Suddenly, a surprised yelp got Karissas
attention. Karissa turned to see the Fenris double holding a woman against her
will with a phaser at her head. She sensed it was Dinara . . . She could see
the fear in the woman's eyes, suddenly in such a vulnerable position where her
life was being threatened.
"Who are you?" Fenris asked. "I don't recognize you from the
crew . . ."
"You wouldn't," she replied simply.
"Well, whoever you are, leave . . . Take him with you too . . . Or I will kill Dinara Jin . . ."
"Hardly sounds rational . . . and I don't think either Tyran would appreciate that very much," she replied.
"I may be Vulcan, but living with Proletarians has made me anything but rational!"
Fenris pulled the trigger and Dinaras body fell limply to the floor.
"NOOOOO!" cried Tyran as he left his double to run to her. As he ran towards here, he felt the familiar feel of a phaser blast hit him in the back. He fell to the ground too.
Tyran opened his eyes again in the cockpit of the USS Amazon.
"Well, well, well Tyran." said Kira getting their attention. "Quite an impressive fight you and Miss Bentara put up on the surface.
Talsmin grabbed a phaser and fired at Kira, but he put up a shield of energy and the weapons effect disapated around him.
"I'm going to be brief with you Tyran. Nobody onboard here deserves to die. No one but you were onboard the Ronin when we were duplicated and when your ship left us to drift, you were unconscious. You had no say in the decision, but those deserters on your ship must die!"
"I don't want to kill you, but if you don't give up Tyran (D) Then I may be forced to do something."
The crew stood staring at Kira wondering what Tyran was going to say.
"Kira, you know I can't give him up!"
"I hoped you wouldn't say that." Kira stretched his arm toward Dinara and a beam of energy shot out at her knocking her against the bulkhead and then onto the floor.
"You bastard!" said Nige as he knelt down beside her.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Dinara had been woken by Tyrans tossing and turning.
"Honey, honey are you alright?" she asked gently shaking him. Tyran jumped up with a start in a cold sweat. He looked about and noticed Dinara was with him. He rleaxed himself as he realised he'd had a nightmare and fell back onto the bed "Did you have a bad dream?"
"Y.. yeah..."
"You want to tell me something about it?"
"No not really. It's not the kind of thing you'd like" he said grabbing his pillow and rolling away from her.
"It's just a dream Tyran. Your probably just nervous about all the things you have to do tomorrow."
"Yeah, probably something like that" he replied a little coursly.
"Are you sure your ok?"
"I said I'm fine!" snapped Nige. "Go back to sleep" Dinara, shocked at being spoken to like that grabbed the blankets and her pillow and left to set herself up in the living room. "Dinara, don't do this" he said as he followed her out. "Come back to bed."
"This isn't for me, it's for you! Come back to bed when you learn to treat me with some respecet!"
"But..."
"But what?"
"My ribs..."
"Don't be such a big baby." she said walking back into the bedroom and locking the door behind her. Tyran sighed and got to sleep on the sofa.
Tyran woke late the next day. Dinara wasn't around, he would have to talk to her later. He hurriedly dressed and headed for the station Commanders office. As he walked through the corridors he thought more of the dream he had had the night before and realised just how close he had been to loosing Dinara. He just thanked the prophets that he had ordered her to stay on the station. He wouldn't have been able to kill a duplicate of her even if it was pure evil. At that moment, it suddenly dawned on him that the Gemini device was still aboard the Ronin when it exploded. Starfleet Command wouldn't be pleased about this and Kira was going to be in for a bit of a hard time unless Tyran could smooth things over with them first.
He limped into ops and up the short ramp to where the Commanders office was located. He rang the chime and stepped in.
"Take a seat Mr. Tyran" she said. "Let me just congratulate you on a job well done" she said shaking his hand. "I'm not sure i'd have fended so well against a double of myself."
"Thankyou Commander."
"Are you ready she asked?"
"As I'll ever be" he replied nervously.
"Copmuter, activate holographic communication with starfleet command." Owens and Tyran stood and faced the holo-emitter standing to attention. A 3D image of the Starfleet logo spun for a moment before being replaced by the image of an admiral who Tyran knew all too well.
"Admiral Pike!" he exclaimed.
[Tyran, it's good to see you again. You don't look so good, and I know that these holograms don't distort that much. What's happened?]
"It's a long story Admiral. It started with Captain Evans, he and....."
"I think the Admiral know all about this Commander" butted in Owens.
"Of course" muttered Tyran "Where was I?"
