If there was one place Mary Travis never wished to find herself, it was in Chris Larabee’s place on the bridge.

Other than Julia, she was the most senior command officer left on the Maverick, and the idea her decisions might ultimately affect a thousand people was terrifying. She could well understand why Alex had been so reluctant to take command when the Captain and the rest of the senior staff were compromised by whatever forces were controlling the holodeck. So far, their efforts to reach Alex had failed, and with the only option storming the place to retrieve her, Mary knew the way forward was to go ahead with Alex’s plan of getting on board that mysterious station.

Even now, it hung in the space before the Maverick, its vise-like grip still keeping the galaxy class starship in place, while it continued to reveal nothing of its intentions. Jewel’s repeated attempts at hailing and Charlotte’s efforts to penetrate the hull with conventional scans had been fruitless. Kate’s suggestion had been to fire phasers, but even Mary knew that was a bad idea. Until they knew what was happening to Chris and the others, or for that matter, why it was happening, caution was needed.

“Mary,” Julia’s voice spoke over the comms, “the torpedo is ready.”

“Thank you,” Mary nodded. She was already prepared to head to the transporter room at a moment’s notice, as no doubt Julia was down in Engineering. Kate had chosen Lt. Opa Loka, a former Bajoran resistance fighter who had joined Starfleet, to accompany them and the lady was now waiting in Transporter Room One the instant their Away mission was given leave to proceed. “Monitor the situation and standby for orders.”

“Standing by,” Julia’s usually chipper voice was lacking its spark and Mary knew it was because she was worried for Ezra. As the Chief of Security, he was often in the front line of all danger and the most likely to be killed in any engagement. While it was a reality all security officers accepted, most of all Ezra, Mary had a feeling it was not something Julia was reconciled entirely with.

Mary turned to Kate and Charlotte, trying to project the confidence she did not feel. She was a diplomatic officer for God’s sake! She was so far over her head, she was practically in another quadrant. “Kate, ready the torpedo to fire. Charlotte, start scanning as soon as it’s deployed.”

“Aye Sir,” Charlotte answered promptly, remembering what Alex’s instructions had been without needing to hear Mary say them. She could tell the protocol officer felt just as overwhelmed as she was about being in charge of the Maverick and did not wish to burden the lady any more than she had to.

“Lieutenant, the torpedo is ready on your mark.”

Mary nodded and faced front, swallowing thickly as she uttered the words she never thought she’d ever have to say. “Fire.”

“Firing torpedo,” Kate announced and a low whine echoed through the Maverick, signaling the launch.

On the viewscreen, the torpedo which Mary often thought resembled an amber star hurtling through space, struck the hull of the mysterious alien object along the broadest face of its shell. Instead of causing destruction and plasma fire, its effect was a spread of green energy that rippled across the alien hull, the way a pond might appear after someone tossed a pebble into it. As the wave of green energy expanded outwards, the hull suddenly shimmered with translucence as the chronoton particles did exactly what Alex had predicted.

“It’s working!” Nora exclaimed excitedly from her station at the helm. “The hull’s phasing!”

“Charlotte,” Mary turned sharply to the woman. “How long will it last?”

“Indefinitely or until they figure out flooding the space with high-intensity radiation will dissipate the particles. In any case, we better hurry. I’m scanning it now.”

“Kate, make sure our phasers are on standby and Nora, prepare for evasive action if they react to what we just did.”

“Aye Sir,” the young officer replied, and Mary tried not to be startled when she realized Nora called her Sir.

“I’m reading an oxygen atmosphere, but life signs are inconclusive.”

“Inconclusive?” Kate asked because if that station was filled with people, she had to know to adjust her security precautions accordingly.

“It's difficult to say, they’re diverse. Too diverse to be of any one species.”

“Then why haven’t they returned any of our hails?” Jewel wondered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mary stood up. “Is it safe to transport?”

“I’m reading structural features that indicate there are at least 23 decks that would be suitable for transport, but I can’t give you any more information than that.”

Mary frowned at the information, but it was better than nothing. They would have to take the risk. For Chris and the others, she simply had no choice. “Transporter Room One, are you monitoring the situation?”

“Yes, I am,” Rain answered, “I can transport the Away Team through. There’s a central hub which I think would be the safest bet.”

“Alright then,” Mary rose to her feet and looked at Kate. “Let’s do this.”

There were moments in life that transcended perfection. It was as if in one singular instance there were no questions, no doubts, and everything one ever wished for was revealed in a perfect second of enlightenment. When Vin Tanner looked across the street at the Man in Black, he knew without understanding how, his place would always be at this man’s side, shoulder to shoulder, standing against whatever life attempted to throw at them.

And behind him, with her heart pressed against his back, would be her.

When she climbed on the back of Peso and wrapped her arms around his waist, Vin was struck with another moment of clarity, that this was where she would always be. Riding double with him on his horse, with the future ahead. Even though she tried hard not to show how much she was affected by their closeness, Vin could see it in her eyes because she held him not as an unwilling passenger, but like a lover. He couldn’t understand how this connection between them had come to be, but it was there, and he couldn’t deny it any more than she could hide it.

After Chris returned to the group, pissy as all hell after his encounter with the newspaper editor, Vin immediately reached the conclusion it was best to head out quickly and keep the man from stewing. He was getting used to Chris’s short fuse, getting a sense of what was off limits and what he was open to discussing. Alex had kept quiet, guessing accurately she aggravated Chris Larabee to no end by her presence and the only way he’d tolerate her was by making herself invisible.

Not that this was entirely easy to do. She was awfully pretty, and a woman like that on the trail with a group of men was bound to cause trouble. Vin wondered if that was why Chris was so against her coming along, to avoid splintering their somewhat fragile group before they could reach the village. In any case, Vin made a promise to keep her out of trouble, and he suspected, Buck was doing the same thing, although to Vin’s surprise, it wasn’t out of any interest in bedding the woman but something a little more chivalrous.

Leaving Four Corners, Alex puzzled at just where they were going to get Josiah. While she had studied the basic structure of the story, the seven coming together to protect the town of Four Corners against the renegade Colonel Anderson, there was little covering how those meetings actually unfolded. As far as she knew, Josiah was always found in his small church at the edge of town, since his character was based on being a defrocked priest with difficulty turning the other cheek.

“Where are we going?” Alex finally broke down and asked Vin as they left the town behind them and headed into the flat, desert plain that seemed to surround parts of Four Corners, depending on what the storyline needed the terrain to be.

“Going to see if Nathan’s friend is coming with us,” Vin answered good-naturedly, liking how she leaned in close and asked her question. He could smell her perfume in his lungs and her soft breath against the back of his neck.

“Out here?” She asked looking around. It was nothing but dry, flat land for miles ahead, interspersed with shrubs at suitable gaps and what was left of an old building, more or less collapsed in the nearby distance.

“Guess so,” Vin shrugged. “You okay back there?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, still scanning the area with distaste. “I’m good.”

“How come you don’t know how to ride?”

“Because you do it....” she caught herself and realized what he was asking her. “I just never learned.” She answered dismissively.

At first, Vin thought she was being sarcastic before she caught herself, but he saw no traces of it on her face, just chagrin at having to come up with a different answer. Maybe this was what Chris sensed and felt so uncomfortable about, the fact she was hiding things, though Vin sensed no danger from her, just mystery. What was it she couldn’t say? Knowing better than to press, Vin let it go, and they continued riding.

To Alex’s surprise, they arrived at the ruin that used to be a building with four walls, now reduced to barely one and a pile of rocks. Emerging from it was Josiah Sanchez, looking nothing like the big-hearted, wise Counsellor she knew and more like the preacher turned grizzled lawman of the program. He was wearing a Mexican serape and covered the bandanna across his forehead with a large, battered open-crown cowboy hat. He appeared ready to ride.

“Why did you change your mind?” Nathan who oddly enough had spent most of the journey riding alongside Ezra trading hostile glares was first to address the counselor turned preacher.

"Crows."

Alex blinked? Crows?

“What crows?” Nathan and the rest of the group instinctively scanned the sky for any signs of the creatures. Other than a few buzzards circling the sky with disappointment, there was no sign of any winged members of the Corvidae family in attendance.

“Sign,” Josiah said quietly as if that would explain everything.

It didn’t.

“What does that mean?” Nathan questioned as Josiah mounted his horse.

“Death.”

Alex was starting to wonder if Josiah had heatstroke.

“Whose?” By now the healer was humoring him, guessing no answers of any kind was forthcoming but was compelled to ask as if it was necessary to complete this circle of confusion.

“Probably mine.”

At this point, Ezra (it was always Ezra), could no longer hold back his amusement by this odd and somewhat baffling conversation. “Well, well, a sense of humor. I look forward to many lively conversations.”

That was one way to put it. It appeared Josiah could be just as infuriating as a defrocked preacher as he was as a Counsellor was he was steering you to a conclusion you needed to reach. She wondered about the crows and knew in many cultures crows were considered psychopomps, capable of ferrying souls from one destination to another. In Native American culture, the crow was not the harbinger of death as many believed but of fire.

“What about all this?” Nathan continued asking.

Josiah cast a glance at the collection of bricks and rubble that had once been the foundation and walls of this ruined Spanish church, in the middle of nowhere before facing front. “These stones will still be here,” he paused and added, “if I get back.”

As he rode ahead, he neared Vin. The tracker extended a hand and Josiah took it.

“We could always use another good man,” Vin said with a little smile, liking Josiah immediately. He didn’t feel the need to blather on incessantly which in Vin’s world spoke to a man who knew how to listen and watch, instead of reacting.

“Not so good,” Josiah shrugged, “but I can fight.”

As the two men sat astride their mounts and rode forward, Josiah seemed to notice Alex for the first time. The preacher regarded her with curiosity, which was not surprising. This entire scenario was not crafted for an eighth wheel, let alone a woman.

“Ma’am,” he tipped his hat at her. “This your girl?”

Alex felt Vin stiffen at the question while she resisted the urge to blush. Blush for fuck’s sake! She hated this program.

“Nah,” Vin recovered quickly and noted the spread of color over her cheeks. “This here is Alex. She seems to know the men we’re gonna be facing.”

“Miss Alex,” Josiah greeted. “Dangerous place for a woman to be.”

“I can take care of myself,” Alex answered good-naturedly, incapable of ever being terse with Josiah. This man’s big heart was the reason the Maverick’s crew functioned as well as it did. He was a kind, compassionate soul who only did the best for those under his charge, herself included.

“Just can’t ride worth a damn,” Vin couldn’t resist commenting.

Alex almost shoved him off the horse.

They rode for several hours across a dry, flat terrain that soon became grassland and woodlands with juniper trees, true mountain mahogany, sage bush, and yarrow. Alex had to compliment the kid who designed this program because the detail was extraordinary. Overhead, the sky shone a brilliant blue and the sun though hot, and the wind, arid and coarse was not uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for the present situation, she could have been forgiven for thinking she and Vin were taking one of their holodeck rides.

Eventually, they paused by the river to water their horses and to gain some respite from the aches that came with an extended ride. The Man in Black stood apart as always, staring into the distance. Alex knew that part of the reason Chris Larabee identified so heavily with the character was because he too had lost a family, in this case to a fire. Getting to her feet, she knew she was going to have to deal with him. Underneath all that control, was her Captain and Alex simply refused to believe, there wasn’t some part of him who didn’t still remember that.

Chris drew in the smoke from his cheroot taking a moment to savor it as he studied the slight gorge the river ran through. Riparian shrubs skirted the edge, giving enemies good cover for an ambush. Not that he believed they were out there. The buffalo hunter seemed to know what to look for, as did himself and Buck. No one was out there, no one that mattered anyway.
He heard her approach and shifted his gaze just enough to acknowledge her arrival before facing front again, his shoulders stiffening at the intrusion. He didn’t like her, didn’t want her presence here, and he certainly did not like the influence she was wielding over Buck and Vin. Especially Vin.

“You should stretch your legs,” he said shortly. “We’ve got a few more hours to ride if we’re going to make it there by nightfall. We ain’t slowing down on account of you.”

