L

"You think we're even?"

It was amazing what the absence of human beings could do to a place. Too often, humans liked to downplay their own influence on things, pretending that they were nothing more than fleas walking the surface of the Earth's great face. The Earth would be fine without them, virtually unchanged, or so their misanthropic instincts told them. That might certainly be true of a planet like Earth, but not Ohniaka III. The soul had left the planet.

Lore knelt down behind an outcropping of jagged rocks and looked into the distance. The trees that the Ohniaka colonists had planted were still there, only their branches were barren and their trunks rotted from the inside out. The soil beneath them was sandy and dead, supporting only a few patches of thorny bush here and there. The lush forest that the colonists had created with their painstaking efforts, their countless hours calibrating and recalibrating the massive atmospheric generators, was dead and gone. Only dried out trees and wisps of straw remained. After the massacre at the colony—the massacre he had ordered—Starfleet abandoned the planet. They had not even returned to collect their equipment.

Far in the distance, perhaps three or four miles, Lore could see the grey outline of the abandoned outpost. The plateau dropped off into a deep canon just before the main building of the outpost, but the bridge spanning the impassibly distance was still intact. In a kind of bitter irony, Lore was thankful he had not ordered the bridge destroyed eight years ago. It was a minor speck in the distance, but he could see it quite clearly. There was no visible sign of life, no landing craft or lights, but that did not mean much.

He moved around the outcropping of rocks and into the rolling thicket of shrubs. He had been covering similar ground for more than an hour, for he had landed the Enterprise runabout nearly ten kilometers from the outpost perimeter. Considering his many precautions, he found it unlikely that Reed would have much warning of his arrival. He had taken every precaution to mask the craft's engine signature, but the runabout was not designed to be a stealth ship, and he had done the best he could do. He only hoped it was enough.

Please…don't hurt her. The fear was crippling him. What if she was already dead, and Reed had merely intended for him to find her lifeless body? Or worse still, Reed might have no intention of revealing Anna dead or alive. She would simply disappear, along with Reed, to leave Lore in a perpetual state of unsure agony. In a kind of grotesque simpatico, Lore could imagine all of these things, for they were options he might have conjured himself…years ago.

But he knew he had to hurry. The Enterprise would not be far behind, and there was no telling what Reed might do once he saw his escape options closing.

The bridge that spanned the impassable canon was vacant, save the sad hulk of an abandoned land vehicle. He reached it quickly and ducked low behind the steel treads. The roof and part of the side were scarred and melted, the victim of Borg disruptor fire. He clenched the phaser rifle he had taken from the runabout firmly in hand and peered through the busted out windows of the compound. There was no movement, but he doubted Reed would be relying on human eyes for his security. Still, he had come this far, and that could only mean one of two things. Either Reed knew he was coming and had no intention of stopping him, or he was unaware and Lore would have the element of surprise. Regardless of which, he was going forward.

The human concept of jitters, or the creeps, had never been something he understood entirely, but as he pressed through the half open door of the compound lobby he felt an overwhelming sense of dread. Almost everything, from the overturned desks to the blown out ceiling panels, lay exactly where his Borg henchmen had left them. He had watched the massacre through their eyes, taking sick satisfaction in their speed and ferocious accuracy. It made him sick now, if such a thing were possible. He forced his eyes toward the back of the lobby. He passed through a set of old fashioned swinging doors that led to the central courtyard, and from there paved walks led to the various outpost buildings. There was the gymnasium, the laboratories, the residence halls, but he was most interested in the infirmary. If Reed thought anything like he did, that was where all of this was coming to ―.

"Buel―!" Andrew Connor barely completed his syllable before Lore's hand was around his neck. In the space of a heartbeat, he had seen him hiding behind the pillar next to the double doors and spun around before the man could make his escape. Lore lifted him off the ground and squeezed. This traitorous human deserved no better than Reed.

"No! Please!" Buel Kala came running from around the side of the main laboratory. She held her arms away from her body, palms out, and stopped several yards from Lore's position. "Please, let him go!"

Lore lifted his phaser rifle and aimed it squarely at the space between her eyes, "You helped him take her."

