“You’re missing a hell of a party.”

Vin Tanner looked over his shoulder to see the slender form of the woman who occupied his thoughts much of late, approaching his refuge high in the rocks overlooking the village. Beneath him, the Seminoles and the rest of the men he was riding with on this suicide mission, were celebrating their victory against Anderson and his men but Vin was unwilling to let down his guard. As bloody and ferocious as the fighting had been, both sides limped away from their initial confrontation with enough numbers to ensure their stalemate was temporary.

A battle had been won, not the war.

Vin was maintaining a vigil from the same perch he used to inflict heavy losses on Anderson’s men earlier in the day, watching the night and listening for every sound. He knew they were coming, he could feel it in every fibre of his being. Vin had seen the manic gleam in Anderson’s eyes as he rode away with his tail in between his legs and it was not a look of one who was defeated but one who was crazed with fury at being surprised.

It was not a mistake he was going to make twice.

However, for the moment anyway, Anderson was forgotten when he saw her approaching, a bottle of liquor in her hand. She was still wearing her irons, a strange sight for a woman, but her coat and hat were gone and when she joined him, he admired how her dark hair shimmered in the moonlight. Every time he looked at her, the passion stirred defied reason and he was at a loss to understand why.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen a pretty face before. Hell, he’d encountered dazzling beauties in the past who were dressed proper and behaved like women ought to, and yet it was hers that paralysed him with desire. When she smiled, he thought his heart might break and if he wasn’t so focused on the fight before them, he could spend hours just looking at her.

“Don’t have much reason to celebrate,” Vin said watching her take up position next to him. “Fight’s not done.”

“No, it’s not,” Alex agreed, handing him the bottle as she gazed at the revelry below.

Tennessee was playing clunky music from the old piano, giving couples an excuse to dance. A little smile crossed her lips at seeing Nathan and Rain strolling along, hand in hand. JD, Buck and Josiah were leaning against the wall of a building, joining the collection of men who were celebrating their victory with bottles of home-brewed firewater while women sailed across the square, carrying trays of food whose aroma she could smell from here. Meanwhile, Ezra continued to charm the village’s children with his card tricks.

Vin took a swig of the bottle and let the whisky burn its way down his throat with its pleasant taste before glancing in her direction. “How come you’re up here with me? You ought to be down there enjoying the fun. No sense both of us being miserable even if we know something’s coming.”

“I prefer the quiet,” Alex remarked, looking up at the stars and wishing she were out of this holodeck and in the observation deck of the Maverick, seeing them rush past her at high warp.

“I saw you with that Reb today,” he spoke after a moment. “Where do you learn to fight like that?”

“From my mother,” Alex confessed, thinking about Kelien and how she taught Alex being a woman was no excuse to consider oneself was weak. “She wanted me to be strong. She made sure I knew how to fight. She used to say power isn’t in the weapons you carry, it’s in the heart and it’s in one’s honour. Power in those things is all a warrior needs to guide them.’”

“Who are these people?”

Vin was fascinated because they sounded like Apache and yet the way Alex fought, while similar was not from that tribe. Nevertheless, he liked their words about honour because in this day and age it was something of a rarity. Vin was an idealist even though outwardly, it might appear otherwise. He believed in doing the right thing, about fighting for the weak. Nothing galled him more than knowing his attempt to deal fairly with the world had been rewarded with a bounty on his head that might mark him for life.

“They’re from pretty far away,” she said evasively but supposed even if she had told him Klingon, he would have no idea who they were. For all he knew, Klingon could be some remote province in outer Mongolia. “Anyway, I learned how to fight because of them and some other things...”

Her voice drifted off into the night as he handed her back the bottle and she took a swig of it, quelling the horror that still surfaced when she thought about the Cardassians. It wasn’t the agony it once was, but it was still unpleasant.

Vin caught the look in her eyes and once again, was unable to imagine how she could be with anyone else but him, not when he saw clearly the pain and knew she was hurt in some way too terrible to be spoken. He wasn’t naive, he knew what it was of course. The kind of pain women didn’t speak about, the one so awful just thinking about it made them flinch was something that happened all too often in the Territory. The idea someone had done something like that to this woman filled him with rage and his jaw clenched just enough for him to get it under control.

