Disclaimer: Song and dance, yaddy yaddy yadda. Actually since paramount can probably afford to have me killed by now, I'd better do this right: Paramount is bigger than I am, richer than I am, and the owners of the geniuses that came up with ST Voyager. I completely appreciate the fact that borrowing the characters is not a right, it's a privilege.

Thanks for reading. On with the show!

On Rycose IV, daily life is by no means a simple task. From whatever age at which one begins to be aware of one's surroundings, one cannot help but lose a little more hope each day. There are few other options in a world torn by the wars of tyrants. But sometimes, just sometimes, things happen to remind me that there are always chances for turning things around as long as we're here, as if an angel watching over recognized the perfect time to make such a thing so.

This is the story of an angel.

My name is Melai of the Krischta family. My run-down is simple: I'm 26 rotations old, female, and an orphan, my parents having fought and died in the Great Wars during my infancy. At least that's what they tell me. I was raised by the training staff at the military academy of the Republic of Madditah. My classmates and I grew up to the sounds of whistles, orders, Palaish scum jokes and the pledge of both our hearts to he Republic of Madditah everyday. You see, Rycose IV is divided into three main alliances: Paland and its "protectorates", the United Primes, and the Madditan Republic-Sacco Islands. The original bad blood between the three is unknown to anybody and records vary, respective to the nationality of the historian. Some say that Paland was called by the Gods at the beginning of time to lead the entire world to greatness. Others think that the United Primes were the victims of some savage attack at the hands of everyone else and have been fighting for their lives ever since. The belief that I was brought up with, the most popular among my own countrymen was that Madditans are the only truly pure race and that the others were but by- products of evolution meant to serve us (with the Saccos ranking highest among them of coarse).

I grew up believing fiercely in The Cause and setting all my goals in life to revolve around military service: I would graduate from the academy as an officer and make a name for myself on the fields of honor or die trying. My determination and honored lineage earned me the highest honors in my class nearly every rotation, my teachers respected me, my peers wanted to be me. So how, one may ask, did my career change so dramatically to the one I am now honored to carry?

I vividly remember the first time I doubted myself. It was the first time I saw a man executed. I'd always thought that burning was too good for the enemy and any sympathizers, that any who resisted their destiny deserved what they got. But one day towards the beginning of my senior rotation at the academy my class was taken to the capital town square watch the process for the first time. The truly sick thing is that it happened far too often for any of the locals to be interested. People walked by, shopping and eating and visiting not ten paces from the man as the flames devoured him, my squad watching in silent formation. Just before it was initiated he looked at me - me out of the entire class. From then until there was no more of him to watch I could not look away, and for the first time a flash of something I'd never felt before, couldn't even name at first sent an uncontrollable shudder through my body. For a split second I forgot who he was, drowned in his screams. All I knew was what he was, a helpless man crying out to anyone who could hear, who had once been a small boy, and stood dying before me now for reasons I didn't even know.

What wasn't changed about the way I felt that day was changed some weeks later when my squad went on our first official raiding party. I'd really rather not go into vivid detail. The hard facts are that it was a city just within the Palaish border. My squad had not a single casualty. All fatalities were people who lived there. All were non-combatants. By the hundreds we killed them all, old people, kids, young mothers trying desperately to protect each other. A short time into it all I stopped shooting and actually looked around me at what we were doing. Laying flat on my belly in ankle-deep dust among the front-liners as everyone else continued to spray energy beams at their targets, I stopped. I watched. I listened. It was dizzying: The blood and the bodies, the screams and the cries for mercy from the Gods, the people who died on the spot and those who faded slowly, knowing what was happening to them and scared to death. As I looked at them, all once as conscious and afraid of death as I, I knew that something, somewhere a long, long time ago had gone terribly wrong. It deafened me. It blinded me. It suffocated me. It sickened me. And it was all happening because of me and people like me.

On the trip back to camp that night my comrades enthusiastically celebrated the victory. I spent the entire time just trying not to heave myself inside out.

As soon as we returned to the regular academy training grounds my private little epiphany began showing up in my daily activities. The first incident was two days later when I realized I'd forgotten a fairly large segment of a hand-fighting drill only after I'd finished performing it for my instructor, my mind having still been trapped in the Palaish city. When ordered to do it over again I responded after a long hesitation: "I can't. I'm too sad."

My instructor promptly sent a note to my barracks master, reading:

"Cadet Melai of the Krischta family refuses to carry out drill protocols because she is sad.

Sincerely,

Cpl. So-and-so"

For this I was given my first several demerits, a light introduction to the strap, and a stern lecture from the commandant himself involving a lot of things to which I paid no attention. From there my academic career began a slow, steady decline which I'm sure would have continued had it not been my senior rotation. As it was I had barely five lunar cycles with which to disappoint my instructors. I'd carry out orders grimly, and then I started hesitating. On several occasions I flat-out refused. I couldn't flog one of my classmates for laughing during a biology lecture. I wouldn't go on any raiding mission I was invited to. I didn't even watch the executions in the square with my class. I couldn't, and as time went by I became more and more sure of that.

All incidents involving my turn-about behavior were kept under tight cover. I was the star of my class; people looked up to me more than most of their masters. I had to set an example. If my classmates knew what I'd been up to, the instructors feared a student uprising. Privately though, I was continuously disciplined, threatened, demereted, and all but relieved of my position as valedictorian.

Finally came the night before graduation. As my friends and other bunkmates whispered late into the night about how excited they were and how the days ahead would be something of a delightful ongoing adventurous picnic, all I could think of was the man I'd watched burn to death and the dead in the "purified" Palaish city. How sick I felt that no matter what I did, I could never make up for it. all there was left to do was spend the rest of my life trying.

Not long after the others finally fell asleep the night had gone - And me with it. ***

All of the above-said leads me to where the story really begins which is an early morning during a bitterly cold snap of weather, four rotations later. I was off on a walk about the outskirt forest-plains. Being the scavenger that I was, I had to go out at an absurdly early time of day and then traipse about until well after mid-day in order to find enough wood and foodstuffs to stay alive. It was absolutely charming, if the reader would please forgive the sarcasm. Although, there was one thing I did like about the cold times: I could walk around in broad daylight without fear. Even in the outskirts where I'd taken up permanent refuge there would periodically be a stray farmer poking around for extra seeds. My picture having been on wanted posters for eight consecutive rotations, I couldn't exactly let myself be seen. But in the cold they were all snuggled into their smoking little cabins along with everyone else on the inside of the law.

The snow was knee-deep that day and the trees naked of protecting leaves. It was mostly dark still, the only light coming from the smaller of the moons at one far end of the sky and a hint of red glowing from the suns at the other.

