A/N: Here, for your reading pleasure, is chapter 8. Y'ins had better like it, because it took me like a month to write it. Of course, I wasn't actually writing it all during that month, but still. And I would have gotten it finished earlier this week, except my vile dreaded loathsome aunt was visiting, and therefore sleeping in the room in which my computer is kept, ergo I could not get in to use it. So if you don't like this chapter I shall sic my wiener dog army after you. Not really. I don't have an army of wiener dogs.

This chapter is still pretty violent. Remember, this story's got a T rating for a reason. If you're opposed to violence in any way, still please read this chapter, but don't hold it against me. I did warn you. How's this: CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION. There you go.

Chapter 9 shall be posted whenever I can get it written. Hopefully by next week sometime.

Ko-fu – daughter

Khrash nam-tor ri kilko-srashiv – Violence is not the answer.

Kaumaha, makua kane – Sorry, father.

Au pono – I must.

Thank you all for the continued reviews! You're making puppies happy!

volley – I hope you had a good vacation and that it wasn't too difficult to find an internet café!


Chapter Eight: Lies

Akkenar shook his head, as though he'd misheard her, but she knew damn well that he'd heard every word. "What?"

Kamea straightened, infusing as much starch into her spine as possible. "You heard me," she said. She hoped the contempt in her voice was unmistakable. "You win, we die. I win, I die." She cocked her head to the side, attempting to gauge his reaction. "What do you say?"

The Andorian looked like he just won the lottery. His face lit up even more than it had while he was watching Malcolm be tortured. She could tell that he was eager to take the deal but that he also thought she wasn't serious. "What's the catch?"

She just stared at him. She was done with it – all of it. She was done with the running, and the whispers behind her back, and the nightmares, and that damn voice in the back of her head, and the hiding, and the fear. Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear. Well, she wasn't afraid anymore. She wasn't afraid to die. Death would be welcome, a blessing. She could finally go home; she could finally get some sleep. In the end, that was really all she wanted.

"No catch," she said.

"So," said Akkenar slowly, removing his fur cloak and tossing it aside, "you would die either way?"

Unconsciously, she started to shake. She wanted nothing more than to go to Malcolm and say a proper goodbye. This would most likely be the last time she ever saw him. There was so much she wanted to say, but there weren't any words – in English, Hawaiian, or Vulcan – to accurately express the way she felt when she was with him. She had waited her entire life to find the connection her mother had been talking about, and now she was going to die.

Figured. She really had crappy luck. All she had to do was remind herself that there was no other way. She was not going to get out of this alive – the odds were most definitely not in her favor – but there was still hope for Malcolm. And that was good enough for her.

She held Akkenar's gaze and nodded once.

"No, Kamea," Malcolm said, as he struggled to get to his feet. He propped himself up using the wall and after several failed attempts managed to pull himself upright. He was a mess. His face was so purple that he looked like a different species; there was swelling around his eyes and his lips so that his face was a misshapen mess. His clothes were torn in many places, revealing deep gashes that soaked the fabric with blood. And she was certain that the Andorians had broken at least two of his fingers. She blinked back tears. "You don't have to do this."

Kamea swallowed the lump that had suddenly lodged itself in her throat. "Yes. I do."

"You can't do this," Malcolm said. He shook his head and shut his eyes, in obvious pain. "I won't let you do this."

She tried to smile but wasn't able to. The best she could manage was a half-grin that faltered and vanished almost immediately. "You're not exactly in the position to stop me."

"Kamea," he said, and the sound of his voice saying her name almost made her lose it right there. "Don't do this. I'm not worth it."

She reached out cautiously to cup his cheek. She fought to keep her body under control, but her heartbeat accelerated, her breathing shallowed, and every cell in her body was on fire. She hoped he noticed, because there was no way she could put all that into words. "Don't worry," she said. "I don't intend to lose."

She wanted nothing more than to kiss him then, or have him kiss her. She wondered what it would feel like, pressing her lips to his, tasting him. She wondered if the sparks she felt when she touched him would be magnified by a kiss. She wondered if what she felt for him was mutual, or if it was just her overactive imagination wreaking havoc with her mind. Wouldn't be the first time. She wondered how he would touch her – would he cup her face, or thread his hands in her hair? Would the kisses be soft and delicate or full of passion and need?