“Did he hurt you bad?”

Alex turned to him, her eyes widened in surprise at his question, not expecting him to make such a leap of intuition with her vague statement and then realised this version of Vin wasn’t the shy, isolated Vulcan she met almost two years ago in Four Corners. In this place, he was the experienced bounty hunter and tracker, able to read people and situations with ease. Not to mention their mating bond, whether he was aware of it or not, still existed.

“Bad enough,” she dropped her gaze into the dirt, unable to meet his eyes because it would reveal everything. “I’m okay, I survived.”

Because of you, she thought silently. It was true, even though she was functional when she came on board the Maverick, she was a ghost wrapped in scar tissue. Being around people made her uncomfortable, men even worse. Her nights were filled with bad dreams that woke her up screaming in a cold sweat. As the third officer of the Maverick, she would have been in no shape to take charge as she had done now.

Meeting Vin had changed all that. Seeing him so wounded after Charlotte’s rejection had prompted her to reach out to him because the pain in his eyes touched her. After that, helping him navigate a ship full of people because he was terrified of being around so many after spending most of his life on that forgotten world on the Rim, allowed her to heal.

They held each other’s eyes for a moment and though it was a mistake, Alex didn’t pull away when he lowered his lips to hers. When had she ever been able to say no to him, even in this crazy situation? Never she supposed, it was part of the reason he had gotten into her heart so quickly and closing her eyes, she threw caution to the winds, telling herself whatever happened, would happen.

For his part, he delighted secretly when she didn’t pull away as she had done since they met in the bar only a few days ago. When he touched her lips for the first time, it was electric although Vin didn’t know what electricity was to be able to identify the charge of emotion and desire spiking through him the instant they touched. His fingers traced the line of her jaw and relished the softness of her skin. Yet it was her taste that robbed him of all sense. For an instant he saw in his mind’s eye, they would be together for all time.

But it didn’t stop there.

The images filling his head were flashes in front of his eyes and for a moment, he felt like a man trapped beneath a frozen lake, able to see the sunlight but unable to reach it through the barrier of ice. He saw them riding horseback, her sitting above him, bare and glorious while they were making love with the sun on her back. He saw her in a dress that looked an awful lot like a wedding gown and realised it could be nothing else since she carried flowers in her hands. Most jarring of all, he saw her sitting across him in a place that didn’t seem quite real, with the stars rushing past them.

Vin reeled from the bursts of memory, none of which made any sense but one thing penetrated. She was and had always been, his.

Alex blinked at the abrupt end of the kiss when she felt Vin drawing away. When she stared at him, she saw his distress and he was clutching the ground he was sitting on, trying to steady himself. Eyes closed, Vin appeared fighting the effects of disorientation and Alex swore inwardly at her own weakness in responding to his touch. Vin was always the one person who could breach the fortress-like walls around her heart. Appearing as if he were suffering a headache, Alex realized the influence the aliens had over his mind was incapable of completely preventing their mating bond from exerting itself. All it had taken was the contact between them.

“Vin?” Alex started to say when a hand clamped around her forearm in a powerful grip and pulled her roughly to her feet, away from Vin.

“I told you to stay away from him!”

Alex looked up to see her Captain, no she recanted quickly, he was not her captain. He was the gunslinger. His eyes bore into her like points of steel and for a moment, Alex forgot who he was and felt genuinely afraid of the stormy menace she saw in his eyes. At that moment, he wasn’t Chris Larabee. He was a killer who was mad as hell at her. Vin was still on the ground because his mind had become a battleground between the alien’s power over him and his natural Vulcan instincts.

Fear was an emotion Alex swore would never prevent her from doing what was necessary and when she remembered this, yanked her hand out of Chris’s grip, her arm stinging from where his fingers had dug into her skin. She would not be surprised if he left bruises behind.

“Get your hand off me!”

“I told you,” he warned her. “To stay away from him. All you’re going to do is mess with his head. Not if you plan on running back to your husband.”

“Pard, that ain’t your choice to make.”