Red. At first I thought it was only the sunlight reflecting on the snow. Of coarse I was fooling myself. Sunlight would not be so dark red, nor leave such a neat dribbling trail in the snow. I found it near the edge of the forest about ten paces into the adjacent plain. When I saw it at my feet I stopped in my tracks, looking to my left to where it stretched towards civilization as far as I could see, then to my right where it stretched towards nowhere as far as I could see. I stood there puzzling, my feet freezing in the snow and my nose hairs turning stiff. Perhaps a leaky bucket of red berries. Yeah right, at this time of rotation? Maybe a hurt animal. I'd heard of some rare species that had blood that dark. only none of them walked on two legs and the footprints on either side of the trail were unmistakable.

I chewed my lip, wondering what to do, then came to the same conclusion I had for the previous four rotations: Why not? One may wonder how I'd managed to survive so long with such an attitude as well as a bounty on my head, but let's face it: In such situations as mine, good decision-making has far less to do with anything than good or bad luck. Therefor one has little to do but follow her hearts, and consequently the trail.

Following the trail would not take long, I knew. It was headed for the foothills across one of the biggest plains in the outskirts, which in itself would slow a traveler down, not to mention the fact that the cold times in the Madditan forest-plains are harsh. No one could make it very far out there on foot. As I walked toward the foothills the tracks would stagger more and the trail be brighter red until it abruptly ended at a snowdrift where there shouldn't be one, right in the middle of the plain.

Kneeling next to the drift, I plunged my hand down into it and instantly met with fabric of some kind. Pulling my hand back out I found the palm coated in bright red, sticky fluid. Intrigued, I began to clear away the snow - An arm covered in black fabric, a shoulder in red.

I nearly dove backwards.

"Gods above." I breathed out loud.

The face I found was not Madditan, not even Rycosian. Though nearly all of the features were very similar to those of my world's people, missing were the blue-green patches of tough skin that we have extending from the outer corners of our eyes across each temple to the hairline, protecting the delicate network of neural capillaries beneath. An off- worlder. If the Builders found it.

Then I saw that this one had been found. It had a terrible energy wound in the left flank that could only be made by military weapons.

So. An off-worlder and a fugitive (of coarse, the two sort of go hand- in-hand around here). That it was alive however barely was obvious. That it would not survive much longer was clear. There it was: My chance to do something right for a change. The only problem was that there are fates far worse than death in the Republic of Madditah, one of which would certainly be devised for me if I were caught meddling in such an affair. But just as I was considering that I happened to look down at the off-worlder, a woman I realized. I swear, I swear by all the gods and my mother's name, in her I slowly began to see the face of every young mother, every child, every old man in the Palaish city. Like a fist in my face, seeing her there in the snow showed me all the people I'd ever hurt.

All right. A new experience.

Well, that did it. Besides, I'd always wondered what it would be like, doing things because I thought they were the right thing to do as opposed to picking somebody else's nose if a superior told me to. It all led to me removing my cloak, wrapping the off-worlder in it, and then beginning one of the better feats of strength of my life. Contrary to the popular belief among Rycosians (Madditans in particular), I can say after having met a few off-worlders that we are by no means a species gifted in physical strength. Indeed, in comparison to some others I know I find I can barely call us adequate in that department. The only way I made it back to my hovel was to sling the off-worlder across my shoulders and then grit my teeth as I felt myself grow shorter under the extra weight with every step.

When I finally made it back I slammed the door shut with a foot, all but dropped the off-worlder on the floor, and took a good minute or two just trying to stand up straight without paralyzing myself. Once I worked my warped spine into a climactic deafening crack I began the agonizing task of trying to treat the off-worlder without killing her.

"Gods and ancestors above, I swear if you'll just help me get this right I'll heed any sign you give that I should turn myself in," I prayed.

The wound was bad, a gaping, oozing and messy deep hole in the ribs. I remembered fragments of my basic first aid course, but what can you do for someone about whose physiology you know nothing? After you're done panicking, you get the frozen clothes off and go from there. Lucky for her she was wearing layers: A black jacket with red shoulders, a blue-gray turtleneck underneath, and then a chemise of the same color. The bizarre garment that was the final layer I left in place, unsure of what would happen if I removed it. Moving right along, I swabbed the area of the wound clean of dry blood, then packed it tight with my only spare bed-sheet to be held in place with strips of my only spare curtain. Having done the best I could with that I took her to my "bed" which was really just a thick mat on the floor, turned to the meager heat source in the stove and built it up as high as it would go. I turned back to my guest, rubbing my hands together briskly.

As I worked her circulation I noticed two things: She was beginning to shiver which I assumed was good, and she seemed to have only one distinct heartbeat which was either catastrophic or indicative of a foreign anatomical trait. Unfortunately, all I could do was hope for the latter. Finally I slipped her into a loose set of trousers and shirt, bundled her in quilts, and waited. And waited.

For the rest of that day and well into the night I watched over her, thinking until my brains hurt. There are precious few things of which I am sure. I usually reserve spaces in that category for the simple things that get me through the day: Keep your neck tucked in, never gamble with a Madditan junior officer, watch your back but love your front, things I depended on that never let me down. Any sort of person was certainly out of the question. But to look at the off-worlder, as she lay there trapped in sleep, though we hadn't officially met, hadn't even spoken. I don't know. Odd, eh?

The middle of the first night presented another problem. She began to sweat, breathe in wheezing little gasps, and toss her head from side to side in the beginnings of delirium while constantly muttering things I didn't understand, something about 'Chakotay' and 'Tuvok' and 'Chakotay' again and 'B'Elanna'. and 'Chakotay'.

Fever, I surmised. There must be an infection setting in. Whoopie.

Dawnish the next morning was when we actually met. She was lying quietly, I mopping her sweaty face with a damp cloth. When she turned her face toward me I assumed she'd just turn it away again like she'd been doing periodically until then. Imagine my surprise when I found her slowly opening her eyes.

She stared at me for a bit without seeing me. She drew her brows together and blinked as though attempting to focus her vision. When she finally seemed to make out my image the moment was punctuated by her long, drawn-out sigh.

Not for the first time in my life I found myself not knowing what to say. I knew though that it had to be done, so I cleared my throat and took a breath.

"Morning," I managed.

".You're Rycosian," she said in a husky whisper.

I emitted a self-deprecating giggle.

"You're not."

"Then. I am your prisoner."

My jaw dropped and hung for a moment.

"I. What?"