But what it felt like, she wouldn't find out. Akkenar had come up behind them and kicked her in the back of the head. She pitched forward, knocking Malcolm over, and threw her arms out to break her fall and keep herself off him. The pain was a short burst that caused black spots to flash before her eyes, but she blinked and it was gone. She took a deep breath, struggling to keep her volatile emotions under control, trying to clear her mind and focus her energy. She had promised not to use her abilities, but she still had an advantage over the reckless, impatient Andorian.

He approached her once more from behind, but she rolled to the side and out of his way. By the time he realized his error and adjusted his trajectory, she was on her feet.

She was not going to lose. Akkenar may have been an Andorian and trained in combat, but most Andorians were used to fighting with weapons and not hand-to-hand. And she was also very well trained, in several different styles. She'd studied under the Klingons and had learned many of Starfleet's tactics during her spars with Malcolm, plus she had a black belt in judo from one of San Francisco's martial arts academies. Besides, she had waited for this opportunity for almost eight years, she had nearly six decades of pent-up frustration at her disposal, and she was fighting to save someone else's life. That, more than anything, was what kept her going.

Kamea dropped into her ready stance, one arm bent near her head, the other straight out. She beckoned Akkenar closer. "Let's dance, you and I."

He lunged forward, swinging his fist around. She parried his punch easily and attacked with one of her own, which he dodged with just as much ease. Right hook, left jab, combination, uppercut – they fought their way across the cargo bay. The Andorians kept at a safe distance, cheering their captain on. Emboldened by the support of his crew, Akkenar managed to backhand Kamea across the face. She tasted blood but paid it no heed, countering with a tornado kick. He grabbed her foot and held her leg parallel to the ground, so she swung her free leg around and caught him on the side of the head. Akkenar dropped like a stone and, still clutching Kamea's foot, took her with him. He fell backwards; she landed hard on her shoulder. The pain momentarily blinded her, and she was fairly positive that she had dislocated her shoulder.

"Oh, are you injured?" Akkenar asked, not the least bit concerned. He scrambled to his feet.

Kamea braced her arms on the floor and leapt to her feet, swaying slightly from the pain. She was hit with a sudden wave of nausea but closed her eyes until it passed. She went back into her ready crouch. "Not in the slightest."

Akkenar came at her again, so she did a one-handed back handspring, kicking him in the head. When she righted herself, she clutched her injured arm to her stomach. Every time she moved it, pain shot down to her fingers, but she ignored it. She favored her other arm, but she was sure Akkenar would realize what she was doing.

He did a scissor kick, but she cartwheeled out of the way. She tried a left hook – as her left arm was her good arm – but he ducked and landed a jab in her abdomen. She brought her arms together, elbow to wrist, and thumped him on the back with her elbows as hard as she could. Akkenar sank to his knees, grabbed her ankles, and yanked her off her feet. She landed on her back, her head smacking off the floor. While Akkenar tried to get to his feet, Kamea used her good arm to push off and spun around on her back so that her legs knocked into his. As soon as he hit the ground, Kamea got to her feet. She raised her foot to smash it in his face, but he rolled out of the way. He then hooked his feet around her ankle and twisted, bringing her back to the floor. She landed on her injured shoulder and couldn't help the gasp that escaped when she hit.

Fighting down yet another wave of nausea, she slowly stumbled to her feet, and that – she was sure – Akkenar noticed. "Well, now," he said, in his slimy voice, "it seems that the half-breed isn't indestructible after all."

Ignoring the pain in her right arm, Kamea executed a series of acrobatic moves – roundoff, back handspring, roundoff – ending with a spinning jump kick that sent Akkenar reeling. When he straightened and tried a cross-hook combination, she bent backwards as far as she could go and snapped back up when he pulled away.

"Impressive," Akkenar said. "Tell me, half-breed, what other ways do you bend?"

Kamea shrieked a war cry and attacked with a barrage of punches. "I am not a half-breed!" Every word of her next sentence was punctuated by a punch.

"Don't – " Jab. " – call – " Left hook. " – me – " Uppercut. " – half-breed." High kick directly underneath his chin.