Alex’s sharp cry sliced through the fog in Vin’s mind, severing whatever connection he made to the memories he briefly touched by their kiss. On his feet in a second, he assessed the situation even faster to realise by Chris’s slurred words, the man was drunk, but it was the worst kind, the mean kind. Still, Chris Larabee was looking out for him even if he was being an ornery cuss about it.

“The hell it ain’t!” Chris shot him a murderous look for not seeing sense. “We’ve got a job to do and this is only gonna mess with your head!”

“That’s my business, not yours.”

Chris was only looking out for him and Vin suspected in the morning the son of a bitch was going to be plenty sorry for behaving like a mule, but right now he was still drunk and dangerous. While Vin was touched by Chris’s caring, he was going about it the wrong way. Above all that, whether or not it was Alex or someone else, under no circumstances did Vin care for any lady being handled that way.

“It’s my business if it gets in the way of what we gotta do here,” Chris shot Alex a scathing glare despising her for fracturing the kinship he formed with Vin Tanner since they met. “I told you not to play with his heart. You gotta husband somewhere you’re gonna go back to, right? He ain’t something you can play with and then scrape off your boot when you’re done.”

Alex knew part of his venom had to do with the fact he resented her being here, to say nothing about the alcohol bringing out the worst parts of his manufactured personality, stoked by grief and allowed to remain for too long. Nevertheless, his words cut deep, especially when she’d been trying her damnedest to stay away from Vin. Furious at her own weakness for letting this situation escalate to the point both men were about to confront each other violently when they were closer than brothers, Alex’s restraint snapped.

“ALRIGHT YOU BASTARDS! THIS HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH! You’re going to let me tell them the truth because I’m not continuing this charade anymore!. You want to kill them, go ahead, but they can’t play your game if they’re dead.”

Both men stared at her as if she had lost her mind since she appeared to be throwing down a gauntlet to heaven itself and expecting to be answered. Alex knew she was being reckless by this action but she couldn’t keep this up, not without causing more friction between the group who clearly needed unity to carry out the aliens’ purpose. Praying they didn’t call her bluff, she waited with rising anxiousness, their next move.

“I knew she was crazy!” Chris barked at Vin before glaring at her again. Vin appeared confused by what was going on but he was not gripped by outright disbelief.

“I am not crazy, I’ll prove it.” Alex mined her thoughts quickly for the history of the gunslinger in this scenario. “Your name is Chris Larabee. You were born in Indiana, you served in the military with Buck Wilmington and you had a wife and son, Sarah and Adam. They both died in a fire...”

Before she could even finish the sentence, he was on her.

Alex’s back was pressed against a boulder before she realised he was coming at her. Both the gunslinger and Chris Larabee’s reflexes caught her by surprise and Alex uttered a soft cry of pain when she hit the large boulder behind them. Before she could regroup, his hand clenched around her throat, squeezing hard. Closing in just as quickly, she saw Vin moving to intervene even though she was certain Chris did not intent to harm her, merely express his displeasure at her mention of his family.

Screw the court-martial.

Alex snapped her head forward, slamming her forehead against his hard enough to send him reeling. Pain flared across her skull but Alex had fought Klingon warriors on the holodeck enough to be able to take the hit. Chris stumbled, not expecting the assault and backed into Vin, who promptly grabbed him by the arm and shoved him away from Ale.

“For the last time, I am not trying to hurt anyone, least of all him!”

Alex stared at Chris who appeared to be calming down, the pain from the headbutt and Vin’s action splashing him with the cold realisation of where his rage had taken him. Tugging the chain off her neck, she released the ring hanging around it and handed it to Chris.

“What’s this?” He asked her, still breathing hard and trying to come to grips with the fact his drunken stupor had turned him into a rabid dog.

“Read the inscription!”

Chris took the gold band and studied it, thinking it looked fancier than those bought in a store. Lifting it up for a better look, he read the three words etched in the gold and looked up sharply at Vin, his expression showing his astonishment as well as his confusion.

“What is it pard? What’s it say?”

“It says,” Chris was trying to wrap his mind around all this. “Mine always, Vin.”

Despite its alien appearance, there was no doubt in Mary’s mind, she was staring at a child.

