thank you. Bridge out." She turned to Ensign Kim. "Ensign, figure out why we can't beam her up and find a way around it. It's not going to help us if we have to get her to a specific area, since we have no means of communicating with her."

"Torres to bridge."

"What is it, B'Elanna?" Janway asked.

"I've got the nacelles back on-line, but we won't be able to get past Warp two, at best," she reported.

"Good work, Lieutenant," Janeway replied. She looked up at Tuvok. "Mr. Tuvok, are any of the enemy ships still functioning?"

"I cannot offer an answer at this time, Captain," Tuvok replied immediately. He had obviously looked into that on his own.

The captain chewed her bottom lip. Turning back to Kim, she said, "Ensign?"

"The city she's in seems to be covered by some kind of energy dome. It seems to be there to prevent any sort of energy emissions to be directed to the planet. Unless it's broken somehow from the inside, i'm not even sure how we could communicate with Kayla."

"How do we break through it from side, Mr. Kim?"

I'm still working on that, Captain."

Janeway knew he was giving it everything he had, or she would have said more. She curbed her impatience, and a silence fell over the bridge. The only sounds were the hum of machinery and the soft beeping of consoles.

"I think i've got it, captain," Kim said, sounding excited. "The dome is emitting a scattering field. The transporter bean can't break through it to see what's on the other side," he explained.

"Solution?" she demanded.

"With a slight modification of the phasers, we should be able to break through it. But we'd have to use them in a circular pattern and beam her out through the middle. It would have to be a large circle, or the phasers themselves would interfere with the transporter beam. And of course, the hole in the scattering field would have to be somewhere above Kayla."

"How long would we have to get Kayla out?"

"Not long. a minute, at best. We can't sustain the coordination and the power for that accurate a phaser blast for very long. Not in our condition." Kim replied unhappily.

"It'll have to do. Get on it, Mr. Kim." She turned to Tuvok. "Open a channel to the planet. Maybe Kayla can hear us."

"Aye, Captain." After a few moment, the screen flashed brightly and cleared to show... an empty room. A disembodies voice said, "I'm a little busy right now, what is it you want?" Something red zoomed across the screen, and voices began shouting words she couldn't make out.

Kayla appeared from under the console. She had a huge gun in her hand that vaguely resembled a phaser rifle. She fired a shot and ducked back down again as a scream acknowledged her aim.

"Kayla," Janeway said, "Is there any way you can get to a less populated area?"

"No!" Kayla replied, sounding as if she wanted to laugh. "I can't even get out of this room! With all due respect, Captain, i don't really have time to talk. I'll contact you as soon as i can." The viewscreen reverted abruptly to the planet as a whole.

The silence that stole over the bridge again was becoming irritatingly familiar.

"Captain, we are being hailed," Tuvok reported after a mercifully short period of time.

"On screen."

Kayla's face appeared, satisfaction warring with sadness. "Sorry about that, they were trying to kill me again. Nothing serious. Happens every day." She winced slightly, and she was cradling one arm protectively, obviously injured.

"You wanted something?" Kayla asked brightly.

"Ensign Kim is working on getting you out of there," Janeway assured her.

"Got it, Captain!" Kim said exuberantly.

"Stand by, Kayla," Janeway said, with the beginnings of a smile.

"Gotcha. Crap!" The transmission ended as abruptly as before, and Janeway leaned forward in her seat.

"Hurry, Mr. Kim. Tuvok, you have the bridge. Commander, you're with me." She got up and headed for the turbolift, with Chakotay on her heels.

Kayla fired again, felling another Tiason. "Do you people ever quit?" She hollered, even though she already knew the answer to her own question. She pressed her back against the communications console.

The Tiason fired over her head. She grunted as a bolt passed particularly close to her, and jumped up to fire again. The tingling sensation of the transporters washed over her just as another shot was fired at her. It missed, although she'd have been injured by the radiation if she hadn't already been gone.

The fire fight was replaced by the smiling faces of Janeway and Chakotay. Kayla took a step toward them, but her vision blurred and she felt herself falling. She landed against something firm, but not hard, and felt herself lifted up as her consciouness faded.

Kayla opened her eyes. Bright lights and a by-now-familiar ugly ceiling made her close them again. She opened them again, one at a time, letting the first adjust before opening the other. "Tom!" She said sharply, remembering suddenly where she was.

"Right here!" Came the cheerful reply.

Kayla looked to her left. Tom Paris sat on the bed next to her, legs dangling over the side. He looked a little impatient, actually.

"Don't forget about us!" Came a deep voice from her other side. Kayla turned her head the other way.

Chakotay, Captain Janeway, and Tuvok stood there watching her. Janeway and Chakotay were smiling, Tuvok just looked solemn, as usual. Kayla decided that he was smiling on the inside.

Janeway took a step forward, grinning. "Welcome to Voyager."