come quickly, a soft voice entered his mind. It's Kayla," the voice identified herself. Tom hadn't spoken, only wondered what it was. Tom looked at his charge. A soft smile stretched over her face and she blinked once. come on, she urged without speaking.

"yes, Ma'am Tom tried to direct the thought at Kayla. He wondered how much of his thoughts she could see.

Only what's in your public mind. The things you want me to hear Kayla replied.

Tom kept one hand on his phaser, ready to open fire at the slightest hint of an attack. Kayla jogged easily through the city ahead of him, ignoring the stares of others on the street. Tom tried to do likewise, but couln't escape the feeling that they were monitoring his every thought. Their eyes made him nervous.

"Kayla," he whispered, moving up beside her. Kayla put a hand to hermouth, silently telling him to be quiet. She took his hand.

Tom felt a shock whip through his body when she touched him. Kayla glared at him. Her eyes widened and she shoved him into an alley between two buildings. He kept walking, expecting her to follow him. When he turned, she was standing in the open, staring intently at a smaller Tiasonarian in front of her. Tom assumed it to be a child, or whatever the equivalent was here. Kayla touched his arm and he shimmered. She glaned over at Tom and the shadow did the same. It touched her forehead and walked away. Kayla returned to the alley.

"Tom," she said in a barely audible voice. "Our commbadges won't work, and we can't beam back to the ship," she explained quickly. She glanced over her shoulder quickly. "Your phaser won't work, either," she said as he looked down at it. "They want to kill you. We have to get you back to Voyager. E-"

Kayla's words were cut off by the same high-pitched whistle he had heard on the bridge of the Voyager. Again, pain shot through his body.

Kayla slammed against him, knocking him to the ground and covering his mouth to smother his scream. She was too late.

Two shadows with weapons appeared, tearing Kayla away from Tom and savagly throwing her up against a blue wall. Kayla crumpled, a trickle of blood running down her face.

The shadowsd grabbed Tom and dragged him to his feet, twisting his arm behind his back. Tom bit back a cry of pain when he felt the shoulder dislocate. One of the Tiasonar kicked his feet out from under him. There was a crack as his arm was pulled into an even more unnatural position.

Something shimmered to his right, and a sharp object tore a jagged gash in his forehead.

Tom wondered what they were going to do to Kayla.

Janeway forced herself not to flinch at the harsh voice.

"You have waited too long, Janeway," he said, "Now the man that you sent with the girl will diwe, and your ship will be destroyed." The transmission ended and Janeway sank slowly back into her chair. She hadn't wanted to do this. She had spent ten minutes trying to negotiate with these.... people. And still they insisted on violence. She wasn't sure if they knew Voyager had shields or not.

"Mr. Kim, does the Tiason ship have shields?"

"No, sir," he reported.

"Good." Janeway replied. She hoped her exhaustion and annoyance wasn't creeping into her voice. "Mr. Tuvok, if a battle ensues, fire at your discretion.

The ships are powering weapons, Captain," Tuvok reported from his position. Janeway didn't really need the announcement, but procedure steadied the nerves of the crew.

"Acknowledged." The ship jolted violently. Janeway was almost thrown from her chair, but managed to catch herself before she hit the floor.

"Returning fire," Tuvok announced.The phaser blast hit the main ship and a tiny eruption occured.

The ship rocked again. "Where did that come from?" she damanded.

"One of their phasers grazed the starboard nacelle, Captain. Minor damage." Chakotay reported.

"Starboard nacelle is under heavy fire from two of the smaller ships," Kim added.

"The Port Nacelle is under attack, as well," Tuvok added calmly.

"Concentrate on those ships, Mr. Tuvok. We need warp power intact.

"Aye, Captain," He replied serenely. How are the shields holding up?" she asked.

"Holding at 90%, Ma'am," Kim answered. Janeway gave a satisfied nod of her head.

"Two ships down, captain. The port nacelle is clear," Tuvok reported.

"Good work, Mr. Tuvok," Janeway said.

"It was not my work, Captain," he replied steadily.

"Then who's was it?" Janeway demanded, startled.

"Sensors read no other ships," Chakotay reported. A beam of light exploded from the planet's surface and hit Harbade's ship directly, ripping a hole in the side. Chakotay stared at the ship. He looked at his Captain. "Kayla and Tom?" He asked hopefully.