“You won’t have to,” Alex said simply, standing next to him and staring into the landscape beyond as he was doing. “I know you’re not happy I’m here but you need to understand, I have to be here with you. If you left me behind, I would have followed you, one way or another.”

Chris straightened up and shot her a look. “Why?”

Alex let out a heavy breath, “I can’t tell you that and believe me I would like to, but I saw what happened when I tried to explain, and that’s a risk I’m not taking with any life, especially yours.”

She made no sense, but then she was a woman. It was rare to find one that didn’t prattle on about nonsense. He’d married one but Sarah had been far and few between. “You expect me to accept that when you could turn on me at any time.”

Alex swore under her breath. “Jesus and I thought you were difficult when you ....”

“What does that mean?” Chris eyed her sharply.

Alex sucked in her breath, “I can’t explain, I simply can’t because it has to do with more than just your life, it has to do with the lives of a thousand people who count on you being safe. Now I know nothing I’m saying makes any sense to you, I get that, but somewhere beneath all that black, you’ve got the best instincts of any person I have ever met. You can size up a situation and come up with an answer just in time to save all our asses just based on your gut. I need you to use that and trust me. I am not here to harm anyone of you, and I’m ready to die before I let that happen.”

It was insane. She was insane.

Yet, that instinct which she claimed he possessed felt the sincerity of her words.

“Where’s your husband?”

Alex stiffened, not expecting the question. “He’s in trouble, and I’m here because I have to help him.” It was the best answer she could give him without instinctively glancing at Vin. “Helping you with Anderson will allow me to help him.”

“Then you better tell Vin that,” Chris said crisply, “because he’s awful sweet on you and I don’t want to see him getting hurt.”

“Believe me, it's not my first choice to ride with him,” Alex admitted and then realized, Chris Larabee was the one person she could make this admission to. “I can’t ride.”

“Well, that ain’t much of a surprise.” Chris gave her a smile that looked more like a sneer. “How come?”

“Look you want me to fight and shoot, I can do that,” Alex grumbled. “Riding was just not one thing I ever had to learn.”

“Alright,” Chris said with a nod. “Then you’re riding with me, and you stay away from Vin because if you hurt him,” his eyes gleamed with menace. “I don’t care what my gut says, I’ll shoot you myself.”

None of them was sure of what to expect when they transported to the innards of the mysterious station. They only knew they were leaving the safety of the Maverick for the very domain of those keeping the Captain and the senior staff under some form of mental influence. When the familiar shimmer of transported gold faded from the eyes of the Away Team, they expected to see bulkheads and hard surfaces, but what they were faced with was nothing of the sort.

An amber sky.

They were standing, not on the deck of a space station, but on the grassy plain of an alien landscape, complete with amber sky and weirdly gnarled trees. The trunks were twisted like old men hunched over walking sticks, with lavender bark and bright yellow leaves. The tableau was wild and colourful, reminding Mary Travis of one of Van Gogh’s more vibrant works. If it weren’t for the situation Chris and the others were in, she would have been fascinated by what she was seeing except the situation did exist and they needed to solve it.

“It’s beautiful,” Julia admired the scene before them with awe. Wild shrubs with bright blue flowers lay scattered across the carpet of lush wild grass beneath their feet. She even spied small insects, bouncing from bud to bud, proving once and for all no matter what planet you were on, the industrious creatures still found a way to get the job done.

“Everything’s beautiful until something leaps out of the bushes and eats your face off,” Lt. Opa commented, her brown eyes scanning the area cautiously. As idyllic as this place was, they were still on board a space station, one whose masters had imprisoned their Captain and the senior staff in a mental cage.

“I admire your ability to get to the heart of the situation,” Mary toss the woman a look and supposed being Bajoran, she could be no other way. Ninety years of subjugation by the Cardassians had made the race indifferent to aesthetics when survival was so crucial. Tapping her combadge, Mary decided they better check in with the bridge. It was what Chris always expected from his Away teams, she told herself.

“Away Team to Maverick,” Mary addressed Charlotte who was no doubt waiting anxiously to hear from them. “We’re here and we’re safe.”

The response was not immediate and the two-second pause it took for Charlotte’s voice to break through the static had all the members of the Away Team exchanging a momentary look of concern until the silence was broken.

“This is the Maverick,” Charlotte’s voice filled the air but it was spoken through static and though audible, crackled with interference. “We’re not getting a clear signal from you. I think there’s some difficulty getting through the phase shifts.”

“That’s not unsurprising,” Julia quickly explained. “We’re basically transmitting through fissures created by chronoton particles. There was bound to be some interference.”

“Then we better do this fast,” Mary nodded, drawing on her time as a Vulcan wife to make logical decisions, devoid of emotions and fears for their crewmates. How on Earth did Chris manage this? “Charlotte, we’ll try to check in when we can but at the moment, the deck we’ve appeared on appears to be an alien landscape, not like a ship at all.”

“Like a holodeck?” Charlotte’s voice popped with static.

Julia was already scanning the area with her tricorder, trying to determine if this was the case. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she studied the small display.

“No,” she shook her head. “Those life readings you detected, they’re coming from here,” she swept her gaze across the picturesque scene. “Everything we’re seeing, except for the appearance of a sky, is real. If I’m not mistaken, the sky is probably being simulated by UV lighting and power generators. I suspect if we were able to reach it, we would find that there’s a ceiling above us.”

“So what is it?” Kate inquired as she and Opa had their phasers drawn, watching for any signs of movement in reaction to their intrusion. “A giant arboretum or something?”

“Possibly,” Mary nodded. “Charlotte standby, we’re going to look around.”

“Aye Sir,” Charlotte answered.

Once again, Mary was jarred being addressed that way. Once the line between them was terminated, Mary glanced at Julia who was studying her tricorder, trying to determine what lay behind the curtain of this fake landscape. “Found anything?”

“Well the tricorder works fine in here,” Julia explained. “So will the combadges. Our equipment will function within the station itself since the technology doesn’t have to get through the chronoton particles, so that’s a plus.”

“So where is everyone?” Kate asked, both she and Opa taking flanking positions by the two remaining senior officers.

“I’m detecting life readings all around us,” Julia revealed. “Natural fauna to this world, wherever it is. The tricorder is not able to match what they are, only that there are a lot of them of varying types.”

“Well if we sort this mess out, Alex will no doubt want a science team in here to catalogue all this,” Mary remarked, “but for now, we need to keep going. Wildlife isn’t imprisoning the Captain, there’s a powerful mind or minds doing that. We need to find them. How do we get out of here.”

“Right,” Julia nodded and returned her emerald eyes to the tricorder. “Let me see how big this place is.”

Suddenly, the ground began to quake. Leaves began to rustle as if the trees were shaking in right and a low rumbling was growing in intensity as if it was closing in on them. Mary immediately shot a look at Julia who was studying the face of the tricorder, a troubled expression on her face. A moment later, she looked up, as if trying to confirm the readings she was seeing with her own eyes.

“What?” Mary asked.

“Something is coming at us,” she announced the obvious.

“Like what?” Kate asked, her eyes surveying the area, trying to determine what was coming at them. Judging from the intensity of the quakes beneath their feet, it was moving fast and numerous enough for her to believe it was wise to leave the area.

“They’re lifeforms but it’s difficult to get a reading, there’s so many of them.”

That was all Kate needed to hear. Her priority was to protect Mary and Julia and the idea that there were ‘many’ as Julia described, immediately told the security officer they needed to move before they were overwhelmed. As it was, the quaking was so loud Julia had to shout to be heard and every other animal in the area had the good sense to vacate before whatever it was approaching, reached them.

“Okay that’s it, Sir, we need to move right now!”

“Right,” Mary agreed.

Breaking through the trees at that moment appeared to be a large herd of quadrupeds, resembling Ankylosaurs with their flat armour-plated bodies. The creatures were thundering forward, so many that it was difficult to count. With their hoofs pounding against the ground or rather the deck covered with grass and soil, the creatures appeared panicked.

“Come on!” Opa had grabbed Julia’s arm and started ushering the Chief Engineer away from the path of the impending stampede.

“Something’s frightening them!” Mary declared. With her mental shields lowered so she could detect the alien presence that had taken over the minds of their men on the holodeck, she was able to sense the creatures frenzied mental processes. They were terrified.

“Like that?” Kate cried out pointing in the distance when the massive head of what appeared to be some kind of alien monster. It stood almost twenty-five feet tall, was covered in bony protrusions that would have no trouble penetrating the herd animals hide and had a mouthful of teeth that were as long as her forearm. It uttered a loud, powerful bellow that made all four women jump and as it continued pursuing its prey, one thing was clear.

It was hungry.

“....Less. He's an old warrior. He will come early, to surprise us."

Chris Larabee did not offer comment after the Old Chief’s grim prediction but knew better than to disregard the man’s insight. Glancing at the tracker, he saw the younger man nod ever so slightly at having reached the same conclusion. Once again Chris marvelled at this connection they seem to have and knew they had best take the man at his word. While he did not say so, Chris guessed this Chief had more than his fair share of encounters with white soldiers, enough so for the gunslinger to believe his read of the situation was accurate.

Instead, he calculated how much time they really had to prepare for Anderson if the man arrived early. The Colonel had threatened his return in four days but if the Chief’s prediction was right, he would be back in three if Fate was kind. However, after losing his wife and child, Chris knew Fate was a capricious bitch and would leave nothing to chance. Depending on the time of day the man appeared with his group of armed vagabonds, it was more likely they had full two days to prepare.

That was a savagely short time to get this motley collection of runaway slaves and displaced natives into a fighting force, even with seven guns leading the battle. In any case, it mattered little. This was the time hey had work to do and it was best they got started.

“We’ll get the horses squared away and get started,” he stated, gesturing for the others to follow him. At the far edge of the village, nestled behind some tall trees and shrubs was a corral where the Seminoles kept their livestock. It would serve for their horses during their time here. Leading his comrades up the gravel path through the village, Chris took a moment to examine the valley the Seminoles called home and felt a surge of anger at the violence Anderson had inflicted on these people.

The village was little more than a collection of huts constructed from mud brick and shacks of wood. It sat at the foot of a small valley, surrounded on all side by high rock walls. There were fissures in places and enough rockfall to allow them to climb to the top if they had to but really, other than the main track in, they were cut off from the world. The ground was uneven, with rocky formations scattered throughout the area, blunted by the occasional plant or wild shrubs.

It was plain to see these people didn’t have much, certainly not the gold Anderson believed they had.

Alex, who kept silent for most of the trip here to fly under Chris’s radar, hastened her pace to catch up with the Man in Black. She had chosen to give him a wide berth after their conversation by the creek and opted to ride here with Buck, keeping her promise to stay away from Vin. However, she was still conditioned to think of herself as Chris Larabee’s science officer and aside from keeping him alive, it was her job to offer him assistance wherever she could. Now she approached him ready to present to offer him her observations, especially when she now had a good idea of what they would be facing.

A cannon.

Even before Vin had made the observation, Alex had seen the evidence of it on artillery on this peaceful community. The blasts patterns painted a vivid story of what transpired here with every scorched brick. One hut was entirely obliterated, leaving nothing behind but a mound of debris composed of burnt wood, broken brick and crushed straw. She only hoped no one was inside when it was struck. Elsewhere, the ground told a similar story by the freshly made craters. It seemed Anderson not only had a cannon, but he was also not above using it on helpless women and children.

“He’s probably using a 12 pounder Napoleon,” she announced herself when she reached Chris.

After they dismounted, she was able to study the impact craters more closely and could tell by the depth and width of them, what kind of ordinance they were dealing with. She only wished Ezra was in his right mind because he was the real expert. Ezra had centuries of knowledge about ancient weapons in his head but unfortunately, that man was trapped within the facade of a smooth-talking gambler with little regard for anyone it seemed.

“Judging by the blast pattern, I’d say they’re using grapeshots, not round shots. If I remember correctly, the Napoleons had a range of over a mile, maybe even two for long and short range bombardment. They’ve probably been carrying it around with them since the end of the war. Whatever we do, we have to keep him from firing that thing. He could demolish this whole place without even entering the valley.”

