“You have got to be kidding me!” Seska’s voice rang out through the small compartment, bouncing from the walls and into Sara's ears.
“And I suppose you have a better idea?” B'Elanna, riled as ever, snapped back.
Everyone was on edge. They had been waiting for Chakotay’s signal for close to three hours – thirty minutes longer than he had anticipated. In truth nothing about what they did could be anticipated, it was a joke to think that it could, but nevertheless, B’Elanna had worried after ten.
“Send Dalby down.” The Bajoran woman jerked her head toward the man standing in the doorway, leaning against it, arms folded, watching the proceedings.
“Forget it. If something else goes wrong down there, you need everyone else up here.”
“Are you saying she’s expendable?” B’Elanna shot him a look.
“No, I’m saying that it’s better not to have any more people down there than need be.”
“As if she stood a chance,” Seska snorted, looking at Sara with contempt. B’Elanna finished putting adjustments on her suit and stepped back.
Combat fatigues.
The one Starfleet outfit they still carried on board, stolen from some depot or another, some run of the mill op, Sara supposed. All black and made to be form fitting, they had sensor-dampening material stitched into the fabric as well as being covered by a mesh that repelled up to a level 7 phaser setting.
As far as they knew.
“She should be all right,” B’Elanna looked at both. Dalby looked dubious but wasn’t about to disagree – his hatred for Cardassians was well known, but not so deep that he cared to volunteer.
Sara looked down at herself, encased in black upon black, her comm badge carefully fastened by a wriststrap underneath her sleeve, cool against her bare skin.
“I’ll go.” Seska jumped in. “Just get me a suit and…”
“No.” Dalby disagreed quietly.
“We know the location of Chakotay’s last position. It shouldn’t be hard to track him…”
“With what, in the dark?” B’Elanna argued. “It’s literally pitch black down there. The tricorder’ll be picked up by the scanners if the beeping doesn’t alert them first.”
“And what if he’s been captured, what then?” Seska fired back.
“Then she’ll be able to report that to us.”
“As well as anyone else will, might I add.” She wasn’t giving up.
B’Elanna knelt down and took Sara by the shoulders, looking gravely into her crystalline eyes. “Do you understand that we might not be able to get you back?” she asked quietly.
Sara nodded solemnly.
“Do you understand that Chakotay might be dead?”
“Yes,” Sara answered.
“All right,” B’Elanna held on to her shoulders and led her to the transporter room, Seska and Dalby trailing behind. Sara was handed a tricorder mostly for confirmation as well as the portable thoron generator, which would obscure her lifesigns, and told not to turn it on unless she had to – if it leaked, they could pick up the trail of that easier than her lifesigns. Dalby checked and re-checked a compression phase rifle, and watched as she hefted it.
“Contact us only if you have something to report,” Seska issued one last reprimand, her face and eyes hard. Sara nodded once.
“Energizing,” B’Elanna’s voice sounded at the console.
The transported shimmered and she was gone.
*****************
Chakotay lay stiller than still, watching the Cardassian soldier make his rounds with pointed precision, the way of it among the animals. He buried himself flat in the thick grass that came up almost to his calves and glared at the veined, bony creature with hatred.
They were orbiting a planet holding a small Cardassian ammo dump, not a big affair by any sensors, but Chakotay had inside information about the content. Inside were enough components to blow at least two worlds inside the DMZ to bits. It wasn’t really a dump; that was just how the Cardassians wanted it to appear, just so they could have one heck of a surprise.
The surprise was going to be on them. The fact that they were actually worried enough for concealment was something to be happy about; Cardassians weren’t shifty, they were bullies, and usually didn’t care who or what knew they were coming. The matter of concealment was a new trick up their sleeves.
Chakotay had just set the last charge in the network that strung itself throughout and around the ‘dump’, planning to activate the 5-second detonator, light the wire, and signal for beam out before it happened. He didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it blew – debris and everything else would be strewn for a mile away at least. Not for the first or the last time he wished he could be there to see it, but he valued his life.
Unfortunately the guards had had other plans, and chose to make their rounds at the very time he was splitting the wires. The old-fashioned detonation they obtained required itself to actually be lit and set, but it was enough to be able to get out of there in time. He had spent more than three hours in the hovel, under cover of the blackness and the insects of the planet, burying them underneath and at the entrance. It was up to him and him alone to make sure they worked.
Chakotay gazed at the guard, who paused and looked around. It was within his power to fire, but firing would no doubt set off some unholy sensor and he’d have to signal for beamout immeidately if not sooner, and the whole mission was going to be a failure.
His heart froze as the Cardassian started kicking at the ground. Would he discover the charges? Chakotay hoped to hell not. If one was removed it would deactivate the rest, though the only hope that could be had was that they would set them off accidentally and blow themselves sky-high anyhow.
“Get up,” a hoarse, low voice commanded from behind him. The muzzle of a gun was pushed roughly into his back as he did so, wondering how to kill him quietly. He knew how, could accomplish that in a second – but the guard could pull the trigger on his weapon faster.