Perhaps a little more slowly than necessary, it dawned on me: Of coarse she thought I was an enemy, she being in a somewhat delirious state and her entire knowledge of my culture based on a lot of unpleasant dealings with military authorities. I knew enough to deduce that treatment of an off-worlder would be relatively the same anywhere on Rycose IV. I couldn't have blamed her for knocking me into the next rotation if she'd had the strength.

"No! No, I mean - I mean I'm Rycosian, yeah, but not like the others. I-I." I paused to organize my thoughts. Rambling would not be helpful. "Please forgive me, I just never. I'm just a little nervous I guess. Look, um, I just wanted to help. Your wound is deep, I just thought."

At that she began in utter futility to try to sit up. I gently set my hands on her shoulders and held her down.

"Please don't, it's too soon!"

She closed her eyes and knit her brows as though trying to remember. When she looked at me again, her face was less rigid, more bewildered.

"Who are you?"

"My name's Melai of the Krischta family. What's yours?"

"It's. Janeway. Captain Kathryn Janeway. starship Voyager."

"I noticed that it was taking more effort for her to speak with some alarm, but decided it best to continue the conversation nevertheless.

"Janeway. You're an off-worlder."

". Earth."

"Earth? I haven't heard of it."

". Far. Very far."

There was another painful pause.

"But yeah, you can go any time you want. I just think that would be a really, really bad idea."

Smooth, Melai. Gratefully I noticed that she had passed out again and therefor I would not have to think of anything else to say. Gods, a hermit can get nervous.

For another day I watched her grow weaker and weaker. She panted like a dying animal, her skin growing hot and her nightmares more vivid. Her bleeding persistently seeped through the bandages and every time I changed them, I saw the area more red and inflamed than the last, not to mention the fact that Janeway the Earther in her delusional state seemed to think I was trying to kill her with every touch. Worse was when she just seemed to start shutting down, not responsive to anything, just laying there dying.

As I looked on I weighed my options, knowing that in the end there were only two: I could get her some medicine for the infection or she would die. Before you think less of me let me explain that it's not nearly as simple as it sounds. Medicine, like everything else in the Republic of Madditah is kept under the restrictions of the police state and the Builders. The products stay under armed guard from the time they're processed in the factory until they are sold to the consumer with the proper papers and identification. The Builder Shura knew that people needed medicine. We wouldn't dare risk the right to get it for our families or ourselves with a bad mark on our record. So of coarse if I were to try to get medicine on my own, I'd be shot by the end of it.

The lesser of two evils, that was the best I could do. In the end, I'm confidant that that's what I got.

In the smoke-filled, hazy, dark liquor barrel known only as The Tavern, I barely spotted my old acquaintance seated at a secluded booth tucked in a corner. The place was set in a valley outside the city, halfway between town and the outskirts. It was the only social gathering establishment available to the farmers in the outskirts, all three of them. Of coarse I exaggerate, the place actually did very decent business, spirits being in high demand on Rycose IV as many people's only escape from the constant loss of loved ones and obscene taxes for war funding. The place was hopping that night. A lively 3-man band up on the stage by the bar had everybody else loudly laughing and drinking and dancing.

Good. If they couldn't hear themselves think, they couldn't hear us whisper.

He was older, sporting a day's growth of stubble and an officer's uniform replaced the one he'd worn as a cadet. But it was definitely him, his trim bulky frame, his eyes when he'd been drinking. Lexei didn't take his half-closed eyes from his mug until I'd made my way across the room and slid into the seat opposite him, at which point he met my eyes cautiously.

"So. You're still hanging around somewhere, Melai? You don't tap, don't even wire me until tonight. Thought you'd be in gladiator school by now," he said, not bothering to hide the edge of bitterness in his tone. "What's it been now?"

I took a moment to calculate the time since our class's graduation from the academy, the last time I'd seen him.

"Four rotations," I concluded.

He looked me over quietly, then arched an eyebrow.

"Time's been good to you."

The civil remark made me uneasy. In the academy, I'd known Lexei as a light-hearted cad who could make you laugh during a funeral. All through our training I'd considered him my best friend, delightful to be around and always there if I needed a shoulder. Then I began to learn the truth about the leadership of the Builders and Shura, Lexei refused to believe it, and I left without saying good-bye.

"Thanks," I responded, "You look the same."

Thankfully he flashed a hint of his old crooked smile as he glanced down at his infantry officer's uniform.

"It suits me. Suits a lot of us."

"You being looked after?"

He nodded. "The corps takes care of you, Melai. You knew that." Another gulp of spirits. "What about you? Looking a bit thin there."

"You don't keep extra weight in my place, but I get by. I can still kick your buttocks from here to there like a ten-legged razor beast."

That forced a short laugh through his nose. We'd always been well- matched friendly sparring rivals.

Lexei finished the drink, then set his forearms on the table and looked at me expectantly. After all, it had been I that wired him in the middle of the night and requested the rendezvous. Now he wanted to know why. I took a breath and then my shot.

"Lexei, I need a favor."

"Whatever it is I won't do it. They burn deserters and anyone who helps them. New clause."

"I know, I know. You know I don't usually do this. I wouldn't if I didn't think we could get away with it, I certainly wouldn't if it wasn't important."

For a moment, genuine concern crossed his face.

"You in some kind of trouble, Melai?"

I gave a short, trembling exhale.

"Yeah."

"Well? What do you need from me?"

"Medicine. Antibiotics, I think."

"So steal it."

"I don't think they have what I need laying around."

"So kidnap a doctor."

"That's not funny," I informed him.

"Look, Melai, you asked me to come. I came and if my superiors find out, I'm ash. You abandoned everything you believed in and everyone who ever cared about you and now you want my help. What were you expecting, a welcome home?"

I held up a hand to interrupt.

"It's not for me."

Lexei frowned.

"What?"

I leaned forward over the table between us and whispered.

"I found someone, a woman, unconscious in the snow with a bad wound. She hasn't been able to tell me much yet but I think she was running from Shura's guard."

Lexei sat back in shock.

"Gods above."

"It gets worse."

I watched his brows arch and eyes widen, knowing that I was not scoring any points with him.

"Worse?"

"She's an off-worlder. Just one heart."

There was a pause during which Lexei blinked at me in disbelief, his mouth slightly agape.

"I'm doing what I can for her but infection from the wound is spreading and she's in poor condition. I need something to give her and I'll never make it through the proper channels. I just thought -"

"Am I drunk already, or did a word resembling thought escape you? No, Melai! You did not think if you had the idea that I'd ever help you aid a government fugitive! This is treason and I am a soldier. If you have one iota of anything like honor left, you'll disappear and never risk anyone this way again."