Buel's legs faltered as if they were going numb, and the way her eyes kept shifting to Connor's reddened face was enough to give Lore pause. She raised her empty hands higher, "We…we had no choice. He would have killed us! Please, I― just let him go. He doesn't deserve this."

Despite himself, Lore glanced at the now barely conscious human in his grip. He had no pity for them, and yet he knew that Buel was most likely telling the truth. He looked back at her, and when he saw the honest welling of tears in her eyes, he cracked. He dropped Connor from his grip, and the man collapsed like an accordion on the stone steps. Buel flew past, almost as if Lore's nearness was nothing to her, and hovered over Connor as he coughed and struggled to breath. She ran her fingers through his hair and supported his head in her lap. His neck was already beginning to bruise.

Lore was, for just a moment, struck by their affection, but he quickly stepped back and lifted his rifle again. "Where is she?"

Buel kept her eyes on Connor's face as she muttered, "The infirmary. He locked her up in the infirmary."

He spun around and darted across the courtyard at a run. Small debris crunched under his feet as he reached the narrow doorway. The door was gone, long ago ripped from its fixture, and sand had come to cover much of the hallway. The building was dark, but he could detect the low hum of a generator. The building had been refitting with power recently. There was no point in stealth now, for if Reed was there he had certainly heard the commotion in the courtyard. Lore readied his rifle and bounded into the dark toward the strip of light coming from furthest door. He knew that room, it's every line and dimension, and now rushed forth with the fear of what he would find. It wasn't going to be Lydia Reed in the hands of a murderous Borg, though he expected something close.

"Anna!" He pressed his back against the other side of the doorframe and pointed his rifle into the room. It was different. The scattered furniture had recently been pushed against the walls, and the remainder of the cracked windows had been completely broken out. He stepped forward, "Anna!"

A sharp gasp broke the silence, and Lore looked to his right. The door to the infirmary's quarantine chamber was half open, and just through the crack her saw a white hand move across the floor. He flung the door open to see Anna laying on her side at the back of the tiny room. Her head lay unsupported in a dark pool of blood, and her eyelids twitched as if she could not make them open.

"No! No!" He fell forward, letting the rifle drop to the floor as he came to hover over her. He was afraid to touch her, not knowing the extent of her injuries, but she was obviously on the brink of death. He had to get her back to the runabout! "Anna, I'm sorry! Just wait…." He put his hand under her bloody head and lifted her as gently as he could. With his free hand, he fumbled in his pocket for the remote transceiver to activate the runabout transporter, but…something was wrong. As he placed her head to rest against his chest, he was sure that it was lighter than it should be. Also, he could smell the sick metallic aroma of her blood, but…nothing else. He could not smell the salt of her skin or the sunflower aroma that was always present in her hair. He felt her heartbeat, but he could not feel the movement of blood under her skin. He reached down and touched her wrist. He skin was moist, warm, but there was no pulse there. How could she have a heartbeat, and yet no pulse?

No! He spun around, but it was too late. The chamber door slammed shut before he could even regain his feet. In the same instance, the hologram that he had cradled in his lap vanished, along with its artificial pool of blood. Lore released a violent groan of frustration and slammed his shoulder into the chamber door. It hardly trembled. The door was solid, but the front and rear walls were half glass panels, no doubt intended for observation. He bent his elbow and slammed it against the glass with enough force to make the floor vibrate, but he knew it was pointless. Lore already knew everything about that chamber.

"Hello, Lore." Reed came slowly around the chamber and stood a few feet from the glass. His hair was shiny and wild, and his eyes hung in his head like dull marbles. For a few long seconds, Lore merely starred at him. It was hardly the same person he remembered.

"Keep trying to get out, if you like, but I think you know it won't do any good." Reed stepped forward and pressed his finger to the glass, "A class nine containment chamber can't be broken, not even by you."

Lore stepped closer to the glass. In his heart he knew how this story was playing out, and yet he hoped against hope that Reed would simplify it. "Congratulations, you have me." Lore sneered, purposefully defiant, "Get it over with then, Coward."

Reed sighed heavily, as if he was disappointed, and pulled a small disruptor from under his jacket. He tapped it against the glass a few times, "Oh, how easy can I make this? If I wanted to kill you, I've certainly made it difficult for myself. After all, you're in there, I'm out here, and no weapons blast is going to pierce that chamber." He laughed suddenly and pressed his hands to either side of his head, "It took me six hours after the Borg left to get out of that chamber, and that's only because the power gave out and opened the door!"