Restraints were clamped onto his hands, fastening them securely (too securely) behind his back, before he was pushed roughly to the ground again. “You have five seconds to give me your name, human, before I have you talking personally to your heavens.”
“Then why do you care? Get it over with.” Chakotay snarled, closing his eyes.
A single shot rang out – and he realized he wasn’t dead. In fact the guard hadn’t fired at all, his body fell forward in mute dumfoundedness, over top of Chakotay, pinning him firmly to the ground. Chakotay himself was in shock – what was happening?
He couldn’t see who was moving around behind him, quietly of course, dragging the body of the soldier from him, inch by inch, a series of small tugs. Out of the very corner of his peripheral vision he saw the wires being split and the timer set.
Small, quick hands released his bonds, and he turned over quickly, to come face-to-face with Sara, holding a compression-phase rifle that was almost too hefty for her to lift.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled at her.
“Light the damn fuse,” she commanded back in a whisper, ignoring his question. He crawled the remaining meter and did so.
“Thompson to Torres. Mission complete. Two to beam.”
The beam of the transporter enveloped them before she was done speaking, landing them both on the pad of the Liberty, B’Elanna’s face smiling in relief and Seska’s in shock. She rushed forward.
“Are you hurt?” she asked Chakotay, who was trying to stand up over all of her intentions.
“No,” he said brusquely, rubbing his wrists, looking at the deep marks where the manacles had held him. Sara calmly checked her phaser rifle and handed it to B’Elanna, who checked it again and handed it over to Dalby.
“Good to have you back,” B’Elanna said wryly.
Chakotay wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Sara, who had not said a word since beaming back.
“What did you think you were doing?” he asked her angrily.
She stared at him innocently, a bit of bewilderment creeping into her eyes.
“I gave you an order to stay on the ship!” Chakotay barked to the small girl, closing in on her. “Has everything suddenly gone haywire in that telepathic brain of yours?”
Her silence was even more unnerving. “Answer me!” Chakotay yelled so loud that everyone in the room flinched, including Sara, who found herself hauled up nose-to-nose with her captain by his hands gripping her upper arms painfully.
“You could have been killed! Why do you think I told you to stay on the ship? Why did you disobey me? Why? WHY?” Chakotay shook Sara until her teeth rattled around in her mouth.
Instantly B’Elanna jumped to his side.
“Chakotay…Chakotay stop it…stop it!” B’Elanna grabbed his arm, trying to protect the girl who made no move to do so for herself. “She didn’t disobey you, she obeyed me!”
“What’re you talking about?” Chakotay looked at her, stunned.
“When you weren’t at the beamout point, and we didn’t get your signal, we sent Sara down after you. With her telepathy, she could figure out if anything had happened to you, and bring you back.”
“She saved your life,” Seska quipped, looking at Sara differently for the first time since she had joined them. Chakotay almost swore that there was a hint of sympathy in her eyes.
“Uh…Chakotay?” All eyes turned to Dalby. They had forgotten he was even in the room.
“What?” Chakotay asked him.
He jerked his head at Sara, who was still in Chakotay’s iron-clad grip, his dirty hands digging into her arms. Chakotay looked at her.
She was ashen, completely limp in his arms, hanging as though she had no bones or structure whatsoever. Her blue eyes were glazed over -- incomprehending, apathetic. Under her uniform she could still feel the force of Chakotay’s hands on her arms, turning them a brick-red that would turn to blue and purple later on her pale skin. She had made no move to resist anything.
“Sara…can you hear me?” Chakotay asked her. He got no response, setting her on her feet and looking deep into her blue eyes. They stared back as if she’d never seen him before in her life.
She nodded, listlessly. He waved his hand in front of her face. She didn’t flinch.
He stared at her for long moments, everyone in the room holding their breath, until Sara broke the silence.
“Can I go now?”
Chakotay nodded, speechless. She turned and walked calmly out of the room, not turning or looking back.
Sara changed, after that day. Most suspected it was because she had killed for the first time – even if it was a mortal enemy, the cause of their cause, the human psyche had a way of punishing those who took a life away. Only Sara, B’Elanna, Seska, Chakotay and Dalby knew about what had happened after in the transporter room, and were careful to keep it between them.
Whatever had been emerging in Sara swiftly locked itself away again. No longer simply quiet and reserved, she was outright withdrawn. She spoke only when spoken to. She performed her work in silence, doing what she was asked wherever, whenever, giving everyone else obedience and respect.
Chakotay watched her carefully. He knew better than to think it was because of the Cardassians. But what was strange to him was the way Sara would have just let him go on about what he was doing to her – he could have struck her, and she wouldn’t have raised a hand. Normally people when they were faced with imminent danger or bodily harm, especially children, had a tendency to cower, or cry, or try to run…but not Sara.
His mind flashed back to the scar he had seen once, underneath her shirt, that ran the length of her arm and disappeared. He wondered if there were more. From the haunted look in her eyes, something had happened to her, something awful, traumatic, and terrible.
But what?
The answers could wait. He didn’t need a life’s history on a girl that could get killed, stubborn as she was, her tenacity with life would run out soon enough in the wrong situation.