I clenched my jaw.

"What I thought was that you'd retained some trace of decency. You may have given up thinking for yourself and I can't really blame you. It's a lot easier, things being the way they are and certainly less dangerous. But Lexei, I know that the Earther does not deserve to die. Nobody does that way."

Realizing I was explaining myself to him, I bit my tongue and stood up.

"You won't hear from me again."

I got one stride before Lexei's big hand caught my arm, held me for a moment, and then gently urged me back into my seat. I hesitated, then complied and when he looked at me again he'd dropped the iciness.

"I don't understand," he confessed. "You had what any of us dreamed of and you let it go like trash. I. I don't understand!"

I looked down at the table as I set my palm over his hand.

"I saw them kill a kid. They blew his head off because they wanted to. If that's not a reason I don't know what is. I know I can't salvage everyone, but I saw the Earther lying in the snow and I thought if I could save just one."

My voice trailed off as the words began to stick in my throat. It was a second or two before Lexei could put together his response.

"You know they were under orders."

"Yeah sure, Lexei. So were the ones who burned the house of some farmers in the east plain, slaughtered their animals and left them to starve. So are the ones who massacre entire cities -"

"Enemy cities."

"But cities, full of non-combatants. For Gods' sakes Lexei, you see it every day! The list of atrocities the corps's done under orders from the Builders and Shura goes on and on."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

We stared each other down until he looked away. What seemed like hours later he dug into a pocket, pulled something out, and slowly fiddled with it as he spoke.

"I need you to understand one thing: I'm not agreeing with you, forgiving you, or verifying anything. As far as I'm concerned, you're just a crazy little hermit with far too much time, but a harmless one. Keep that in mind."

"He kept the object carefully hidden in his hand as he reached across the table and put it in mine. I found it to be a little green glass bottle stopped with a cork.

"I've never known of a race that didn't respond will to that. It should keep the Earther alive until you think of something. Best I can do."

I looked at him sincerely.

"Thank you."

I got up to leave and once again I felt Lexei catch my arm. Looking down at him, I saw the gentle face I'd left behind.

". Watch your back, okay?"

I smiled, feeling the beginnings of the sting of tears.

"Yeah. You too."

By the time I made it back to my place, the moons had begun their descent. I found Janeway the Earther where I'd left her, practically comatose and suffocating with fever. After building the fire back up I knelt next to the mat and began my work. As I slowly peeled the bandages away from the oozing wound I heard a series of low weak moans from her, painful just to listen to. Wound exposed, I slowly reached over to touch the red, puffy skin around the gash as gently as I could in order to feel the temperature. No sooner had my fingers brushed their destination than the Earther gave a sharp gasp as the aggravation of the inflamed area nearly forced her awake. Looking at her sweating, helpless face, all I could do was swallow.

"Forgive me."

I uncorked Lexei's little bottle and poured half its contents into the wound. In an effort to ignore the delirious agonized cries that filled the room as I gently massaged the medicine into usefulness, I soon found myself singing. The song was one I'd grown up knowing and remembered long after my peers had forgotten it, slow and in a gently minor key that was always the first song to pop into my head whenever I asked my memory for one.

"The nights are cold, and I am warm
I am safe in any storm
When it gets dark, there will always be
An angel to watch over me."

The song went on. Janeway's pained sounds gradually turned to moans and then ragged breathing. By the time the song was over she panted as though she'd carried something twice her size up four flights of stairs, but she seemed to be getting control of the pain. I bandaged her up again and began to pat her face in an effort to wake her.

"Come on, I need you to wake up. Hey. I know it's thirsty work but it'll only take a twitch."

I watched her respond by weakly lolling her head to one side while she drew just enough strength from somewhere or other to open her eyes part way. I smiled.

"There she is. Please forgive me if this tastes funny."

With my arm slid under her shoulders I lifted her into a fractional sitting position and got her to sip down the remainder of the medicine.

"Well done."

I let her down again. As I pulled the quilt up over her I noticed her looking at me.

"I'm very sorry I had to wake you. Please, go back to sleep. The medicine will work better."

She took a deep, slow breath as if gathering energy for a great task, which turned out to be sliding her hand up across her body to cover mine as it rested on her shoulder.

"Th-thank."

Exhausted, she was asleep before she could finish.

It was the sound of her moving that woke me. I'd fallen asleep on the round rug next to the mat, thanks to the fact of which my startled first movement caused some sickeningly loud pops in my neck and back. Gruffly massaging the sore areas, I saw the Earther blinking up at me, significantly less pale, significantly less sweaty, and breathing significantly easier. She was actually a very handsome woman when she wasn't dying, auburn hair not quite so plastered to her face. Discomfort forgotten, I smiled at her in relief.

"Gods. It worked."

Not wasting time or energy on a response, she groped a hand until she found my jerkin front and pulled me forward with surprising force.

"Where are we?"

"Um. My house?"

She shifted her gaze away from me and about the room until some sudden realization reached her and she summoned her strength to roll toward the edge of the mat in an effort to get up.

"They're looking for me. They'll kill you, I have to go."

"I know, I know. It's all right. If they kill me it won't be because of you," I tried to tell her as I gently urged her back down.

"You don't understand - Aigh!"

The pain from the wound hit her and her face contorted as the rest of her went slack.

"What? What is it?" I asked desperately.

"Please," she said through her teeth, "I need to contact my ship."

"Oh, my. I'm afraid I don't have that sort of equipment."

"No," she emphasized, "My jacket. There's a pin, silver, gold, triangle in a circle, pin."

I immediately obliged, crossing the room to where I had her clothes neatly stacked and folded. The jacket I found had four tiny round metal pins on the collar but none like the one she described.

"I'm sorry, but are you sure you brought it with you?"

"Oh, no. They must've taken it."

"I'm. really sorry! Is there someplace I should look for it?" I said frantically.

"How'd I get here?"

"I think you walked. I found you in the middle of a field about a kilometer off and carried you from there."

At her astonished look I was concerned.

"Oh, Gods. I-I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No! I'm sorry, you're very kind. But I have to go, it's very important that I contact my ship."

She started sitting up again through an obvious wall of pain and dizziness, which was starting to irritate me. After all, I'd hardly think it polite to make life more difficult for someone trying to save your life. All I could do was gently hold her down.

"Stop doing that! You're hurt. I'm not a healer and it was enough of an ulcer trying to keep you alive the first time."

Finally she relaxed and lay back, panting from the effort.

