Chapter 14
Starfleet Marines were trying to communicate with the women on the roof and they began to panic when Agent Hansen came around the corner. A Marine ran to her.
"Ma'am! Ma'am! There was phaser fire ... we've lost communication with the roof!"
"Remain at your posts." She ordered him.
"But ma'am ... the fire ... we should evacuate!"
"You will do as you are ordered." She told him sternly.
She threw open the door and entered walking through puddles that were pulling on the carpet no thanks to the fire alarm system. Over the rushing water and alarms, Agent Janeway heard a sound that indicated the seriousness of the attack on the building. She turned to the window as a shuttle craft came into view. T'Pol was in the back with the mounted phaser gun pointed right at the office.
"No." Janeway said as she grew even more angry at the sight of the rescue party.
The phaser jumped as the windows descintigrated. Agents Janeway and Torres went for their weapons, but T'Pol was too close. She shot as phaser fire went everywhere, perforating the room. Agent Janeway was hit first, her body jack knifing back as blood arched out with a sudden flash of light. And then Agent Torres fell to the floor as her phaser still fired. And then the phaser fire struck Agent Hansen in the chest making her fall to floor as well. Finally with all three of them down they changed back into Starfleet Marines like they were before. T'Pol stared at Archer, it was as if she had tried to will him into moving.
"Get up, Archer! Get up!" She said to him under her breath.
She grabbed a rope and attached one end to her harness.
Just outside the door, three Starfleet Marines all writhed in pain as they morphed.
Slowly Archer lifted his face in the rain of the room. He opened his eyes, they were dark and flashing with fire. He rose from his chair, snapping the chains just as the three women entered the room. Agent Janeway stopped just as Archer was running towards the window.
"NO!" Janeway shouted.
It was like he was running in slow motion towards T'Pol as phaser fire shot past him. He was almost there until he got nicked in the leg by a stray phaser making him fall out the window and knocking him off balance.
"He won't make it!" T'Pol yelled.
Archer lunged out the window out of control. T'Pol leaped into mid-air out of the shuttle craft, catching him. Their limbs intertwined and she made sure that she wasn't going to let him go, until the rope snapped tight, almost making him fall from her grasp.
"Gotcha!" She said.
In engineering, all Wesley could do was stare at the screen with his mouth wide open.
"She's the One. She's gotta be .. but why? She's gotta be!" Wes said to himself.
Tripp pulled the shuttle craft up and away. As the shuttle craft drifted off with Archer in it, Janeway was boiling with anger. She pointed her phaser at the craft and fired. She was determined to bring them all down. Just as she fires the shuttle craft slowly snaked its way through the canyon of skyscrapers as she continued to fire her phaser pistol. The shuttle craft disappeared behind a building. Her phaser fire descintigrated windows of skyscraper glass.
"Find them! Track them!" She ordered.
The shuttle craft touched down on a roof in a swirl of dust and gravel. T'Pol had one arm around Archer as she held him up.
"Archer!" Tripp shouted.
He rushed up to his captain and put his arms around him to let him know he was happy that he was alive.
"Do you believe it now Tripp?" He asked.
Tripp looked at T'Pol.
"Archer, the Prophet ... he told me..."
"He told you exactly what you needed to hear. That's all. Sooner or later, T'Pol, you're going to realize just like I did the difference between walking the path and knowing the path."
A few moments later a communique came into engineering It was Archer.
"Wes."
"Goddamn! It's so good to hear your voice sir!"
"We need an exit."
"Got one ready, sir. It's an undergound trian stop at Washington Park Zoo."
"We're on our way."
On the roof not too far away, a door suddenly slammed open as the three women burst through, but it was too late, they were greeted by an empty shuttle craft and they were long gone.
"Dammit!" Agent Janeway cursed under her breath.
"The trace was completed." Agent Hansen informed her.
"We have their position." Agent Torres said.
"The extermination unit is in place." Agent Torres said.
"Order the strike." Agent Hansen told her.
By this time Agent Janeway couldn't stand listening to them. She moved to the edge of the building, looking over the surrounding city.
"They're not out yet." She told them.
The trio had reached the train stop where Wesley said the exit would be. An old homeless andorian woman sat hunched in the far corner of the platform with newspapers gathered around her like blankets. She mumbled as she nursed she nursed a forty ounce bottle of cheap romulan ale.
The communicator booth began to beep.
They walked over to it, T'Pol picked up the communicator.
"You first Archer." She told him.
He put it to his ear and disappeared in a flash of light. The old woman looked over at what had just happened and took another drink of her cheap ale.
On the rooftop Agent Janeway's face was twisted with hatred. She knew now she would never be free of this god forsaken planet. She started to turn from the edge of the buildiing when she suddenly heard it, she whipped her head around staring off into the distance.
Through the old lady's eyes the world started to rumble. Tripp had hung up the com link and looked at T'Pol.
"T'Pol, I have to tell you something. I don't know what it means or even if it matters but I feel I have to say it."