Lore could feel his heart beginning to sink, his opportunity slipping away. He curled his lips in his best imitation of disgust, "You're pathetic. Should I feel sorry for you? How many merchants have you killed while robbing their ships?" Lore took a few strides and dragged his fingers across the glass in a show of carelessness. "For raw numbers, I would say we're at least even."

"Even?" Reed flashed his red-shot eyes at Lore like they were weapons "You think we're even? If I kill a thousand people, a million, you and I will never, never, be even!" He slammed his disruptor against the glass until he dropped it. He stumbled back and gripped his head again, as if doing so were the only thing keeping it together. "You want even!"

"Reed! Reed!" Lore shouted suddenly, for the man launched himself across the room toward a far door. "Come back here!" He could hear the desperation in his own voice as Reed stopped at a maintenance locker near the far door. He flung the door open, reached inside, and with both hands dragged Anna's bound form to the ground. "We'll be even!"

"No!" Lore slammed his fists against the glass until his internal sensors told him to stop. He could see that Anna was conscious, for she immediately tried to gain her feet and run, but her hands were bound behind her back. Reed easily grabbed her hair and yanked her back against him. "It took my wife nearly four minutes to die after her throat was crushed!" Reed shouted, "Let's see how long this one lasts." He flung Anna against the nearest wall and circled his hands around her neck. Reed looked directly into her eyes as he started to squeeze.

Lore moved to the door and furiously slammed against it, for he had lost any sense of logic. He did not even notice the ripped and peeling bioplast on his hands and arms, nor the thick tears that had begun to stream down his face. Through the glass he could hear Anna's boots kicking against the wall behind her. Reed had lifted her off her feet.

"I'll kill you!" Lore bellowed, "I'm going to kill you!" Rage competed with hopelessness as each of his strikes yielded nothing on the door. Everything was slipping away. "Anna!"

Through the narrow window, Lore saw a pair of eyes watching him from the infirmary door. He stopped. Buel's shrinking frame cowered in the doorframe. Their eyes met, and past Buel's fear and indecision, Lore saw a frozen resolve. Buel leapt forward and threw the chamber latch.

Lore burst through the door in a blind rage, and crossed the room before Reed could react. With deadly strength, he dug his fingers into Reed's shoulders and flung him across the room. He hit the far wall like a broken toy, and landed into the jumbled mass of overturned furniture. Lore crossed half the room, his rage pushing him to finish it, but he turned back and knelt next to Anna. She was struggling to breathe and pull herself upright. Lore quickly broke the ties binding her hands and pulled her against him. She cried fiercely, the pain of each breathe shaking her.

"Breathe slowly." Lore instructed. He encouraged her to stop trying to stand, and eventually she leaned back against him and drew long, painful breathes. Her neck was red and turning worse with each passing minute. She turned her head in the direction where Reed had fallen, and gasped when she saw him move. He was no threat, though. Not anymore. Narok Reed lay strewn across a jumbled mass of metal rods and sharp edge furniture. A dark red circle in the center of his chest was slowly spreading, and when his chest lowered in a laboring exhale, Anna saw the jagged rod on which he had fallen. His head was turned to the side, and his glassy eyes starred in the direction of the door, as if he saw something there.

"I'm…s-sorry, Lydi." He whispered. His words were dull and muted by the blood filling his lungs. He smiled, "You forgive me…right?"

Anna cupped her hand over her mouth and looked away.

Reed continued to smile into the distance until his eyes glazed over and his jaw went slack. He was dead.

Anna turned her face into Lore's chest and cried, whether from relief or from the physical pain still arching through her. "It's over…."

Lore continued to stare at Reed's lifeless body. Although he was at last relieved, Lore felt no satisfaction. In fact, he felt strangely sad, and an idea that he had never really given much credit to came to him suddenly. "I hope he gets to see her."

"Are you all right?" Anna whispered. Her voice was worse than before, and she was laboring harder to pull air.

Lore nodded and stood, lifting Anna with him. She struggled and fell back slightly.

"It's…it's getting h-harder to breathe." She gasped, and reached for her throat.

