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.

***Spoiler Alert***
This story contains plot elements and character and location details borrowed from the 2013 Tomb Raider game, and author's notes discuss the similarities at length. This chapter in particular is a spoiler for a major element in the game. If you do not wish to view potential spoilers on this game, you should not read this chapter or the accompanying notes.

Sacrifice

USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, First Officer Antori Drel's Log, Stardate 81631.6, Supplemental:

After two torturous days on this mysterious M-Class planet in the Dragon's Head Nebula, we were forcibly "rescued" by an Orion Syndicate band operating a decrepit D12-class bird-of-prey. Carlin believed we were still in danger, though. She's convinced that this planet is Yamatai and that the human Sun Queen who once ruled it left behind a tremendously powerful device capable of bringing down any ship that attempted to leave. I had little reason to doubt her, given what happened to our own rescue shuttle. I have even less now.

We tried to warn the Orions, but a storm laced with powerful polaric energy discharges brought them down. Carlin was injured in the crash. I hope she's still alive. If she's not, the best chance of anyone getting off this planet dies with her!

Antori Drel came to and opened his eyes. The Orion Syndicate bird-of-prey's bridge was a wreck, lit only by the fires burning in its demolished consoles and shattered bulkheads. The atmosphere was thick with smoke. He looked around. Where is she?

"Carlin!" he called. Then his eyes landed on a dirty blue uniform jacket draped over a lithe female form he'd recognize anywhere. "Carlin!" She did not respond. She lay face down, motionless, fresh blood matted in her short, auburn hair.

Antori tried to move toward her, but a fresh stab of pain from his leg stopped him. He looked down and noticed a duranium panel had fallen on his left leg, just over his splint - which was probably the only thing that had kept his leg in one piece. As it was, he was sure from the pain that he'd broken something. He shoved that thought aside, though, and heaved the fallen panel off his leg. Carlin was in danger.

He crawled over to her, knocking loose debris out of his way. Her right hand still clutched a Klingon disruptor pistol. He stowed it away automatically as he rolled her over. Her lips were blue-tinged and her chest was still. He checked for a pulse, but couldn't find one.

"No, no! Don't do this to me, Carlin!" he said. He pulled open her medkit and fished out a cortical simulator. He attached it carefully to her forehead - not the way he'd learned in the basic field medicine course he'd taken as a tactical officer, but in the position Carlin had taught him in what she'd laughingly referred to as "remedial basic field medicine." The joke course was deadly serious now.

He activated the cortical simulator and flipped open his tricorder, adjusting the device's settings. He waited for it to power up, then discharged it. Carlin jerked. On the tricorder scan, her vitals fluttered, then dropped.

"Come on, Carlin," he pleaded. "I need you here. We all do." He dug out a hypospray and loaded it with a small dose of cordrazine. An explosion rumbled somewhere in the wreck, reminding Antori that he needed to hurry. He injected her quickly, reset the cortical stimulator, and discharged it again.

Carlin jerked again, but this time, she drew a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. She immediately started coughing and gasping, but at least she was conscious again.

"That's it, that's it," he said. "Easy now: deep breaths." There was another nearby explosion. A beam collapsed somewhere on the bridge, prompting someone to utter a Nausicaan curse. The rest of the structure began to groan and pop. Sounds like we've overstayed our welcome, Antori decided. "Come on, we're gonna get out of here," he said to Carlin, picking her up gently. He remembered that there was an escape hatch somewhere nearby. Perciv Drel had studied the blueprints of the D12-class and various other Klingon ships while researching a way to overcome the Breen energy-dampning weapon and while the research had been a dead end, the knowledge it gave him now could be the difference between life and death. He limped to the bulkhead mentioned in the blueprints and searched it with the fingers of one hand till he found the control panel hidden in the dark metal. He ripped it off and pulled the manual release. A hidden door blew outward. Cool air rushed in and Carlin gulped it down, eagerly. They weren't out of danger yet, though.

Antori limped through the hatch and out into the fire-lit night. They were lucky. The ship had crashed on land at the edge of a deciduous forest. The dirt it had dug up in the crash had built up at the prow to form a sort of ramp. He descended it, trying to get as far away from the wreck as possible. The smoke was thinner here and Carlin's breathing became more regular as she began to stir in his arms. She's still probably too weak to move on her own, though I'm guessing the professional medical opinion would be that she shouldn't be moved at all, he thought. But glancing back at the broken "head" of the Klingon bird-of-prey, he knew their chances were better moving than staying.

