Emelie was walking down the main corridor of the Klothos neck-section, the large beam connecting the bridge-module with the main hull. She carried a Klingon mek'leth in her one hand and a Klingon made tricorder in the other. As the tricorder indicated a bio-reading up ahead, she stopped and secured it to her belt. Soon after, Kor stepped into view from an interconnecting corridor. Armed with a bat'leth, the impressive warlord studied the human woman with an enraged frown twisting his hard Klingon features.

"Emelie, daughter of Kirk" Kor growled. "You are without honor and you will die by my hand."

"My father never believed in giving up" Emelie said. "And I have no intentions of giving up now."

Kor snarled and charged, bat'leth held high and ready to strike down with all of his might. Emelie quickly reached for her thigh and freed from the holster the Klingon harpoon-gun she had equipped herself with. No tetryon-particle would cause a harpoon-gun to jam. The harpoon was launched with a loud hiss as the gas-cartridge forced momentum into the harpoon and sent it flying like a missile down the corridor. Kor howled with pain as the jagged ballistic lodged itself in his chest and buried itself deep. But it did not stop the warlord; Kor growled loud like a lion and kept charging. Emelie braced herself for combat and held up the mek'leth with both hands; the might from Kors blow struck the mek'leth from Emelies hands and he followed it up by slamming his shoulder into her chest, sending Emelie flying several yards backwards down the corridor.

Emelie quickly crawled back onto her feet, ducked at the last moment Kors bat'leth, sidestepped a kick from the warlord and backed away from another swing with the bat'leth. Kor snarled, swung his weapon again, Emelie rolled in under the bat'leth, came up on her knees next to the Klingon and struck him hard over the knee-joint and dragged him down to the floor. At the same second that Kors back hit the flooring, he kicked Emelie over the back, sending her flying forwards. Kor climbed back on his feet and Emelie rolled over her shoulder to end up on her knees. Emelie then quickly ran towards her mek'leth where it lay on the floor and managed to grab it and move out of the way as Kors bat'leth barely missed her and instead struck the bulkhead, breaking off one of the twin points of the striking end. Emelie turned to strike at Kor, but the Klingon took a quick step towards her and hit her hard into the chest with his shoulder, sending her up against the opposite wall. Kor grabbed her, struck her face with a powerful headbutt, his ridged forehead crushing her nose entirely.

With tears in her eyes and blood gushing from her flat nose, Emelie was thrown to the floor and lost her grip on the Klingon weapon. A kick to her side broke three ribs, pain exploding in her torso. Kor reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder and forcefully turned her over onto her back. Emelie was a mess and pain was surging through her body, adrenaline saturating her bloodstream. She looked up at the impressive warrior as Kor raised his bat'leth, looking down on her. Death was imminent. He faltered, unable to hold his weapon raised and dropped it by his side. He took a step, unable to maintain his balance and stumbled, fell over and crashed into the far wall. Emelie crawled up on over to the wall behind her and rested up against the bulkhead as she turned to look at the klingon warlord.

Kor was breathing heavily, his chest covered in purple blood that was freely leaking from where the harpoon has pierced him. He had trouble breathing, that was evident. He looked at the harpoon and then across the corridor at Emelie. She looked back at him. Kor sighed, a deep exhale that was a clear sign of his resignation in the face of fate and destiny.

"QI'yaH" Kor whispered in last act of defiance in the face of death.

Emelie watched as Kor slowly slumped over, slowly falling to the side and ending up with his face in a pool of his own blood on the cold floor. She crawled on all fours at first, then slowly got back on her feet, an arm cradling her broken ribcage, using the wall for support. Blood ran down her face from her smashed nose, sticky drops of crimson falling onto her chest from the tip of her jaw.

XXX XXX

"There is no sign of the Klothos" Mogh said, turning away from the sensors and faced Kang.

"Kor should have killed Emelie by now" Kang muttered and stroked his beard.

Tuvok, hands crossed behind his back, also turned to face the lord of the warship. "I believe we must consider the possibility that Kor has failed. As I argued before, he should not have boarded the Klothos on his own."

"It was a matter of honor" Kang said with a growl. "It had to be done."

"That may be" Tuvok continued. "But now we must plan to either destroy the Klothos outright, or find a way to board her again. This time I would suggest that you send me. As I explained earlier; when the romulans boarded the ship, I manipulated the onboard sensors to ignore vulcan signatures. If I can get onboard that ship, Emelie will never find me. I will be able to move undetected by the ships sensors and take control of the ship."

"And how will you get on that ship?" Mogh wondered.

Tuvok turned to face the HaH'vats executive officer. "I am afraid that is classified to non-Starfleet personnel."

XXX XXX

Curzon Dax turned as soon as the door to the bridge opened, still secured to the chair with chains. As Emelie limped onto the bridge, bloodied and bruised, Curzon let out a sigh.

"What's the matter?" Emelie said, her teeth red with blood. "Disappointed?"