Akkenar stumbled but didn't fall. He staggered backwards into the wall, which kept him upright. He pushed off from the wall and ran at her, arms outstretched. With her vision blurred from the pain in her shoulder, she didn't realize what he was doing until it was too late. His arm caught her in the throat, knocking her backwards and ripping the breath from her body. As she lay on the ground, completely winded, she sensed him coming at her, so she summoned what little strength remained and pushed herself into a handstand, catching his head between her thighs.

He tried to wedge his hands between her legs to pull them apart, but as soon as his hands touched her, she – for lack of a better word – freaked out. She pulled her legs backward, throwing Akkenar over her shoulder. He hit the wall pretty hard, with a crunch that normally would have been sickening but made Kamea that much happier. She sincerely hoped he'd broken something important.

He struggled to get to his feet. He pushed himself up on his arms, but they shook from the effort, and he collapsed. In a flash, before he could summon the strength to rise, she was kneeling over him, her hand poised above his chest, as if to rip out his heart.

Kamea dug her fingernails into his flesh so hard that blue blood trickled out of the wounds. "I win."

The Andorian looked up at her, his eyes burning with intense hatred. "So you do." He snarled, baring his teeth. "Now get off me."

She stood, backing away several paces. Now that her adrenaline was no longer flowing, her arm hurt worse than ever, a dull, throbbing pain that was beginning to spread to the rest of her body. The arm hung limply at her side, all but useless, having come almost completely out of the socket. But did it really matter, since she was about to die anyway?

At that moment, realizing she was but a heartbeat from death, she did the only thing she could think to do.

She ran to Malcolm.

He opened his arms to her, but before she reached him, she was grabbed from behind by several of Akkenar's soldiers, who seemed to have recovered from being smashed into a wall.

Akkenar strolled over, as casually as he could stroll while dragging one leg behind him and clutching a hand to his wounded chest. He walked over to them and, while keeping his eyes fixed on Kamea, said to his men, "Kill him."

Kamea felt the breath leave her body for the second time that day. "What?" she said, sputtering indignantly. "You said you wouldn't kill him!"

The Andorian shrugged carelessly. "I lied."

His dishonesty should not have surprised her, but it did. She didn't even try to fight back against her captors. She was in such a state of shock that she couldn't do anything else but stand there, eyes wide. "We made a deal," she said, sounding very much like a whining teenager who hadn't gotten her way. "If I win, Malcolm goes free."

Akkenar laughed and shook his head. "Ah, yes, you did propose such a deal, but I don't recall actually agreeing to it."

More of the Andorians started for Malcolm, but Kamea finally discovered that she had the ability to move. "No!" She elbowed her captors in the stomach and threw out her hands, putting a force field around Malcolm. But in her weakened state, she couldn't maintain it, and as soon as it began to fail, they marched towards him.

Ignoring her throbbing and practically useless right arm, she flung out her arms, throwing all of the Andorians backwards. Some slid along the floor until they hit the wall, but some glided to a stop. She whirled on Akkenar and grabbed him by the shoulders, heaving him up several inches off the ground.

"You said you wouldn't use your powers," Akkenar said. But there was no mocking in his tone – only fear.

She narrowed her eyes. "I lied."

He shook his head and forced a laugh. "Vulcans don't lie." He was shaking, but from rage or from fear, Kamea neither knew nor cared. "Vulcans don't kill, either."

Her upper lip curled in a sneer. "I'm not Vulcan."

Akkenar licked his lips nervously. "Come now, half-breed. Your traitorous parents would advocate a peaceful solution."

Kamea slammed him against the wall. That familiar blackness was returning to her eyes, the familiar burning was rising in her throat. "They're dead. Thanks to you."

He kicked at her, but she jumped out of the way and, with a sudden upsurge of strength probably fueled by rage more than adrenaline, she hurled him across the empty cargo bay. A loud crack as he landed signaled the breaking of at least one of his limbs. She marched over to him, suffering from tunnel vision – she saw him and only him.

"You never answered me," she said, stepping on his fingers as he tried to crawl away. She was sorely tempted to press harder until she felt the bones crumble underneath her foot, but she refrained. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words came out – only blood. She crouched low to the ground and said, "I'm still waiting for a reason not to kill you."

Again, a voice sounded in her ear – soft but firm, a voice she knew to be her father's. Ko-fu, he said, khrash nam-tor ri kilko-srashiv.