For a few seconds after it spoke to her with a voice so young it tugged at every maternal bone in her body, she took in the sight of the fairy-like child, thinking how beautiful it looked with its eyes round like polished onyx and translucent blue skin. The child looked like a glass figurine, graceful and yet so heartbreakingly fragile. With its lipless mouth curled into a pout, it was a face imploring her for help and Mary could do nothing but respond to it.

“Help us.”

Mary threw a quick glance at the other members of the Away Team, gesturing for Kate and Opa to lower their weapons while telling Julia with an unspoken nod, to let her do the talking since it was to her this delicate waif was reaching out. Dropping to the child’s eye level, Mary smiled at her kindly, trying to appear as compassionate as she could manage, despite what this alien and its kind were doing to Chris and the others. Reaching for the child’s hand, she knew it was just a hologram but her training in the Diplomatic Corps taught her, a connection was for the first step to understanding. To her surprise, the skin of the small hand felt warm, not the cool of a dead, inanimate thing.

“Hello. My name is Mary,” Mary decided to avoid immediately battering the child with questions, especially when the alien needed help. “What’s your name?”

The child’s eyes shifted from black to indigo and the swirl of colour during the change was rather quick beautiful. Mary had encountered thousands of alien races during her career and was unable to identify the species this holographic simulacrum was meant to depict. It was entirely possible this alien was one that was completely unknown to the Federation. Despite the situation that brought them here, Mary could not deny feeling a sense of excitement at this new first contact.

“I don’t have a name. I’m not like the others. I just am.”

It was an answer that engendered more questions but Mary was convinced the child’s gender was female. She cast a glance at her companions to see their confusion as the encounter unfolded. However, Julia nodded for Mary to continue, hoping the way to returning Ezra and the others to themselves again was by helping this life form asking for assistance.

Mary faced front, revealing her puzzlement. “How are you different?”

“I take care of this place. I take care of everyone.” The child explained, sweeping her gaze across the fake skyline of this holographic city. “I make sure they can live but I’m not one of them.”

“You take care of this whole station?” Julia found her voice unable to fathom how a child could be expected to maintain a vast complex as this. While the engineer had not seen the entirety of the place, this station was almost the size of Deep Space Five. From the habitat they transported into, to this simulated city around them, it was clearly as state of the art facility with advanced technology.

She nodded.

“Julia,” Mary quickly spoke up, “remember, this is a holographic representation of whoever is trying to communicate with us. It may not necessarily be a child.”

“Agreed,” Kate added. “The alien might have come to us in this form because it’s the one most likely to disarm us.”

Mary couldn't argue with that. As the only one of them who had a child, Mary could not deny the child’s visage prompted her maternal instincts to protect.

“Tell me about the others. Why do you have to take care of them?”

The little girl face revealed a frown and Mary saw her brow furrowing in concentration, trying to come up with an answer. “I’ve always had to take care of them but something is not right. I don’t remember everything. Something bad happened and I don’t know everything I’m supposed to.”

“Something bad?” Mary saw the worry across her face and holographic image or not, Mary was immediately compelled to help, unable to bear seeing any child in distress.

“I can’t remember,” her face twisted in dismay. “It happened and now the others are getting hurt. I don’t know how to help them because I don’t remember. Their minds are trapped and if I don’t help them soon, they could die. It’s why I had to stop your ship.”

“Oh my God....” Julia suddenly gasped.

All eyes turned to the Engineer, whose expression was one of shocked enlightenment.

“Julia, what is it?”

Julia looked past Mary but approached the Protocol Officer and the child. D “I think I understand this. I think I know what’s happening.”

“What?” Kate asked impatiently, wanting to know if there was an immediate threat because the child’s words sounded ominous.

“Mary you’re right,” Julia lowered herself next to her. “This isn’t a child. I think it’s a sophisticated interface.”

“An interface?” Opa’s voice was heard behind the senior officer. “To what?”

Julia faced the little girl in front of them. “The ship. I think we’re talking to the station’s main computer.”

“I don’t understand.”

Vin Tanner stared at Alex, trying to understand how his name could be on a ring he never saw before. Even Chris seemed to have snapped out of his drunken rage and appeared just as perplexed by what he had read inscribed on the band of gold. At first, Vin saw betrayal in the man’s eyes because the impossibility of what he was seeing could only be interpreted in one way, that Vin had lied to him about Alex since their very first meeting.