"Relieved" Curzon countered.

Emelie took a moment to find her balance, focused on breathing, as she eyed the trill. She then slowly took aim at him with the harpoon-gun.

"You… You told me how to defeat the Stargazer" Emelie then said. "You told me how Kor had done it… You told me to use the Stargazer as a shield. Like Kor had done. And then Kor beams onto the ship." She paused to breathe, her chest stinging with pain as her lungs were filled with air. "He saw what you were doing… he knew what was going to happen."

"I didn't know he was out there" Curzon pointed out, the air between them as cold as an andorian glacier. "I couldn't have known."

"You hoped… didn't you?" Emelie said, teeth grinding and her eyes aflame with anger. "You set me up so that the Klingons could kill me."

"Emelie, listen to me" Dax pleaded. "You have to listen to me. I'm trying to save us both…"

The harpoon hit Curzon with a 'Thudd!'. Curzon gasped, eyes wide with surprise. Looking down, he saw the rod sticking out of his chest, a bloodstain growing rapidly across his cloathing. He coughed and blood spilled out of his mouth. Bewildered, Curzon looked up at Emelie and found no words to utter.

"You will not stop me" Emelie said and pulled the trigger, lodging a second harpoon in the trills chest. "None of you will."

Curzon let out a sigh and his head fell backwards, stretching his throat and then his head rolled to the side and ended up resting against his shoulder. Emelie dropped the gun to the floor, took a look around the bridge and then slowly made her way to the captains chair. She sat down, gently as she cradled her chest and the broken ribs, and then started pushing buttons on the attached data-pad on the armrest.

XXX XXX

Captain Rokoro entered her ready-room, followed by Major U'hura and Ensign Tuvok. As the door closed behind them, Rokoro sat herself down behind her desk.

"So, ensign, tell me how we will uncloak the Klothos?" Rokoro inquired.

U'hura sat down as well, but the vulcan remained on his feet.

"Reconfigured probes will flood the system with neutrinos" Tuvok explained. "The neutrinos will detonate all tetryon-devices on the Klothos, providing us with a radiation-signature that we should be able to detect and track. Once we are certain we have located the Klothos, we open fire with our phasers and rupture the cloaking-field. Without a cloak and unshielded, the Klothos will be vulnerable to a boarding action. I will transport aboard, as I already have disabled the ships ability to detect vulcan bio-signatures using its onboard sensors. I will then find and neutralize lieutenant Marcus-Kirk."

"Neutrinos and tetryon-particles?" Rokoro wondered. "How do you know this will affect the klingon ship?"

"That is classified" U'hura quickly cut in. "And that information will not leave this room. Ensign Tuvok will oversee the modifications on the probes and I will assist. No one else is to be involved with these modifications. If knowledge of this leaks out, we could start a war with the Klingon Empire."

"Secret technical data on a Bird-of-Prey?" Rokoro nodded. "I can see why the Klingons would find that information sensitive."

At that point, they were interrupted by the intercom coming alive. "Captain, the Klothos has decloaked!"

Tuvok, U'hura and Rokoro hurried back onto the bridge and looked out through the main viewport at the fore of the bridge, just in time to see the Klothos re-engage its cloak as it flew past the USS Stargazer, leaving two torpedoes to slam into the wreck and obliterating it entirely. Everyone on the bridge flinched and covered their eyes as the massive explosion that was the result of the attack-run blinded them all.

"Situation report!" Rokoro demanded as she sat herself down in the captains chair.

"The Stargazer is destroyed!" the Ops officer said as she checked her readings. She then slowly turned to face the captain. "There were still fifty people onboard. Including captain Al-Rasheed… and commander Urqhem" the lieutenant added, referring to the Excaliburs executive officer who had overseen the rescue operation personally.

"We are being hailed" the communications officer reported.

Captain Rokoro already knew who it was. "On screen" the denobulan female said with words so harsh they sounded like they had been cut from stone.

The bruised and bloodied face of Emelie Marcus-Kirk appeared on the screen, flickering and losing focus constantly as she was transmitting from within a cloaking-field.

"Lieutenant Marcus-Kirk" Rokoro said, "you will surrender now or you will be destroyed."

Emelie almost seemed void of emotion as she responded to the threat. "I will never surrender, captain. I will come at you with everything I've got. I will kill every single one of you. You will all die today."

Transmission was cut. Captain Rokoro turned to U'hura and Tuvok.

"Get those probes ready" the captain ordered.

U'hura and Tuvok did not say a word, they simply headed for the turbo-lifts to get started on the important modifications. Rokoro was looking over her shoulder and waited for the turbo-lift doors to close; once she was certain that she was alone on her bridge with only the members of her crew, the captain of the USS Excalibur turned to her tactical officer.

"Load all torpedo-bays" Rokoro said. "Prepare to fire on my command. Once that vulcan locates the Klothos, we will destroy her."