DISCLAIMER: It isn't mine, unfortunately. We all love Gene Roddenbery, though. I don't profit from writing Star Trek fics, so don't sue me. (Warning sign: Suers wil be shot, survivors will be shot again lol)

Finishing off the first few scenes was hard...especially last chapter. You see, I already have the last four chapters or so written...starting from here, now that I've already written the ending..it's hard. But I'm here!

For in the story so far:

CO – commanding officer

Tharalon Radiation – what Shinzon used to kill the Romulan Senate.

Inkybays, anyways, and a meep to you too, read on to see what happens next. Special thanks to my twin, Yavie, who has been incredibly nice in allowing me to post a Star Trek story, for one..(small voice: don't hurt me!)

Phasers are fully powered, commence operation Delta and have fun...

BLURRED LINES

"Lieutenant! We're having difficulties taking the engine room!" the voice emitted from Hope's combadge was panicked, or so it sounded.

"Commence operation Orpheus, Ensign," she remarked almost casually. Orpheus, besides being a figure in greek drama, was the name of an interesting weapon they were almost always forced into using...not that she cared or anything.

It utilized tharalon radiation within a small radius, and due to its size only took about thirty seconds to power up. When used, the radiation would literally decay people and their flesh...while they still stood living. Once the process was completed, which usually took about fifteen to twenty seconds per ten or so people in a single area, and to protect their team, small protective forcefields were activated in the immediate few centimetres around each person. It always worked, well enough that Lieutenant deBoer had been trying for months to put it into a phaser-like handheld weapon.

"Sir!" called one of her security members, and pointed behind her. Turning, she faced a nightmare of colossal proportions..Starfleet officers at both sides and nowhere to run. She faced them like she was a senior officer, one of an elite class. Then she whispered to one of her team, "Cover me."

Flipping forward, she stood in front of a Vulcan Starfleet officer, and before he could prceed to make a move, she slashed his throat out with her knife-sharp fingernails. Like any other Orion slave girl, she was fiesty enough, and dangerous enough to want that as a talent. Reaching forward, she grabbed another officer and used him as a shield, killing him after she was done. She activated her personal forcefield, and signaled that her away team should do the same with a nod. She grinned evilly at the two security team heads trying to stop them from moving on.

"Now who's losing?"

She was tired of waiting. She knew it took a long time over there, but she had sent Hope to get the information needed. Hope could do fine. She was sure of it. But dammit, she thought to herself, why did she send the Orion?

"Commander? Are you alright?" a gentle query came. She turned quickly to find Sub-Commander Tapel Enaren. His slitted eyes were open and evidently worried. Usually, Jayvin didn't pace. Or look worried. Or feel like a nervous breakdown waiting to happen.

Oh. Shit. With a harsh mental slap to herself, she remembered with a start that Tapel was a telepath.

"Yes, I'm fine. What leads you to question your commander?" she snapped right back at his gentleness. Almost immediately, she regretted it. If he had been a Catian, his ears and tail would have drooped. As it was, his whole body took on a different character.

"I apologize, sir, I was just wondering," he responded as one of the commander's flock of sheep, one of her people. Jayvin grinned inwardly at her own analogy.

One of her sheep.

Yeah, right.

Hope was anything but a sheep to be led. If anything, she occasionally led Jayvin. When she got back...

The young commander stepped off the bridge and into her senior staff's briefing room, tapping her combadge as soon as the door was safely closed.

"Azrael to Hope," she said, praying that the former slave girl wasn't too busy to answer her combadge's beep.

"Hope here. We're moving out, beam us back as quickly as you can."

Breathing a silent sigh of relief and thanking every god that she could think of that Hope was still alive. She had known how hard this would be.

"Good. We'll beam you back now. One moment, halt all teams. Azrael out."

"Belar to Transporter Room Three. Beam back the away team on my mark. Begin now."

In a few minutes, she could talk to Hope...

Hope was finally aboard again, and breathed a sigh of relief. She could go back to her post, and stop having to make life-or-death decisions for more than just herself. There was more to helping herself in life though, and it was a bit obvious to her.

"Jayvin to Hope."

"Hope here," she responded automatically to her combadge.

"Could you come to the senior staff lounge...please?"

Worried, she took a moment to respond. How had this gotten this bad? There wasn't any way it could have been...

"Yes. I'm on my way now."

Practically running out of the transporter room, she got to Jayvin as quickly as she could.