She was right. Chris had been in the war and he knew just how much damage a 12 pounder could do. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time he was on the wrong side of the barrel since the things were employed by both the Confederate and the Union Army. Still, it felt odd hearing a woman talk so astutely on the subject and as he offered his new comrades a quick glance he could see they thought the same.

Alex noticed the reaction and looked at the men. “What?”

“Well,” Ezra was grinning, his gold tooth gleaming. “I think I speak for all of us when I say you seem to be well versed in artillery Miss Styles. If one did not know better, one would think you have intimate knowledge of combat techniques or...” his hazel eyes darkened with the cold, lifeless eyes of a shark about to make the kill, “you’ve been in Anderson’s company.”

“Oh Christ sake!” Alex whirled glared at him in exasperation, her hands flying to her hips in readiness to defend herself. “Any fool can examine the blast patterns and make the determination. All you have to do is calculate the weight of the cannonball and the amount of gunpowder inside it to determine the dispersal radius when it impacts. Just because I can do math doesn’t make me a spy.”

“Can’t fault the girl cause she’s got fancy learning,” Buck stated, always quick to come to her defence.

“Fancy learning or inside information,” Ezra countered, not about to cry surrender yet.

“Just because she’s smarter than she looks, doesn’t mean she’s lying.” Nathan declared, remembering Ezra’s politics when they first met and was convinced he was regarding Alex with the same suspicion because of her colour. How many times in his life had he been underestimated because of his colour? Nathan was not about to let Alex suffer the same indignity.

“I meant nothing of the sort,” Ezra defended himself but it was plain Nathan’s accusation had hit home among the others.

This was no good, Alex cursed inwardly. She had been forced to play along with this scenario because it was the best way to keep the Captain and the others safe, but her presence was causing too much trouble and it was seriously harming the formation the bond these men needed to make. Somehow, it felt important that link be maintained, even if everything around them was a fiction. These aliens wanted them for something and if she disrupted their plans too much, there was no telling what they would do.

“Mr Standish, I am not working for Anderson. I have my own reasons for joining this expedition but rest assured, I want Anderson stopped. My knowledge of weapons comes from a place of experience. I know my ordinance and I’ve even seen a battle or two. As an observer.”

It wasn’t exactly the truth but it wasn’t an outright lie either. Alex hoped that would satisfy Ezra for now, because if he pushed the point, she would have to fabricate a more complex story. It was Ezra who often told her, the more you compounded the lie, the more likely you would get found out.

“Well I don’t know about you boys, but I could use some grub after we deal with the horses. Looks like we’ve got a busy day and I don’t want to do it on an empty stomach.”

“Attaboy Buck,” VIn said with a little smile, seeing what the ladies man was up to. “Always thinking with your gut but,” he turned to Chris over Buck’s shoulder. “It ain’t a bad idea.”

Chris who was opening the gate leading into the corral where the Seminoles kept their horse and their livestock, tended to agree. “We’ll get the horses squared away and get some food. We got little time as it is, so we can’t waste it jawing on things we can’t do nothing about. If the Chief’s right about Anderson, we got less time than we figured we had, which means we need to come up with a plan and fast.”
The corral was nothing more than a number of pens constructed by gnarled wood to keep the horses and livestock separated. A filled water trough captured the horses' interest immediately, not to mention the pile of hay in another corner of the large pen. They knickered impatiently as the riders began unsaddling them.

“We’re going to need more guns than we got,” Vin spoke up as he pulled the saddle off Peso. “The seven, I mean eight....” he tried not to look at Alex. “Ain’t gonna be enough.”

When Alex asked to ride with Buck instead of him, Vin had been stung but respected her decision. She was a married woman after all and he ought to know better, even if he felt this connection between them he couldn’t explain. “If we take the high ground, we might stand a chance of beating them.”

“We ought to also find another way for these people to get out if we can’t hold them back,” Alex added, trying to keep her gaze off Vin when she spoke.

She knew him well enough to know he had been hurt by her refusal to ride with him but it only proved Chris was right to make the demand she stay away. Unless she could tell Vin what they meant to each other, it would only complicate the situation. With Vin’s Vulcan abilities, not to mention their marriage bond, it was possible he might break the alien influence over his mind and discover the truth. Alex had no intention of risking the aliens’ reaction if that happened.

“She’s right,” Nathan added his voice to her as he scanned the rock walls and saw the caves. “There’s only one way in an out of this valley and we just came through it.”

“I don’t think the sum of us will be enough to repel a seasoned Confederate force with a cannon,” Ezra pointed out, ever the pessimist. “Then again, I was never in this to save anyone, I merely had time to kill.”

“I can live with it being my time to die,” Josiah spoke up, “but I won’t be too happy to see these folks joining me. I always intended my last journey to be taken alone, I wasn’t up for company.”

“I just don’t understand why they would want to take over this place anyway,” JD spoke for the first time. He was still terrified of saying or doing something stupid that would make Mr Larabee change his mind and chase him away from the group like he was an errant child. He wanted so much to be a gunfighter and he just knew these six men could help him be a good one. “I mean if these people had gold, they wouldn’t be here would they?”

“Sometimes, just the idea is enough my young friend,” Ezra explained good-naturedly. “Once they get the whiff of the possibility, nothing else matters.”

 “Yeah that gold fever is a cruel mistress,” Josiah nodded in agreement.

“But they can’t expect these people to make gold if it isn’t here.” JD pointed out, thinking this was a foregone conclusion any reasonable person might have reached just looking at the place. The village was small and the community looked like it was a struggle just to get by. On route into the valley they had seen the small fields where corn and millet were grown to feed everyone, but other than that, the Seminoles had little else, except their dignity and Anderson had taken that too.

“Crazy men don’t think about those kinds of details, boy,” Buck said handing Alex her saddle bag. “They just know what they want and ain’t gonna stop till they get it.”

“My name’s JD,” JD grumbled at Buck, hating to be reminded he was the youngest in their set, even with a woman present. “I ain’t no boy.”

“Sure you ain’t,” Buck said with more than a little hint of teasing. “Boy.”

“Buck,” Alex gave him a look. “Don’t be an ass.”

Buck rolled his eyes at her and met the gazes of the other men before snorting, “Women!”

As they sniggered, Alex looked to the heavens and complained inwardly to herself again.

She really hated this program.

It had been a hard day once they got to work deciding how the Seminole village would be defended. Joined by the Chief and Tennessee Eban, the Captain, as the Man in Black, devised an adequate defence of the village. Making the sensible decision to take the high ground and cutting off alternate routes into the valley, they would force the enemy into a bottleneck that would allow the seven to reduce their numbers significantly. Even so, there was a great deal of work to be done for the plan to succeed when dawn came, not just by the seven but the villagers themselves.

Alex remained in the background, keeping counsel to herself because she had no wish to create friction between the group, not at this crucial juncture in their formation. The original scenario was devoid of women, save for the token love interests and her presence was affecting the group dynamic. Having no idea what the aliens’ intended to do, or why they had chosen to use the captain and the senior staff this way, Alex had to let things unfold as the scenario dictated.

The others had turned in for the night, leaving Alex alone at the fire with her thoughts. The villagers too had retreated to their homes and there was no one in sight, making it safe enough for her to contact the bridge if it was at all possible. Reaching inside her coat where the device had been kept, she swept her gaze across the area once more to ensure she had privacy.

No doubt Chris and Josiah were sleeping off their drunk somewhere since both men played characters chased by demons that could only be held at bay by whiskey and they had imbibed heavily this night. Buck was probably off trying to charm one of the few women in the community and Nathan was busy setting up a healer’s hut for the casualties that would inevitably come with the fighting. Last she saw Ezra, Vin and JD, they were playing cards in the shack provided for their sleeping arrangements.

Satisfied she was alone, she tapped her combadge, realising she could be greeted by silence but was pleased when she heard the soft chirp by the activated device, swiftly followed by Charlotte Richmond’s relieved voice

“Commander, it’s good to hear your voice, are you alright?”

“Yes I’m fine,” Alex said quickly, “I thought it was best to stay out of contact until I was alone. I was forced to disable the arc after attempting to take Buck through it. The minute he saw the thing, the aliens placed him in some kind of comatose state and I couldn’t risk worsening his condition by allowing it to remain open. The minute I disabled the arc, he was back to normal so I’m going to assume any attempt to remove the senior staff from the holodeck might end up killing them.”

“Damn,” Charlotte cursed, disliking the loss of that possibility as a way out of this situation. “Are you able to leave the holodeck?”

“I’m not sure but I don’t want to risk it. I suspect that the only reason I’ve been allowed to contact the bridge at all is that I haven’t tried to interfere in whatever plan they have for the Captain and the others.”

“I guess that’s something,” the assistant chief science officer grumbled.

Pressed for time because she thought she saw a crack of light from somewhere in the village, Alex realised she had to wrap up this conversation and decided to move on. “Were we able to deploy the torpedo and send the Away Team to the station?”

“Yes Commander. The chronoton particles created the phase shift in the hull and we managed to transport Lt Travis and the Away team into the station. We were also able to detect life readings, although they’re varied and difficult to distinguish. Unfortunately, communication is also a little problematic.”

“Due to the phase shift,” Alex nodded expecting it. “Maintain an open com for as long as you can, if not tell Mary they are to check in every fifteen minutes, without exception.”

“Aye Commander. What about you?”

“I’ll remain here,” Alex sighed, not looking forward to it at all, before adding, “Tell Lt. Rain to go ahead with the plan to join me in the program. We’re at the point in the scenario where the healer is meant to have a love interest. Rain can fit that slot nicely and I need to talk to another normal person before I end up killing someone. These men and their macho crap are plain pissing me off.”

“That bad?” Charlotte sympathised but then what else could they expect from a program set in the Old West?

“I’m drowning in testosterone,” Alex complained. “Not to mention, I am sorely tempted to risk insubordination by knocking the Captain flat on his ass. Captain Larabee is a hell of a commander but the Man in Black is an arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Ouch,” Charlotte winced. “Remember your temper Sir and I’ll relay your orders to Lt. Travis.”

“Thanks,” Alex said grateful she and Charlotte had hurdled their earlier enmity because they worked exceedingly well together. “I got to go. I’ll try checking in later. Styles out.”

Ending the conversation, she leaned back against the rock she had been resting against and took a deep breath, before raising her eyes to the stars above, admiring the holodeck’s handiwork. Even though it was a simulated depiction of a night sky on Earth, Alex couldn’t help but admire the view of the universe from the planet of her birth.

A few seconds later, Alex saw Vin appearing out of the darkness and was pleased to see him, despite her promise to Chris to stay away. His slouch hat was hanging over his back by his chin strap and Alex supposed it was by the aliens’ design no one had noticed his ears even if most of it was concealed by hair. Something with the unmistakable aroma of coffee wafted from the two cups he was carrying as he approached, still staring at her with those soulful blue eyes that made her fall in love with him from the start.

“You ought to be sleeping.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Alex shrugged as Vin offered her a cup and she took it without hesitation. “What about you?”

“Don’t like sleeping indoors. Thought I’d bunk down by the fire.” He gestured at the flames, cackling softly nearby before he sat down beside her, sharing the large rock she was leaning against. They sat next to each other and Alex was reminded of how they often sat alone next to the observation deck window, admiring the stars rushing by the ship.

“I don’t blame you,” she said gazing up into the sky. “It’s a pretty night. I forget how beautiful the stars in this sky are.”

“This sky?” He stared at her oddly. “You seen a lot of others?”

Alex smiled faintly, not answering because it was too complicated to explain that being in Starfleet meant she had seen so many skies with different stars, that she forgot how breathtaking the view was from the perspective of her native star.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said and made an effort to change the subject. “You know, when stars die, it takes millions of years to know they’re actually gone.”

“Stars can die?”

Alex was suddenly reminded of their first interactions together when he was so full of questions about people and life. He was so sheltered marooned in that rustic world and at the Academy, being neither human or Vulcan had made him an outcast. Eventually, he would form friendships with the rest of the seven but in the beginning, they had talked about everything.

“Yes, they do. It takes time but they die out like everything else. We just don’t know it right away because their light takes so long to reach us that by the time it gets to our eyes, they’ve been gone for millions of years.