"Look," I said. "It's a fair distance to civilization from here. There's nothing between them and us but one little tavern and a great deal of snow. In this cold you'll never make it. Besides, nobody'll find you here, I'm sure of it. They haven't found me and they've been looking for four whole rotations."

"It's not that. They still have my crewmembers."

I lifted an eyebrow.

"There are more of you? Gods, the Builders must be having a fit."

"Builders? Who are the Builders?"

"I'm sorry, I - The base Madditan government. I'd assumed they were the ones that shot you. They don't like foreigners, especially ones as foreign as you."

"They never told us who they were." She closed her eyes, trying to remember. "We came down to trade. they ambushed us the second we materialized. I. I got away, I meant to draw their fire-"

She was interrupted by a fit of coughing. I rushed to get her some water and then lifted her shoulders enough for her to drink from the cup I held.

"Thank you," she said quietly when she was finished, "And I don't just mean for the water. I know it can't be helping you to associate with a government fugitive."

I chewed my lip again.

"May I ask you something?" I began the nagging question.

"Of coarse."

"This may sound a little silly, but do you have just one heart?"

That forced a little smile at my timidity onto her.

"Only one."

"Oh, good! I was afraid your other one'd stopped."

Janeway the Earther's look turned serious.

"How long?"

"Two days and two nights. I know you lost a lot of blood. When I ran into you, you were frozen blue. Then you had a bad fever. I got you some medicine but I don't know how long it'll last -"

"Two days!" she gasped, "I. I have to find them."

I saw the signs that she was drifting out again. Thank the Gods.

"Shhhhh."

". I have to. find them."

"Hush. I'll answer all your questions when you've slept."

Fighting it to the end, she gave out and her eyes closed, leaving me shaking my head to clear it.

Wow, I thought, nervously scratching my scalp. I didn't know good deeds could get me into this much trouble!

"Have you been watching over me all this time?"

The Earther's voice shook me out of the doze I'd fallen into. Startled, I looked towards the window and found twilight. Janeway I saw looking up at me, seeming much healthier.

"I'm sorry," I stammered. "It's a habit, I guess. I'm always afraid my, er, projects won't turn out well if I don't keep an eye on them."

"Please, don't apologize. I appreciate your trouble."

I smiled sheepishly. The Earther seemed strange, but strange in the nicest of ways. Everyone knew that any off-worlder they could ever meet would be inherently, well, upsetting to the natural order of things to say the least. There was something about this one. Her husky voice had a certain enchanting quality, her eyes a thoughtfulness I rarely saw so easily. And since she'd come to, all she'd spoken of was her missing comrades without the slightest interest in herself. I didn't understand. but I liked it.

"How are you?"

She thought for a moment, probably taking a sort of inventory of her body.

"Better," She concluded. "Much stronger."

With that she pushed herself slowly into a sitting position.

"Are you hungry?" I handed her a bowl without waiting for an answer. "Scavenger stew. The best of what I can scrounge up."

"Thank you." She began to eat hungrily, speaking between mouthfuls. "Tell me, have you heard anything concerning a group of aliens arrested by authorities?"

I had to smile inwardly at that. Any other time the question would've been ludicrous.

"I don't get a lot of news, I'm afraid."

"I see. Would you have any idea where they'd be kept?"

"Well, it's been. a long time, but I assume the central compound is still there."

"Do you know how far?"

I shrugged. "A half day's walk in this weather. More if the wind picks up."

"Dammit." She cocked her head in curiosity. "You're here alone?"

"That's right."

She paused in her eating to look at me. I felt her eyes examining my floppy brown hair, my baggy tan clothes, my suddenly self-conscious face.

"You seem. young."

"I'm an orphan."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Another new experience.

"Well, why?"

"Forgive me. In my culture it's very difficult to grow up alone."

"Well, here too, but why should you be sorry? It can't be your fault."

She smiled gently.

"I was expressing sympathy."

"Oh! I mean, thank you. Please, don't be concerned, though. I was raised decently, really."

"I'm sure you were," she said with no hint of sarcasm.

"Your name is Janeway, yes? May I ask, well, what are you?"

"I'm from a race called 'human'. We originate from a planet called Earth, many light years away in the Alpha quadrant."

"Al-pha? I'm sorry, I don't know much about space."

She paused in thought.

"Can you imagine something that moves so fast that it can make its way around your planet ten times in a second?"

"I've. never thought about it, but all right."

"It would take such a thing seventy of your rotations to get to Earth."

My shoulders fell. I'd never thought about such a thing!

"Oh, my. But how did you get here?"

"It's a bit of a story, I'm afraid."

"Oh, that's all right. There's not much else to do around here anyway."

I settled in for her tale of a great ship called Voyager from far away, stolen from where it belongs by a force she'd been forced to destroy in order to save an entire race of people from annihilation. Now, united with the very people she'd been sent to apprehend in the first place, all she wanted was to get them all home.

"Wait a minute," I interrupted when she seemed to be finished. "You could've gone home but you gave up the chance for a race of people you didn't even know?"

She shrugged. "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"I'm sorry, it's just that. such things are not widely practiced on Rycose IV."

She knit her eyebrows.

"Really? And what would you call this?"

Another new experience.

"Hm. Touché`."

"May I ask you about yourself?"

My ears were suddenly on fire. If she knew what I used to be, how could she trust me enough to help her? If I couldn't help, there was no telling what would happen -

"I've made you uncomfortable," she said apologetically.

"It's not you, honestly. I just. There are just some things, awfully big things actually. You. can't know about me without knowing those things. I don't want you to have nowhere to go because you didn't trust me."

"Who says I trusted you to begin with?"

I chuckled at her dead pan humor. Suddenly I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything, no matter how grim. I wanted someone to finally know what I'd done, why I'd done it, what was really going on. I wanted it with both my hearts.

I told her everything, from my upbringing at the academy to the preceding night. I forced myself to speak slowly despite the sudden, pressing need to purge myself of the long-held secret. As she listened, her face remained mostly neutral except for the subtlest of changes that let me know she was intently listening the entire time.

"What happens if they find you?" she asked when I'd finished.

"Then I will be. dealt with. I am a deserter, you know. A coward. To the Builders there's no greater crime. They can't outlaw me until they find me, though. It keeps up the theory that we are free to speak in our own defense. Until then I'm just missing."

"It must've been difficult for you, leaving your friends behind."

I shrugged.

"I suppose it was. I didn't know what else to do."

I was about to pry some more when I was interrupted by the crash of a brick sailing through my window. I instinctively ducked and covered. Janeway immediately shielded me from the flying glass by ensnaring me in a safe embrace.

Out of the following silence rose a distant maniacal chuckle that led both of us to look up cautiously.

