Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. Tomb Raider and the situations therein are the property of Square Enix. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit. Stardates were calculated with the help of the TNG Stardate Calculator available on TrekGuide .com and may be slightly out of sync with those used in the game's lore.

Bridge

USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, Senior Science Officer Carlin Agran's Log, Stardate 81631.4:

Sam has fallen.

I watched it happen from down below. We were fighting for our lives in the Solarii shantytown when some of them grabbed her from behind and tried to use her as a hostage to make me surrender. She broke free of them, but in her struggles she fell over the side with the Solarii named Brother John. I can't see her now, and she's not responding. I have to get up there! I have to find her!

There are other things I have to do, too. I have to find Antori. I know he's nearby, on the ridge overlooking the Solarii city. I also know I have to rescue Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey from the shuttlepod where the Solarii are holding them, in the caverns below. I have less than an hour to do that before its jury-rigged engines fire up and kill everyone inside...

But I can't do it alone! Sam, please, I need you! Antori, please help me!

"Sam!" Carlin shouted, but there was no answer. Sam was gone.

Carlin picked up her phaser and ran to the tower where she'd last seen her friend. She grabbed the cable Sam had lowered before the Solarii had reached her. She started climbing, but a sound from behind made her turn around halfway up. The motion flipped her around till her back was against the tower - and she was lucky it did!

A split-second later, a single shot from a Jem'Hadar rifle hit the side of the tower where her head had been. Sparks showered over her and she screamed. Across the courtyard, the Denobulan Solarii she had disarmed earlier laughed. He had picked up another Solarii's rifle and now he stood on the wall, taking careful aim. Carlin knew there was nothing she could do to stop him. She needed both hands on the cable to keep herself from a two-meter fall into the courtyard below, and she doubted he would miss a second time. She swallowed and steeled herself for the end.

But suddenly a bright bolt of phaser fire tore through the Denobulan's shoulder. He cried out and dropped the rifle, falling to one knee. His eyes darted toward the slopes on the other side of the wall, beyond the Solarii City. Carlin noticed the red dot of a laser sight dancing on his forehead. "Bak!" the Denobulan swore. Then a second searing bolt of phaser fire followed the laser light to his forehead, silencing him forever.

"You're clear, Carlin," Antori's voice said from her combadge. She realized she'd left the channel open during the fight. He'd probably heard the whole thing. "It took me a minute to get in position and calibrate this thing. Are you alright?"

"Yes!" she said, grateful. "You saved my life."

"What are lovers and commanding officers for?" he asked.

Carlin managed to smile at that, in spite of everything. She scanned the slope where the Denobulan had been looking. There was a cluster of stone ruins there, about halfway up. She spied a glint of silver and red from one of the windows. It was Antori! She could see him peering through the scope of a phaser sniper rifle, sweeping the Solarii shantytown.

"That was the last one in this part of the city," he said. "You're clear to climb up. I'll cover you."

Carlin pulled herself up the rest of the way to the platform at the tower's top. She rushed to the edge overlooking the wall where Sam had fallen. She couldn't see a body, but then the pool of sewage beneath the tower on this side was fairly deep: deep enough to hide a body, bu not deep enough to make a four-meter fall anything but fatal.

"I saw part of the fight, but not the end," Antori was saying over the com channel. "Where's Lieutenant Hayashi?"

Carlin stepped back from the edge. "She...she fell," she said and squeezed her eyes shut against tears. She forced herself to say the words she knew must be true. "She's dead."

There was a long silence, then Antori said, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry," Carlin repeated and nodded. Sorry didn't even begin to cover what she was feeling, though. She felt like someone had ripped her heart out. Maybe someone did, she thought. Tears were streaking down her cheeks, but she was barely even aware of them next to the shock and emptiness she felt inside. Sam had been her only real friend at the Academy, someone close to her that she'd known she could trust for years. Now she was gone. Carlin couldn't fathom it.

