"How much longer do we have?" Deanna asked, the Captain's weight seemed so heavy against her shoulder

"Once we cross the river, it'll be an other 2km." She looked to Deanna. "We may just do this."

"You had doubts?" Deanna asked as they started to move again.

"Well, going into combat with a counsellor had me a bit worried."Emelle grinned at Deanna, but before she could respond, they approached the ridge leading down into the river. It was wider than the area she and Emelle crossed earlier, and it appeared to be deeper. The sound of shots and yelling voices caught her attention, and fear gripped her. "Let's go!" Emelle started down the small incline towards the river, catching Deanna a little by surprise, and she slid down the hill, catching her ankle on a sharp rock. As soon as they slowed, Deanna took a look at the cut. It was bleeding, but it was not serious

"Cover me. I'll take the captain across first." Emelle pulled both of the captain's arms around her neck and began to walk through the water. At its deepest point, the water was up to Emelle's shoulders, and as soon as she was able she ran through the rest of the water, and sat Picard down near a rock. "Your turn, let's go!"

Deanna holstered her gun and started to make her way across. She was shorter than Emelle, so when she reached the deep point, she had to swim to keep her head above the water. Emelle glanced up to the opposite hill to make sure no one was following them, when movement in the water caught her attention. Something was swimming toward Deanna. "Deanna, look out!" Before she could react, something grabbed her ankle hard and pulled her under the water. Without thinking, Emelle dove into the water after them. Deanna frantically grabbed and clawed at whatever was holding her under, but the creature made a sudden jerk, and Deanna could hear her bones crack. Right when she felt like she was going to faint from the pain and lack of oxygen, Emelle appeared beside her and started to stab the creature. When it finally let go, she grabbed Deanna and shot to the surface, gasping for air. "We need to get out of the water!"

Frantically the two swam the best they could to where Picard was on the shore. When Emelle felt the ground under her, she stood with Deanna's arm around her shoulder, and ran to out of the water as she saw more creatures making a beeline towards them. When they were out, Emelle lost her balance and fell rather hard on the ground, pulling Deanna down with her. Then all of a sudden, a creature broke out of the water and let out a horrific screech. It looked like a large snake, and when it opened its mouth, it appeared toothless, but then let out an other cry, and a full set of deadly looking teeth descended from the gums. Just as it was about to lunge at them, someone shot it right through the head. Emelle and Deanna looked at each other, and when they saw neither of them holding a weapon, they looked at Picard who was half sitting up a few feet behind them, aiming Emelle's weapon at the snake creature.

They started to laugh lightly, when more creatures came out and began to fight over the carcass. Emelle, taken off guard by the sudden appearance of the creatures, helped Deanna to her feet rather harshly. "Shit." Deanna swore as she accidentally put weight on her broken ankle.

"Oh, be kidding." Emelle shook her head and frantically grabbed Deanna's arm over her shoulder, and then moved to do the same to Picard. "Just to let you know, you're leaning on a broken stick." She muttered as they slowly climbed the small incline out of the river bed. As they made it to the top, they quickened their pace best they could. As they moved through the forest, they could hear gun shots and soldiers yelling in the distance. The noises were getting closer and closer. Finally, they broke through some thick bush and found themselves in a small clearing, a clearing that looked very familiar. "Oh thank god! Deanna, grab the remote, it's on that side of my belt." She indicated with her head to the area of the belt on Deanna's side. "The red button on the button should open the back door." When Deanna pulled it out, she pushed it, and all of a sudden the interior of the ship was visible as the door lowered. Relief flooded them.

"Take the captain first, and then come back for me." Deanna pulled away from Emelle and lent on a tree. Emelle nodded and ran as fast as she could, half dragging the captain with her. She pulled him through the short length of the ship and buckled him in one of the seats behind the helm. She quickly tapped a command in the console, and the ship's engines hummed to life. She then ran out of the ship back to where Deanna was. As she approached the counsellor, a gun shot cut through the air, and Emelle fell to a knee. The shot clipped her shoulder.

"Let's go now!" As best as she could, Emelle helped Deanna back to the ship. Shots were fired all around them, and they tried to fire back. When they reached the ship, Deanna got in first as Emelle turned and fired some more rounds into the surrounding bush. Pulling herself into the ship, she slapped the control and the door started to close, and she ran to her seat at the helm. Deanna had managed to get herself to the other control chair.

"Here we go." Emelle pulled on the controls, and the ship started to take off. They were still under fire from the soldiers on the ground, and one of them managed to get a lucky hit.

"The cloak is disengaging!" Deanna frantically tapped the control into the console but nothing happened. "Are we visible to their sensors yet?"