Apparently he wasn't the only one with that opinion. As he looked back, he could see two more figures trying to clamber out through the escape hatch. The leading figure was the Nausicaan. The one behind him, an Orion male - the science officer, he thought.

Suddenly, the bridge exploded. A large fireball engulfed the rearmost of the survivors and the blast knocked everyone else to the ground. Carlin fell beside Antori, crying out. She tried to push herself up, but her arms collapsed under her. She looked to Antori, eyes scared, pleading. He pushed himself up, ignoring the pain in his leg, and put his arms around her, helping her regain her feet.

"Try to walk if you can," he said. "I'll try to carry you. I just want more distance between us and the wreck before we stop." He grunted, dragging her backward, toward the trees. "That blast was big - probably the EPS relays - but it isn't the worst thing that could go off right now. There's still the photon torpedo magazines, just below the bridge." He let his voice trail off as the ground became rockier and more difficult to navigate with his leg and Carlin's deadweight.

That was when it happened. With her chest pressed against his own as he carried her, he felt as much as heard the sharp intake of breath as she gasped. "It's them!" she whispered, voice hoarse. "The Solarii!"

He struggled to turn and hold on to Carlin at the same time. There were shapes behind him, coming out of the forest, more than a dozen of them. The nearest one was a Yridian in tattered clothes, charging at him with a Jem'Hadar assault rifle. Antori reached for the Klingon disruptor he'd tucked away, but even as his hand moved, he knew he wasn't going to be fast enough. The Yridian was already leveling his weapon.

Suddenly, there was a primal roar from behind Antori, toward the wreck. Before he could turn to face it, a figure charged past him, at the Yridian. It was the Nausicaan, his flesh and armor singed, but very much alive. He slashed the Yridian through the neck with his curved ax, then rushed the next group of Solarii. His charge took them by surprise. Their return fire was scattered and ineffective, scoring only a couple glancing hits on the Nausicaan as he cut down another of their number. Antori drew his disruptor and started trying to even the odds. The pistol's shots were weaker than they should be - it had obviously been damaged - but they were still effective. He shot one of the Solarii, then another, while the Nausicaan killed a third.

Then as the Nausicaan moved to attack his next target, a Cardassian in dark robes sprung from the shadows and intercepted him. He seized the Nausicaan's ax in one hand, deadlocking his impressive strength, and with the other hand drew a Cardassian phaser from his sash. He pressed it up under the Nausicaan's chin and fired. The warrior fell, leaving his ax in the Cardassian's hand.

Antori tried to shoot the Cardassian, but the disruptor's beam finally fizzled as the emitter died. He tossed the useless weapon aside. There was no time to find another. Already, the Cardassian was rearing back, preparing to throw the ax. He was aiming for Carlin. Antori could not let him kill her. Instead he folded his arms around her and spun around, putting his back to the Solarii, shielding Carlin with his body. He felt Carlin struggle as she realized what was about to happen, heard her cry, "No!"

Then, the ax struck. Cruel metal sunk deep into his chest. Drel had experienced the death of a host before, and Antori had suffered plenty of injuries, but there were no words, no comparisons, for this kind of agony. His arms opened, nerveless, and Carlin fell to the ground in front of him. He could hear her sobbing, calling his name. He fell to his knees. Somehow he managed to get his hands in front of him, bracing him up, keeping him from collapsing completely. Not yet...not yet! he pleaded with his wounds. There are still Solarii...she's still in danger!

The Yridian's assault rifle had fallen right beside his hands. He grabbed it and pushed himself over, landing on his bottom, his legs splayed out useless in front of him. The movement also turned him around, back to the Solarii. The Cardassian was leering at him, his eyes confident. Antori raised the assault rifle and those eyes widened in surprise.

He fired. His whole mind was awash in pain. His aim was unsteady, but it didn't matter. His fingers had automatically thrown the fire selector all the way to full-auto. A stream of blue bolts cut through the forest, sending Solarii scrambling for cover. Some of them didn't make it. One of those was the Cardassian, who took a glancing hit to his side - not lethal, but with a Jem'Hadar weapon, that hardly mattered. Anticoagulants in the burst would infect the wound and finish him eventually. When he went down, the other Solarii scattered. "Father Matan is hit!" they shouted. A couple of them grabbed the Cardassian and hauled him back into the woods, firing ineffectually at Antori as they did so. He fired back, but by this point the pain had been joined by dizziness. His trigger finger felt cold, almost numb. His spray of fire went completely wild, most of it cutting through leaves and branches over his target's heads.