"Talk to me, Carlin," Antori said, his voice bringing her out of her dark thoughts. "What happened?"

Carlin opened her eyes and wiped them with her uniform sleeve. "The Solarii must have gotten around me somehow. There's another ladder on this side," she said, pacing the platform around the metal supports that dominated its center. "They tried to use her as leverage to make me surrender, but Sam wouldn't let them."

"A loyal friend and a fine officer," said Antori soberly.

"A stubborn girl." Carlin sniffed. "It should have been me."

"You can't blame yourself for this," he told her. "It wasn't your fault, and you can't undo it. All you can do is make it count."

She nodded and her fists clenched at her side. "I'm going to get the Solarii for this," she promised.

"We will," Drel began, "but remember: the best revenge-"

"-is living well," she finished. It was something Antori had taught her two years ago, saving her from her all-consuming rage at her father. Now it pulled her back from indulging the same kind of revenge quest with the Solarii. Still, she could not help but think that living well was something neither Maiava, Rejes, nor Sam would ever get a chance to do again. With that in mind, she knew that showing mercy and restraint toward the Solarii would be...more difficult.

"Killing the Solarii won't bring Sam or any of the others back," Antori said, as if reading her thoughts. "They would want us to survive, to live well. We have to focus on rescuing the others and getting back to the Nautilus." He paused. "And if any Solarii get in our way, we'll give 'em hell."

Carlin nodded and picked up a fallen polaron rifle, checking the charge and setting it to three-shot burst mode automatically. I can't bring Sam or any of the others back, but I'm going to make their deaths count, she swore. I can cry my eyes out in Antori's arms later. For now, I need to focus on living and doing what needs to be done. No one else from Nautilus dies!

"There's a cable car coming along cargo system," Antori said. "It's empty. You should be able to ride it all the way to the base of the bridge on this side."

She looked up. The windmill the tower supported was turning steadily, drawing a crude car with a duranium frame and a wooden floor along a network of cables that seemed to stretch over much of the Solarii city. This set of cables led to a tower on the far side of the shantytown, but fed through a middle tower on the way. This middle tower was just beneath the huge arched bridge that connected the ridge on the west side of the city to the fortified ruins of the palace that seemed to be the Solarii command center. The bridge soared over the ramshackle buildings below. On the far side of it, beneath the palace, were the cave entrances that were most likely to lead her to the makeshift cell where Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey were being held.

"I see the car," she said, moving into position. She waited for the right moment, then scrambled aboard the car as the cable system carried it past. The platform seemed to be well balanced and the frame was sturdy - perhaps because the Solarii had gotten tired of having shoddily built cars dump their loads onto their makeshift dwellings below, she thought darkly. In any case, she was in no danger of falling out and the solid floor beneath her meant that she would be well protected from Solarii eyes as long as she stayed low. She settled down in the middle of the platform and told Antori, "I'm going to ride over to the middle tower and then try to climb up to the bridge. Can you cover me again?"

"Will do," said Antori. "I've got a clear line of sight all the way to the palace walls. Let me know when you're in position, and be careful!"

"I will be," she said. "You too." Then, she closed the channel. She concentrated on the way ahead, shutting out the turbulent thoughts and feelings that surrounded the loss of Sam. The wind was strong and steady, turning the windmills that pulled the cable car along at a good speed. She could see the maze of ramshackle huts pass by below on either side. There were some Solarii down there, but she remained still and quiet and none of them looked up. Most of them seemed preoccupied with moving east, toward the palace or the more heavily-guarded lower entrances to the caverns. Carlin wondered if Matan had called a meeting to decide the fate of the remaining prisoners or devise a new way to hunt down herself and Antori. She banished the worry, though. What's important is that it leaves my path clear, or at least relatively so.