"They're not looking for us, so the ionization in the atmosphere will block us. But as soon as we enter orbit well be visible." The ship shook as they flew up towards orbit. "I'll try to go to warp as soon as were clear." But it wasn't soon enough. When they cleared the atmosphere, they could see debris from destroyed ships, and the Wooken and Sodier ships firing on the Ku'Mak ships. Emelle had to steer hard around the larger debris, still unable to find a large enough clearing for them to go to warp. "At least we know why the planet was under bombardment." She commented as she piloted through the armada. Suddenly various ships began to turn and try to intercept.

"They're locking weapons on us."

"Hold on!" Emelle managed to dodge most of the fire, but a few shots made it through.

"Don't you have any weapons on this ship?"

"The same shot that took out our cloak damaged the weapons system!" Emelle managed to clear the larger ships, and then she saw the one manned vessel turning towards them. "Screw it." She punched in a command, and they entered warp. Emelle leaned back in her chair and exhaled, still shaking.

Deanna swivelled in her chair and moved to the captain. "Help me get him to the back." Punching the auto-pilot, Emelle helped Deanna. They laid Picard down on one of the benches in the back.

"I'll check if we have anything for him to put on." Emelle turned to the back. Deanna pulled out her tricorder and scanned him. He was dehydrated, had several broken ribs, a major concussion, and he was bleeding internally.

Picard slowly turned his head. "Deanna." She grabbed his hand. "Thank you." He rasped before his emotions broke his voice.

"My pleasure, Jean Luc." Deanna wiped a lone tear and Emelle came back out.

"I couldn't find any clothes, but I found some blankets." She handed one to Deanna, and then dropped the rest on the opposite bench. As Deanna covered Picard, Emelle slowly dropped onto the bench next to the extra blankets, and held onto her bleeding arm.

"Are you alright?"

"Just skimmed my arm, I'm fine." She wrapped her upper arm with a bandage. "You should let me take a look at your ankle."

"No, I'll be fine."

Emelle waved her hand, and moved down to the floor next to her. "You could barely put any weight on it earlier. It's probable broken." She held out her hand, and Deanna hesitantly handed her the tricorder. After a quick wave over her ankle, Emelle nodded. "Your ankle's broke and a few places. Beverly should be able to fix that up no problem." Her smile faded when the ship dropped out of warp.

"We can't possibly be there yet." Deanna pulled herself up and followed Emelle to the controls.

"Not even close. We should be in warp for several hours." She went on to work on the controls.

"So, what happened then?"

Emelle slouched in her chair and rubbed her arm. "We took more damage than I thought. A power surge fried the conduits taking out our warp drive, and I very much doubt we have the right equipment to fix it."

Deanna slowly sat. "What are you saying?"

Emelle glanced back to where Picard was lying, and lowered her voice. "We don't have the power to make it to the rendezvous coordinates." She closed her eyes briefly before continuing. "According to the computer, we don't have enough power to make it to the nearest system, and chances are we're going to run out of air before the Enterprise would ever have a chance of finding us."

Deanna sat and digested what she was just told. "What about Captain Picard? His injuries need to be treated sooner rather than later."

Emelle shook her head. "We don't have that kind of medical equipment on board."

Deanna scoffed. "Do you have anything of use on board?"

"Hey! This was kind of a last minute thing. It would have just looked suspicious if we stocked 'er up with a bunch of medical and technical supplies."

"You know," Picard's voice broke their argument. "You ladies don't talk as quietly as you think." Deanna hobbled over to Picard's side.

Emelle cleared her throat and stood behind Deanna. "Sorry Sir."

"What's our situation, Commander?"

"Ah, well. Not good, sir. Our warp engines are damaged, and we don't have enough power to get us to rendezvous with the Enterprise." She exhaled before continuing. "In truth, our air supply is of more concern. At our current power consumption, we'll be out of oxygen in an hour."

"Triazolamia."

Deanna and Emelle shared a confused look before. "Sorry?"

"It's an improvement on the sedative triazolam." Emelle explained. "It's used to treat insomnia among other things. It can also-" Realization struck her features. She thought for a moment before returning her gaze to Picard. "That's a ridiculously stupid idea...sir." She looked to Deanna. "We don't have the proper medical equipment to treat his injuries, so he's suggesting we give him the sedative."

"It will sustain me while you figure a way to get us out of here."

Emelle shook her head. "If we give you too much, couldn't it kill you?"

Picard smiled lightly. "At least it would give you more air."

"True," Emelle interjected. "but the point behind a rescue mission is to bring one back alive."

"It's my choice Commander."

"Pulling rank is not going to work there Johnny."

Picard looked to Deanna, his vision completely blurry. "I'm running out of time. Give me the max dose, and it'll put my body in a stasis." Deanna stared at him. "It'll work Deanna."