"Stay here."

I made my way slowly to the door and eased it open with a long whine of the hinges. Sticking my head outside I saw only the snowy landscape. I frowned and took a bold step out into my 'yard'.

I saw stars before I saw the two men concealing themselves on either side of my door. I fell back into the snow, dazed from the direct hook to my face and watched them focus from four to two as they stood over me, grinning to expose what was perhaps eleven teeth between them. One was tall and gangly, but broad-shouldered. The other was only slightly taller than I, bug-eyed, and exceedingly hairy. Both were dressed in ragged black and smelled of things passed by sick old men.

Vulture bandits. Seven hells, not now!

"What do you want?" I growled through the blood from my split lip.

"Same as anybody! We want one hot night at this cold time," the tall one said.

"Come, little one," said Bug-eyes as he grabbed my collar and hauled me to my feet, "We'll leave you alone and all we ask in return is your money. If you have no money, then spirits. No spirits, then food. No food, then clothes. No clothes." he lifted a hand to my hip, ". then virtue."

I slapped his hand away. He jumped back, feigning insult.

"Why, I don't believe she's going to let us in!"

"Come, let's see what she's got in there."

Before thinking beyond the fact that I had a bona fide off-worlder stashed in my house, I dove at the tall one and tackled him to the ground. Before he could recover, I threw a straight punch to the other's nose. From there I called on the hand-fighting skills I'd learned at the academy, rusty perhaps but so long practiced I think they'll be tattooed into my long-term memory until I'm at least a hundred rotations old. Even so, I feel compelled to point out that contrary to storybook portrayals of the subject, hand fighting is hardly ever composed of a series of well-placed blows that take one party down with little time or effort on the other's part. It actually consists of a great deal of choking and biting and scratching and strangling and shoving and squeezing and gouging and hair- pulling and grabbing and pushing and rolling about on the ground and it isn't long at all before everybody involved just wants to quit and shake hands anyway. Unfortunately, such an ending is not likelihood when two desperate criminals are trying to break your neck.

I would like to say for the record that I was kicking their asses despite the crudeness of it all until Bug-eyes pulled a disrupter pistol from the folds of his shirt and aimed it squarely between my eyes, causing me to freeze mid-kick. We stood panting at each other as I felt my face harden in fury.

"Now," Bug-eyes rasped, glaring at me through the eye not rapidly swelling shut, "I thought you looked a little smarter than that!"

The other man shoved me roughly to my knees. I grit my teeth, waiting for the last strike.

"Why don't you try that on someone who can fight back?"

Janeway. I shot to my feet and found the bandits staring at her behind them, their mouths agape. Her eyes were cold, her mouth in a thin, tight line, her jaw clenched in anger. In her hand was a disrupter pistol, trained carefully on Bug-eyes.

"Drop it," she ordered.

Bug-eyes scowled in defeat as he tossed his weapon in the snow at my feet.

"Get out. If you come back I'll shoot before I'm even sure it's you. Now!"

Reluctant to admit defeat, they hesitated. But when she fired a warning shot that melted the snow deadly close to Bug-eyes' feet they took off like birds at a gunshot.

Sure they were out of earshot, Janeway dropped the appearance and doubled over.

Safely back inside having helped Janeway the Earther back to my bed, I wiped pain-induced sweat from her face.

"Where did you get the gun?" I asked, still amazed.

"I stole it from the taller one when he wasn't looking. Here."

She took the cloth from me and began to dab at my cut lip.

"Seventh hell. If they say anything -!"

"They're bandits. If they have any sense they won't get within a hundred meters of the law. Relax."

Her gentle touch surprised me; A minute ago everything about her seemed downright murderous. Another new experience. Of course also was the fact that she could've just gotten killed trying to save my life.

Hesitantly, I raised a hand to her bare temple. She relaxed as I probed in curiosity, amazed to actually find a pulse there.

"Are all hu-mans like you?"

"In this respect," she chuckled.

"Actually what I meant was. everyone knows that off-worlders are, well, evil. They upset everyone's destiny."

Janeway cocked her head curiously.

"I see. And do you think that I am evil?"

"No!" I said, seizing her hand in both of mine, "No, you are kind and good and -"

"And an off-worlder." She smiled gently. "Now you tell me: Are all Rycosians like you?"

"No, most of them wouldn't be caught dead having this conversation."

"No, not all humans are like me. There are a great many humans I'd rather not spend the day with. But if there is anything one mustn't do, it is generalize humans."

"And. if there's anything else, it's generalize Rycosians."

Janeway smiled and gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze.

"Have you ever considered the fact that you probably aren't alone?"

"How do you mean?"

"Melai, I can see that you're a special kid, but do you really think you're the only one on Rycose IV who prefers peace to war?"

"Well." I considered with the most hesitation I could get away with, ". no."

"Melai -"

"It's so far-fetched, that's all. I've never heard of anyone who even remembers what peace is like. We don't know anything but what we've been doing since the alliances united. If there were somebody who agreed with me, they'd never move as I have. Too afraid of the Builders. I know that now."

"You're that sure?"

"I'm old enough to know what's going on: The Builder Shura's afraid of us. He's so afraid we'll figure out that 'The Cause' won by death is not worth having, in which case he'd be suddenly more obsolete than a wooden club in a gun fight. As long as the wars go on, the Builders have what they want. They'd do anything to keep the old ideas alive. The ones in the way, the ones like me are the ones they can't abide the thought of. If any two of us find each other. I can't say I haven't dreamed about the possibilities. The only problem is, well, let's just say mobs are easy to assemble. I couldn't ask anybody to take that kind of risk."

"Who is Shura?"

"Oh, he's the leader of Madditah, has been since before I was born. He took the Sacco islands as a younger man and rose up from there, or at least that's what the Builders tell us. No one ever sees him but everyone worships him like one of the Gods. They're convinced he's the one the ancient texts keep talking about, the one to lead us all to greatness."

"What about you? Why aren't you afraid?"

By that I was taken aback. I'd never thought comparing myself to anyone was worthwhile, being that I knew I was too weird to possibly have any characteristic vaguely comparable to that of others. However, when in doubt I usually tell the truth.

"I. I am afraid. but less and less as I get less to lose," I finally said. "Besides which, I don't think I could hurt a person just because another told me to, no matter how far above me he is. It's just not my way."

"And they call you 'coward'?" Janeway said, smiling crookedly.

I shook my head in wonder.

"Your heart is wonderful. If only the others could see."

"It seems all I've done is gotten you deeper into trouble."