The rumbling grew louder.
"I've never told anyone this before. I think I've been afraid too." Tripp admitted.
Behind him the com started to beep.
"When I went to the Prophet, he told me... he told me that I would meet a woman. And that I would fall in love."
The rumbling got louder drowning him out but T'Pol was drawn towards him, their lips were close enough to kiss when a train blasted into the station. For a brief moment they were frozen by flashing lights as the old woman behind them became Agent Janeway.
"Promise me you'll tell me the rest?" She asked.
He picked up the com and as he disappeared Agent Janeway destroyed the booth leaving only herself and T'Pol on the empty platform.
Back in engineering Tripp awoke.
"T'Pol!" He said.
"What the hell just happened?" Wesley asked.
"An agent! You have to send me back!" Tripp was frantic at this point.
"I can't." Wesley said.
Back on the platform the destroyed com dangled like a limp arm in the empty booth. She turned to face Agent Janeway and her phaser.
"T'Pol."
Back in engineering, Tripp and Archer were standing behind Wesley and riveted to the screen.
On the platform, T'Pol looked to the set of stairs that rose behind her. Slowly she turned back and her eyes looked hard and fixed like that of a gunfighter. There was no past or future, only what was as she stared at the agent.
In engineering, Tripp was unable to understand what was happening.
"What is she doing?" He asked.
"She's beginning to believe." Archer told him.
T'Pol drew out her phaser and started to fire as Janeway did the same. Phaser blasts whipped past both the heads as they flew at each other at what seemed like slow motion in a move that mirrored each other. Both women lunged at each other in mid air and as they hit the ground both had their phasers drawn and pointed at each other's temples.
"You're out of power." Agent Janeway said with an evil grin.
"So are you." T'Pol shot back.
Janeway's smile disappeared as she tried fire her phaser, but yet there was nothing. Her face twisted with anger and she attacked T'Pol flying at furious speed, with blows and counters, T'Pol was about the retreat as a knife sliced through her forearm making her cry out in pain and with one kick, Janeway sent her flying into a column. T'Pol leaped into the air as she delivered a neck-snapping round-house kick. Agent Janeway's glasses flew off revealing the hateful glare in her ice blue eyes
"I am going to enjoy watching you die, T'Pol."
She charged at T'Pol and before she could block any of her blows, the agent's fist were pummeling the vulcan like jackhammers.
In engineering, all Tripp could do was watch as T'Pol spasmed and coughed up her green blood. Her life signs were going crazy.
"Jesus, she's killing her!" Tripp cried.
Agent Janeway grabbed a hold of T'Pol, lifting her into the air and hurling her against the curved wall of the train tunnel where she fell inches from an electrified third rail. She was about the jump and press her attack when she heard something that sounded like the cry of an animal, it was a burst of high speed metal grinding against the tracks as a train was getting closer. T'Pol tried to get up but Janeway jumped onto the tracks kicking her in the face. The whole it seemed began to shake as it got closer.
"Do you hear that, T'Pol?" Janeway sneered.
She grabbed the vulcan in a choke hold and forced her to look down the tracks where the headlight of the train was getting closer and burning a hole in the darkness of the tunnel.
"That is the sound of inevitability." Janeway said.
T'Pol saw it coming and started to fight to get away from her iron grasp.
"It is the sound of your death."
The screeching metal got closer and louder as Janeway still tightened her hold. T'Pol was unable to breath.
"Goodbye T'Pol of Vulcan."
But she was not ready to die.
"I know who I am."
Impossibly she hurled herself straight up, smashing Janeway against the concrete ceiling. The fell as the train got closer. T'Pol back flipped leaving Janeway on the tracks as the train barreled over her a few seconds later. She stood as her knees shook when the train slammed it's emergency brake. With ear-splitting shriek of metal against metal, the train stopped. T'Pol tried to run but she was limping. The train came to a stop and out bursted Agent Janeway with her sunglasses still intact.
In engineering. Wesley was scanning the planet for a new exit.
"What the hell just happened?" Tripp asked.
"I don't know. I just lost her." Wesley told him.
"She's on the run." Archer told them.
Suddenly a red alert sounded.
"Shit!" Wes yelled.
Archer bolted for the jefferies tube. And climbed onto the bridge, on the radar he saw sentinels.
"Oh no!" Tripp was concerned.
"How long?" Tripp asked.
"Five minutes! Maybe six!" Archer said.
"You can't use that until T'Pol is out!" Tripp told him.
"I know. Don't worry Tripp. She's going to make it." Archer reassured him.
A ferengo businessman was walking down the street talking on his communicator, and then out of nowhere it disappears. T'Pol snatched it right out of his hand.
"What the fuck? My communicator!"
The ferangi turned to call for help.
"That vulcan bitch stole my damned com!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.
By this time T'Pol was in a full sprint weaving through every pedestrian and every possible agent. She flipped open the communicator. Wesley answered.
"Operator."
"Mr. Wizard! Get me the fuck out here now!" She said frantically.