The look diminished however when Chris bore witness to Vin’s own shock and this kinship they developed from their first meetings, lowered down the walls of suspicion into one of trust. They were incapable of lying to each other, no matter what the situation.

“We’re married,” Alex sighed, knowing she had gone past the point of no return and had to continue. There could be no going forward unless she could explain the situation, such as it was, to them and hoped they could believe it. “You and I have been married for almost a year.”

“No we ain’t,” Vin shook his head, unable to accept her words as truth when he could remember none of it. Then again, even as he denied it, his heart was telling him differently. Ever since he met her, there was this inexplicable connection between them and he knew in no way that made any sense, she belonged to him.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” Alex blinked slowly, regret dripping from every word spoken. If Chris Larabee was himself, he would hold the course, not break down and submit to his emotions like a damn teenager. “I should have stayed away from you but it’s too late now, you need to know.”

“Know what?” Chris demanded angrily, refusing to believe any of this and worse yet, furious at himself for having allowed this insanity into his midst. He cursed Buck for ever convincing him to let her join them and infect Vin’s mind with this nonsense. “What are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to save your lives!” Alex bit back, matching his anger with her own. She was annoyed at herself more than she was with him but was unable to believe he could still think she was making up this story, even with her wedding ring still in his grasp as proof.

“By what? Twisting Vin’s mind with this fake ring?” Chris tossed it to the ground.

“Hey!” Alex swept it up into her palm before it had even time to settle against the dirt. Brushing it off quickly, she glared at Chris. “Why would I try to trick him with a fake ring? That makes utterly no sense!”

“You’ve been trying to get into his head since you got here! Now you come up with this story and that ring, to do what?”

“This is my ring!” Alex snapped slipping it on her finger. “I’ve worn it since the day he and I were married and even if I was trying to ‘mess’ with his head,” she glanced at Vin who was still trying to wrap his head around what was happening to react to the confrontation taking place in front of him. “Why would I? He can’t read!”

“What?” Chris’s eyes widened and he saw Vin’s expression turn to one of utter mortification as that particular revelation was made. Without hearing a word from the man, Chris knew instantly she was telling the truth. Vin Tanner couldn’t read.

If anything had the power to shock the tracker, it was that one statement.

No one knew, no one! It was his secret shame and though he got by thus far in life without having it exposed to everyone, Vin always felt lesser because of it. How could a man not be able to write his own name? As one who considered himself capable of handling most things, that inability galled him. Hearing it revealed to Chris Larabee, a man he respected and considered his friend was almost more than he could bear. It stabbed at the heart of his insecurities, reminding him he was incapable of doing what a child knew how to do.

His attempt to respond, however, was cut short by the ear-splitting roar of a cannon.

All three of them reacted immediately to the erupting boom, which was quickly followed by an explosion that obliterated one of the huts around which the celebrating villages were gathered. For a second they could only watch in horror as the building exploded in a ball of cloud and fire. The single shot was enough to demolish the entire structure since what was left even before the smoke completely cleared, was a burning pile of rubble and wood.

“Anderson!”

Alex shot Chris a look, unable to believe it. “This is wrong,” she managed to stutter. “He shouldn’t be here until tomorrow. He wasn’t supposed to attack until tomorrow?”

“You knew?” Chris gripped her arm so hard, Alex felt his nails digging into her skin and she let out an involuntary cry of pain. “You knew he was going to attack?”

“Not exactly,” she tried to explain, understanding how bad this looked. “I knew there was an attack but it wasn’t going to happen tonight. I wasn’t sure exactly when...”

“YOU ARE WORKING WITH HIM!”

Chris went for his gun and Alex’s eyes widened, realising he may very well shoot her dead for what he perceived to be treachery on her part.

“I swear to you I’m not,” Alex managed to say as another explosion followed and this one hit the canyon wall on the other side of the village, breaking apart a section of it and raining down chunks of rock on the Seminoles below. “I told you before I want to save your lives, I wasn’t lying and I’m not working for Anderson!”