“Really?” He stared at her, marvelling at the idea. “How do you know that?”

“Fancy book learning,” she winked at him and then looked up again and pointed to one star in particular. “See that one there? It’s a star called 40 Eridani. It’s 17 light years away from here. One of its planets is hotter and drier than the Territory but its so beautiful. Everything looks like it's painted with burnt gold. The sky there looks like the dawn here and there’s a mountain there that makes you feel like you can touch God if you stand on the top of it.”

Of course, Vin knew she was making all this up, but he liked the way she told the tall tale, making him imagine he could be there himself. “Sounds awful pretty,” he smiled faintly and then pointed at another cluster of stars. “What about that one?”

Alex considered a moment. “Oh, that one. That one is a gas giant, meaning it's like our sun but it burns a different kind of heat. If you see it up close,” she paused and then added, “through a telescope, you’ll see it's got rings. It’s a lot colder and the planet around it has two moons.”

“Two moons?” He laughed, trying to imagine a sky like that.

“Yeah,” she laughed, aware he was humouring her. “Planet is covered with ice and is so cold the only way its people live is to go underground, close to the core where it’s warm.”

“Never seeing the stars?” Vin made a face. “Don’t know if I would like that.”

“Me neither,” she replied smiling and continued to admire the glitter above.

For a few minutes, there was silence and they enjoyed each other’s company the way they always did, where their eyes spoke a language not requiring speech.

“Did I do something to make you mad at me?”

The question took her by such surprise Alex turned to him with eyes wide before she realised she should have expected the question at some point. After she voiced her intention to ride with Buck, he hadn’t said much, appearing to respect the decision but supposed he was justified in asking why. Even the aliens’ influence over his mind could not erase the bond they shared together and for him, it would be doubly intense if his feelings were a recreation of their first meetings. It would be like he was falling in love with her all over again.

“God no Vin,” Alex put down the cup and touched his cheek. “It’s nothing like that at all.”

Vin leaned into her touch and covered his hand with hers, seeing the affection in her eyes for him but he was also puzzled by her withdrawal. “Then what is it?”

Alex took a deep breath and brushed the ring hanging around her neck on a chain with her fingertips. “Vin, I care for you, I won’t lie but I’m married. I’m married to someone I love very much. It’s just you remind me so much of him it hurts.”

Vin removed her hand from his cheek but didn’t let go even with his disappointment showing. “Where is he?”

“Lost,” she said simply. “He’s lost. I’m hoping I’ll find him again.”

“Maybe I can help,” he offered, even though he hated the idea she belonged to someone else. “What’s he like?”

Alex blinked. “Quiet, a little shy. He’s the sweetest person I know, always has faith in people. When I thought the world was a very dark place, he became the light. He always said I saved him but the truth was, he saved me. I miss him a lot Vin.”

Once again, his heart sank at the obvious love she felt for this unseen husband, thinking he would have given anything to have her care for him that way, but he also knew he would be her creature even if she did belong to another. “We’ll find him, Alex, I promise.”

Alex held his gaze and fought the urge to say more knowing it would only give herself away. “I hope so Vin,” she said softly. “I really hope so.”

Even in this guise, he was still the man who would stand by her no matter what and Alex just knew she had to get him back.

“RUN!”

As Mary and the Away Team bolted, Julia Pemberton who was presently scanning her tricorder, not an easy thing to do with a space dinosaur chasing after them, wondered why Kate thought it was necessary to make that statement. It wasn’t as if they would do anything else. Running right next to them and no less panicked, were the herd animals they had first sighted, doing their best to escape the apex predator looking for a meal.

Unfortunately, the herd creatures, sizeable themselves were stampeding and if any of the men who engaged in the Magnificent Seven program were present, they would have been the first to voice how dangerous such a thing was. The Away Team could become easily trampled into the ground by the terrified animals.

“We’ve got to get away from this herd!” Kate shouted, shadowing Mary to ensure the Protocol Officer was safe as they tried to break away from the animals. It was obvious the predator considered the herd its primary source of sustenance and if the Away Team remained among them, it would consider them part of its meal.

Julia tried to keep her eyes on the tricorder display but had to shift her gaze away when a rotting log appeared over her path and she was forced to jump over it. The herd animals emitted a frightened braying whine as they ran, their terror at the death chasing them filling her ears. She landed on the soft grass and was almost knocked off her feet by one of the fleeing creatures. Regaining her balance, she chanced to look over her shoulders to see the behemoth still in pursuit, increasing its speed as it sought to catch up with its prey.

“Come on!” Opa grabbed her by the arm and prompted her into movement again because standing still would only draw the predator’s attention to her. Like Kate, Opa’s primary concern was the two senior officers in their midsts and though she was finding it no easier to evade the creatures herself, she was determined the chief engineer did just that.

“There!” Kate captured their attention and Julia looked ahead to see the security officer pointing to an enormous log that had been hollowed out by time, directly in their path.

Kate reached it first and ushered Mary into the opening. When the protocol officer disappeared, Kate who had her phaser drawn, waited for Opa and Julia to reach her. Behind them, the monster was temporarily halted in its advance when it managed to catch up to one of the fleeing ‘armories’ as Kate was calling them. Powerful claws held the flailing creature in place as the predator lowered its head for the kill and though Kate’s first impulse was to help, she knew better than to interfere with this ecosystem’s normal functioning.

“Get in!” Kate waved Julia into the log, watching the rest of the creatures coming their way.

The predator was making quick work of its meal and Kate sensed it wasn’t done. The size of it implied that one of the herd wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy its hunger and it would soon be on the hunt again. As it continued to devour its meal, Kate could see it was already lifting its reptilian eyes to search the area for more food. She felt a cold shudder run down her spine when it set its gaze in her direction. The security officer’s tightened her grip around her weapon, more than prepared to fire at it if necessary, damn the consequences.

Julia crawled into the hollow of the logs, cringing a bit at the moist dirt and rotting innards. She wondered how long it had been since it had been a living tree and decided by the small crawling things she could see running away from the trespassers, it had to be some time. Mary had already scootched in further, trying to get further along the shaft to make room for the others. The protocol officer’s severe bun was loose with strands hanging over her dirt-smeared cheek.

Opa was next after Julia and inside the narrow space, the thunder of hooves felt even louder with the inside of the shaft shaking from the impact. Within seconds, all four women were inside the log, disappearing from view of the hunter outside its wooden walls.

“What the hell is this place doing inside a space station?” Opa demanded, her palms braced against the walls to steady herself.

“Well, it’s obviously a habitat of some kind,” Julia answered. “Nothing here is simulated. According to the tricorder, there are more than a hundred different species.”

“I can believe it,” Mary replied and saw an insect crawling through the mud-encrusted wall of the log. It bore fluorescent yellow wings and long fuzzy feelers that made the protocol officer think of rabbit ears. It was scurrying away from the trespassers to its happy home, emerging outside through a small crack in the wood. “It’s possible this habitat was created by the aliens as a way of preserving the animals. If the ratio is correct, it is possible to create a self-perpetuating ecosystem.”

“On a space station?” Opa puzzled at that.

“If there was a planetary disaster, it might be the only way.” Mary explained, having seen similar preserves over the course of her career. Sometimes, the only way to save the animals was to transport them elsewhere and judging by the robust habitat they had just seen outside, it was clear these aliens whomever they were, were quite expert at it.

“Quiet,” Kate hissed.

Everyone shut up immediately and realised why Kate had asked for quiet. Everything had gone suddenly silent.

The thundering hooves had faded into the distance and now there was only the sound of insects chirping and their own breathing in the narrow space. Kate and Opa were clutching their weapons tight, ready for anything because there was something ominous in this sudden stillness. Mary had left her mind open and though she could sense the aliens, she knew they were not here. WHerever they were in this complex, Mary was certain they were nowhere near this place.

“What?” Mary mouthed when suddenly, a shadow passed over the mouth of the log and an eye the size of a dinner plate, peered at them.

In surprise, Mary uttered a short cry of fright and it was the absolute worst thing she could have done. The sound immediately prompted the behemoth outside into action and it swung its massive head against the log. The force of the impact rolled the trunk across the muddy ground, taking everyone inside of it along for the ride. As they tumbled inside the narrow shaft, slamming into the walls covered with dirt and moss, the world became a whirling dervish of colour and confusion.

“I’m going to be sick!” Julia hollered as they continued to roll, nudged violently forward by the beast determined to shake them out of their hiding place.

“Hold on!” Kate barked as she felt her face slamming against the rough wooden innards and saw the shadow of the beast still looming over the space outside while the opening of the log revealed the fauna they were passing by. Somehow, they were on what appeared to be an incline and the more they rolled by, the faster they were getting. She tried to imagine how much farther they would go before they hit a wall and then remembered the size of the station seen through the viewer. It was almost ten times the size of the Maverick and the Galaxy class starship was more than half a kilometre from end to end, to say nothing about how deep it was.

Screams of indignation and fright filled their ears and Mary who struggling not to get a serious injury, became aware of another sound as the log continued to roll downward, outpacing the creature that was in pursuit. She couldn't see where it was but its bellows were growing distant, even as the trees and shrubs outside tumbled past them so fast they were now a blur. The sounds eclipsing their cries became audible in their ears and it was Julia who somehow managed to maintain her grip of her tricorder to realise what was coming at them next.

“Oh crap!”

Mary blinked. “Oh crap?” She stared at Julia. “What does that mean?”

“It means!” Julia squealed. “WATERFALL!”

Unlike Alexandra Styles, Transporter Chief Rain Nal didn’t have any particular dislike for the Magnificent Seven holo-program.

As a Trill, she possessed three-hundred years of memories to be aware of how attitudes and customs changed, enough so that the period-specific sexism of the program was little more than mildly irritating. She knew Nathan enjoyed the simulation and was happy to participate even if times were playing the damsel in distress did get a little tiresome. Still, he reciprocated by joining her in her favourite holodeck adventures set in Middle-Earth.

Stepping through the arch, she was dressed in a watery green gingham dress of the period, having studied the simulation to determine the best entry point into the story. While she would have preferred to choose her clothing as Alex had done, Rain understood as a canonical character; she needed to play the part. Alex wasn’t a part of the original Magnificent Seven narrative, so it wasn’t necessary for the science officer to appear in any particular fashion.

Stepping through the arch, Rain stopped short when she realised the place she stepped into was shrouded in darkness.

It took her a few seconds to realise she was inside a cave. Dimly lit by wooden torches, Rain could tell by the shadows cast against the rough-hewn walls and the debris of rubble across the floor, the cave had been widened not by erosion and time but by man. What was probably a small fissure had been blasted and chipped away, no doubt to reach whatever ore might have existed within the rock.

“Rain, how long do you think we have to stay here?”

Rain almost jumped by the voice that seemed to materialise out of nowhere. Turning sharply in its direction, she found herself in the company of a group of women, huddled together, staring at her anxiously for an answer. The one who had spoken was not much older than her, with a slender, elegant frame, even though she was cradling a baby in her arms.

There at least ten women ranging from teenagers to young women in their thirties, huddling together in this darkness, hiding from some menace she had yet to unravel. Why were they in here? Rain had timed her entry into the scenario carefully before the Seven engaged Colonel Anderson, the antagonist in this story. Had she miscalculated?

“Rain? the woman asked, continuing to rock the infant who could not be more than a few days old at best as she waited for an answer.

“I don’t know,” Rain said noncommittally, “I guess they didn’t want us to get hurt when the soldiers come back.”

“Not the soldiers,” another woman who bore something of a shrewish expression on her face, bit back promptly. She had been sitting down on the floor, but now she stood up, brushing her skirt off in annoyance. “Because those men who are protecting the village will try to rape us.”

Who? The Seven? Rain’s jaw dropped in astonishment by the accusation. Nothing she had ever seen in the program would ever make her believe the Seven, even in their fictional world, would display such behaviour. As it was, the scoundrel in the group, the one so favoured by Buck Wilmington, would never stand for it.

“That’s silly. Why would they risk their lives for us if they’re going to do that?”