She looked up to Emelle. "Do you have any on board?"

Emelle nodded. "I'll get it."

As she turned to rummage through the medical supplies, Picard tugged on Deanna's hand, pulling her attention back to him. "Deanna. I have, in my personal files, letters to, various people. If this doesn't work-"

"No, sir you'll be fine."

"Counsellor, please let me finish." His eyelids felt so heavy. "I ask that you make sure that the letters are delivered."

Emelle returned and loaded the hypo-spray. She knelt down next to the bench. "I think I've calculated the right amount." She looked at Picard. "If I'm wrong, sir, I-"

"You risked your lives to come after me. I won't hold it against you." Emelle nodded and lent over to press the spray in his neck. "Wait." She stopped. He cleared his throat and looked at Deanna. "Can you tell Beverly...tell her I've always loved her." His eyes watered. "Tell her I'm sorry I...I." He was unable to finish, and his breathing started getting shallow.

An overwhelming flood of emotions hit Deanna. Unwilling to trust her voice, she simply nodded. Emelle pressed the spray, and they watched as Picard's eyes slid shut.

She put a hand on Deanna's shoulder. "I'm going to try and buy us some more time." Deanna didn't move, she just stared at the unconscious figure before her.

"Aw! God...mother..." Deanna looked up from bandaging her ankle toward the small area in the floor where Emelle was now clutching her hand. "I'm getting tired of being shocked! Damn it!"

"How's it going?" Deanna asked lightly.

Emelle hopped best she could out of the compartment and closed to hatch. "Well, I've managed to shut down every non essential system, which buys us four hours of air. I was also able to get the cloak up and stabilized, so even if we're followed, they won't find us."

"That's good."

"Yes it is. I've also calculated a temperature that will stave off hypothermia the longest, and give us the most power. It's going to get really cold, but give us an other five hours."

Deanna raised her eyebrows. "That's impressive. So," she exhaled as Emelle sat on the floor next to her. "9 hours. Is that going to be enough?"

Emelle shrugged. "I'm hoping it's enough time for your Will to figure out we're missing, recalibrate the long range sensors to pick up our faint, encrypted SOS on low wave frequencies, and come speeding to our rescue."

"You sound optimistic."

Emelle chuckled at Deanna's sarcasm. She looked over to Picard. "How's he?"

"As good as he's going to get until we get him to sickbay." She looked over at Emelle as she lightly tapped the PADD against her knee. "What's that?"

Emelle handed it to her. "I've programmed it so that all our sensors can be read from it. We'll know if there's a ship nearby, I can control the temperature, cloaking device, etc etc etc."

"Why?"

"Because I'm lazy and don't want to get up." She chuckled at the expression on Deanna's face. "Kidding. It's so we won't have to move around too much, using too much oxygen."

Deanna nodded and pulled a blanket up to her shoulders. They fell into a some what comfortable silence. Emelle puffed air out of her mouth, the breath lingering in the cold air.

"I misjudged you." Surprised, Deanna turned to look at her. "At first I thought you were..." she paused to search for the word. "I thought I couldn't trust you because you were an empath. And even though I knew you had to come on this mission, I was so less than thrilled."

Deanna chuckled. "Please, don't hold back."

"I was wrong about you, and I'm...sorry."

Deanna nodded and smiled. "Thank you." She paused for a moment. "Why did you think you couldn't trust me?"

Emelle shifted her blanket up around her neck. "You're an empath. And let's just say I've had a bad track record with empaths. I'd rather not talk about it." Her eyes darkened at the memory.

"I'm sorry." A strong shiver ran through Deanna's body. "Are there any more blankets?" Emelle silently reached over her head, grabbed the two left, and handed one to Deanna. "How cold is it supposed to get?"

"15 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that our body temperatures will drop to about 90 degrees." There was a short pause before Emelle drew both knees to her chest. "My mom was a counsellor."

Deanna looked at her, hiding her surprise. Emelle never voluntarily talked about her family. "I didn't know that."

Emelle nodded. "I remember the last conversation we had been before I was transferred from Washington to Area 51." She smiled lightly at the memory. "I was giving her a hard time. Telling her psychology was a weak science."

"Weak science?"

Emelle turned to Deanna smiling. "Mocking my mother is a found past time. My dad, sister and I would often gang up on her." Her smile faded and she turned her to look at the floor. "There was so little time between when they decided to freeze us, and the actual launch, I never got to talk to her." She smiled sadly, tears forming.

Deanna reached over to squeeze Emelle's hand lightly, and closed her eyes. "You never got a chance to say goodbye." With tear filled eyes, Emelle quickly glanced at Deanna before covering her hand with her own as a silent thank you.