He tried to keep his balance, but his muscles were spasming now. He fell over, onto his side. His whole body was trembling and he lost his grip on his weapon. Every breath felt like drinking molten metal, and each lungful was getting harder and harder.

His vision swam. Carlin was in front of him. He could see her tears making rivulets in the dirt on her cheeks. "Antori! Please, stay with me!"

"I don't...I think...it's pretty bad," he managed to say.

He saw her fishing out her tricorder, running it over the wound. "Your...your spinal column's almost severed. You have catastrophic damage to your left and right ventricals, and your right lung...you...you need surgery, but...but you're going to...to be..." Her free hand reached for a pony tail that was no longer there.

"Don't lie to me, Carlin," he said. He could feel blood trickle from a corner of his mouth, though for some reason he could not taste it. "We both know...we don't have the facilities for that..." He knew the next part was true. He made himself accept it. There was no point in denial. "It's over. I'm dying..."

"No!" Carlin dropped her tricorder and took his head in her hands, turning his eyes toward her. His muscles were weak, almost limp. He couldn't have resisted her if he'd wanted to. "Please, no!" she said. "I love you!"

"I...I love you too," he said. "You know that...but sometimes...some love stories...don't have happy endings. You know that...it was the risk we both took...in Starfleet..."

"I...I was going to ask you to marry me," she said.

"I was going to...to say yes," he said. A cough wracked his body, ripping into him with new agony. "I would have loved to...but this damn ax..."

"But I need you!" she pleaded. "I can't do this alone!"

"I'm sorry, Carlin..." he said. He wanted to kiss her one last time, but he could not move. Pain and an overwhelming cold seemed to have frozen him in place. Darkness ate away at the corners of his vision. He knew this meant he was bleeding out, if the other injuries didn't kill him first. "I'm sorry...but you can do this...get them home...get them all home...If anyone can do it...you can... You're a Starfleet officer."

"Antori...I'm sorry," she said, hugging him and hiding her face in his shoulder. "This...it's all my fault! We wouldn't be on this planet...if you hadn't saved me..."

"Don't blame yourself...I wouldn't have it any other way..." he said. His vision fading, his nerves all blacking out together. "Remember, I love you...always."

Those were the last words he ever spoke.

Author's Note: ...

Well...this chapter is my rendition of Roth's death scene in the Tomb Raider game. Yes, Roth dies. It is a dramatic and tragic moment. I think I may have cried when I played through it the first time. If I didn't, I'm sure I was close.

As noted in previous chapters, Antori is playing the role of Roth in the game, but this alone doesn't excuse his death. After all, Rejes was supposed to live, and she didn't. There are deeper reasons for Antori to die. Not only is it totally in his character to sacrifice himself to save someone else (particularly Carlin) but I had also planned for it as a part of Carlin's character development. As a matter of fact, I have a confession to make: I planned on killing Antori all along, since the moment he was first introduced! You see, Carlin's character was originally written as Carlin Drel, a joined Trill who received her symbiont after the traumatic death of its previous host. When I wrote this story in order to put her through more character development this was what I had in mind.

I am a cruel, cruel person...but hopefully the rest of the story and the resulting character of Carlin will make it up to you! If not, here is a new cover based on Carlin and Sam's current appearance in the story.

The Breen energy-dampening weapon is the one used against the alliance vessels in the Second Battle of Chin'toka (DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil"). Klingon ships were easily able to adapt to the weapon to negate its effects, but Federation and Romulan vessels were unable to adapt until Kira Nerys captured one of the weapons intact for study. I figure that until that point, Starfleet engineers, including Perciv Drel, were probably hard at work studying Klingon designs and trying to figure out how to adapt them to make their own ships immune to the weapon.

From a medical standpoint. The left and right ventricles are the two lowermost chambers of the human heart. In this case, I assumed the Trill heart was pretty much identical. Sensations of cold are felt during extreme bloodloss. Even with Antori's extreme injuries, he could probably have been saved by Star Trek medicine (as a young man, Picard survives a stab wound which damages his heart so severely that he must get an artificial replacement), but, as Antori points out, they don't have access to the kind of facilities needed for that, and he is far beyond what field medicine can fix.