She managed to make it to the middle tower without incident. She stood and hopped off of the cable car and onto the platform at this tower's top. A narrow catwalk made from a piece of tritanium hull plating connected the platform to the slope of the hill that supported this side of the bridge. There was no other way off of the top of the tower, and there were no Solarii in sight, so Carlin took it. There was a rough trail leading upward from there, toward the base of the bridge. She followed it. It was a long climb, getting steeper all the way as the trail faded away and became more of a runoff ditch in the side of ta crumbling slope than anything else.

Just as the trail began to vanish, her combadge chirped. "Antori to Carlin."

She sat on the slope - bracing her legs against a rock to keep herself from sliding - and tapped her combadge. "Go ahead," she said, panting.

"You probably can't see them from your position, but that bridge is swarming with Solarii," he told her. "Looks like a bunch of them are headed for the palace right now. If you go any further up and you'll be spotted. No amount of cover fire from me will help you then."

"Great." Carlin tugged at her hair. "Any ideas?"

"It'll be tricky, but you can probably get across by climbing underneath," he suggested.

"I was afraid you were going to say something like that." Carlin looked up at the underside of the bridge. It was criss-crossed with a haphazard collection of salvaged metal beams and hull plates that the Solarii had apparently added in an attempt to strengthen the delicate arch of the original bridge. Whether they'd been successful or not would take someone with actual engineering knowledge to say, but Carlin's guess was not very judging from the chaotic nature of their work. Studying the mess of salvaged junk with a climber's eye, she had to admit she agreed with Antori's assessment. It was climbable...but it definitely didn't look safe, stable, or fun. Given the alternative, though... She gave the ragged ends of her pony tail a final tug before shoving it behind her. "Okay, I'll do this, but it's bound to make some noise, and depending on the state of the old bridge above this mess, I may even be exposed to the Solarii on top in a couple places."

"Don't worry," said Antori. "I'll be covering you the whole way. Let me know when you're in position. Drel out."

Carlin pushed herself back to her feet and resumed her climb, moving more cautiously this time and angling her path to end up directly beneath the bridge instead of beside it. After a few minutes, she reached a large metal beam that was the lowest part of the bridge's makeshift structural support. She pulled herself up onto a rusty hull plate that had been welded to the top of the beam. She could hear footsteps on the wooden roadbed overhead, lots of them. Even as she listened though, the footsteps were growing thinner like the trailing end of a crowd was passing across it. Maybe I'm in luck and the Solarii are about to leave the bridge unguarded, she thought. She crouched on the the hull plate and tapped her combadge. "Agran to Drel," she whispered. "Antori, I'm in position, and I can hear the Solarii overhead. It sounds like they're leaving the bridge."

"Not all of them," he whispered back. "They're leaving guards, about a half-dozen or so, and with the old palace so close there's every possibility of them calling in reinforcements." He paused. "You still need to cross underneath, but I've got them in my sights. I'll cover for you. Keep an open com channel."

Carlin nodded. "Right." She turned her attention to the convoluted structure head of her, picking out a path to advance. "Here goes," she said.

She started forward, following the support beam she'd climbed up on. She had to duck to avoid the wooden beams of the bridge's original structure and step lightly lest she make too much noise on the tritanium hull plate, but it was better than being spotted. That proved especially true when she got a little closer and could hear two of the guards talking.

"Do you know what the hell happened down there? Do you think Brother John really killed the Outsider this time?" one of them asked.

"Don't worry," said a second voice: Nausicaan by the sound of it, Carlin thought. "If he didn't, then she'll come to us. This is the only way to their shipmates, and if there's anything the Federation is, it's predictable."

The first Solarii guard began to pace. Carlin could hear his bootsteps just over her head. She made herself keep going, very slowly. I just need to get across!

"We'd better stop her this time, if Brother John hasn't," the first Solarii said. "Father Matan will send us all to the Oni if we don't."

"Only if we fail," the Nausicaan insisted. "But we won't fail: the Sun Queen is with us!"

The first Solarii snorted. "Maybe the Sun Queen is with that fucking Outsider. She's killed enough of us."

A third laughed. "You might be right. I heard she did it for Brother Vamdar in hand to hand, unarmed, and tied up to boot!"