There was a long pause before Emelle turned to Deanna. "Were you and Riker together?"

Deanna exhaled heavily. "This again?"

"I'm just trying to pass the time. I told you about my mom, you owe me."

Deanna shook her head. "We were, a long time ago. Now he's one of my closest friends."

Emelle smiled. "You guys would make a cute couple." Deanna's head shot up, a surprised look on her face. "I'm just saying." She muttered as she shivered violently.

First Officer's log, star date supplemental. We've been waiting at the pre-planned rendezvous coordinates for the past five hours. The Volkerie was supposed to meet us here hours ago, something must have gone wrong.

Will stood from the command chair and walked to Data's station. "Are you sure we're in the right spot, Mr. Data?"

"These are the coordinates you gave me sir. If I may ask, why are we here?"

Will cleared his throat. "Mr. Data, can I see you in the ready room? Mr. Worf, you have the bridge.

"Aye sir."

Will leant back against the desk after explaining the mission to Data. "Something must have gone wrong. Were you able to upload all the information Emelle gave you about the planet where she believed the captain was being kept?"

"Yes sir. After reviewing the information, I believe it would be unwise to set a course for that planet."

"Why is that?"

"If they were apprehended on the planet, and Commander Pinces prediction is correct, they would have been relocated long before we get there. I suggest we adjust the long range sensors to try and pickup the Volkerie."

Will waved his hand to silence Data. "I figured." He sighed and pushed off the desk. "What now, then?"

"And how long are they overdue?"

"Five hours."

Data stood and thought for a moment. "If I may ask sir, why were we not informed about this mission?"

Will sighed. "When we proposed the idea to Starfleet, they didn't authorize it. We set it up to look like Commander Pinces managed to kid nap Counsellor Troi in an attempt to escape so that she wouldn't face a court marshal if they returned."

Data stood. "I understand sir. By not informing us, you are able to save us from a court marshal also." Will nodded. "Thank you sir. The gesture is appreciated."

Will chuckled. "How long to do the modifications to the sensors?"

"Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes."

"Get Geordi to help you."

Data nodded and left Will standing in the middle of the room. He roughly rubbed his beard. "Oh, Deanna, I'm sorry."

Deanna was fighting to stay awake. She wasn't shivering as hard as before, and she knew that was a bad sign. She forced her eyes open and looked up at Picard. She and a reluctant Emelle gave up one of their blankets each to drape over him. When she turned to Emelle she was worried at what she saw.

"You're n...n...not sh...sh...shivering anym...m...more. And th...th...there's ice in your hair."

Emelle looked up, her lips and fingertips turning blue from the cold. "You're not looking so good your self."

"How...m-mu-much...lon-long-longer?"

Emelle drew a numb finger from under the blanket, and tapped the PADD resting on her lap. "45 minutes."

Deanna dropped her head to drawn up knees. "Is there no-noth-nothing else you can do to give them m-mo-more time?"

Emelle nodded. "I was thinking about that." She shook as a shiver raked her body. "If we turn off the cloak, it might give us an extra half an hour."

Deanna nodded. "Ok. Do that."

"If we do that, anyone could see us. We can't risk being captured by the Sodier or Wooken, both of which are probably looking for us."

"So," Deanna blew warm air into her hands. "45 minutes." Emelle nodded and let her head fall back against the wall.

Will stood behind Data at one of the science stations on the bridge, watching as he scanned various sectors of the surrounding space. When this scan came up nothing, Will hung his head.

"I'm sorry commander. We'll move on to the next sector."

"Sir." Wesley turned to Will.

"What is it lieutenant?"

"I'm picking up an encoded message on the lower band width frequencies." Will moved next to Wesley. "It appears to be a SOS."

Will turned to Data. "Where's it coming from?"

"Several light-years from our current position."

"Scan that area. See if you can pick up the Volkerie's signature."

Wesley turned to the science station. "The Volkerie?"

"Do it lieutenant." Will replied

Wesley returned to the console. "Commander, I have them. Scans indicate three faint life signs. Sir, they're almost out of oxygen."

"Helm set a course, maximum warp!"

Emelle exhaled heavily. "I'm done." Deanna looked up at her confused. "I can't stay awake any longer."

Deanna could feel it too. The will to fight was drained from her body, and she was exhausted. "I got to admit though." Deanna said with her eyes closed. "It was kind of fun."

"Find of? I had a blast." Emelle smiled and opened her eyes. She saw Deanna's eye were already closed, and her breathing shallow. She reached for the PADD, and with one last command, she lowered the cloak. 'Here's to an other 30 minutes.' Once the computer indicated the cloak was down, Emelle closed her eyes and gave into the desire to sleep.

Alright! Please let me know what you think!