Chapter Fourteen

"Watch your fire! You'll hit the warp core!" The short Vorta screamed at the Jem'Hadar slowly advancing on the Starfleet personal bravely trying to defend the heart of the ship. "The Founders need this ship in one piece!"

"Victory is Life!" the Jem'Hadar all belted out in a thunderous roar. James watched on from a small opening in a Jefferies tube hatch on the second level, below him was the Vorta and his bulldogs. James didn't have a problem with Cardassians or the Breen, in fact, he respected them as adversaries. But the Vorta and Jem'Hadar disgusted him. They existed for only one thing, cannon fodder the 'Founders'. They were unnatural, and the way that they were used went against everything that he had fought and bled for most of his adult life.

James and his men had their chance to ambush them. He looked across the spacious engineering section and he could see Alpha squad poking their head out of another hatch. James made a hand motion for them to wait for a signal, and he slowly made his way out of the hatch and to the edge of the second level. He grabbed the knife that he grabbed earlier and threw it at the Vorta, who had his back towards James.

The knife went into the Vorta's back, severing his spinal column, and he crumbled to the deck, and almost instantaneously, the rest of the teams that gathered to re-enforce the engineering crew opened fire on the Jem'Hadar from the second level. James didn't even have time to raise his rifle to open fire before it was all over. Cheering and cries of thanks could be heard as medics filed in to tend the wounded and dead.

James motioned to the men that came with him out into the corridor, and he began to explain his presence.

"Ok, I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here, especially you, Gunny. I'll explain. I'm not here, you didn't see me. I was never here. This is a direct order from a superior officer and it has to do with the temporal prime directive. Do you understand?"

"Aye sir, we do, but can I ask one question?" The gunny requested.

"What is it?"

"Do we win the war?" the Gunny asked. James heart sunk a bit.

"Yes. We do." James said, then nodded and walked away from them. Gunnery Sergeant Aaron Lewis wouldn't live to see the end of the war, and James knew it.

"Just what the hell were you thinking?" Captain Robert Matthews yelled as he paced back and forth across his office. He had James transported there a few hours after the situation was under control. "You warning us about the attack is bad enough, although I am grateful that you did, but what about the men you were with?"

"I ordered them to keep my presence here to them selves. They'll stay quiet." James said calmly, sitting on one of the couches in the large office. He chuckled to himself. Normally getting yelled at by the Captain would make James uneasy, but this time, oddly, it wasn't affecting him in the slightest.

"You find this funny?" Robert asked, with an annoyed tone.

"No sir. I don't. But I think I should tell you, that nothing I did is going to have any effect on the future. I remember this day pretty clearly, because I lost some of my fellow Marines, and I always wondered how you got the ship ready for an attack mere moments before the ambush. I also heard rumours of some officer helping out in engineering, but disappeared afterward." James explained.

"Well, you're going to have to explain this to Temporal Investigations when we arrive at Star base 82." The captain said, now finally sitting down at his desk. "For the time being, you are going to be confined to your quarters till then. I've already arranged for some. You are not to leave, or talk to any of the crew, is that understood?"

"Aye, sir." James responded. Robert then tapped his comm-badge.

"Transporter room two, energize."

The office faded away in a haze of blue and James was standing in the center of the room he was assigned.

"Lovely, a small cramped room." He mumbled as he went and sat down in a near by chair.

A few hours passed and it was getting closer to early morning. James passed the time reading a book he had been trying to read over the past month, but couldn't find the time when he heard something from the other side of the door of his quarters. James quickly shut the lights down and silently leaned up against the wall next to the door. Few moments later and the door was open and someone walked in. The door closed and James was now standing behind the intruder.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" James asked, pressing a panel on the wall, turning the lights on.

"For Christ's sake James, You scared the hell out of me." Amanda said, holding a hand to her chest, obviously frightened.

"You could be in a lot of trouble if you're caught in here." James warned.

"I know, but you said we could talk later. And don't worry about us getting caught, the Chief of Security owes me a favour, and is running a diagnostic on the security systems in this section, so he had to take them offline for the time being. We have a few hours."

James looked at her face for a moment. Instead of the smiling happy face that was engrained in his memory from the favourite picture of her, he now saw worry, and her eyes looked tired.

"James, what happened?" Amanda asked, knowing exactly what was going through his mind. She knew her friend very well. James swallowed hard before answering.

"I can't tell you." James said, biting the side of his cheek to keep himself from blurting out the truth.

"The hell with the temporal prime directive, James!" Amanda exclaimed in frustration. Then it dawned on her, and it scared her. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

James stared into her eyes, which were full of fear, and his silence only worsened the situation, because those eyes were now starting to fill with tears. He embraced her in a hug, trying his best to comfort her.

"How?" Amanda asked, still crying into his shoulder. James had her sit down in a chair and he pulled up a small table and sat down in front of her. Leaning towards her, he began to explain the last battle of the war. He got to the part of how Matthew died.

"My god, Erin…" Amanda said and disbelief.

"We lost eight people, and Captain Matthews ordered us to return to the ship. When you made your landing approach, a Cardassian fighter fired on you, and knocked out your propulsion systems and you crash landed on the flight deck." James said; his bottom lip began to quiver. Amanda reached over and put her hands around his.

"I landed as fast as I could and ran to your fighter as the emergency crews were pulling you out of your cockpit. The medic said that you had massive internal injuries from the crash and that he had to get you to sickbay for surgery. Before they left the docking bay, you grabbed my hand and said 'I lo…" James said, barely getting the words out as his composure started to fade away as he started to sob. Amanda reached over and put a finger on his mouth to stop him, and then kissed him.

"I love you; I don't want to live through that again." James said after their lips parted, having made his choice. "I'll think of something. You keep doing your job and leave it up to me."

"Ok, I will. What about you… your younger self?" She asked.

"Don't' worry about him. He'll be ok." James said. "I remember you acting funny around me after today."

Amanda hugged him again and gave him another kiss. "I've got to go." She said getting up.

"I don't think we'll get another chance to talk again for a while, if at all. Just because you know what's going to happen doesn't mean you're not invincible. The days ahead are going to be dangerous." James advised.

"I'll be careful." She said with a smile and a wink and she left the room. James got up and threw himself on the bed and started to laugh. He couldn't remember the last time he felt as happy as he was now. It was as if a great weight was lifted off his shoulders, and he felt relived.

"Well, I've got two months to think of something." James said, thinking aloud.