For the first time, she realised the gunslinger that was Chris Larabee may well shoot her dead and worse yet, to stop him Alex might have to fight him. She had no idea what to do. He was her Captain, a man who had saved her life more times than she could count, who had stood up for her at the risk of his command. How could she fight him?

“CHRIS!” Vin stopped him before this went any further. “I don’t know what’s going on here but I trust her. I knew there was going to be an attack and so did she. I wasn’t sure when either but anyone who took a good look at Anderson when he was riding out knew he’s too damn crazy to let this village go without a fight! Now you want to pull your head out of your ass and tell us what to do next because that son of a bitch is going to bury the Seminoles under this canyon if we don’t do something!”

Both men stared each other, like titans on the battleground. Chris Larabee was a force to be reckoned with but Vin Tanner had always been the one person who was able to stare him down, who seemed immune to the Larabee glare and could penetrate that sheer wall of stubbornness when the need demanded it. It was not something Vin did often and if had he the mind to remember, he would have realised he was the only one who could.

Chris wanted to refute Vin’s words but he saw in the younger man’s eyes, a will almost as powerful as his own ready to take him to task if he got out of hand, and yet would never betray him. He saw friendship, respect and a love that was almost as deep as the one he had for the woman who started this quarrel in the first place. Besides, Vin was right. Another explosion followed by screams of pain and terror hammered home the situation they were in and the need to act.

“Alright,” he nodded quickly, shooting Alex a glare telling her this was by no means over but the argument would be tabled for now because a more immediate problem needed attendance. “Those cannon don’t have that much of a range, so he’s up there.”

Chris’s eyes scoured the ragged edge of the canyon walls trying to see the dark barrel of the cannon that was causing this damage. He’d underestimated the son of a bitch, assuming the man would wait until daybreak to make another run at them after all the losses Anderson has suffered at their hands. Somehow Anderson and his men had regrouped quickly enough to take the high ground and because of that, he was going to rain hellfire down on the Seminoles who dared to stand up to him. Vin was absolutely right, the man was insane.

“We’ve got to get up there!”

Even as Vin made the statement, a line of rifles appeared over the edge of the canyon and Chris had just enough time to shout a warning.

“EVERYONE GET DOWN!”

The opening barrage of gunfire was almost as thunderous as the cannon fire. The artillery bombardment sent the Seminoles scurrying in all direction. Vin grabbed Alex who was stupefied by the turn of events, to take shelter behind the rock. The woman appeared utterly astonished and he wondered whether the fear had finally gotten to her or was there something else going on.

Chris looked up long enough to empty a few rounds at the rifles above them but they were too high and he knew his shots were wasted. Ducking behind the boulder with Vin and Alex, he tried to think of what to do and knew unless they reached that cannon, they were all going to die.

Ezra Standish had been settling accounts with his young associates by way of gaining information on the gold mine in the area when the world went suddenly mad.

One moment he was listening avidly to their recollections about their elders’ discussion on the precious metal and the next, he was thrown forward as if God had chosen this minute to smite him down for all his sins. He landed hard against the dirt, hearing nothing except the ringing resulting from the thunderous roar filling his ears the moment he became airborne. Landing badly, his body screamed in pain, especially after his injury during the battle but that was secondary to the sharp stinging across his back as he was pelted with debris.

Groaning, Ezra turned his head and saw the little girl named Rosita, the child who adorned one of the decoys they fashioned for the attack with a hat, lying face down on the dirt. Her white dress, worn for this celebration, was blooming with crimson around the length of broken wood that had been driven into her small body. The sight snapped him out of his disorientated state and he was scrambling to her on his hands and knees, forgetting any pain he was experiencing to reach her.

By the time Ezra rolled her over, taking care not to drive the jagged piece any deeper into her flesh, the ground was pooling with blood and with anguish, Ezra knew it was because the damning wood had made it clean through her body. Despite the stark reality facing him, Ezra refused to accept it. It was one thing seeing the men he rode with injured or dead, but this little girl, with her sweet smile and her eyes shining with the belief he was someone to be admired had harmed no one.

“NATHAN!”

