CHAPTER 12

I sprang up from the floor, turning into my Sandorian form as I did so. Before any of them had a chance to react, I had T'Pel's disrupter out of its holster and up to his head, my arm wrapped around his neck. I drug him back a few steps, until I was standing with my back against the wall.

By the time I was in position, the others in the room were beginning to notice something was wrong.

"If anyone so much as moves, I will kill him," I said loudly, digging the blaster into his temple as I said it. "Every put their hands behind their heads." As they looked around in confusion, I shouted, "Do it! Or I'll blast a hole in his head that you won't be able to fix."

"Do as she says," T'Pel echoed. I didn't detect fear in his voice, and I didn't know why. No doubt he had been trained not to show emotion. I tightened my grip around his neck, preventing him from moving.

Slowly the others in the room obeyed, interlocking their fingers behind their heads. I turned to the single security officer left in the room.

"Take your blaster out and place it on the ground. Now!"

He did so, picking the blaster up with two fingers and carefully setting it on the ground.

"Kick it away."

He did, sending it flying across the floor and toward me.

"Now," I continued, "everyone slowly back toward the door and get out. If anyone tries to rescue the Commander, I'll kill him. If anyone tries to hurt me, I'll kill him. Is that clear? I said, is that clear?!" There was a general murmur of affirmation. "Good. Now go."

Slowly, the five men backed toward the door, exiting one by one. When the last had exited, the door closed behind them. I turned my attention to T'Pel.

"I'm going to let you go, but if you move a muscle, I'll kill you. Understand?"

"Yes."

I slowly released him, pushing him away from me as I did. I leveled the blaster at him as he straightened and turned toward me.

"You're not going to get away with this," he said.

"Shut up," I said. I gestured with the blaster, and he moved out of my way. Always facing him, I made my way across the room and to the other blaster.

"Captain Valerie is going to send more officers, and they are going to kill you. You won't be able to get away."

"I don't intend to try," I said, reaching the blaster.

It happened faster than I could move. One minute, I was kneeling, reaching for the blaster, and the next I was flat on my back, grappling with T'Pel.

Flipping over and out from under him, I rose to my feet, ready to fight; I was too slow. T'Pel moved faster, standing up and raising his fist. He drove it forward , sending me flying down to the ground. I tried to stand, but T'Pel shoved the blaster in my face.

"Don't try," he said. I sank back down to the ground, raising my hand and gingerly feeling my lip. It was busted and I could feel the warm trickle of blood moving down my chin. I wiped it away.

T'Pel knelt and picked up the other blaster, putting in his belt holster while keeping the other trained on me. "Get up," he ordered.

I slowly stood. Then, darting to the side, I struck out, hitting his arm as hard as I could. He released the blaster, sending it clattering to the ground. He kicked it as hard as he could toward the end of the room. Before he had time to draw the other, I transformed, flying across the room as a Sandorian falcon. Hiding was overrated, I needed speed.

I could hear the discharges for his blaster as he fired at me, but I was going too fast. As soon as I made it to the other end of the room, I changed back to Sandorian, rolling behind the panel that had been my destination all the time. Looking out to the side of the panel, I could see the blaster sitting several feet away. I needed to get to it, but I couldn't when T'Pel was firing at me.

The blaster fire continued as T'Pel fired shot after shot. I could hear the relays in the panel spark as the energy from the discharge fried them. Then I heard something that couldn't have come from any blaster.

An explosion rocked Engineering, sending me sprawling on my back. From above me, I could hear metal rending. As I got my bearings, I rose to my feet, trying to determine the source of the noise. It wasn't hard to find.

Behind what had once been a protective barrier, I could see the Romulan quantum singularity. It was exposed, the metal that had once encased it warped and blackened. It looked badly damaged, but it hadn't breached. Not yet, anyway. The singularity itself was wavering dangerously.

Looking out across the room I could see that T'Pel, too, had been knocked down by the explosion. This was chance I'd been waiting for. Dashing out from behind the panel, I grabbed the blaster and pointed it at T'Pel.

"Don't move, T'Pel!" I yelled.

T'Pel froze, his blaster lying several feet away. He looked up at me as I approached.

"You're not going to kill me," he said, straightening up.

"I said, don't move!" Checking the blaster, I confirmed what I had thought. It only had one setting.

"I've seen people like you before; like the cadets at the Training Facility. All bravado and shouting, waving their blasters around. But you won't kill me. You don't have the guts."

He took a step toward the blaster.

