The room was dark and warm. "Lexxi!" Kirk called, quietly at first, then louder. Lexxi, in her bedchamber, a knife aimed at her throat, panicked. As the captain rounded the corner to where she was, she quickly flipped it around and aimed it at him.
"Who's there?" she asked harshly, and then ordered the lights raised, watching as Kirk jumped back from the tip of her weapon.
"Lexxi, it's just me!"
"Captain?" She lowered the knife.
"Yes." Kirk glanced around the room. "Are you okay?'
"I am now," Lexxi replied, smiling nervously and slipping the knife behind her back.
"Good. Bones! Scotty! She's okay!" Kirk called to the two men still waiting in the hall. They stepped over the melted door and into the room.
"Good god, Jim!" McCoy exclaimed, joining Kirk and Lexxi. He looked Lexxi over. "What were you doing in here?"
"Threatening the captain with a knife," Lexxi stated matter-of-factly before Kirk could reply.
McCoy couldn't help but smile. He then chose his best stern voice and said, "I though I told you to get some sleep. How can you expect to get any better playing Robin Hood?"
Scotty chuckled.
"I was sleeping," Lexxi defended herself, "until I woke up and found someone blasting through the door! I decided I didn't want to be melted into oblivion with it."
Kirk looked concerned. "With a knife?"
"It was better than nothing."
"Wait a minute," McCoy interjected, "How'd you get a knife?"
Lexxi tried to look innocent. "Very carefully. So that was you making all that noise."
"Aye," Scotty answered, "'Twas."
"What made you think otherwise?" Kirk asked.
Lexxi lifted her head and tried to look down her nose, but was unsuccessful; they were all taller than she was. "On a ship like this, with a record like yours, I believe being taken over by giant chocolate doughnuts is higher on the possibility list than being rescued from my beauty sleep by the captain." She remain still, her expression serious.
The men burst out laughing.
Lexxi tried to pout, but was never very good at it. "What did you want, anyway? Besides to scare me out of my wits, of course."
"We had reason to believe that you intended to take your own life, Lieutenant." Kirk became stern.
"What reason?"
"A previous attempt."
Lexxi eyes flashed with anger mixed with amusement. "I slipped and fell in the shower!"
The doctor spoke up. "The hell you fell in the shower! It wasn't the fall anyway, it was the heat!"
"Well I didn't, did I?" Lexxi shot back.
"The lass is right," Scotty said quietly.
"No," Kirk agreed, "You didn't."
McCoy shook his head. "I still want to check you over."
Lexxi smiled. "Proof?"
"Proof." McCoy nodded to the other two and Kirk and Scotty began to file out of the room. The doctor turned from Lexxi to fetch his scanner out of his bag. Lexxi saw her chance.
Just end the pain…
In an instant, the knife flicked form it's hiding place. Dr. McCoy saw a flash of silver from the corner of his eye and quickly spun back around. Just in time to see the blade aimed at Lexxi's throat. She plunged and his hand shot out. "Jim!" he shouted as the tip slipped from its target, taking a slice through Lexxi's shoulder instead. He tightened his grip as Kirk entered and the knife clattered to the deck. "Hold her!" the doctor commanded as Lexxi struggled furiously. Her mind repeated its broken-record message:
End the pain…end the pain…
An unintelligible shriek escaped Lexxi's lips as Kirk grasped her wrists and crossed her arms behind her back. Deep red blood oozed from the gash in her shoulder, squeezed from the strain. She began to mumble, and Kirk strained to hear.
"No, no don't do this, I came in peace, peace! Let me go, let me go! Don't touch me, damn you, get your filthy fingers off of me! Just kill me! Get it over with, you son of a bitch, and kill me!"
Lexxi's legs flailed wildly without the use of her arms. One foot caught McCoy in the stomach as he faced her with a hypo. He bent momentarily in pain, and then resumed his approach. "Damn you!" she screamed as the hypo hissed, "No!" The drug took affect and the world dissolved into blackness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The room was silent. Mr. Spock sat at his desk in his quarters intently analyzing the information on the screen and carefully watching the chronometer. Although he would not admit it, even to himself, he was beginning to feel a twinge of frustration. He did not know how desperate Lieutenant Montgomery was and this was an important deciding factor in the method she would choose. Nor did he know the limitations she would put on herself. If one was desperate enough with no limits as to how, one could kill oneself with anything available. Just has he glanced at the chronometer once more to make sure it was not time for his shift, a terrifying anger surged up in him and took great effort to push back. Before he could recover, waved of pain and fear washed over him, knocking him from his chair. Images began to roll from his memory, not his…Lieutenant Montgomery's. Horrible images he'd encountered in his meld with her. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips as he watched it happen once more.