"I'm going to ask you again!" A Romulan man said as he circled his prisoner, who was lying on the floor. Without warning he bent down and grabbed her collar, pulling to her feet. With a mighty force he slammed her into the wall. Her face scrunched up with the pain that seared through her body. "What was the mission your superiors sent you for?" His voice was filled with anger. "What do they know about us?"
Evelyn gasped for air as she did her best to ignore her injuries and tried to speak. "I've already told you… we were sent to collect Dilithium."
"You lie!" He shouted and rammed her back into the wall again.
Evelyn's face tightened with the pain again. "We had no idea you were here." It was the same answer she had given for the last 20 minutes.
Annoyed, he let go of her and she fell to her knees. Her hands were now tied up in front of her. Her face badly cut and her arm was bleeding from a knife slash.
"But Enterprise will now know that something has happened. We've been missing for a couple of hours… no contact." The Romulans surrounding her looked down at the human. "I'm surprised they haven't already stormed this place in search of us."
The Commander smiled at her. "Your ship would never be able to detect our base through the dampening field."
Three Romulan soldiers marched into the area, weapons strapped to their shoulders. "Commander!" One of them stepped forward and spoke up. "The human is gone."
"Sound the alarms! Find him!" he shouted. The Romulans scattered out upon hearing the commands, leaving Evelyn alone with the commander and one other guard.
Evelyn could tell the commander in front of her was getting angry and so she decided to use this to her advantage. "But they would if they knew what to look for." Evelyn smiled with a smug expression. "Never underestimate humans."
The commander lashed out to hit her round the face, but Evelyn was quick. She dodged the powerful arm heading towards her and as it went past her face she grabbed it, throwing him against the wall and knocking him senseless. She quickly turned and stood up, waiting got the guard to make a move. He was quick to retaliate and drew out a sword from his belt.
He charged, bringing the weapon down to stroke her head, but instead of hitting her skull, the sharp blade made contact with the ropes around her wrists and they severed. With both hands now free she grabbed the surprised Romulan and threw him against the wall. He hit it hard and collapsed to the floor unconscious.
"Romulan idiots." She said before remembering the pain and fell to the floor. She put her hands out in front of her so she didn't hit the floor. She breathed heavily for a few seconds to regain her strength. Her messed up hair hung loosely over her shoulders.
A siren started blaring bringing Evelyn to the realisation of the situation. She had to find Malcolm. Taking a deep breath she staggered to her feet and began to wander the corridors looking for any hope of rescue or escape.
Evelyn had managed to walk along several corridors without bumping into any more Romulans. She was beginning to wonder where they were all hiding. It was making her slightly uncomfortable not knowing the whereabouts of the enemy.
-&-&-&-&-&-
Archer, Trip and Reed were beginning to loose faith. They hadn't seen any sign of Evelyn and had most likely covered the whole base. The scanners weren't of much use to them, some sort of radiolithic compound in the rocks was interfering with the transmissions.
"She's got to be here somewhere." Malcolm said in frustration.
"I'm sure she'll turn up sooner or later." Trip replied, trying to reassure his best friend, however he could tell just by looking at the Englishman's face it wasn't working to well.
They continued walking along searching for her, stopping each time they heard footsteps or voices.
They were hidden round one corner listening to the conversation between two Romulans. They were talking about setting off the self-destruct sequence.
"Lieutenant!" A voice cried out from behind the Starfleet Officers.
The three men turned round upon hearing the voice, relieved to see who it was.
"Evelyn!" Malcolm replied and begun to walk over to her, noticing her limping movements.
The Romulans round the corner heard the cries and quickly appeared, weapons at the ready. Seeing the four humans they quickly attacked, firing their weapons at the intruders.
Trip and Archer quickly took them out with just a few shots and everything went silent.
Malcolm rushed to the young crewman as she collapsed into his arms, pulling Malcolm down to the floor with her. She was no longer able to stand, blood gushing out from a wound in her side. "Evelyn?"
"You should go on without me." She said, finding it hard to talk. The wound caused by the Romulan's hail of fire was putting her in a lot of pain.
Malcolm shook his head. "I'm not going to leave you behind. You hear me?"
"I'm not gonna make it back to Enterprise. Leave me here." She took a deep breath and winced.
Trip moved forward and bent down the other side of her. "Phlox can sort you out. You'll be fine… you can get back to fighting Malcolm in no time at all." Trip began to do his best to stop the bleeding, but no matter what he did, the blood just kept coming.
"I'm sorry Lieutenant, but there won't be any more fights between us." Evelyn's breathing quickly slowed down. Her eyes gently closed and her body went limp. Her breathing had now stopped altogether.
"Evelyn? Malcolm was confused. She had been so full of life earlier, and their bet! Now she was gone. Tears were beginning to fill his eyes.
"Come on Malcolm. Let's go." Archer called calmly from down the corridor. He was surprised to see Malcolm looking so upset after all the arguments he had had with Evelyn.
Malcolm took one last look at Evelyn, and gently laid her on the floor.
"We can give her a proper funeral." Trip said, puzzled by Malcolm's actions.
Malcolm shook his head. "No… this is what she would want." He stood up and together they walked over to Archer and headed for the exit.
Archer looked with worry at Trip. He had no idea that anything romantic had been going on between Malcolm and Evelyn. The arguments, the fights, the injuries… they had all suggested that the two officers hated each others guts, but from the couple of tears falling down Reed's face, it was obvious that was no longer true.