"Enough!" the Nausicaan roared. "Be silent. This talk is blasphemy!"

He stormed down the bridge, toward Carlin. She heard a board snap overhead and a booted foot broke through, just missing her. Carlin recoiled and her movements made the hull plate she was on rattle loudly. The Nausicaan cursed and pulled his foot out of the hole. "What was that noise?" he demanded, unslinging his rifle. He glared down through the hole and for a terrible moment, his eyes met hers. She saw the hatred.

Her own rifle was still slung across her back: there was no time to go for it. "Antori," she whispered urgently.

The Nausicaan opened his mouth to shout an alarm, but nothing came out. Instead, a bright bolt of phaser fire ripped through his skull. He fell, his body covering the hole, an arm falling through. It took all of Carlin's effort not to scream or fling herself aside - which would have been suicidal up on this narrow patch of hull plating. Instead, she forced herself to keep moving forward. She could hear chaos breaking out above her.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What was that?!" the first Solarii demanded. "Who's shooting?"

"Sniper!" a second shouted. "Take cover!"

"Watch out! Ahh!" cried a third, cutting off with a scream as another searing bolt of phaser fire lanced out at the men on the bridge. Another Solarii swore in a dialect Carlin didn't recognize. He started firing bursts from his polaron rifle toward the ridge at random.

If any of the shots got close to Antori, he didn't show it. His voice from her combadge was relatively calm, though his concern for her was obvious. "Are you alright, Carlin? I thought I almost lost you."

"It was close," Carlin admitted. "Too close...but I'm alright. Just keep covering me." She moved around a vertical beam. From here the hull plating turned into a vary narrow catwalk attached to the side of the bridge, down below, following it through the peak of its arch and halfway down the other side. "Vary narrow" as in practically non-existent, she noted. The strip of corroded metal was barely wide enough to accommodate one foot at a time lengthwise. She had to grip the bottom of the railing of the old bridge for support, or risk loosing her balance to a very long fall...but there was a risk to this.

"Stop! Don't move," Antori instructed. "They'll see you."

Carlin swallowed. "Please hurry," she said. "I can't wait like this forever!"

Meanwhile, the Solarii were getting organized. Two more of them headed out onto the bridge, keeping low in hope of avoiding fire. One of them wasn't ducking low enough. There was a flash of fire and he dropped. "I don't see him!" one of the other cried. "We're sitting ducks out here!"

"Look for the emitter flash!" another shouted. Another searing bolt lanced out, downing the Solarii who'd been firing his rifle blind at the ridgeline. The shot gave the others a chance, though. "There! He's in the cliff shrine! Open fire!" Five Solarii peeked out and fired their weapons. A barrage of bolts and beams from weapons made by species all over the quadrant headed toward the ruins on the side of the ridge.

"Antori!" Carlin cried.

"I'm fine, Carlin, don't worry about me," said Antori, his voice calm despite the blasts of near misses she could hear from his end of the com. A bolt of phaser fire struck out, then another. Each shot downed another Solarii.

"Damn it! I can't get a shot!" one of the survivors shouted.

"Idiots!" said another. "He's too far away! We'll never hit him with these-AHHG!" His tirade turned into a scream as a third bolt hit him just below the ribcage.

"Get behind something!" The remaining two Solarii started to run for the shelter of an overturned Dominion ground vehicle laying on top of the bridge. Another bolt of phaser fire ripped toward them. Only one made it to shelter. "Damn it...damn it, damn it, damn it!" He swung out from behind the vehicle, spraying the ruins with an assault disruptor set to full auto. A moment later, a bright bolt of phaser fire slashed back across his line of fire and he dropped, rifle falling from lifeless hands.

There was silence on the bridge for a moment. Carlin shifted her grip on the railing, her body trembling - though whether from exertion or from adrenalin she couldn't say. "Am I clear?" she whispered into her combadge.

"I think so," said Antori. "Go ahead and climb across."