"You don't know the half of it. I always knew this would happen, I just didn't think it would be so soon." I sighed. "What you don't know is that I am a coward. I don't even know how many opportunities I had to do something and didn't."

"I think there's a difference between being a coward and being unsure."

"Maybe. It's just that I can't help thinking for some reason that this is my last chance."

Some time later.

"You promise me you'll say it the second you think you're not up to this?"

"For the last time, yes."

I scowled as we walked along the road to town early the next morning at the brisk pace Janeway set. The medicine was working far too well for my liking. I had not been able to keep Janeway in bed despite my assertions that the effects were temporary and traipsing around in the snow would not help matters. I probably could've told her that she'd spontaneously combust if she didn't stay put and she wouldn't have cared, pulling on her boots and a gray stocking cap to hide her heritage and leaving me to throw up my hands in frustration. I had to admit over the three hours we'd been walking she'd done well though, matching me step for step as we crunched rhythmically in the snow left behind when the road was cleared.

"How much farther is it to the compound?" Janeway asked for the eighth time.

"Too far," I retorted, unable to feel myself from the hips down.

"You can still go back, you know."

"Oh, really? And what happens if you relapse on your little mission today? Then you and your people - what was it, four of them? - will surely die. If I come along then we will all probably die but not certainly, so you do the math."

"Your powers of logic astound me," she teased.

"Come on, two people are almost always less suspicious than one."

"Exactly. And that's just what we've got, so why are you complaining?"

Damn. She got me with her Starfleet mumbo-jumbo. Besides, I knew I'd brought this on myself. I'd made it quite clear when I realized I couldn't dissuade her from her mission that she wasn't going after her comrades alone despite her earnest protests, and if not me then who?

We had no great plan, I assumed Janeway would think of one once she'd gotten as many details of the situation under her belt as she could. All I knew was how important it was not to be seen which I asserted as often as I could for the rest of the trip and Janeway scored more points for her personality by not strangling me over it. Soon the road brought us to the farms outside the city and past them to the trade villages where we could see the tall buildings of the city in the distance through the thick fog. As we passed by I noted with little surprise that I hadn't missed much in the last four rotations. I saw not a single smiling face as the people went about their business like drones, not even mindful of their feet freezing in the frost or the wind cutting through their thin clothes. Their small homes were crumbling, their wells collapsing, and their silos nearly empty. Kids looked up at us as we passed by with round, hungry eyes until their parents gently reminded them to keep their eyes down. It was the picture kept hidden from the others and me during our academy days. I knew that this was by no means the only village to feel the pinch.

"What happened to these people? An attack?"

I almost wished that were true. It would somehow be easier to accept than the fact that the Builders were actually taxing them to death.

"War is expensive," I responded quietly.

Like a mockery of it all, the side of the road was pickered fore to aft with evenly spaced viva Madditah signs, sporting such slogans as The Builders Love You and Know Your Destiny and other things that put the 'mental' in 'govern-mental'. Gods, I hated it. I hated it more than I'd ever hated the people I once thought were my enemies.

Of coarse inside the city was different. The rich people lived there, the Builders and highest-ranking military professionals and weapons brokers with perhaps a scattering of life insurance salesmen, the happy people who lived off of the way things were, the ones who surrounded me growing up.

"Hmm?" I said when I realized Janeway had spoken to me.

"I was just saying how uniquely matched the different aspects of your culture are," she said as she gazed around at the city about the brick street that led to the square. "Your level of weapons technology is comparable to that of the twenty-second century on earth whereas the living conditions are much closer to the feudal period."

"I-I wouldn't know," I stammered, distracted by the need to look around nervously, just waiting to be discovered, "That's the compound on the other side of the square. Oh, Gods!"

My hearts fell into my boots when my eyes happened to fall on a nearby tavern door where I found a faded poster with my senior picture splashed across it and the words MISSING: REWARD as a caption.

"What's the matter?"

I nodded in the direction of the poster and she narrowed her gaze at it until she found what I was looking at.

"Keep your eyes down," she whispered. "I'm going to look around the perimeter of the compound. Wait here, come and find me if anything remotely concerning happens."

"Gods, look at my haircut I had -"

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, yes. I'm sorry. I'll be here."

Janeway must've known I was just focused enough to comprehend the essentials or I'm sure she wouldn't have gone ahead. Instead I waited, gazing around the old square. It was almost eerie how little it had changed. Even the untouched landscapes in the outskirts changed over four rotations, the trees thinning in places and thickening in others, the wildlife moving further out. In the square everything was exactly as I remembered it. People shivered as they went about their business, trying to keep their eyes averted from the domestic guard that lined the streets. A garrison entered the place with their boot soles clicking in unison, telegraphing their arrival from blocks away. The drumbeats began in perfect sync with their steps, the rhythm announcing with painful familiarity that somebody was being led to die.

Seven hells and all of their demons, not again!

The procession, the old execution squad followed by a senior academy class as it turned out, clanked its way down the street leading to the square and continued to the platform in the center. The class came to halt in perfect formation as if seated at a theater and the squad of six veteran soldiers proceeded up the stairs to the wooden planks of the stage a good five meters above the ground, surrounding the condemned individual who had no choice but to move with them.

My stomach twisted and clenched and unclenched and I was forced to tug at my collar, which was suddenly choking me. I could almost see the steam rising from within my shirt into the frigid air.

Notagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnotagainnota gain.

I stood with my squad in silent formation, staring straight ahead, watching only with my peripheral vision. They brought the man up the steps. I was so sure of myself, so sure of my life. Still, I tried not to look.

I tried not to look. I leaned against the wall of a nearby shop, trying to get control of my rapidly beating hearts and wishing Janeway would hurry. I felt like I was the one about to meet her doom.

They brought the man to the incineration pad and secured him to the stake in its center. The veteran squad stepped back to the corners of the platform as the officer in charge stepped up to address my class, giving the wrote speech that preceded any such event, some patriotic dribble that I knew by heart.
. that I used to know by heart. It was not an officer this time, but one of the Builders themselves, appearing in full silver robes that matched his hair and beard and all the other finery he could assemble into one outfit. It must be a special occasion for one of them to take the time. He was finishing quickly, I thought. Maybe four rotations later he was finally getting bored with it. But then he added something I didn't expect, something new: "Let this serve as an example to all present. An officers uniform does not make one immune to his destiny, the law, The Cause, or simple justice."

I didn't want to look. I could've done something and I didn't. I didn't want to look.

I didn't want to look, not again.

I looked.

Both my hearts stopped.

Dear Gods, no.