“You know what white men are like,” she bit back. “They are dogs.”

“The chief would not bring them here if they were dogs Dyani,” the woman with the baby protested.

“The Chief is a man, Toa,” Dyani insisted. “How could he know how they behave around women?”

Rain groaned in exasperation, wondering if it was fate that in every discussion, there was always one voice that would create unnecessary dissension by provoking fear and panic. Whatever the decision of the group, Rain knew she was going to the village. She wasn’t here as one of the women of the Seminole community. She was here as a Starfleet Officer who needed to regroup with her commander to save the Senior Staff. Like Alex, she kept her focus on this fact more than any other because giving into her sentiments would do Nathan and the others little good.

Something that could not be done hiding in this cave like a terrified animal.

“Well I’m going,” she stated firmly and lifted her skirts so she could see where she was going when navigating the uneven ground to reach the mouth of the cave a few feet away.

A rumble of agreement chased her to the entrance and Rain didn’t look over her shoulder to know they were right behind her. One dissenter was not enough to impede their desire to return home, and she could hear boots crushing the gravel underfoot as she neared the doorway. Rain jumped startled when she stepped on something beneath her feet that cracked loudly when her weight pressed down on it. With a frown, she glanced down and saw it was a twig amongst the detritus of dried leaves, the break amplified by the cave’s acoustics.

“Come on out of there now!”

Rain’s spine stiffened immediately. That was Nathan! She knew his voice anywhere. What was he doing out here?

“You don’t want me coming after you!”

Grateful to see him, but also a little annoyed she didn’t have much time to come up with a story as to why he was seeing her again after their encounter in the saloon, his warning was suddenly cut short. What sounded like another branch snapping loudly, followed by a slight woosh and a lot of indignant grunts had her hastening her pace because the whole sequence looked like trouble. Emerging into the light, she realised the cave was in the rock wall of a canyon, shrouded by shrubs and tall grass.

When she found Nathan, he was hanging by his feet, upside down from a tree.

Ladies and gentlemen, she facepalmed. My fiance, the doctor.

“Cut me down!”

Rain rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder to see the uncertain expressions of the women behind her turn into amusement. They had expected danger in the form of a white man but weren’t sure how to regard a man who looked like he was one of them, especially when he was caught in a snare like a rabbit. Shaking her head, Rain approached him and saw his eyes flare up in recognition.

“Hey, you were in the saloon in Four Corners!”

“Uh yeah,” she nodded, not having the patience to try and lie her way out of the situation. “This is one of the men my father hired to protect the village,” she explained to the others and then regarded Nathan once more. The chief medical officer and presently healer of the Magnificent Seven was displaying nine kinds of irritation at his present circumstances and did not at all look threatening. “We were sent up here because the men didn’t think you could be trusted.”

“You can trust me,” Nathan insisted, both surprised by her appearance and ornery at being caught in such a stupid fashion. In the saloon, he had thought she was awful pretty when she wasn’t threatening him with bodily harm, and now that she was dressed proper, he found himself admiring that glorious dark hair. “Just cut me down first, please?”

“I suppose we can’t leave you hanging there,” Rain sighed, scanning the ground beneath him before spotting one of the knives his character carried around with him lying against the ground.

“Rain, should we let him go?” Toakhulga, called Toa for short, asked with concern.

“Yeah we should,” Rain said starting to cut him down. “He’s no good to the village the way he is.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“No problem doc. It’s not the first time I’ve come to your rescue,” she muttered under her breath.

Back at the village, the fortifications were being built.

Josiah was building barriers high enough to give horses reason for pause, while previously ruined walls were being restored and trenches dug. Others were gathering rocks to use as ammunition while Alex was taking a break from sharpening spikes all morning. With a cannon in the enemy arsenal, Chris Larabee wanted to use every advantage to use possible to defend the village.

At Chris’s request, she was tasked with bringing bundles of straw to Ezra who was creating life-sized decoys to confuse the attacking force, with the assistance of the Seminole children who seemed to flock to the Maverick’s chief of security. In fact, it appeared Ezra had a real affinity for children, and with amusement, Alex wondered what Julia and her relationship bible ‘Cosmo’ would think about his paternal abilities.

“...the hat is a marvellous touch.”

Alex approached just in time to hear Ezra’s compliment to the little girl who adorned the dummy he was painting with a beaten down straw hat. The child beamed at him in delight before settling back to watch him work as Alex walked by and dropped the bundle in the nearby pile.

“You’re good with kids,” Alex paused a moment to watch the gambler examining his artwork, having given the dummy a face. “Do you have any of your own?”

She knew Ezra didn’t have any of course, but she did wonder whether the gambler he was playing did. On the Maverick, Ezra tended to treat everyone the same as charges he had to protect, young or old. Although he had once famously crawled through a conduit to rescue a Jimmy Potter’s hamster and that was something one did if they hated to see a child upset.

Ezra looked up at her at the question and immediately made a face. “Lord no, that would require far too much responsibility from the likes of me.”

One thing she had come to learn during the last day was the low regard Ezra Standish had for himself. While he had expressed racists tendencies earlier, none of that seemed to be on display now, and Alex wondered if that aspect of the character was written in response to outdated stereotypes at odds with the character’s later development.

“That’s too bad,” Alex sat down beside him on the ground for a moment, a gesture the man regarded with a raised brow, perhaps not expecting such lack of polish from a lady. “You’d make a great dad if the way the kids are taking to you is any indication.”

“Becoming a father would require locating the future Mrs Standish and right now, our chances of seeing the week to its conclusion do not make it seem likely.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” she nudged him gently, forgetting he was not the man who she sometimes played poker with to a standstill on Friday nights, with whom she sometimes shared evenings listening to opera since Vin’s idea of music was 20th-century country music and Julia’s was show tunes.

Ezra gave the woman a look, wondering why she felt so familiar sometimes and yet unable to imagine how a lady could comport herself the way she did without a very odd upbringing. Still, the way she smiled at him, implied genuine warmth and that was something he always responded to since it was often lacking in his associations. “It saves time.”

“I’ll bet,” Alex couldn’t help tease, “somewhere out there, there’s a cheerful redhead with the annoying ability to see the sunny side of everything, waiting for a guy like you to wander into her life and sweep her off her feet.”

Ezra broke into his trademark smirk at that. “That seems oddly specific Madam, though I must admit I have a penchant for redheads.”

It was nice to have someone think of him as more than just a no good swindler who would never amount to much. Seeing the young faces watching him in interest, even though nothing he was doing appeared particularly extraordinary was a nice feeling.

“What about you?” Ezra deflected, warming to the idea of being a father way too much for his liking. “Do you have children of your own?”

Alex thought about the child that was almost hers and Vin and brushed away the sorrow of that loss.
“No,” she shook her head. “Not yet. But someday.”

“In that case, I will admit my parental proclivities, might surface someday as well.” He winked at her. “If we survive the week that is.”

“You’re a lost cause,” she shook her head.

“Yes,” Ezra nodded quietly. “I believe I am.”

“HOLD ON!”

Someone shouted and it might have been Kate Stokes, but Mary couldn’t be sure. All she knew was the log she, Julia and the two security officers had taken refuge in was rolling downhill, and Julia’s panic utterance preceded the moment when the wild ride they were taking suddenly smoothed out and they were airborne. Having lived through the gravimetric turbulences the Maverick often encountered in space, each woman recognised the sensation, though comforting when escaped, was only a lull in the ordeal they were presently experiencing.

She was right because a second later, they landed, and it was nothing short of catastrophic.

There was a brief moment of clarity when they aw light pouring in from the simulated sky outside, and the world spun through the eye of a needle, just before chaos returned with a loud roar. The log protecting them, already moist and rotting, was incapable of withstanding the hard impact even if it was water they were plunged into.

It snapped in half, with Julia and Opa caught in one section, while she and Kate remained in what was left. As the trunk came apart, the outside world flooded into view and Mary saw they were moving down a fast-moving creek. Fleetingly, she wondered how far it ran in this artificial habitat. Around them, the water was rushing ferociously, surrounding them with frothing white foam as they were swept downstream by its current. Beneath her, Mary could feel the wood beginning to crumble, just as she glimpsed Julia and Opa in the same situation, seconds before they went under.

“JULIA!”

It was all she managed to utter before she too felt the wood give way, and she fell in.

The water rushed into her mouth, and Mary’s weight pulled her immediately to the bottom as she struggled to get a hold of herself. When the shock of submersion passed, she noted the water in the creek was fresh and the sky, shimmering above, revealed it was not deep at all. Through the murky blue of it, she saw animal life. There were shoals of fish, crustaceans not that different from prawns, bouncing across the dark shale river bed and spiky molluscs that reminded her of caterpillars.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed her and Mary turned to see Kate’s grip on her arm. The woman gave her a glance of assurance, before kicking hard and propelling them both upwards. Once they broke the surface, Mary drew in a deep breath, replenishing the exhausted air in her lungs while she looked around for Julia. Kate’s security training allowed her to recover quicker and the officer kept her iron grip on Mary’s arm. No sooner than they felt the sunlight on their faces, Kate was steering them across the creek towards the dam.

“We have to find Julia and Opa!” Mary declared once they reached the shore.

“We will,” Kate agreed wholeheartedly because she was leaving no one behind in this place. Checking her phaser, she wanted to ensure the weapon was still functioning. While the devices were meant to be waterproof, Kate’s paranoia about electronics and moisture would not satisfy her until she saw for herself.

“Mary! Kate!”

Mary uttered a short sigh of relief when she heard Julia’s voice. Turning around, Julia and Opa were further along the embankment, approaching them quickly. The Chief Engineer appeared just as waterlogged, but no worse for wear. Guessing Opa must have ensured Julia’s safety the way Kate had kept her from drowning, Mary hurried along the pebbled shore to join them.

The area they now found themselves was no less rustic than the rest of this strange self-contained biosphere. Tall, leafy trees flanked either side of the creek, that was no more than ten meters across, with an embankment composed of rocks and pebbles. Clusters of bushes and shrubs peppered the shore and Mary supposed a botanist might have better luck determining the types of flora they were seeing, but to her, they all looked slightly exotic and very alien.

“Are you alright?” Mary asked when Julia was in earshot.

“We’re okay,” the redhead nodded, running her hand through her hair to slick back the errant strands across her face. “Just took us by surprise.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Opa muttered over Julia’s shoulder. Like Kate, Opa’s interest was in the environment around them, evidenced by the grip on her phaser.

“Do you still have your tricorder, Sir?” Kate asked quickly, hoping the woman hadn’t lost it when they went into the water. She was surveying the area cautiously, expecting trouble to emerge at any moment. If this ecosystem had been left to sustain itself for God only knew how long, then it was more than likely this creek was the primary source of water for all the animals living here, which meant something a great deal meaner than the apex predator that chased them into the creek, might happen along.

“Yes,” Julia nodded, reaching for the device hooked quite efficiently to the belt around her waist. Using a thumb to wipe the water from the display, she studied the results of the scan over their immediate environment.

“I can’t believe we just went over a waterfall,” Opa commended staring at it and the drop that landed them in this creek, to begin with.

The cascade was almost twenty feet high, and upon seeing it, Mary realised how lucky they were to survive the plunge over. If the log had come down anywhere else other than the creek, they would have been dashed against the rocks framing the shore. As it was, the waterfall was a majestic sight of shimmering beauty, and even though their experience with it was hardly complimentary, Mary had to admit, it was still quite breathtaking.

“Mary, I’m detecting a homing signal about twenty feet, that way.”

“A homing beacon?” Kate’s spine stiffened and glanced at the direction Julia was pointing, forgetting for a moment Mary was the one in charge.

The protocol officer, already feeling out of her depth, had no ego to bruise and was glad Kate was asking the questions she might miss. “Can you determine where it leads to?”

“To a section of wall.”

Julia started walking expecting the others to follow as she kept her emerald eyes fixed on the tricorder display. While it registered numerous species roaming the area, Julia was grateful to see nothing as formidable as the beast that had sent them over the waterfall, was anywhere in the vicinity. If the situation were not so dire, she would have thought the place quite dazzling, with its exotic shrubs, trees and vibrant flowers.