Carlin nodded and straightened to get a better grip on the lower rails. "Thanks for the cover," she said, relieved. "You saved my life again. I owe you one."

"We, you did save me from bleeding out or losing my leg yesterday during the wolf attack, and then you saved us a few times inside the Solarii Communications base as well...I figure this makes us even."

Carlin smiled at that. She was past the apex of the bridge now, descending along the incredibly narrow catwalk. She moved past the last vertical support beam, holding onto it for balance. She turned around as she did so and paused, momentarily forgetting about the ground below and the Solarii around her. Antori was just over there, just in that ruin. She could still see his bright red uniform jacket, as a spot of color against the gray stone. She considered snapping off a salute or blowing a kiss. She wondered if he'd be able to see her.

Then, she heard movement behind her, something dragging itself across the boards. Antori shouted, "Carlin, look out!" and that was all the warning she had. An arm grabbed her from behind, closed around her neck. She cried out, and then she couldn't breathe.

"Outsiders! You must be communicating somehow!" he said. "Surrender now or I kill the girl!"

The Solarii wedged himself between the bottom rungs of the railing. He was Andorian, and blue blood dribbled from his mouth. Punctured lung, Carlin diagnosed automatically. It normally wasn't fatal, given proper and immediate medical treatment, but in this environment she was betting it would be. Not fatal enough, she realized, clawing futilely at his arm. At this rate she would pass out from lack of oxygen long before he began to feel the effects of his own injuries.

"I'm not kidding, Outsider!" the Andorian growled. He grabbed Carlin's head from behind in his free hand. The grip was incredibly strong. "Surrender now, or I break her neck."

Carlin managed, for a moment, to pry the Andorian's arm far enough away from her throat to take a breath. "Antori...please!" she said, struggling for air.

"Carlin, do you trust me?" he asked.

"Y-yes!" she said, gasping.

"Then dodge left...now!"

Carlin threw herself toward the vertical beam, embracing it. A searing bolt of phaser fire flashed by her head. The Andorian cried out, then went limp. His balance gone, his corpse began to slide over the edge, falling between the railings toward the ground below. Its deadweight threatened to take her with it. It swept her off the catwalk and down, but she maintained her grip on the metal beam. I am not letting Antori go through what I just experienced with Sam! she swore. The weight of the dead Solarii fell away and Carlin found herself dangling over the edge. She pulled herself back up to the catwalk, shimmying as quickly as she could.

"Carlin! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine...I'm fine," she said, breathing heavily. "That was...close wasn't it."

"You could say that," said Antori. "Sorry about your hair."

"My...what?" She reached back to find that most of her pony tail was now missing. What was left was ragged with its ends singed. She remembered the Solarii's hand had been tangled in it, preparing to snap her neck. It must have been right in front of his head when she threw herself out of the way of Antori's shot. Well, better it than me! she thought. "I...always wanted to try it short," she said, trying to break the tension and was rewarded by a brief chuckle from the other side.

"In that case, we'll get you a proper haircut once we're back on the ship," Antori promised. "For now, just concentrate on-" He broke off suddenly. A moment later, Carlin knew why. She heard footfalls pounding across the bridge toward her, from the palace: a lot of them. "You need to move, Carlin!" he said. "You've got Solarii reinforcements heading your way!"

Carlin threw a glance over her shoulder, back the way she'd come. "I can't go back that way!" she said. "It's too exposed!"

"Then you'll just have to go forward," said Antori. His phaser rifle sent flash after flash toward the bridge, into the Solarii ranks. "Run, Carlin! There's too many of them!" Even as he said it, the first couple Solarii spotted her and raised their weapons.

"There she is! Get her!"

Carlin ducked under the bridge. She ran across a narrow beam to the catwalk on the opposite side. Fear of heights didn't matter now. The pulse of disruptor fire threw her into action. Shots splintered boards above her, rattled the hull plating beneath her feet, and threw sparks off of the metal beams around her. She crouched and ran, her hands over her head to protect herself. I'm going to be shot! I'm going to be shot!

