Zeva System
Peretal, Zeva V

Ensign Andrew Riker grunted from exertion as he and a small group of Starfleet medics and engineers lifted another long beam from the pile of rubble. Stopping to take a breath after they rested the beam in the slightly more organized pile of rubble away from the first, he wiped a line of sweat from his brow, realizing a second too late that all he succeeded in doing was smear the dirt from his gloves all over his face. "We have transport enhancers and transport capability," he finally said. "Why are we still doing this the hard way?"

"Afraid of a little bit of hard work, Ensign?" one of the engineering crewmen teased.

"I'm afraid of pulling a muscle or breaking a bone and hearing another lecture from our flight surgeon," Riker replied with a grin.

*You are aware this is an open comm link, right, Ensign?* the dry voice of Dr. Abbey Paris replied through his combadge. *I couldn't care less about what you do to your muscles, but if anything happens to that head of yours, well, you might as well start asking any deity you might believe in for mercy.*

He chuckled. "Duly warned, Doctor. I'll limit myself to non-head injuring tasks."

*Good idea. And while you're at it, be careful with your hands.*

"My hands?"

The comm line was filled with rustling sounds, probably as Paris maneuvered herself through yet another opening that looked narrower than she was. Finally, she explained, *I grew up around pilots, remember? I know how important manual dexterity is to you people. Crewman Crews, how are our people doing?*

Riker chuckled to himself as he wandered over to the large viewscreen displaying the map of the rubble and the positions of Dr. Paris and the victims within it. He watched her move within the wreckage for a few minutes, fascinated by her ability to snake through the beams, squeezing through openings that looked impossibly small. He had doubted it when she said that she'd be able to get to the casualties, but now he was starting to believe that it was going to happen. He was getting the impression that Dr. Paris tended to succeed at what she set her mind on.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, he was enjoying being on Zeva V. The physical work was hard, certainly much harder than the typical work a Starfleet brat-turned pilot who spent the vast majority of his life on starships was accustomed to, and he found the labor liberating, in a strange way. But more so than the satisfying ache in his muscles, he was enjoying the sarcastic wit of one Dr. Abbey Paris as her voice drifted over the open comm line. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't fascinated by her the moment he first laid eyes on her; he even let three people go before him in line at the flight physicals so he'd have a chance to talk to her. He suspected that she might be a Paris before she introduced herself—there weren't many Klingon hybrids in Starfleet, and the forehead was fairly recognizable. He, like the majority of the male members of his Advanced Fighter Training course, had been infatuated with Lt. Commander Miral Paris; not only was she physically very attractive, but she was tough, no-nonsense, and one of the best pilots who ever lived. There was just something about women who could fly circles around you, beat you half to death with her bare hands, and walk away with a smirk on her face that made men take notice.

Her little sister was different, though. Sure, she had the forehead, but even that didn't look quite the same as Miral's. Commander Paris had faint, gently curving cranial ridges, whereas Dr. Paris' were more pronounced, more geometric, consisting of three sharp V's down to the bridge of her nose connected to straight lines that ran across her forehead and faded into her temples. With her sandy blond hair and deep blue eyes, Riker initially thought Dr. Paris resembled her father, but the more he studied her face—not that that was a task he minded—the more he saw similarities to her older sister. The eyes were the same, as was the challenging smirk behind them, and if he ever saw Abbey smile, he was sure that she would have the same crooked grin as Miral.

Less than five minutes after meeting Dr. Paris, however, Riker saw that she wasn't just a younger, smaller, fairer version of Lt. Commander Paris. With Miral, what you saw was what you got—she held nothing back, not in her flying, not in her thinking, not in her emotions. Abbey was smart, she was passionate, and if his head was any indications, she was pretty damned talented, but it didn't take an empath to tell that there was something else there, something she tried to keep hidden from the world. He was making it his mission to find out what that was, even if it meant hauling away rubble from a collapsed athletic stadium the day after having brain surgery.

"Hey, Riker!" one of the engineering ensigns called out. "Are you planning on joining us, or just staring at that screen all day? I know this is a difficult concept for you pilots, but sometimes it takes actual labor to get things done."

Riker flashed him a grin as he pulled the light-weight gloves back over his hands. "Really? Because I usually just park my ship, and find it magically repaired in a couple of hours." The ensign grinned backed and rolled his eyes as Riker joined them. It was time to get back to work.

---

Dr. Abbey Paris' eyes went from the open tricorder in her hand to the small opening in front of her and back, trying to decide what to do. "I can go through here, over this beam—no, that won't work. That's blocked off. I'll have to go around this, then under this…damn, this is confusing."

*You say something, Paris?* Dr. Rex Jackson asked over the comm line.

"Just talking to myself," she replied lightly. "Crews, how—"

*Same as they were five minutes ago, Doc,* the medic replied automatically. *We have a group working on the south end, trying to get to those patients from the outside.*

"Good," she replied as she balanced herself to slide between two large beams, less than a third of a meter apart. "Because at this rate, I'm not getting to anybody. I've been in here two hours, and I've gone, what, a meter?"