“Why a homing beacon?” Julia heard Opa ask.

“It would make sense,” Mary answered. “If this is a preserve of sorts, you want to be able to find your way out again. Whoever built this place, wanted to mark all exit points for visitors. A beacon would be the easiest way to do that.”

“I think you’re right,” Julia declared as she looked down and saw the ground or instead the deck, becoming visible through the dirt and foliage. It led directly to a thick wall of bushes.

“Hold position Sir,” Kate said firmly, using a tone that meant she’d fight Julia on this if the engineer objected. “Let me.”

Kate took the lead in front of Julia, not about to let the engineer endangered herself unnecessarily when it was Kate’s job to ensure the Away Team was safe. The Chief would expect nothing less from her. Parting the branches and snapping a few twigs in the process, she saw the six-legged occupants of the shrubs scurrying away in panic. Once she created a gap wide enough, Kate stepped through and realised Mary was right on point.

Against a metal bulkhead, now covered with green moss and thick ropes of vine, was a hatch. 

The change in environment was so contrasting, it almost left them disoriented.

Despite being soaked to the skin, a little cold and devoid of her usual cheery sense of being, Julia Pemberton made short work of the locking mechanism hidden beneath years of vegetation. When she finally beached the tangle of hanging moss and vines, she was able to bypass the lock without resorting to Opa’s suggestion they just ‘shoot the thing’. The hatch gave way with a hiss of defeat and slid open after a few seconds under the engineer’s expert ministrations, revealing a new chamber awaiting exploration.

What they found, was an empty corridor.

It was flanked by the wall of the prehistoric ecosystem they were leaving behind and a bulkhead, presumably connectng to another part of the station. Constructed from dull metal, it reminded Julia a little of the corridors in the Sulaco, the ship from ancient Earth she and the Maverick encountered over Fury 361. The comparison made the Chief Engineer shudder a little because just like the Sulaco, this corridor was dimly lit with too many shadows for her liking.

“Well this is a little more like it,” Opa commented, the last to emerge from the hatch which she closed on the way out, preventing any of the creatures from the habitat behind them to escape their self-contained world.

Mary could sense the alien consciousness she felt on board the Maverick all around her, but its power felt faint which puzzled her. She imagined it would be stronger the closer they neared the source. Then again much about this whole affair was perplexing as she studied both ends of the corridor, that could have belonged on any ship she supposed, and decided the only way to learn more was to investigate further.

“Julia, can you find us a way out?”

Julia was already on the case. Her experience on the Sulaco and the xenomorph stalking her prompted her to quickly seek a way out of this catacomb-like corridor. She also wanted to be sure there was nothing lurking in those long shadows and scanned the area with her tricorder to confirm this fact. Eerily, the only signs of life beyond the habitat was their own.

“There’s another access way thirty meters in that direction,” she gestured down one end of the corridor.

“I’ll take the lead,” Kate spoke up and started walking, her phaser drawn as the security officer studied her surroundings cautiously, not one to rely completely on technology. If she had learned anything from Chief Standish, it was the value of instinct. Hers told her the situation was nowhere as benign as it appeared and despite Julia’s assurances of safety, Kate believed technology, like all things, was fallible.

Mary did not object to this in the slightest.

“What about life signs?” Mary glanced at Julia whose eyes were still fixed on the data streaming across the display of the tricorder as it continued to scan the corridor and everything beyond it.

“Well,” Julia raised her eyes to Mary as they continued down the steel corridor, disliking how their footsteps echoing through the room added to the ominous atmosphere. “Massive in the habitat we just came from, but out here sporadic. Fifty life signs, no more than that. The neutronium in the walls is making it hard for the tricorder to get more accurate readings.”

“Fifty?” Opa’s eyes widened in surprise and surveyed the corridor as if she were able to see through its walls to the rest of the station. “For a place this size?”

“That might not be a true complement,” Mary explained, understanding there could be numerous reasons for such a depleted number. “We have no idea what this place is. It could be built for thousands of people, or it could be fully automated not requiring anyone at all. Then again, if it were built for thousands, something might have happened to them.”

“We didn’t see any signs of damage,” Julia stated, reminding everyone of their initial view of the space station, ship, whatever this installation was meant to have been. “Still a radiation leak could have killed all life on board and left the ship intact. Although considering what we just came through, that’s unlikely. That habitat’s ecosystem would have been affected if it were the case. It seems like its thriving”

“Are you still able to sense the aliens Lt. Travis?”

Mary frowned at Opa’s question. “I can sense them around us but nothing more than that. It’s like they’re there but they’re occupied. Most likely by what they’re doing to the Captain and the Senior Staff.”

“So if we distract them, could we break their hold on the Captain?” Kate asked because the whole purpose of this Away mission was the Senior Staff compromised in the holodeck.

“Possibly,” Mary shrugged noncommittally. “However, as Commander Styles would say, we’re just speculating at this point. We need to know more about this place.”

“Oh I’ll bet Alex is having fun,” Julia couldn’t help but snigger despite what was happening. “She hates that program.”

“She hates any program that gives men too much power over women,” Mary answered, not finding any humour in the situation, not when she saw how menacing Chris had been when they had first confronted the men and found out what had happened to them. “You and I both know why.”

Reminded of that fact, Julia’s expression sobered. Sometimes she wondered how Alex could face every day after her ordeal. If it had been Julia, she would have stayed in bed and never come out. She still remembered how her skin had crawled, listening to Gul Lemar, the man in charge of the rape camp Alex was held captive, taunting the science officer. The man treated Alex like they were old lovers, instead of a brutal rapist. Julia could not imagine anything more awful than being in such a creature’s absolute power.

“Is it because of the Cardassians?” Opa inquired, having heard the rumours of how Commander Styles had been when the Cardassian defector had come on board. She had almost beat the man to death with her bare hands until Ezra’s security dragged her off him.

Before either Julia or Mary could respond to the question, Kate thankfully intervened. Neither had any intention of elaborating on that subject.

“That’s none of your business Lieutenant,” Kate gave her junior a sharp look. Kate, who had been in an abusive relationship once before, and survived it with scars of her own, could appreciate the need for Alex to desire privacy. As it was, she couldn’t even begin to comprehend the horror the science officer must have endured and had no wish for it to be the subject of gossip.

Grateful for Kate’s intervention, Mary abruptly shifted the group’s attention elsewhere, especially when she sighted the outline of a door at the end of the corridor. “Finally, a way out.”

“Let’s see,” Julia stepped forward and joined Kate who reached the door first. Once again, it was a completely functional construction, no different than any of the doors in the engineering deck of the Maverick. The only difference was the blue crystal embedded in the wall above the door dream.

“What’s that look like to you?”

Julia studied it a moment and focused her tricorder’s scan on the crystal before giving Kate her answer. “If I’m to take a guess by these readings, I would say its some kind of monitoring device.”

“Well,” Mary sighed. “I guess that means they know we’re here.”

“I think that was always a foregone conclusion,” Kate threw in and nodded at Opa to be alert when she reached for the door panel, none too different from the hatch controls they encountered earlier and activated it with less fanfare than its habitat counterpart.

The door slid open with the same weary hiss and when Kate stepped through, it revealed a large room with chairs lined up in rows, facing a clear plexiglass screen that took up almost the entire section of wall. It took a minute for Kate to determine what was the other side of the wall was the habitat they just left. Peering through it, she saw that it was the view of the alien ecosystem if one were sitting on the other side of the same waterfall they had come down.

“What is this?” Opa asked once the other had joined her.

Mary knew immediately. “A viewing gallery.”

It was an hour after Rain and the rest of the women were led back to the Seminole village that Alex managed to get her alone.

Buck had been thrilled of course, not at all realising his behaviour was precisely why the Seminole women were hidden in the first place. Considering the disproportionate number of women to men in the Old West, there was a reason for concern. Rape was almost commonplace and while it was unfair to tar all men with the same brush, Alex could understand Chief Tastanagi’s desire to protect his women.

While Chris had assured Tastanagi and Tenessee Eban, who played the father to Rain’s character, nothing untoward would take place with their women, the villagers were still wary and were ushered away from the seven quickly. Fortunately, the Seminoles had no idea of what to make of Alex and she was able to spirit Rain away for a quick update on the situation.

“Commander are you alright?” Rain demanded when they found themselves a quiet corner.

“I’m fine,” Alex assured her. “I’m close to committing insubordination, but other than that, I’m fine.”

Rain nodded in understanding, knowing immediately to what the Science Officer was referring. “Captain still acting creepy as hell?”

“Creepy, misogynistic, arrogant, you name it,” Alex complained before adding with a wry smile. “I’m just trying to figure out if it is because of the Man in Black, or was he always this way and we haven’t noticed because his filters are on.”

“Alpha male syndrome,” Rain shrugged, getting a bead on the captain’s behaviour almost immediately. “Captain Larabee is about as alpha as you can get, even by 24th century standards. In this place,” she cast her gaze over the rough and tumble environment, “we’re lucky anyone of them are capable of walking upright.”

Alex uttered a short laugh at that. “True.”

“So what are your orders?” Rain inquired once the moment was over. Ridiculous as this situation was, they were still dealing with a serious threat to their comrades’ state of mind, not to mention the tractor beam the Maverick was caught in.

“We play out this scenario” Alex answered without hesitation. “We can’t take them off the holodeck without causing them harm and until the Away Team gives us something solid to fight this thing, we have to play this out to where it goes.”

“I just hope its sooner rather than later, if we’re going into a fight with a bunch of ancient Confederates, we’re going to be doing it with holodeck safeties off.”

Alex frowned. “Don’t I know it.”

As it turned out, the fight came sooner rather than later.

“No trouble Colonel, just turn around and ride out.”

Chris Larabee knew just by the look in the man’s eyes his warning was going to be ignored. What else could one expect from this ragtag platoon of soldiers, driven by hatred and loyalty to Anderson? Each man carried memories of past glories and the slim hope their labours during the war was not for nothing. Dreams of reigniting the Confederate flame was all that bound them and Anderson knew if he didn’t keep it burning, they would surrender and return home.

“I like that! Audacity!”

Shit, Chris cursed under his breath, hearing the last hope this would end peacefully dissipate with Anderson’s gleeful laugh. It proved everyone’s worst fears the man did not consider them a threat and intended to have his gold one way or another. Looking briefly at one of the rock walls where Alex was taking cover, armed with a rifle, Chris realised she was right. She’d told him he needed more men when they were in Four Corners and the platoon assembled before them more than confirmed this.

They had mobilised the instant the scouts positioned around the Seminole village sighted the tell-tale cloud of dust approaching the valley. Chris and Chief Tastanagi took up post on a rooftop of one of the buildings, while the rest of them hid in the surrounding rocks. Upon seeing those numbers, Chris was silently grateful they opted to take the high ground because there were forty men and a cannon coming at them. The gunslinger could not be sure if what they had done would be enough to repel such a force.

“Move on Colonel,” Vin Tanner drawled from his spot. “These people have nothing you want.”

From behind the boulder she was taking cover, Alex saw Vin glanced briefly in her direction, his face still conveying his uncertainty whether she could protect herself in the battle they were about to enter. Just to show him she was fine, she raised the Winchester rifle in readiness to fire, wishing she could tell him he was the one who taught her how to shoot the thing during previous holodeck visits. As it was, she stayed out of sight when the Seven had revealed themselves to Anderson, suspecting a woman in the mix would only add spark to the already incendiary confrontation.

Anderson’s expression hardened at the warning issued by both Chris and Vin and though they could not hear what he whispered to his second in command, each knew what was coming when the second officer turned to his men.

“FIRE!”

The barrage of bullets erupted before Anderson’s captain finish uttering the word.

Alex pulled back behind the rock as bullets strafed the stone in front of her. A single phaser would have ended this entire battle, but those were not the rules of the game, she cursed as she emerged to shoot. Taking careful aim, she emptied all seven rounds into the men below, making sure every shot counted.

For a moment, Vin was forgotten,

Everything going on around her was pushed into the background because right now she wasn’t just a science officer; she was also a soldier. Her shots took down at least three men, and they died where they fell because her weapon’s proficiency allowed her to be very accurate. Still, Alex had to remind herself they weren’t real, just holodeck creations.