The wooden boards above and behind her shattered. A Solarii fell through, screaming. He hit the weakened hull plates behind her and the catwalk collapsed. The plate beneath Carlin tipped forward. The one in front of her fell off entirely. She staggered and tried to leap the gap. She missed. Her momentum carried her forward, into the slope beneath the palace. She hit a meter below the bottom of the bridge and rolled. She came to rest on a rocky ledge several meters further down. She picked herself up, bruised and scratched, but otherwise unharmed.

She saw a cave opening nearby, unguarded with no Solarii in sight. Disruptor bolts hit the ledge around her, reminding her that there were other Solarii she needed to worry about. She ran into the cave, tripped, and sprawled onto the floor in the darkness.

For several minutes she just lay there, breathing hard, too exhausted and frightened to move. She listened as the sounds of weapons fire died off. Maybe the Solarii are retreating...or maybe they got Antori! The thought shook her. She forced herself to sit up and tapped her combadge. "Antori! Are you there? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," said Antori. She heard him grunting in the background. "The Solarii retreated into the palace and I'm repositioning myself, just in case they get any ideas. What about you? I saw you run into some sort of cave."

"I'm fine, too," said Carlin. She stood and dusted herself off before realizing how pointless the gesture was. Most of my uniform is dust by this point, she thought. Instead, she pulled out her tricorder and ran a quick scan. The range was abysmal, less than twenty meters, but it gave her enough information to correlate her position with the data about the Solarii caverns they'd taken from the shuttle's flight recorder. "I'm at one of the upper entrances to the caverns we were looking for. It looks like its only half a kilometer through the caves to the chamber where Doctor Howard and Ensign McKensey are being held." She pulled out her battered palm beacon and switched it on. "I'm going in," she said.

"Are you sure about this, Carlin?" he asked, concerned. "I won't be able to help you in there, and I have to admit that with my leg the way it is, I'm in no shape to come in after you."

"I'm sure," Carlin said. I can't let anyone else from the Nautilus die! "I'll find them and get them out."

"Make sure you come back yourself, at any cost," Antori said. "That's an order!"

She smiled, his concern touching her even through layers of grief, guilt, and shock. "I will," she said, "I promise." Then, she closed the channel and headed deeper into the caverns.

The passageway she was following was long and twisting. There weren't any signs of Solarii activity in it either. She wondered why at first. Her scan and the data the shuttle had recorded in its overhead pass clearly indicated that this passageway connected with the rest of the cavern complex as a whole, which had branches coming out both in the old palace overhead and the Solarii shantytown below, with multiple chambers containing masses of salvaged materials in between. After a few minutes, though, the answer became clear. There was a low section of the tunnel, and it was flooded. The water was clean (at least by comparison to what she'd waded through earlier today) and only about a meter deep, but the low roof overhead would have forced some people to wade through doubled over with their face almost against the surface. Fortunately, Carlin's frame was somewhat shorter than average. She had to duck, and she was uncomfortably aware of how close her chin was to the surface as she waded, but she got across just fine. Still, I can see why the Solarii wouldn't want to bother with this passage, especially when there are other, more serviceable ones available.

Continuing on her map of the caverns showed a large chamber off to the left that opened into a long vertical shaft that led to the surface via a small waterfall. Her own passageway intersected the edge of this chamber, but continued on, deeper down, toward the ditanium signiture Drel had identified as the shuttlepod where their friends were being held. As she approached the large chamber, her tricorder's readings began to confirm the map's data, but added to it. Her eyes went wide as she began to read lifesigns: a lot of lifesigns. They came from all races and were standing together in close proximity. She would bet money on all of them being male as well. It's the Solarii.