Lore reached into his pocket for the transceiver, but as he did, a crackle of radio noise filled the room. They both looked around until they saw the shiny bit of gold a few feet away, just near Reed's lifeless feet. It was Anna's communicator. Lore retrieved the item and pressed it as they both walked away from the room.

"I was wondering how long you were going to take." Lore said.

"Prepare yourselves for transport." Came Picard's unamused reply.

Anna dropped suddenly and her eyes rolled wildly. Her mouth was moving, but no sounds came. She could not breathe.

"Hurry!" Lore yelled, "Transport us to sickbay!"

Lore lifted her as the transporter beam came, but she had stopped moving.

LI

"It's only a matter of time before someone else comes looking for you…."

Once again he did not know where to be. He stood in the dark of the recovery room, now empty, and looked through the small round window of the door. No one had objected to him standing in the main sickbay, but he had grown tired of being starred at. Most of all, he had grown tired of trying to read peoples' glances.

Through the throng of moving people, he could see Anna laying on one of the main bio-beds. She had already been stabilized and sedated, and when one of the nurses had announced that she would require surgery on her trachea, he had not been surprised. It was a simple surgery, there was no threat to her life, and yet he did not feel relieved by the fact. He felt responsible.

A blur of blonde hair emerged from the main office and headed toward Anna's bio-bed. At the last minute she halted, raised her hands as if she had forgotten something, and turned back into the office. Lore saw his chance and slipped into the room. No one saw him enter Crusher's office.

"Is she going to be all right?" He asked. He knew the answer, for it was not a complicated matter, but still he wanted to hear Crusher say it.

Dr. Crusher sighed and responded without looking at him, "Yes. Fine."

He recognized her tone. It was the same tone she had used against him upon their rescue from Martzy Prime. Despite his own sense of guilt, he could not help but feel that Crusher's silent accusations were unfair. He stepped forward, "You blame me, don't you? This never would have happened to her if it hadn't been for me. Is that right?"

Crusher pulled a kit from the cabinet behind her desk and closed the door with a frustrated bang. "You seem to know it as well as I do, so why ask?"

"Hypocritical human." He fumed suddenly. He had grown tired of her constant accusations, her unfair harping. He kept his voice low as he spoke, "Did you blame Data when I attacked the Enterprise eight years ago? Was it his fault? I can't believe you are blaming me for Narok Reed's actions!"

Crusher was perhaps one of the hand full of people who suffered no fear of Lore's temper, and she looked squarely at him with a stern face. "I don't blame you for what Reed did, but I do blame you for everything that's going to happen to Lt. Hall."

He balked. "What?"

"Doctor! We're ready!" One of the nurses called from the main room.

"I'll be right there!" Crusher replied. She gripped her case in both hands and turned back to Lore, "Since you think I'm so unfair because my memory is long, let me remind you that I'm not the only one. How many people have you killed, Lore? And how many of them had wives and husbands and friends? If you think Narok Reed was the only person who had a score to settle with you, I think you're going to be very disappointed. It's only a matter of time before someone else comes looking for you, or you just run into them, and who's going to be there with you to get in the line of fire?" She pushed her chair under the desk and walked toward the door, "Anna doesn't deserve that, and you know it."

"Yes, I do."

Crusher narrowed her eyes at him. She did not detect the usual sarcasm, yet she was incapable of hearing sincerity in his voice. She turned and left him there.

Lore crossed to the desk and pressed the comm panel, "Lore to Data. I need to talk to you."

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TWELVE HOURS LATER

Data was walking faster than usual, and Data was not the type to break routine for no reason. Counselor Troi, who was heading the same direction already, quickened her pace when he approached.

"Data, are you all right?" She asked.

His pace faltered, but they both continued, "I am fine, Councilor. Thank you."

"How is Lore doing? I saw him waiting outside of sickbay—." Troi broke off. It was always a shocking feeling when Data suddenly deactivated his emotion chip. "Really, Data, what's wrong?"

"Lore has returned to the surface. He asked me to contact him if there was any further information in regards to Lt. Hall's surgery."

Troi frowned. It was not like Data to side step a question. "Why would Lore return to the surface?"

They approached the rear door to the main conference room, the route usually taken to access the bridge from deck one, and Data paused once inside the dim room. "I did not ask him for a reason. The place is…significant to him."