She entered and was immediately taken aback.

Jayvin was a brilliant tactician, a graceful warrior, a genius scientist, and so much more...but this was her secret from the world.

She had no real control over herself at times, and was prone to killing people, destroying things, and sometimes got to the point where she would try to kill herself. It was scary at times, and one of the reasons Hope had to keep in shape. It had always been amazing to her how multiple personalities could change and scar a person to the point of this kind of reaction.

She was the only one that could distract and stop this mastermind at times from destroying herself and killing others. Belar had almost killed her before. Had almost killed herself before. That was before Hope had found out how to calm the beserker and stall the storm.

Jayvin lay in a heap on the floor, cut with glass from shattered decorative items. As soon as she heard footsteps, she rose to greet the Orion with an angered kind of snarl. Grateful that the door was shut, Hope rushed over to her and pinned her before the teenager could hurt her.

"Shhh..." she whispered as she struggled to calm the beast of a child. Suddenly, she was thrown off.

It was going to be one of those days.

"Tapis..." she almost purred softly, trying to calm the darker side of the commander, the dark personality that resided within her. The Hyde to her Jekyll. Pulling her phaser, she set it on light stun, knowing it would only work for about a minute, and fired point-blank at her commander, who fell almost immediately. With that, she came down on her, beginning to taunt...and to tease. That was the way to calm her, the only one she could use and keep Jayvin's problem a secret. She had to show a kind of love.

Kissing her gently, she felt Tapis-Jayvin stop struggling and move into the kiss, beginning to show less of the angry passion and more of a lustful one. With that, Hope trailed her fingernails lightly down her prey's chest, hearing the small whine emitted from her commander's mouth. With the small opening, Hope plunged her tounge into her friend-and foe's-mouth. Such a reveral in roles, with the Orion female being the real commander, wasn't all too rare anymore...the more stress her friend was in, the worse her lapses into Tapis were.

Nearly an hour later, the predatorial glint in the girl's eyes had faded, and it was on the tail end of her lapse.

Whispering softly, Hope carefully dared to ask,

"Jayvin?"

Her face turned upward, looking at Hope's now.

"I—I'm sorry, Hope...I have to be the only Commander to ever be like this..." she trailed off sadly.

"It's alright. We agreed on this before, that if I ever found a way to stop you, I would. Remember? I'm always here for you. And it's not like it bothers me, Jay." her green skin turning pink at the cheeks, Hope continued, "it's not like I prefer men anyway..." Jayvin grinned slightly at that, standing up and beginning to try and help herself up, as well as clean up the broken pieces of her life.

Enaren felt a sheer rage that he had never truly felt from anyone on the ship before overcome him. Holding his head, he pushed past it and continued to command in Jayvin's absence from the bridge. He felt it increase, subside, and then he saw an apprehensive Hope trying not to rush and dismally failing as she started towards the senior staff's lounge area. As the door shut, he heard her running somewhere; he wondered what was going on. And eventually, as the rage had calmed, it had been replaced with a kind of...well...lust. He had no idea what he was feeling, and fortunately, the other bridge crewmembers couldn't tell either, mostly for the fact that they weren't telepathic.

He noticed a slight whoosh-ing sound coming from a door and realized that it was time for him to relinquish control of the bridge. Jayvin, looking a bit unsettled, slumped into her command chair, and waved Hope off with one hand, who turned immediately to Tapel.

"Sub-Commander Tapel, could you please tell Commander Belar that she needs to rest? Lack of sleep constitutes a reason to leave the bridge," Hope asked, then, turning back to Jayvin, she said, "and will you please listen to him!"

When she shook her head no, it looked like Hope was about to storm angrily off and ransack the ship, but her expressiong changed when she saw the pleading, begging look in her CO's eyes. Gently putting her grreen-skinned hand on her friend's head, she realized that their friedship wasn't a secret any longer anyway. So what? Jay had wanted to hide their friendship for their working relationships, but she didn't care much. She gently rubbed the commander's hair, messing it up, and then walked off the bridge.

So there's only three pages. Oh, well...next one coming soon!

I promise! It'll be good!

Anyway...suggestions for species will be appreciated...and just a question...what do you think of the plot so far?

If I could improve on the characters in any way, and I do mean any character, how?

Suggestions, criticism, even flames are appreciated! Because with flames, I can make BBQ!

Heh.

-Anij Jinn