She searched the map for a way around, but there was none: unless she wanted to backtrack all the way to the outside and look for another cave entrance. At the moment, that just seemed like a really good way to get herself shot when the Solarii on the bridge decided to show back up. She had no option but to press forward. She silenced her tricorder, dimmed her palm beacon, and continued toward the chamber. It wasn't long before she started seeing other signs of the Solarii presence. There were burnt down candles scattered here and there, as well as skeletal humanoid remains. There were also white handprints and crude paintings on the walls, several of them defacing ancient murals. After a few minutes, she could hear the Solarii as well, a murmur of conversation echoing to her from the chamber. She reached back to tug her ponytail before realizing that it was no longer there. Just get in and out and don't get caught, she told herself, but a booming voice from the chamber interrupted her thought. It was Father Matan.

"My brothers, silence, please! The time is at hand!" he shouted and stillness fell over the others. "We have recaptured the girl, the outsider. Brother John brought her back for us with a well-timed transport, though he will not be joining us."

Carlin realized with a start that he was talking about Sam. Her head whirled with the possibilities. Sam, alive? It made sense, too. She'd never seen the body, and she and Sam had both witnessed this Brother John beaming out in the middle of a fall. If he tried to do it again and they locked on to Sam by mistake, she could be alive..., the hopeful thought cut off suddenly with a chilling realization. If she's alive, she's in Solarii hands - and great danger!

Matan's speech only served to drive this last point home. "The Sun Queen is with us, Brothers!" he shouted. "Let us gather together to hear her voice as we offer this girl to her will. It is time for the Ritual of Fire!"

In the chamber nearby, scores upon scores of Solarii cheered. Dread settled into Carlin's stomach like a ball of black ice.

Author's Note: First of all, I would like to apologize to my readers for this chapter being posted late! I'm moving to a new apartment and that combined with work and getting slightly addicted to Mass Effect 3 has resulted in much less writing than I'd prefer. However, I am definitely committed to this project so never fear. I will be getting back on schedule and building up my buffer again as quickly as I can. Thank you for being patient with me and my stories. Your support means a lot to me!

As for the chapter, I feel like the first thing I should mention is that I was trying to tread a fine line in the beginning. We all know that (a la Chapter 27) Sam is actually still alive, but Carlin doesn't. I wanted her to have an emotional reaction that was in keeping with the level of close companionship the characters have demonstrated thusfar, without driving Carlin into such despair or rage that it derailed the plot (especially considering that, again, Sam is alive!). Hopefully I struck the right balance.

The inspiration for this chapter is from the bridge scenes at the end of the shantytown level of the Tomb Raider game. This was honestly one of my favorite parts of the game. It's one of the few places where a character other than Lara gets to show how amazing they are, and actually save Lara in the process, and it's a great instance of cooperation between Lara and her tutor: with Lara crossing the bridge Roth cannot and Roth guiding her across and giving her cover fire. Also, I am quite partial to snipers in games. There can never be enough "boom, headshot!"

That being said, the scene was altered, mostly to shorten it and merge it with adjoining scenes more easily. In the game I was particularly annoyed by the way sniper-Roth is introduced: killing a pair of mooks who perform below and beneath the lowest standards of mookdom. One of them takes more than three swings of a heavy machete to even damage an ordinary rope. The other misses a Lara time after time while she is slowly climbing said rope and thus totally unable to dodge. Needless to say, these mooks were removed and replaced with someone more competent (though equally doomed to death by sniper). The end of the bridge scene also involved many more explosions and platforming tricks than I thought practical for my story.

The effects of Antori's phaser (specifically the red laser light used to aim) is inspired by the animation for the phaser sniper rifle in Star Trek Online, where firing the sniper shot causes the character to paint their target for a second with a harmless red laser beam before following it up with a powerful long-ranged shot. Carlin's (second) close-call haircut, wasn't exactly planned, but when I imagined how the scene would play out in my head, I realized that the ponytail might easily become a casualty. Since it has been a constant "tell" for her nervousness and uncertainty and she is becoming a more confident survivor and opponent, perhaps it's symbolic as well...I won't say!