The additional guns wielded by Tennessee, the Chief and a few others, provided enough firepower to completely scatter Anderson’s soldiers across the village, like a rock dropped into a still pool. Once the line was broken, the Confederates attempted to seek cover from the gunfire above, dispersing in all directions, trying to return fire while others tried  to escape the barrage or go after the men doing the firing.

A group of horses headed towards the rock wall Josiah had constructed and bucked immediately at the height, throwing one or two riders to the ground. More artillery assailed the trespassers, this time, not in the form of bullets but arrows. From the ridge, archers made up of Seminole women, led by Toakhulga and including Rain, showed the Confederates they were no more to be trifled with than their men.

More bodies fell to the ground, abruptly halting horses already panicked by the battle around them. Some riders were thrown to the earth, beset immediately by villagers who clubbed them into submission with rocks and sticks. Others closed in on the dead bodies like locusts, stripping them of weapons and ammunition to use against the rest of the platoon.

Alex’s attention, however, was on Chris Larabee.

Whether or not the Man in Black knew it, it was the starship Captain allowing him to launch such a formidable defence. If anyone had asked her, Alex would have revealed Chris’s strength was his ability to turn  a small fighting force into a superior one capable of taking on a larger opponent. Indeed she had seen proof of this herself. He had saved the Maverick when they were faced with ten to one odds against the Dominion through sheer force of will. This was the captain who could stare down the enemy when everything was against them and make him flinch.

If Anderson were at all smart, he’d direct his men to take out the gunslinger first.

Alex ensured no one got near him. One renegade made it all the way to the hut Chris was using to lead the battle. Skulking along the mud wall, Alex caught sight of him about to climb up the ladder when she put a bullet through his skull. He uttered a short cry lost in the cacophony of exploding gunfire before falling on his back; his brain matter splattered over the mud. Another rider charged towards the hut, intending to get close enough to reach Chris behind his shelter but Alex put him in her crosshairs and ended him before he could try.

The Man in Black might have been a son of a bitch, but Chris Larabee was still her Captain.

Elsewhere, the Seminole braves led by Imala, the Chief’s son emerged from their hiding place across the village, armed with traditional weapons and what guns they snatched away from the hands of the growing pile of dead enemies. The surprise ambush on the ground when the Confederates had expected the danger to come from above, proved just as successful, even though Alex flinched when she saw one or two familiar faces tumbling to the dirt. Despite being holographic projections, she had worked alongside these people for the last two days and seeing any of them dead was upsetting.

Shifting her attention from Chris, she saw Josiah stumble from a gunshot wound and felt a surge of alarm at any harm coming to the Counsellor. Josiah helped her through so much in the last year; she was almost as protective of him as she was of the Captain. When she saw another renegade closing in, taking advantage of the man’s injury, she cut him down immediately. The renegade toppled off his horse, only to be trampled underfoot by the startled animal.

Predictably, Nathan was already making his way down the canyon wall into the village, reacting to the growing number of injured, not to mention the preacher who was his friend. He paused long enough to deal with one of the dismounted Confederates about to fire on the women hurling rocks from above. When one of them attempted to shoot down Rain, the healer flung a blade and saved her from that fatal bullet before continuing his descent.

Alex glanced up the ridge to see Vin still in position, cutting down numbers so efficiently; he was a sight to behold. They all were, she thought, sweeping her gaze across the length of the village. Josiah was fighting like a lion, even though he was hurt, using his fists and gun, leaving Alex awed and doubly intent on ensuring he survived the day. Meanwhile, Buck was shadowing JD, maintaining his part in their line of defence, while at the same time making sure JD who looked a little overwhelmed, was never in imminent danger. When Bick was back to himself, she was going to tell him his spirit animal was the Bear Mother worshipped by the Tlingit people, who protected everyone. The stupid jerk had better not get himself killed, she told herself, she would never forgive him.

It did alarm Alex when she couldn’t see Ezra though.

He had been in the thick of the fighting when the gunfire started, but now the position he was occupying was vacant, and she prayed he had not been hurt or worse. Then just as the dark thought crossed her mind, Alex saw his black hat appearing with Ezra attached to it. He was injured.  By the way his arm was fastened to his side and  the grimace on his face, she could tell he was in pain. Nevertheless, he continued to fight, even though pain showed each time he felt the jolt of the gun he was firing.

No matter how she had come to be here, Alex had to admit; she was damned proud to be fighting with them.

From his vantage point, Vin Tanner’s ability to do damage was considerable. At this time, he had no idea he was the best shooter in the bunch, but the end of the battle would more or less put paid to that question. With the cool efficiency of a seasoned hunter, every bullet he fired met its mark and the soil became covered with bodies.

Anderson was in the centre of this storm, still appearing stunned by the ferocity of their attack. While his men sought direction, he watched the unfolding chaos like someone trapped in a dream, unable to believe the carnage unfolding was really taking place and he was in the centre of it. Vin hoped he remained that way long enough for the Seven to do what was needed to be rid of him once and for all.

Sparing a glance at Alex, because she was never far from his thoughts lately, he saw her taking out the threat to Chris and wondered what it was about the gunslinger the woman was so determined to protect.

During the planning of the attack, she surprised them all by asking to remain at Chris’s side on the roof. The ornery cuss had balked of course but seeing how she was handling a gun, Vin had to admit he was impressed, even if he was attracted to her. Like him, she made every shot and once again, Vin wondered who the hell she was and where she had learned to shoot like that. He was snapped out of his ruminations when he spotted one of the renegades driving his horse up the slope towards her.

“ALEX!”

She turned sharply at his direction when he called out and saw the rider thundering towards her. The deafening roar of gunfire had masked the man’s approach and he was almost on top of her when Vin gave the warning. Vin lifted his gun to fire, hoping to take the bastard out before the son of a bitch lay one hand on her but a shot fired in his direction, drove the tracker back from the ledge he was standing on. Returning fire hastily, he returned his attention to her just in time to see the Confederate jump.

He landed right on top of her and Vin’s blood ran cold. The sharpshooter tried desperately to take aim but unable to do so because they were two bodies entangled on the dirt and he had no clear shot. Vin was about to shout at someone else to help her when suddenly the most amazing thing happened. He knew she could take care of herself but until now hadn’t believed it. Somehow, she got the son of a bitch off her and rolled away from him, before performing a leap to her feet with the agility Vin had only seen in the Indians.

The renegade clambered to his knees, surprised by her speed and went for his gun. Before he could reach the weapon, she threw a forward kick that was almost graceful, connecting with the man’s jaw. Before he could land flat on his back, Alex drew her gun and fired, sending him to the dirt with a stain of crimson spreading across his chest. Holstering her gun, she looked up, flashing him a little smile to tell Vin she was alright.

Vin wanted to reply but the sound of a bugle whined over the gunfire.

“RETREAT”

Anderson having snapped out of his fugue at last, finally gave the call to retreat. As the riders attempted to withdraw, Vin saw Chris giving the ladies hiding at one section of the village the signal to act. The group who had been waiting for their moment, finally acted, springing the trap they had kept vigil on since the begining of the battle.

The thick rope net sprung out of nowhere barring yet another route of escape from the enemy and unseated a few renegades at the same time. Those who managed to keep their wits attempted to hack their way through by dismounting, even though the delay cost them in blood as the gunfire now concentrated on the area at Chris’s direction, took out more men. By the time the rope barricade was brought down, the bugle sounding retreat was almost frantic.

As the enemy fled, Vin watched their departure and said to himself quietly

“Ride on Colonel, ride on.”

As a man who had gone through his entire life with the study of behaviour imperative to his trade, Ezra Standish never thought he would ever encounter a watershed moment requiring to examine his own.

His arm still ached as if he were Atlas carrying the world upon his shoulders, but the pain had become secondary in light of the revelation he just experienced. Glancing at the healer’s tent, Ezra watched the man labour to stitch wound after wound while his deep voice soothed terrified ones with comfort. Ignoring the fact some of the wounded he was attending were men who had fought for the same cause that would have kept him a slave, Ezra found himself suddenly awash with a feeling he thought incapable of experiencing.

Shame.

He felt shame. After all the swindling and outright cheating he carried out over the years, he should have been beyond the emotion and yet he felt it. Turning away from the healer called Nathan, he stared into the horizon of craggy mountains and unforgiving desert, feeling his throat inordinately dry. Reaching into the folds of his jacket with the arm a short time ago, was not much good for anything, he retrieved his favourite flask and unscrewed the lid, needing the dose of reality contained within.

Growing up in the South, it was a given that a negro, he couldn’t even bring himself to think of the more common term used by his contemporaries in the South, was inferior. With slaves everywhere, it was the only way anyone could justify to themselves keeping one human in bondage was right. However, not everyone who believed in freedom for the slaves was an abolitionist or a Yankee. There were people in the South who believed in the same thing and what they fought for in the war, was not the continued oppression of the negro but the sovereignty of their homeland.

Where had he developed such ideas? It certainly wasn’t from his mother. Maude Standish never instilled such beliefs in him and knew she disliked it intensely when he displayed his. More than once, he had caught that look of disapproval in her eyes when she saw him treating a negro as if they were less than nothing. When he asked her about it once, she merely shrugged her shoulders and replied with typical Maude Standish indifference.

“A mark’s a mark Ezra. I care little for the colour of their skin as long as their money is green.”

Yet beneath her blase response, Ezra sensed her disappointment.

Since joining this group of gunmen for the pittance of five dollars, Ezra had found he was the odd one out because he was the only one who saw Nathan as less when the others considered him more. If anything, they thought less of Ezra because he treated Nathan as any decent Southerner would and yet, the more Ezra thought about it, the more he was forced to ask himself what decent actually meant?

Casting another glance over his shoulder, he saw Nathan continuing to work and faced front again, lest he be caught staring.

“Hey, Ezra.”

Ezra looked up to see Vin Tanner staring down at him, wearing that unflappable mask that was unreadable, (except when he was around a certain female in their company), returning to the village from his perch above. Even more inscrutable than Mr Larabee, the tracker kept counsel to himself and was one of the few people that didn’t eye him like he was something to be scraped off one’s shoe.

“Mr Tanner,” Ezra tipped his hat in the man’s direction. “Can I offer you some libation?”

Ezra lifted the flask in his direction and winced when his injured shoulder ached uncomfortably, a reaction the tracker caught immediately.

“You hurt?”

“Merely a dislocated shoulder,” Ezra nodded as Vin took the flask, “but fortunately for me, Mr Jackson was on hand to correct the problem, despite my own pig-headedness.”

Vin reacted with a slight nod and looked past his shoulder at Nathan. “Yeah, the Doc’s something else. Can’t believe he learned everything he did carrying stretchers in the war.”

“He was in the Union?” Ezra exclaimed and then wondered why he was surprised. He spent some time in the service of the Confederacy, under an assumed name of course, before deciding after a year or two the cause was lost and he had no intention of staying around to die with the others. During that time, he had seen many... negroes wearing the Union blue. After the Emancipation Act was declared, most of these were southern born slaves who simply walked off the plantation, unaware they were exchanging one master for another.

“Yeah,” Vin nodded, taking note of Ezra’s interest and seeing the gambler wrestling with some rather deep seeded preconceptions. “Told me and Chris after we kept him from getting strung up.”

“The gunfight so sensationally described in the Clarion News,” Ezra remembered how foul a mood the article had put Chris in for the first leg of their journey to the Seminole village. If his errand of mercy had been reported like tabloid trash, the gambler couldn’t blame the gunslinger’s ire. “They were going to hang him for killing their trail boss, was it?”

“Nathan didn’t kill no one,” Vin clarified, staring at the man with just enough flint in his eyes to tell the gambler to mind his words, even if he and his conscience in conflict at present. Nathan did the best he could to save him but the trail boss had gangrene and there’s no saving anyone that rotted through.”
Ezra couldn’t argue with that and once again, the feeling rose up from the pit of him. Shame. Shame because he had behaved no better than a bunch of drunken Texans, judging a man by the colour of his skin and not by his substance. How many times had he been similarly judged or looked down upon because of who he was? Everyone always looked at him a certain way and yet even with his obvious prejudice, Nathan could see past Ezra’s disdain to help.