Kayla pressed the button again. She wasn't sure how much damage she was doing, but at least she knew it was pointed at the right ship this time. If those little ones hadn't been in the way, she'd have hit Voyager the last few times she tried.

Her forehead throbbed, and she continually wiped blood from her eyes. She wonderedd what they had done with Tom. Anything that happened to him was her fault.

She should have insisted she come alone.

She didn't think Harbade's ship was going to be as easy to blow up as the little drones attacking Voyager's warp nacelles, so she left those to Tuvok and concentrated on Harbade's ship.

She fought with vengeance, hatred, affection. So many emotions. She wished Tuvok were here to help her.

In some ways, the Vulcan's calmness was annoying, but his deep voice could be soothing. As much as she hated to admit it, she loved Vulcan logic. It provided an answer for everything. But what she really need was control.

Control for her mixed-up feelings. She knew she was hitting it, the display lit up like a christmas tree every time she did, but she couldn't tell how much damage she was actually causing.

She pounded her fist against the console angrily. An alarm sounded loudly, like fingernails down a chalkboard. "Opps," she muttered. She picked up a gun and turned to the door.

No point in defending Voyager while she was shot to death. She wouldn't be much help if she was dead. She aimed the oversized gun at the doorway. And waited, the annoying alarm ringin in her ears.

"You can do it, Voyager. I know you can."

Harbade crrawled to the navigations post. Using it to haul himself up off the floor, he looked around at the dead or dying officers.

The blasts had stopped.

They had been unexpected. The first few hadn't hit anything important, but they had begun zeroing in on his engines. Drones four and five were destroyed, three and six badly damaged.

Harbade noted with satisfaction that Voyager's warp nacelles were badly damaged. They wouldn't be leaving the system at anything faster than a crawl. "Fire again," he ordered sharply. There was no response. There was no-one to respond. His entire crew was dead or nearly so. Irrelevant. Destroying Voyager was all that mattered.

In his opionion, any group of men that put a female in charge of anything other than childbirth deserved to die. The Voyager had quite a reputation in this quadrant. The poor crew were stranded 60,000 light years from home, trying to get back.

He felt no pity for them. They had no business taking what belonged to him. They should have given the girl back when he'd ordered them to. He would have destroyed them anyway, of course, but it would have been less trouble that way.

Harbade considered using the scanner again, but decided that if it hadn't worked the first time, it wasn't going to work the second, either.. Their ship appeared to be opperating at near full shield strength. Most of his weapons wouldn't penetrate full shielding. Not any of the ones that were still operational, at any rate.

The Beam.

A few more shots spat from the planet, searching the stars for their target. His ship trembled. It had found it's target.

That brat must be using the Dictec, he thought to himself. He screamed in frustration and pain as the scanner backfired into his own ship. The white beam sliced through him viciously. He slumped over his console in agony, felling blood run down his lower body. He closed his eyes.

Chakotay watched as a bright white light engulfed the ship in front of him. It modualted into the myriad colors of an explosion, and voyager rocked gently as the edge of the shockwave hit her. Space debris and the metallic glitter of released atmosphere was all the remained.

Janeway tapped her commbadge. "Bridge to engineering," she said.

"Torres here," came the staticky response.

"Damage report."

"All kinds, Captain," Torres replied quickly, "Most of it isn't too bad, but we'll be lucky if we can get the nacelles back on-line at all."

"Work on it, B'Elanna. I need my engines running at full strength."

"Aye, Captain," Torres replied , sounding determined. "If it takes till we get home again i'll fix it," she vowed.

Janeway smiled. "Good. Bridge out."

Tom felt the whip lash out yet again, stinging his bare back. He didn't understand why a race of people with such powerful technology still whipped people. There were much more effective means of getting information out of him.

"What is the modulation frequency of your shields?" the voice demanded again.

"I told you, i don't know. Not that i'd tell you if i did know!" Tom replied angrily. This had been going on for over an hour. He been shoved around, stabbed, beaten, and otherwise generally mistreated. He knew he had, at the very least, one broken arm.

There was a brief, whispered conference behind him, and his questioners withdrew.

Tom tried to sit up, but couldn't quite manage it. He had several bruised ribs, in addition to his arm being broken...

Something sounding like laserbeams ecjoed farther down the hallway. Tom ignored it.

He just wished the captain would get on with rescuing him all ready.