She drew in a sharp breath and for a moment seemed to come back to herself. Her arm throbbed painfully and she looked at her weakened and practically helpless enemy. She thought of the person she would become if she succumbed to this unnatural desire to kill, and she knew that it was not the kind of person that she wanted to be. What must her parents think of her, unable to decide what should be an easy choice?

Rage bubbled up once more. She would never know what her parents thought, because – thanks to the lump of garbage sprawled beneath her – she would never see her parents again. This piece of filth, this scum, this vermin, would just as soon kill her as look at her, and he was more than willing to kill innocent people in order to get to her. She would be doing the universe a favor if she ended his terror tactics now, while she had the chance. If she let him go, this opportunity might never present itself again. Would she be able to live with herself if she killed him? Maybe, maybe not. But would she be able to live with herself if she sent him on his way and he continued to hunt her and to murder innocent lives in the process?

Her head began to pulse. She shook it to break free of her father's grip and said, "Kaumaha, makua kane." She stared down at Akkenar. "Au pono."

Everything went black.


Enterprise continued to speed through the quadrant at warp four, following the decaying plasma trail the Andorians had left behind, which was growing stronger by the minute. The stars were just blurs in the view ports, and the bridge crew was on edge, but none more so than the captain, who was pacing restlessly back and forth, chewing absently on his fingernails.

"We're approaching the Andorian vessel, Captain," Travis said.

Archer glanced up from the area of deck plating at which he'd been staring for the past hour. He swallowed to dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat and nodded. "Drop out of warp, Ensign."

He felt the engines shift underfoot as the white lines outside the view port shrank to pinpoints of light once more. He resumed his frenzied pacing, his gaze anxiously flicking to the window to see whether or not they had come alongside the Andorian vessel yet. When they were finally within range, Archer turned to Hoshi. "Hail them."

She nodded and immediately set about doing just that. Her fingers flew across the controls of her console, and soon her brow furrowed in concern. She swallowed and looked at him. "There's no response, Captain."

Archer's head began to throb – painfully. He clenched his teeth and tried very hard not to scream. It wasn't Hoshi's fault, after all. "Try again."

That she did, but with the same results. Archer gritted his teeth. If the Andorians wanted to play this game, he was all too willing. They would soon learn not to mess with a member of Enterprise's crew. When it came to his crew, Archer would fight to the death. He hoped it hadn't already come to that – that Malcolm was still alive. Why did he have this feeling that something horrible had happened?

Fighting the sinking feeling in his gut, he turned to T'Pol. "Bio signs?" he asked.

She glanced down at the readings and cocked an eyebrow. Archer tried to read her lack of facial expressions and found that he was unable to do so. She finally glanced up at him. "Two," she said, and though she rarely revealed much by way of vocal inflections, Archer could tell that she was surprised. "One human, one indeterminate."

Archer unintentionally stormed over to her station. "What do you mean there's only two bio signs?" He braced his hands on the console and leaned forward so that he was almost nose-to-nose with her. She bristled noticeably. "That ship has a crew complement of at least thirty."

T'Pol pulled back from him and narrowed her eyes slightly. "I am aware of that, Captain. I am only detecting two bio signs."

He exhaled loudly through his nose, and T'Pol shook her head. "Captain, I do not understand what is troubling you. According to these readings, it is obvious that Kamea and Lieutenant Reed are still alive, yet you seem upset."

Archer shook his head. "That ship has got to be wired to explode or something. They wouldn't have just left them there unless they were incapacitated." He whirled around to face Trip. "Check for any explosives."

Trip did as he was instructed. He rubbed his chin as he examined the readings. "Well, Captain, I'm not picking up anything like that. No timers, no detonating devices, just the standard ammunition for a ship of that size – all contained in the weapons locker."

Archer began to chew on the skin surrounding his thumbnail. What if this was a set up? Why would the Andorians have gone to so much trouble to find Kamea only to abandon her on their ship? None of this made any sense. "Then they've been poisoned," he said with finality, though he wasn't at all certain, "or they left them there to die."

"Captain," Trip said. He cleared his throat. "There, uh, aren't any shuttles missing."

Archer's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "What?"

Trip coughed nervously. "If the Andorians left the ship, sir, they didn't do it in any of their shuttles."