"Lore is not the sentimental type." She could sense nothing from him, but that was part of the problem. Anyone who wanted to hide something from an empath would be only too happy to have Data's emotional off-switch. She continued, "Data, we still haven't located Buel or the human, Connor. What if they're still down there?"

"I believe Buel Kala and Connor escaped the surface with a shuttle pod. There is a definite warp signature leaving the system."

Troi followed him onto the bridge, not at all liking his abruptness, and took her seat.

Picard was going over some system updates on the arm display of his chair. He looked up as Data crossed the bridge, "Mr. Data, would you inform Lore that his time on the surface is up. Geordie believes he can compensate for the signal degradation on Buel and Connors escape pod. We need to leave orbit now."

"Aye, Captain." Data took his seat and opened his comm channel. "Enterprise to Lore. We are leaving orbit. Stand by for transport."

There was no reply.

"Enterprise to Lore. Please respond." Data repeated.

There were another few seconds of silence while the crew exchanged glances.

"Scan the surface." Picard ordered.

Data conducted the appropriate scan with a swift movement of his fingers. "I am detecting his signature, Captain, in the infirmary building where we found him."

"Picard to Lore. Respond immediately—."

Troi gasped. The explosion was so tiny, just a spec on the massive planetary image before them, but impressive none the less. The atmosphere glowed in a tight orange ball for only a second, then shrank in a gray, dusty void.

"What the hell!" Picard exclaimed, "Magnify!"

Everyone saw what they already expected to see. The canyon bridge appeared to be the only remaining piece of the Ohniaka III outpost. The outlying buildings smoldered around a flattened epicenter, the barely recognizable smear that had been the outpost infirmary.

"Enterprise to Lore. Respond!" Data repeated. "Captain, his signal is gone."

"Scan the surface." Picard said, "I want to know what the hell happened." Picard glanced at Troi briefly, but she was not looking his way. It was the silent queue that she had nothing, or at least nothing she wished to share.

Data rose suddenly from his station, "Captain, I would like join an away team to the surface."

Picard nodded solemnly, "Number one."

Riker rose and headed for the lift. Data followed him without saying a word.

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It seemed wrong that Anna should be the last to know, but Crusher had been adamant about letting her rest. In truth, she simply wanted to delay Anna's pain and her own discomfort. Every physician eventually had to bear the hard duty of announcing death, but this was perhaps the first time she had ever felt that it would be inappropriate for her to do so. She did not like Lore. Everyone knew it, including Anna. Troi was kind enough to take the duty for her.

It was as Crusher had expected. True pain is often silent. It is not the hysterical wailing of holonovels, nor the gut-wrenching proclamations of Shakespeare. When Troi told her, Anna merely rolled back over on the bio-bed and buried her face under her arm. Her shoulders shook with sobs, but she made hardly a sound. Only Troi could feel the true extend of her despair, so much so that she did not stay long in the room.

It did not take long for Geordie and Data to conclude that Narok Reed had hidden a timed charge in the sub-structure of the outpost infirmary. No doubt Reed had staked his life on getting even, and would have gladly gone up in the inferno if his initial plan had gone awry. That was the general consensus before long. It was just a lucky chance that Reed was not able to set off the explosion when Lt. Hall was still on the surface, and as for Lore, well…. Even the staunchest logicians were willing to entertain some idea of Karma when it came to Lore. No one said it, at least not in open company, but it was thought by most: Karma was cruel.

Epilogue

TEN HOURS EARLIER

"I will not." Data insisted, "You are making a mistake."

"There's no other way, Data!" Lore threw his hands up and paced the room, "She's right. Everyone is right. It's only a matter of time before someone else comes, and I don't know if I will see them coming."

"You are asking me to lie." Data countered, "To my superiors, and to my friends…to Lt. Hall."

"Data," Lore lowered his voice, it was almost pleading, "If I just disappear, no one is going to believe that you or Anna were ignorant. I don't want anyone to use Anna to find me. I won't let that happen. I must go, Data. Now. If I stay much longer, I won't be able to go through with it."

Data shook his head slowly, "You will regret this decision."

"Was that a yes?"

"You will regret it."

To be continued….