*Two and a half, and you're at least fifteen meters in,* Crews replied. *A little more than five meters to the first casualty.*

"And her vitals are still stable?" Paris asked, pulling out the tricorder again and studying the map with a frown.

*Yes, but that's not saying much. They're stable in the critical range.*

"Great," she muttered, punching a few keys into the instrument before glancing around. She looked up, then back at the tricorder. "Lt. Hoskins, how stable is the beam over my head?"

*It's not about to fall on you, if that's what you're asking,* the engineer replied.

"Actually, it's not," Paris said, raising to a crouched position and tugging on the beam gently to test its position. It didn't move. "Can it handle forty-five kilos of extra weight?"

*What do you have in mind?*

"Just answer the question," she sighed.

*I'm running the numbers. Hold on,* he replied. A minute later, he said, *It should be able to take an extra fifty kilos without any problems.*

"Fifty?" she asked, getting a good grip on the bar with both hands. "Just how heavy do you think I am?" Not having the room to maneuver within the wreckage as she would have liked, she had to lift her body as dead weight using her arms. Her knees held tightly to her chest, she twisted her body over to the top of the metal bar and took a deep breath as she scooted her upper body forward until she was lying flat over it, her shoulder blades brushing against the bottom of another bar, perpendicular to the first. Using only her arms and keeping her head down, she edged her way forward toward her patient.

---

"Shnikies," Ensign Andrew Riker muttered, his eyes on the tricorder display in his hand.

"'Shnikies'?" Crewman Daniel Byington repeated, a look of confusion on his face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The pilot shrugged. "Hell if I know. It's some nonsense jazz word I picked up. Did you see that?"

"See what?"

Riker hit a few keys on the tricorder, setting the display to a few minutes prior before turning it toward Byington. "How the hell did she do that?"

Byington watched as the stick figure representing Dr. Paris turned and twisted around a bar before sliding along it in a space barely bigger than her. "She was a hot-shot gymnast before going to med school," he commented. "Won some Federation championships, if I remember correctly. She's probably been able to do moves like that since she was five."

"Damn, she's limber," Riker muttered, reversing the recording on the tricorder to watch the move again. "Wonder what else—"

*Open comm link, Ensign,* Paris' voice reminded him. He grinned sheepishly at the realization that she had heard the entire conversation. *Don't make me regret saving your life.*

He laughed slightly and adopted a teasing voice. "Aww, Paris, you don't mean that, do you? I can show you just how little you should be regretting saving my life. How about, after we get back to the ship, I treat you to dinner. A little wine, a little dancing—"

*You're an ass.* She didn't sound angry, just matter-of-fact, as if that was as much of his identity as saying that he was a pilot or a Starfleet officer. *Besides, Ensign, I don't date flyboys.*

"Your sister and father are both pilots," he pointed out.

*I wouldn't date them, either,* she shot back without missing a beat.

*Ensign Riker,* the voice of Lt. John Hoskins interjected. *If you're done flirting with Dr. Paris, can we have the comm link back for official business?*

He grinned. "I suppose, Lieutenant, but only because you asked so nicely." He heard a snort of disbelief from Dr. Paris.

*That's very kind, Ensign,* Hoskins replied dryly. *Now, Dr. Paris, you're only about three meters away from your casualty, but it's not going to be an easy three meters. Things are pretty dense in there.*

*I can tell,* Paris said. Over the comm link, Riker heard what sounded like the beeping of tricorder controls. *I can't seem to find a way in,* she said, her tone frustrated.

*I've been taking a look at this section for awhile now, and the only way I can see is down. About half a meter in front of your position now, there should be an opening in the rubble a little more than half a meter in either dimension going down.*

*I see it,* she replied, her voice muffled by rustling sounds as she moved through the debris. *It's not very deep.*

*It's going to require some maneuvering,* Hoskins admitted. *But I don't see a better way.*

Riker thumbed through the map of the debris on his own tricorder. "Some maneuvering" was a bit of an understatement; he didn't see how it would be possible. He read somewhere that a humanoid body can fit through any opening as wide as the shoulders, but he didn't see any such openings on the diagram.

Apparently, Paris didn't, either. *Is any of this mobile enough to move?* Hoskins went into detailed instructions about which pieces should be moved to create an opening, but Riker stopped listening, his eyes now on the display of the vital signs of the casualties. He didn't know much about medicine, especially Zevian medicine, but from what he had heard from Crewman Crews' updates, they didn't look good. Come on, Paris, he silently urged her. You can do this. Despite her brusque exterior and take-on-the-universe attitude, he sensed that there was something deep down inside that needed this to work, something that would never allow her to forgive herself if it didn't. There was a level of responsibility there that even he, the quarter-Betazoid son of two very dedicated Starfleet officers, couldn't quite comprehend.