Mr Tanner was indeed correct, Nathan was something and Ezra was begining to realise he had some serious thinking to do. .

No matter how many centuries may separate the wars fought, there was one thing that remained a constant. The smell.

Alex walked through the medical station or rather the tent Nathan used for the purpose and winced at the metallic odour of blood drifting towards with every fresh breath of wind. Born on the back of the arid, dry breeze native to this part of New Mexico, the stink seemed to feel even more intense, until she forced herself to remember this, like everything else here, was a holographic creation. With the exception of the senior staff, Rain and herself, nothing here was real. It was all a fiction of light and energy.

Except they felt real to her.

Sweeping her gaze across the cots, filled with faces of men and women whom she fought alongside today, they didn’t feel like holograms to her, they felt real. As a science officer, she knew better than anyone on board how much sentience to credit these people, but they cried for the dead, they cared for each other they lived and breathed in this place like any human being. Alex never thought about religion, she understood spirituality and the interconnectedness of all things, not more than that. What makes these people any less alive than herself or any one of the seven?

When she was an ensign, she chanced to visit a Bajoran camp, well before the end of the Occupation and remembered seeing a resistance party return, their bodies broken and their victories born in blood. Despite it all, the horror, the weeping for the death and the sense of overwhelming odds someday crushing them, they still believed in freedom, in the idea their pain would shape a better future. She had often wondered if she would feel the same if she suffered.

Of course the answer to that question was one she was forced to learn the worst way imaginable and yet seeing these people made her remember it all again.

“Alex.”

Alex jumped and she turned to see Buck staring at her with concern.

“You alright Darlin’? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Alex shook her head and walked out of the tent, pausing long enough to see Josiah being attended to by Nathan, with Chris looking on closely. Unaware, she was being followed, Alex strode away, needing to catch her breath, needing to recalibrate. She walked past Ezra who seemed to be taking a sip from his flask, sitting on the rock, appearing as if he was doing some deep thinking and wondered what was on his mind. Meanwhile Vin was heading towards Chris, no doubt to discuss what came next. They had won a battle but by no means did they have victory.

She finally stopped behind a large boulder and drew in a deep breath, feeling her stomach churning with frustration.

“Hey,” Buck rounded her shelter of stone and stared at her worried “You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!” Alex snapped. “I’m not! None of this should be happening! This whole situation is a...a...” she stopped herself from saying ‘fake’. “It shouldn’t be happening and worst yet, I shouldn't care. I didn’t come here to care but I do and that’s crazy!”

Buck offered her a knowing smile, the kind often preceding the appearance of his warm, caring side. It was this side of him every member of the Maverick, including the Captain could rely on, the one far removed from his reputation as a womaniser that eclipsed everything else about him. He leaned against the rock next to her and sighed. “Darlin’, when you become a hired gun, that’s the first thing they tell you, not to care. You can’t afford it because most of the time, that’s what gets you killed. “

“Are you telling me you don’t care?” Alex stared at him in disbelief because the man in front of her had a heart like a red giant.

“Of course I do,” he grinned. “Just didn’t want you to feel left out.”

Alex uttered a short laugh and then sobered, feeling the emotion well up in her eyes. “I came here for a reason Buck, I came here to keep an eye on all seven of you.”

She saw the question flare up on his face again and raised her hand to stop him before he could ask.

“I can’t explain it, but that’s the truth. I’m here for the seven of you. This village didn’t even register. It was just a place, somewhere all of you happened to be. But the last day, being here, they’ve become real to me in a way I didn’t expect. It’s too much like somewhere else I’ve been, where it wasn’t just one village but an entire people, losing their land, their way of life, their freedom and no one could help them. There were treaties and decisions made by others, where the lines were drawn and they were on the wrong side of it. We stood by and did nothing while good people who didn’t hurt anyone die, because of the uniform. I feel like that now.”

Buck had heard other men speak in the same way before. Hell, he’d make a speech like that once or twice on occasion, remembering the frustration of fighting in a war where lines had been drawn and overnight, a neighbour or a friend became the enemy. He understood what she was saying and wondered what she meant by the uniform. Had she actually served? Was there an army somewhere out there in the world that let their women fight?

“Ain’t nothing much I can say to make you feel better Alex,” Buck spoke kindly, “except to say we fight one battle at a time and deal with the next one when it comes along. Maybe at the end of it, we do some good for these folk, or we could die and Anderson will wipe them all out. The important thing is, we made a stand and we fought. Sometimes, that’s the best we can hope for.”

Alex nodded, absorbing his words and wondered how much of it came from Buck Wilmington, scoundrel and ladies man of the seven gunmen of this program, and how much of it was from the First Officer of the Maverick, who always knew the right thing to say, no matter what the occasion. He was such a paradox this man, who could be as crass and juvenile as a teenager but when it came down to it was one of the best people she knew.

Alex realised with a start if she had met Buck before her ordeal with the Cardassians, she could have loved him.

“You’re right of course,” she gave him a little smile. Stepping out from the shadow of the boulder, she looked over the village, surveying the destruction from the battle they had just fought and realised, she would never be able to take this program lightly again. Mr Watson, the Chief and his family, Tennessee Eban and the children who stared at Ezra with adoration, had become real to her, as much as the Bajorans had been in the past.

Suddenly, this mission had become about more than just freeing the Seven, it had become about helping this village. Perhaps the program would be shut down once they were free of it and these people would become nothing more than bytes of data, but Alex would rest easier knowing in the infinity of programming, they would live free.

Mary stood in front of the clear screen, watching the life beyond the glass go about its business, completely unaware they were being observed.

“What is this? Some kind of a zoo?” Julia was the first to ask after Mary had made her startling revelation.

“Possibly,” Mary shrugged, although her sixth sense told her there was more to it than that. There was a mystery about this place, something beyond Julia’s astute observation. A zoo possibly, but maintaining an ecosystem like this, one that could sustain itself without its handlers had a deeper purpose than simple sightseeing. No, this was about preservation.

Elsewhere, Kate and Opa had fanned out as security officers tended to do, scouring the immediate area for danger and a way out. This was one part of a very large station and without any clue how long the Captain and the Senior staff had in their current state, there was little time to waste. They needed to move on.

“What do you think Mary?” Julia came alongside the Protocol Officer, who continued to stare at the habitat beyond the glass. “What do you think this place is?”

“I‘m not sure,” Mary’s answer was the truth, she didn’t know, but she suspected. She wished it were Chris, Ezra and Alex here. The trio were the best strategic thinkers of the Maverick, although Mary would have put Chris above all the rest, not simply because she loved him, but because he was the Captain he was because he was capable of making deductive leaps based on almost nothing but gut evidence. Ezra and Alex were more methodical.

“Can you sense them?” Julia swept her gaze across the ceiling, searching for the aliens she would not be able to see, but whose presence felt ominous nonetheless.

“I can,” Mary blinked and met her eyes, “but it feels odd. I can feel them but it's like they’re not concerned about us being here like they’re distracted.”

“On the Captain and the others maybe,” Julia suggested. “Maybe they’re not concerned about us because they can’t be, not if they want to maintain a mental hold on our people.”

“Yes!” Mary’s eyes flashed in excitement because Julia’s observation struck a chord of truth. “I think that might be exactly the case. It means their control has limits and if it does, we might be able to free Chris and the others.”

“Lieutenant!”

Both Mary and Julia looked up to see Kate standing at the furthest end of the gallery, past the orderly row of cushioned dark grey seats. The security chief was waving them over and the two senior officers exchanged a quick glance before crossing the distance. Opa, who was examining a panel on another wall, also left her study and joined them.

Kate was standing in front of a door when they reached her. She was on her haunches, studying the door panel closely and tossed a look at the rest of her Away Team at their approach. “I’ll bet a year’s pay, this is some kind of a turbo lift.”

“You don’t get paid. We live in a society free from the need of currency,” Mary remarked with a smile.

“Someone forgot to send that memo to Ezra,” Julia replied while she ran her tricorder over the nondescript grey door that resembled any one would find on a ship. “I think you’re right, I’m detecting a shaft that runs at least 100 meters up.”

“That would fit the dimensions of the station,” Mary agreed. “Alright then, let’s see where this rabbit hole goes. Kate,” she nodded at the security officer.

Kate acknowledged the unspoken order and pressed the triangular button taking centre stage on the panel. The second it felt the contact of skin, the button came alive with a vibrant green glow, apparently, the universal colour for ‘all systems go’ and buzzed faintly with sound, as if circuits long in stasis, was suddenly awakened. The door slid open a second later, revealing an interior pod that was almost identical to one of their turbo lifts.

Kate stepped inside before Mary could, refusing to allow a senior officer to endanger herself by entering an unknown space, even if it appeared benign on first sight. Stepping into the lift, it was lit by a row of lights overhead and a panel similar to the one she had just used, awaiting instructions from its newest passengers.

Mary followed her and was joined by the rest of the Away Team. This time, smaller triangles ran up the length of the panel, each marked with an alien cursive none of them could reas and the universal translator could not decrypt. There were at least ten of them which obviously meant the different levels in the station. Unfortunately, not knowing where they were in this list, made their next action a guess.

“Where are we going?” Kate eyed Mary.

Mary and Julia exchanged a glance before Mary guessing Julia’s opinion mirrored hers, reached for the panel and pressed the top button.

“If we’re going to do this, we might as well get to the top.”

No one could disagree with that statement. No sooner than it was activated, the triangular button came to life with its comforting green glow and the door slid close in front of them. With a slight lurch, the lift began its journey, filling the space with a light hum to indicate the machinery in operation around them. The air inside the lift was circulated but there was also a hint of something in it Julia detected, mostly because she was an engineer accustomed to tending the life support systems on the Maverick.

“This air is stale.”

“Stale?” Mary stared at her.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It’s been recycled no doubt but it feels like it did after we mothballed the ship for months at DS5 after the Maverick got damaged from our fight with the Vrihan. Just stale, like the system has not been in operation for a while.”

“Are you saying the air is being pumped in just for us?”

“I think so,” Julia shook her head, hating that she couldn’t explain it better. “I know we’re expected but I wonder whether they’re making it easier for us to move through the ship like they want us to find them.”

“That’s weird,” Opa pointed out.

“What isn’t about all this?” Mary stared back at her. “At present, our Captain is playing out his holodeck fantasy, thinking he actually is a gunfighter. Thank God, it wasn’t a pleasure program...”

“We’d never get Buck out alive.” Julia quipped.

The lift doors came to a sudden stop and slid open. As the light of the next room flooded into the small space with them, Mary’s jaw dropped in astonishment. In fact, all of them gaped in similar shock.

“This can’t be real,” Mary stepped out, staring at the sky above them, the city of tall spires, gleaming towers and domed buildings. She could see paved courtyards, manicured lawns, fountains and streets. Hover type vehicles were moving up and down their length, disappearing around corners. Streetlights and plants lined pavements. There were cafes, shops and businesses. It was a city pulsing with life.

“It isn’t,” Julia said immediately. “This is holographic. All of it.”

“Thank God,” Kate exclaimed, because populating this city, completely oblivious to their presence, was the race that built this odd installation. While they were not human, they were definitely bipedal, with large ecliptical eyes that reminded the security officer of those belonging to insects, yet their bodies were lithe and graceful. THeir skin was almost a translucent blue and for a moment, Kate thought they looked like glass blown figurines.

“I think I understand,” Mary said watching these people, whoever they were, immortalised in this place, going about their daily lives. “I think I know what this place is.”

“What?” Julia looked at her.

“A museum.”

As if materialising to counter her statement, a figure suddenly came into view as if transported right in front of them. It barely reached her waist and while Mary saw both Opa and Kate going for their weapons, the size of the new arrival gave them pause. Even though it looked decidedly alien, they were unable to feel threatened.

It looked like a small child.

Lifting its pointed chin to look up at them, the new arrival spoke.

“Help us.”

 NEXT CHAPTER

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