Even over the sound of exploding artillery and gunfire, rising above the frightened cries and the pleas for help, that desperate call reached Nathan Jackson. Snapping his head up, the healer saw Ezra, the cheater, holding a child in his arms, his white shirt stained with blood.

“You be alright?” Nathan shouted at Rain with whom he had been when the shelling started.

“GO!” Rain ushered him off, her eyes searching for Alex Styles. Like the Science Officer, Rain had studied the scenario of the Magnificent Seven and knew an attack would follow daybreak. She hoped whatever Mary and the Away Team were doing on the mysterious station would prevent them from having to fight that battle but it appeared that hope was premature.

“NATHAN! SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

Ezra looked down at the girl’s face, the sweet child who had flitted around him like he was the most amazing person in the world, did not look back. Her eyes were closed and as he blinked at the terrible realisation dawning on him he felt his heart clench as if a fist had reached through his ribs and crushed it. She was dead. Her light was extinguished and he had been able to do nothing about it.

Little Rosita lay in his arms, her blood soaking through his coat and turning his frilled cuffs red, eyes closed appearing as if she were sleeping, removed from the destruction taking place around her. Her indifference to it made Ezra look up and amidst the sound of artillery shells bursting around them, the frightened cries of panic and horror, the gunfire raining death from above them, saw their victory was premature. They had won nothing.

“Ezra,” Nathan Jackson skidded to his side, having heard volumes in the man’s distraught bellowing. He looked at the girl and knew she was gone. His healer’s intuition telling by the angle of the entry, the piece of wood had pierced through her heart before she even knew what had happened. That was some comfort at least. Although he suspected by the expression of dismay on Ezra’s face, it would not make any difference.

“She’s hurt!” Ezra stared at him when Nathan knelt down next to him.

“Ezra,” Nathan said as gently as he could, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder, a gesture he knew Ezra might throw back in his face especially knowing how Ezra felt about coloured folk. Yet as he did it, he noted Ezra did not flinch, merely raise his sea-green eyes to Nathan’s own, with the understanding of what it was the healer was trying to tell him.

“No,” he whispered and gave the girl another pained look.

“I’m sorry Ezra, she’s gone.”

Ezra’s shoulders sagged and he drew in a sharp intake of breath, crushing the wave of grief pouring unexpectedly at this girl’s passing. He wasn’t one accustomed to caring for others but he confessed having a soft spot for children. When he ran cons, he always made sure they were not the unexpected collateral damage from his schemes. This job had been little more than a distraction, something to occupy his time while he considered his next move. At no point, did it ever occur to him that he might care for these people.

Another explosion near them, startled both men and Ezra felt Nathan’s hand grip his uninjured shoulder once more.

“Ezra, we gotta go! We can’t stay here and there are other children needing help!”

Almost in response to that statement, Ezra looked up to see another child, one of his familiars from the decoy work, dropping to his knees, covering his head from the barrage of debris raining down from him when a cannon ball hit the ground perilously close to him. Appearing as if he were caught in a trap, the young boy crouched down, too afraid to move another step.

“Yes, yes,” Ezra nodded, raising his eyes to the healer and conveying in that brief second, he saw Nathan as someone worth knowing, someone good enough to ride with, someone repaid with kindness what he had given in arrogance.

“Come on,” Nathan prompted him to let go of the girl whose troubles were over. There would be time to mourn her and give her a proper burial, but right now there still many others who needed help.

Rain didn’t understand what was happening.

One minute she was walking hand in hand with Nathan, enjoying a stroll in this faux night, and the next thing she knew, all hell was breaking loose around them. Like everyone else in the village, Rain was somewhat astounded by the ferociousness of this sneak attack, although for her, the realisation was compounded with the knowledge this was not meant to be happening.

Rain had studied the program just like Alex Styles and knew that the Seven would encounter Anderson again during this scenario, but it was meant to happen the next day, not during the celebration tonight. After Nathan was forced to go help Ezra, she’d lost track of him and as she stood there in the middle of the village square, watching huts turn to rubble and trying to avoid the gunfire from above, she searched the crowd for Alex.

