Lydana returned to the bridge, a small object clutched in one hand and the other resting on her pistol. As she entered, Veril passed her a rifle, which she accepted happily.
"It's a plasma rifle with full auto setting," she explained to the Bajoran officer. "It's no assault minigun, but it'll do the trick." She grinned at her own comment, displaying her sharp teeth again, and Lydana slung the weapon over her shoulder.
"Thanks, Veril. I just feel better going with anything that's bigger than this." She patted the pistol at her side, and Veril chuckled in agreement.
"I still don't see why you're going," Tovan called to her, and Lydana walked over to him.
"Because I'm not on your crew, so you can't stop me," Lydana offered, before emitting a humourless laugh. "That, and the fact that this way you aren't risking any vital crew."
"No, just the captain's lover," Tovan shot back bluntly, causing Lydana's cheeks to flush. "If she came back but you didn't, do you think that would sit any better with her?"
Lydana remained silent for a moment, attempting to hold his gaze and failing.
"No," she said quietly, looking pointedly at the floor."But...I need to do this, Tovan. I need to get her back, and I need to know this journey was worthwhile."
Tovan carried on looking at her for a moment, before sliding out of the captain's chair.
"It's a good job we've got an entry for you then," he muttered, beckoning for her to follow him to a console at the back of the bridge.
He brought up a display of the Khnial's interior, and Lydana inspected it with trepidation as Tovan began pointing out where Loraya was held, and the routes Lydana could take. She divided her attention, one part absorbing all of Tovan's information, the other analysing the vessel. Although the massive ship lacked the thalaron weapon of the original Scimitar, Praetor Shinzon's ship, the class it inspired was no less fearsome. They still mounted an unnecessary amount of disruptor cannons in the forward weapons bays, and several turrets and an additional torpedo tube in the aft ones. Not to mention its ability to fire while cloaked, rendering it a dangerous opponent in any situation.
"We're currently on approach to the Khnial's location now," Tovan explained. "We dropped out of warp at the system's perimeter, so we don't make ourselves known too soon. So far, the Khnial seems to be relying on its escorts for protection - its shields are down, but that's going to change as soon as we de-cloak to beam you in."
"So how will you get Loraya out?" she asked with a frown.
"Khimmek has said he'll be trying to shut off or disrupt the shields somehow, but anything you can do to help would be appreciated."
"That's why I replicated this from my shuttle." She showed Tovan the small object in her hand, and he picked it up to inspect it.
"A Starfleet commbadge?"
"Tuned to my old comm signal. I figured that a Romulan on a Romulan ship would be hard to pick out, but a Starfleet signal would stick out as much as I do here."
"Good idea," Tovan said approvingly. "We've already signalled the Republic to request some back-up, but without some assistance...this fight could get messy."
Lydana knew what Tovan was asking, and she was afraid to do it. He wanted her to attempt to contact Starfleet and request additional reinforcements, and she wracked her brain to work out how she could make it work.
Suddenly her expression brightened as an idea occurred to her, and she looked at Tovan eagerly.
"As soon as Starfleet show up, I want us cloaked and moving out of the system, understood?"
"We'll break the minute you're back on board," he assured her, and she nodded.
"Alright then. I'll make contact, see if I can't persuade them to come here. Once that's done, move us into transporter range - I'll be waiting in the transporter room, ready to beam aboard the moment you lock the site."
"Alright then," Tovan told her, extending his hand. "Take care over there, Lydana."
She grasped his hand firmly, meeting his eyes as she did.
"And you take care out here, Tovan," she replied, smiling. "I don't fancy walking back to Mol'Rihan."
A rippled of laughter ran through the bridge crew, and Lydana left to make her arrangements.
A few minutes later, Lydana was stood on the transporter pad, cradling her plasma rifle and offering prayers to the Prophets that her ploy would work. If Starfleet arrived too soon or too late the plan would be useless, but she had to have faith that it would pan out. Quinn had already said that she had now become a fugitive, and they were definitely eager to apprehend her, but that meant nothing if they didn't arrive when she needed them to.
She sighed, closing her eyes as she exhaled, and pushed it from her mind. It was in the hands of the Prophets now; all that remained was to find Loraya.