Lexei stood on the pad, chin thrust forward defiantly, daring everyone watching to look at him. He was in full uniform and one of the squad actually dared to flash him a small salute, a sick carefully planned spectacle in an effort to make the point that no one could escape the eye of the Builders. Somehow they knew he'd helped me without a word to his superiors. He was about to die because of me.

A button on the incinerator control panel was pushed. The man I didn't know was killed as I watched. I could've done something, and there was no escaping it.

The Builder reached for a button. Lexei stiffened. A fire hotter than any incinerator erupted in my belly.

Not this time. Not again.

"Not again!"

I ran, harder than I ever knew I could. Before the startled soldiers and cadets even fully registered my barely comprehensible scream I was bounding up the stairs to the platform. I charged fiercely past Lexei toward the Builder, his eyes perfectly round by the time I plowed into him, putting him straight into the wooden planks and quite possibly rupturing one of his favorite organs in the process. His shocked moans of pain were the only sounds as I ripped the key cards from his belt and spun toward Lexei, freezing mid-spin as my eye caught the dozens of shocked faces in the cadet squad. It was surreal: Was that what I'd been back then? One innocent, naïve kid among a hundred others? What would I have done if I were there now?

But then I realized that it was far too quiet even without a single exhalation from the cadets. Looking around I found the squad of soldiers on the platform staring at me, frozen. And beyond them, the commoners conducting their business in the square were likewise. Not a muscle moved, not a sound dared challenge the unreal stillness.

So this was it. This was my chance, the one I'd always dreamed of, the one I was so afraid of wasting. And I could only think of one thing to say.

"You call me 'coward'!?" I screamed in fury, "You call me 'coward'?!?!"

My voice pounded off the limits of the square and I was shaken back into the direness of the situation. I expediently turned to Lexei, noting vaguely as I unlocked his irons that he was just as agape as the bystanders were. My slight amusement at that observation shattered when I realized that I had not an iota of a plan to get myself and Lexei out of there, being that we were outnumbered some 250 to 1 and the squad finally beginning to come out of the daze I'd put them in. They began to close in.

My impending doom was interrupted by, of all things, an incredible blasting explosion erupting out of an adjacent alley. Then there was another, very near the cadet formation, and then another that reduced an abandoned kiosk to splinters. Everyone within earshot instinctively ducked and was showered with debris, deafened by the sound. That's when the smoke began pouring out of the blast sites, engulfing the square impossibly fast. All I could see was the endless black smoke. All I could hear was the ringing in my ears. All I could feel was my burning throat and lungs and Lexei's big hand locked in a death grip on my shoulder.

Suddenly, a slender hand seized my wrist and I felt myself being hauled down the platform stairs faster than my feet could handle.

"Hurry, before the smoke clears!" Janeway's voice shouted in my ear over the din.

We somehow found our way to a street and took off in a straight line away from the square. The farther we got, the clearer the air until I heard a distant voice shout from behind me: "There they are!"

The three of us picked up our pace, making ourselves scarce side by side as the thunder of all available soldiers in the square galloped after us.

"This the Earther?" Lexei puffed with a glance at Janeway.

"Yep."

He took a better look, better perhaps than was normally polite and nodded to me in sly approval.

"She's hot."

"Gods, Lexei! This is hardly the time!"

Heat whizzed by my ear, a fired energy bolt. I exchanged a knowing glance with Janeway. Terrific, now we were being shot at.

Before I knew it, we were rapidly approaching the end of the street. As if waiting for us there, standing indifferent to the shots from behind us that we were so desperately ducking and dodging, a giant furry scuzzlebat was waiting for its master. Seeing it herself, Janeway froze in her tracks, her eyes suddenly wide. I suppose they can look a little overbearing to someone unfamiliar: They stand almost as twice as tall as a man, their four legs each as thick as tree trunks and their spiraled horns very menacing in appearance. However, my people had adopted the mighty, herbivorous creatures as beasts of burden centuries ago and currently know them as a staple to our culture.

Lexei and I exchanged a smile. Among other things, scuzzlebats were known for their speed.

"Don't be afraid, Earther. Just get on!" Lexei hurried Janeway, giving her a boost up to the stirrup. Lexei swung aboard behind her, and then reached down to pull me up last, settling me precariously sandwiched between them. A well placed heel to the scazzlebat's rump and we were off on a flying dash to the outskirts.

"What is this thing!?" Janeway yelled.

"It's called a scuzzlebat. It'll have us back to my place in no time!" I answered with a glance over my shoulder at our infuriated pursuers as they fell farther and farther behind us.

"How can it be so fast? It's the size of an elephant!"

"What's an -"

"Uungh!"

Lexei slumped forward onto my back.

"Lexei? Lexei!"

"Don't slow down!" he gasped out of a clenched jaw.

Curse it all, he must've been hit. But he was right; I didn't dare slow the scuzzlebat to trade places with him. I looked to the sky and sent a prayer that it wasn't bad.

In no time at all we were back at my hovel. Before the big scuzzlebat even came to a complete stop I slid off of its back into the snow and caught Lexei who slumped down after me like a sack of sand. Janeway proceeded to prod the beast on to confuse its own trail. For me, all there was in the world was Lexei. I knelt in the snow, holding him as his color rapidly approached that of the frost around us. He was covered in appalling amount of his own pink blood. It spurted from the exit wound in his chest with every beat of his hearts, covering him, covering me.

Being Lexei though, I found him smiling up at me through the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"Knew I'd. die in this uniform. But then, so'd you." he giggled in a shaking voice.

"Shut up, Lexei! For once in your life!"

The smile faded, but his eyes were holding mine fast, pleading.

"Melai."

"Lexei, you can't go now!"

"You were right."

Suddenly I couldn't breathe.

"What?" came out of me in a whisper.

"You were right. about the corps. the Builders. you were right. forgive me."

"No, Lexei! No."

"Please, Melai. Forgive me. Oh, Gods! Please forgive me!"

He began to cough, choking on the blood. The spasms forced more blood from the wound, which by then I knew was by his left heart.

I wouldn't be able to save him.

"Lexei, I can't -"

". Fffforgive me. please." he begged, his voice fading.

So this would be the last wish I could grant a dying friend. Knowing we were rapidly running out of time, I held him tighter.

"Of coarse," I somehow managed to work our of my clenched throat, "Of coarse I do."

Lexei smiled again. He kept smiling, and never stopped.

I felt two light hands on my shoulders just before I saw the gentle face of Kathryn Janeway peering worriedly into my eyes as she knelt beside me. She turned her attention to Lexei's body, then tenderly moved one of her hands from my shoulder to cover his eyes in an oddly effective moment of closure.