"I said, stop!" I shouted.

I was seventeen, and was about to break out of the prison that had housed me for the past four years. I had made it out of the room, out of the windowless hallways and passed the armed guards. I was in the courtyard, and the only thing that stood between me and freedom was one last fence. One little, un-patrolled fence.

"Lawrence!"

I swirled around, gun raised. Standing there, ten meters away, was the Senior Facilitator.

"Lawrence, what are you doing?"

"I'm getting out of here!" I yelled back.

"You can't leave, Lawrence."

"Don't try to stop me!" I raised the gun up to eye level, pointing it at the man. He started slowly walking toward me, unhurried, unafraid.

"I said, you can't leave here. Where would you go?"

"Anywhere's better than here. Now stop walking!"

He didn't. "There's no one who would take you, no world that would accept you. You'd be an outcast wherever you go."

I didn't answer. That didn't matter. All that mattered was that this man was the only thing standing between me and my freedom. The freedom that I'd lacked for six years.

"You don't belong, Lawrence." He came to a stop not two meters from me. "You don't fit in anywhere, and you never will. You're not a Sandorian, but your not anything else, either. You're nothing."

"Shut up!" I shook the gun.

"You can't leave. You have to stay here, with your own kind. Where you can't hurt anyone."

"I never hurt anyone!" I yelled at him. "I never did anything! All I wanted was to live a normal life!"

"Lawrence, you're not normal. You're not even sane anymore. Just give me the gun and we'll go back inside."

He stepped forward and I backed away. "I'll shoot you!"

"Lawrence."

He reached for the gun. I fired it.

I pulled myself back into reality. T'Pel had taken another step closer to the blaster.

"T'Pel, stop walking!" I half-begged. "Don't be stupid!"

"You're a coward," T'Pel hissed. "I'm a Commander in the Romulan Star Empire. I don't back down."

He dived down for the blaster. I leveled mine and fired at him, watching as the beam struck him in the heart. He didn't scream as he fell back, a charred space marking where the beam had hit.

I stepped back, the blaster falling out of my limp hand, dropping to the floor. I fell down onto my knees, staring at the body of T'Pel. He was dead.

"Warning," the computer sounded. "Quantum singularity casing with breach in one minute."

My head jerked up as I stared around the room. Slowly, I turned my head toward the damaged casings, the casing for the singularity that T'Pel had hit earlier. I didn't know anything about engines, but it had looked bad. It still did.

"Warning, singularity breach in 50 seconds."

I turned my gaze to T'Pel's body. Beside it lay the blaster. The blaster that had caused the damage; the blaster that was about to make this ship explode.

I found it hard to believe that a blaster could destroy all the protection around the singularity, but I'd never tried it before. Romulan blasters were more powerful than Federation phasers, the energy more potent.

"Warning, singularity breach in 40 seconds."

I rose to my feet, feeling faintly that I should probably try to get away. But where would I go? How was I supposed to get off the Romulan ship, anyway? I couldn't remember.

"Warning, singularity break in 30 seconds."

"Pull yourself together," I said to myself. I had to stay in control for just a little while longer. Then I could hate myself for what I had done, or torment myself over what I could have done instead. I'd killed a man, but that didn't matter now. Now, I told myself, all that mattered was getting off this ship before it blew up. Somehow.

"Warning, singularity breach in 20 seconds."

I sank to the ground again. No, that was impossible. There was no way I was going to get off this ship. What could I do? The Enterprise couldn't beam me up, not while I was in Engineering. I remembered why I hadn't been able to beam directly into Engineering: the magnetic distortions. And I couldn't get far enough away in…

"Warning, singularity breach in 10 seconds."

This was it, I thought. This was really the end. I hadn't thought much about death, not since I was seventeen, at least. I hadn't thought of how I would die, which was strange considering how often I had stowed away on dangerous ships. I'd never allowed myself to think about it.

"Singularity breach in 9 seconds."

But now I was going to die.

"Breach in 8 seconds."

Strange, but I didn't feel upset. I'd have imagined that I would be crying, or something

"7 seconds."

I didn't feel anything, I realized. Nothing. No fear, no hate, no sadness.

"6 seconds."

I felt strangely at peace. I felt…whole.

"5 seconds."

I'd completed my mission.

"4 seconds."

Nobody else on the Enterprise was going to die.

"3 seconds."

Will was going to be alright.

"2 seconds."

I'd done what I'd come here to do.

"1 second."

I was encased in blue light. So this is death, I thought. And the world disappeared.