"Ten seconds, Lydana," Tovan's voice said over the internal comm. "Teleport site locked. Making our approach now."
She made a final check of her rifle, double-checked that the comm-badge was still tucked into her wristguard, and focussed on her objective.
"Five seconds. Elements guide you."
"Jolan Tru, Tovan," she managed to say, a split second before the room around her vanished in a haze of pale green light.
The Bajoran re-materialised in a corridor, broader and darker than those aboard the Leucosia. She immediately hid behind a buttress support and pulled out her tricorder, setting up a few tricks she usually had set on her Starfleet device, then readied her weapon and began moving.
She'd never done well in her tactical simulations, but she'd learned enough to not die immediately. She felt her panic begin to rise as the intruder alarm began sounding, but she fought it down. She had done this before, on the Steadfast. She could do this now.
She turned down another corridor, following the directions she remembered from viewing the internal schematics, focussing directly ahead of her. She didn't hear the group of Tal Shiar soldiers that entered the corridor behind her until her personal shield flared in response to being struck, and she immediately dropped, turned and rolled to the side in one smooth motion. The move brought her behind another buttress, and she leaned out to fire off a three-pulse burst from her weapon. The blue-green hued bolts of superheated gas struck one of the crew, burning through his uniform and the flesh of his arm with ease.
More disruptor blasts ripped into the cover around her, and Lydana pulled her tricorder again. She looked around the cover for a moment, aimed the device and triggered one of her settings, and the group were covered by a hazy dome of pale blue energy. She immediately stepped out of cover, the dampening field she'd just activated reducing the damage from the enemy weapons, and she opened fire on the group on the group. Calm and disciplined fire, was what Elisa had always tried to advocate, but it was difficult when faced with superior numbers. Nonetheless, she kept her cool, calmly putting burst after burst into the Tal Shiar unit. As the last defender fell, clutching the sizzling hole in his abdomen, Lydana looked her weapon over approvingly. It wasn't an assault minigun, true, but it would suffice.
She gave her shields a moment to recharge, then carried on down the corridor. It wasn't far to find Loraya. The hard part would be getting back out.
It only got harder from there.
The defence became more co-ordinated as time went on, and the closer Lydana got to the medical wing the more Tal Shiar soldiers stood in her way.
The young Bajoran bolted down another corridor, sliding into cover as more disruptor bolts tore past her, some hissing into her personal shield. She was acutely aware of a dull pain in her right bicep, and further inspection revealed a disruptor wound from a shot that had obviously punched through her shield. She swore viciously and shrugged it off - there'd be time to fix herself later.
She popped up out from behind the crates she was using for cover, firing a volley of plasma shots down the corridor at her opponents. Most of her shots wasted themselves uselessly against their shields, one or two breaking through to disintegrate armour and flesh with indiscriminate ease, but it wasn't enough.
She stayed upright long enough to fire another volley, dropping back down when the return fire threatened to overwhelm her shield. She knew she'd have to move soon, since she'd spotted a pair of Tal Shiar crew breaking from the group and advancing down the corridor towards her, but if she could-
Her thoughts were interrupted when a plasma grenade bounced off the top of her head, rolling to a stop a few inches from her feet.
"Shit!" she hissed, using one of the choice swear words Elisa had taught her, and realised there was only one way to survive - recklessness.
She vaulted over the crates a second before the grenade detonated, the flickering jade chemical fire lighting up the corridor, and the moment her boots hit the deck she ran straight forwards, ducking the volley of disruptor streams that threatened to tear through her.
She slid into a kneeling position just in front of the two Romulans that had been coming towards her, slamming the barrel of her rifle into the gut of one as she rose, swiftly reciprocating the strike and driving the butt of it into his partner's turned and brought the butt back up, smashing it into the teeth of the officer she'd first struck, but as she turned to finish the second officer he managed to knock her weapon aside, drawing a small knife and driving into her side.
She screamed in agony as the blade bit deep, the angle of the strike only narrowly depriving him of a killing blow, and she collapsed to the deck with a whimper.
"Nice try, girl," the officer snarled, standing over her with his weapon pointed at her face, "but I'm afraid now you belong to us. Any final requests before I drag you before General Hakeev?"