That sinking feeling returned with friends. Something seriously wrong had happened on that ship, and they had to find out what. They had to bring their people back. Archer nodded solemnly and walked over to his companel. "Bridge to transporter room."

Lieutenant Hess's voice filled the bridge. "Hess here, Captain."

Archer licked his lips and sank into his chair. "Prepare to beam Lieutenant Reed and Kamea aboard."

"Uh, sir?" Hess said. "There's a problem with that, sir."

Archer buried his face in his hands and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming. This was just not his day. "Are we getting some kind of interference again?" he asked, knowing damn well that they weren't, because T'Pol would have reported it before now.

"No, sir," said Hess. "It's just that, um, the transporter hasn't been calibrated for Kamea yet. We won't be able to get a lock on her position."

Archer slowly turned to face his chief engineer, who grinned in embarrassment, his entire face beet red. He cleared his throat and looked down at Malcolm's console. "It's on the top of my to-do list, Captain."

Archer groaned loudly and punched the button on the companel again. "Transporter room, just beam Lieutenant Reed aboard, then. We'll get a shuttle and go fetch Kamea ourselves."

"Is that wise, Captain?" T'Pol asked. "We have no idea what happened to the Andorians."

"I'm not leaving her there," Archer said.


The corridors of the Andorian ship were so silent it was unnerving, even to the normally unflappable Vulcan, but T'Pol continued her trek towards the cargo bay, where her scanners were detecting one bio sign. The captain followed closely behind her, and behind him were half a dozen heavily-armed MACOs. It was becoming standard procedure for the MACOs to come on these missions, which T'Pol felt was a wise decision. Surely they were better equipped and more aptly trained for the kind of situations into which crewmembers of Enterprise had an unfortunate tendency to fall.

After having seen the condition Lieutenant Reed was in, T'Pol was surprised to learn that Kamea was alive at all. Malcolm was unconscious when Lieutenant Hess had beamed him aboard, but his vitals were stable, and Phlox was optimistic about his recovery. Trip and the captain had been visibly nauseated at the sight of their armory officer bruised and bloody, looking as though he had endured several violent beatings. When the team left to retrieve Kamea, Trip had immediately ventured towards the transporter room, stating that this would never happen again.

T'Pol crept through the corridors, trying to ignore the vile stench of death that hung in the air, but it was difficult. Something awful had happened here, and she was concerned for Kamea's welfare. If the Andorians had treated Lieutenant Reed so despicably, surely Kamea would be in a far worse state.

When they reached the cargo bay, T'Pol suddenly wished that were the case.

Bodies were strewn across the cargo bay – all of them Andorian. Some of them looked as though their brains had exploded out of their heads. Others appeared to have been snapped bodily in half. All of them wore the same expression of fear – it grotesquely contorted their faces in a way that made T'Pol sick to her stomach. Blue blood spattered the walls, the floor, even the ceiling.

"My God," Archer said softly, coming to a stop at T'Pol's shoulder, "what happened here?"

T'Pol found that she could not respond. Her tongue simply refused to move. She could not take her eyes off of the bodies, many of whom had apparently been killed while running for their lives.

"This was a massacre," the captain said. T'Pol was inclined to agree. Her eyes darted across the room, surveying the carnage, and finally came to rest on a solitary figure seated in the corner.

Kamea had curled into a fetal position, using her left arm to hug her knees to her chest. Her right arm hung limply at her side, and it appeared as though the shoulder had been dislocated. She was covered in Andorian blood, rocking back and forth slightly, singing quietly to herself in what T'Pol presumed to be Hawaiian. She did not seem to have noticed them.

It suddenly hit T'Pol what must have happened, though she was loath to believe it. However, she knew that Kamea was able to do this kind of damage; she had just hoped that she was not capable of it.

Archer hissed in a sharp breath. "You don't think…" He trailed off, glancing around the room. "Not Kamea?"

The sound of her name must have jerked Kamea out of her trance, because she looked at them. Her eyes were dull and dead, hard and cold. "They were going to kill him," she said, by way of explanation. "They said they wouldn't, but they were." She stared into space for a moment, gazing at a spot to the right of the captain. "I couldn't let them do that," she said, meeting their eyes once more. "I couldn't let them kill him."

"Kamea," Archer said, as though unable to believe what she was confessing, "what have you done?"

She lifted her good shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "What I had to do."