[Still as nervous in front of Admirals as ever eh?] said Pike with a smile.
"Well, just a bit."
[All I know is that you were sent out five days ago on the Ronin to investigate an unknown vessel. Start from there]
So Tyran gave Admiral Pike a complete account of what had happened throughout the past five days. There were parts of it that Pike definately seemed agitated about, The mention of the Borg, the use of the device, and the destruction of it and the Ronin.
"Admiral, May I ask, if you don't mind of course, what is going to happen to us now?"
[That I can't say for sure. If it were up to Starfleet, you would most likely all be split up and assigned to new assignments. However, I have a few favours I can pull. I'll see what I can do for you.]
"Thank you so Much sir"
[I'll speak to you more about it when I get there]
"You're coming here?"
[I should arrive in about a week] replied pike
"I'll let Dinara an Kira know, I'm sure they'll be pleased to know you're on your way."
[Take care Tyran, and may the prophets be with you] With that Pikes hologram fizzled and disappeared.
"Commander, until Admiral Pike comes..."
"I understand, you may all stay here on the station in your temporary accomodations until the Admiral arrives."
"Thank you. There is one more thing I need to talk to you about."
"What's that?"
"I think that it would only be appropriate that we held a memorial service. For the people we lost."
"I couldn't agree more. I will leave everything down to you Mr. Tyran. Use anything you need, the station is yours."
"Thank you Commander"
"Dismissed"
With that, Tyran left *with all these small things I'm going to have to take care of, I won't have time to organise this service. I'll have to speak to Dinara about that later*. Tyran thought that he should stop by at the infirmary to see how Kira was doing. He walked in and found him lying on the biobed with Doctor Jin running a scan on him.
"How's he doing doc?" asked Tyran as he entered the small room. Jin folded up her tricorder and came over to speak quietly with Tyran.
"I can't say really. I've never treated anyone of his species before and I don't know what is 'normal' for him. I can't seem to access any of his medical records."
"I'll see about getting those unlocked for you. What can you tell me?"
"Well, the alveoli in his lungs are severely damaged and need time to regenererate. I've stimulated the regeneration process, but it will likely take a day or two yet before they are working properly again. The other thing wrong with him on which I can only speculate is his energy. I don't know what went on aboard the Ronin at all, but he is completely drained of energy. I can only assume that he will intake more energy as he recovers."
"Keep me informed doc"
Tyran went over to Kira who was lying there sedated.
"Kira, you've got to pull through. Your the only chance we have against your duplicate"
Tyran stayed with Kira a while and spoke with Doctor Jin. He couldn't afford to spend a lot of time hanging about as he had so many other things to do. He next spoke with Karissa about firstly, the morale of the crew, which under thecircumstances seemed pretty good, and secondly about the memorial service for those that were lost. The service was to be held in two days after which the bodies would be taken back to Earth and Vulcan for burial. If Kira wasn't in beter shape by then, Tyran would most likely have to conduct the service himself. When all that was done, he headed off again. This time to ops to speak with Talsmin.
"What have you found out?" he asked as he approached Talsmin's station.
"Well there isn't much more to find out than we already know. The duplicate ship showed up about a minute before us. immediately, the Aldrin was launched and went to warp. The Ronin then continued attacking on it's own."
"Which way did the Aldrin go?"
"Back the way they came. One thing that puzzles me sir. Why would they destroy their ship? Their not going to be able to take us on in a shuttle craft."
"Thats one question I don't have an answer too right now chief. Good work, take some time off."
"Thank you sir."
With all that done, Tyran decided to head down to the commerce section and relax a bit. As he exited the turbolift, he noticed that there was a Bajoran shrine. He wasn't normally one ot pray or regularyl visit one, but he felt the need for it now. He walked in and it was empty, so Tyran walked in and kneeled down. He began to mutter a prayer in Bajoran when he heard some foot steps behind him.
"I didn't expect to find you here" said Dinara taking a seat behind Tyran.
"What are you doing here?"
"I came looking for you. And you?"
"I thought that a prayer to the prophets may help us. Look at us Dinara, we are now engaged to be married and we still fight about the stupidest things."
"Last night you mean"
"Yes"
"Tyran, I'm sorry, I was a bit tense last night. You shouldnt't be expected to share your dreams with people against your own wishes. I'm sorry I made you sleep on the couch."
"And I'm sorry for not telling you what was going on"
"Friends again" she said with a cute smile
"Of course" said Tyran
getting up and hugging her.