"Just...one," she said slowly, clenching her teeth against the pain. "I want...you people...to stop. Calling. Me. Girl!"
She kicked upwards, knocking his weapon out of his hands, before drawing her pistol and firing three shots straight into his chest. She grabbed his belt as she fought through the pain to stand up again, keeping his body between her and the remaining group of Tal Shiar who were now moving towards her.
She spotted what she wanted hanging from her victim's belt, and primed the two plasma grenades she saw before charging forwards, the body held upright like a shield. A howl born of anger and pain tore from her throat, the act of running sending stabbing pains through her wounds, and with a final heave of effort she hurled the body towards the remaining Tal Shiar, diving to one side as she did.
There was time for them to open fire at her - the grenades detonated before the body even hit the deck, filling the area with chemical flame and incinerating the last members of the group.
She pushed herself up from the deck, groaning at the pain in her side, and used yet more of her fading strength to sprint through the dying plasma fire.
She didn't get through unscathed, suffering burns across her shins where the heat seared through her uniform, but eventually Lydana reached the door she had been fighting to reach. A few moments with her tricorder and she'd managed to override the door, squeezing through the small gap it left before proceeding into the wing beyond.
Despite everything, she'd still had to fight her way through a few guards in order to reach her goal. There had been officer sat behind a desk, who didn't pay attention to who she was talking to - she'd told Lydana where to go and then looked up, earning a plasma blast in the chest for her troubles. After gunning down the two guards who were protecting the medical bay, Lydana stepped over the threshold, her eyes fixed on the figure laying on a medical table. Unable to contain herself, Lydana rushed to Loraya's side, checking her over for signs of injury. There were cuts and bruises around her face and forehead, and Lydana pulled the commbadge from under her wristguard, attached it to Loraya's uniform - Tal Shiar uniform, she thought bitterly - and tapped it to open the channel she'd set up to the Leucosia.
"Good, you're here," a voice said, causing Lydana to raise her rifle in alarm as she locked eyes with another Romulan, who instantly raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Wait!" he called in a hushed voice, "I'm Subcommander Khimmek, I work undercover for the Republic."
Lydana relaxed the weapon, scowling at the taller man before turning back to check on Loraya.
"You shouldn't sneak up on me," she told him. "Not in this situation."
"I assure you, she will be okay...in time," he explained to her, "but for now we-"
"Are there any transport inhibitors?"
"I...no, there aren't, but we will need to lower the shields before she can be beamed out of here."
At that instant the ship shuddered, and Khimmek staggered slightly, although Lydana had to hold on to the table for balance.
"What was that?"
"Her crew," Lydana offered, "and hopefully a few friends."
"Then we need-"
"Yes, I know the shields," Lydana finished, as the ship rumbled again. "I've got an idea. Can you get me into the central computer system?"
"From the guard station down the hall, yes, but-"
"Great, let's go," she ordered, readying her weapon again, and Khimmek held an arm out to stop her.
"But I can't be seen helping you," he told her quietly. "I need to remain here so that I can continue to help the Republic, so if more of the Tal Shiar show up..."
"I'll take that ri-nngh!"
She finally collapsed from the wound she'd suffered earlier, and Khimmek helped her back to her feet.
"You're hurt," he pointed out, and she resisted the urge to swear at him.
"You worked that out by yourself, huh?" she gasped instead, gritting her teeth against fresh pain as she ship shuddered even more violently. "Just...get me a medkit, that should have everything I need."
She spent a few minutes working on the wound in her side with Khimmek's help, healed the wound with a dermal regenerator which she then applied to her shins as well, and gave herself a hypospray shot of a standard pain suppressant.
"Right," Lydana grunted, sliding off the spare medical table she's been sat on, "let's move."
She looked over at Loraya just in time to see her disappear in a glittering haze of emerald light, and she offered a silent prayer of thanks to the Prophets.
"Guess they opened a gap in the shields," Lydana stated, wincing as the ship heaved violently, throwing both of them to the floor.
"Inertial dampeners went offline briefly just then," she said, pushing herself to her feet again. "We have to hurry."