Suddenly, she caught sight of Tennessee Esteban, who played her father in this scenario. The old man was sweet with his overprotectiveness and Rain could not deny even though he was a holographic character, he had just enough eccentricity to appeal to her own quirky sensibilities. When she saw him trying to push his beloved piano out of the way, the one he played all night entertaining the village, her heart clenched in his chest. It was too large a target to be avoided and she started running towards him.

“FORGET THE PIA.....”

Rain never finished the sentence because Tennessee and his piano disappeared in an ear spliting blast that obliterated them both.

“NO!”

Rain dropped to her knees in dismay, telling herself she shouldn’t feel devastated by the loss of a holographic projection but she did. Forced to play the scenario all day, she’d listened to his kind words and his gruff voice, treating her like his child. Rain who lost her parents long ago had responded to him more than she liked and seeing him dead, enraged her.

“Rain!”

Rain looked up and saw Buck Wilmington standing over her. Without giving her chance to speak, he was helping her to her feet, glancing at the wreckage at what was left of Tennesee and his instrument. The First Officer or rather the rogue in this program was giving her a look of sympathy and understanding but there was also urgency.

An odd sensation overcame Buck Wilmington the instant the shelling had started and everything turned to pandemonium.

His first impulse was to seek out Chris but the gunslinger was nowhere in sight. This hardly surprised Buck. After JD’s caustic words to Chris when the man had tried to offer some advice, Buck had no doubt Chris was somewhere getting drunk alone, which was just as well because the son of a bitch could be mean when the mood took him.

With Chris missing and Seminoles being blasted into the Stone Age, he knew he had to do something. His instincts to take charge of the situation felt wholly alien to him but he knew it must be done and thinking on it a little longer he realised he was the only one who could. Sighting Rain, he remembered how well the ladies of the village had remained hidden from them and realised that skill might be needed again.

“Have you seen Nathan?”

Buck had not but he was certain the healer could take care of himself. Right now, Buck’s concern lay with the villagers who were frightened and panicked, running headlong into mortar and gunfire in their desperation to escape.

“Darlin, you can’t help him now but you can help the others,” he said kindly, flinching a little at the sound of another blast. “You gotta get the women and children back to that cave you were hiding in.”

“We’ll never get past that gunfire!” Rain’s gaze moved to the line of shooters, aiming their rifles into the canyon. Having the high ground gave the Confederates an extremely advantageous location to rain down retribution on the Seminoles for their act of defiance.

“You let us worry about that! You gotta get them out of here now!”

Rain nodded and like Alexandra Styles was too conditioned to ignore an order from Buck Wilmington. Whatever he may be in this scenario, to her, he was the First Officer of the Maverick and if he gave her an order (which in this case was a pretty good one), she would obey it.

“Alright,” she nodded. “What are you going to do?”

Buck looked around and sought out his comrades. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out!”

She nodded and left him behind, grateful to be sent on this mission because it meant she could find Alex and determined what had gone wrong. So far, the enemy had played the storyline set out in the program. What had happened to suddenly change the script? Why were they distorting the narrative now?

It didn’t matter, the fact was the enemy had upped the stakes and there was nothing to be done but to figure out what came next.

When Julia made her extraordinary statement, Mary thought she was joking.

Darting back the waif staring at her, full of helpless need, Mary could not imagine the being in front of her as anything but a child. Yet even as her first impulse to dismiss the Chief Engineer’s speculation was preposterous, the weight of Julia’s words began to sink into her consciousness, spreading its truth across the mire of her disbelief. Without even realising she was doing it, Mary started replaying all the words uttered by the little girl since they encountered her a short time ago. From her plea of help to the startling claims she was the guiding force behind this craft, everything she said now took on a different light.

Seeing it from that different perspective, however, made Mary understand better what the child had been trying to tell her.

The remaining members of the Away Team were harder to convince. While Opa appeared shellshocked, trying to wrap her mind around the statement, Kate was less restrained.

“That’s insane. How can that..that..kid be a computer?”

Like the rest of the Away Team, the security officer saw a little girl, albeit an alien one but her speech patterns and behaviour was plainly that of a child. As she thought that however, Kate remembered the Chief’s words about never taking anything at face value. Ezra Standish always stated if the situation was suspicious, the best way to unravel it was to figure out the angle. Right now, Kate was wracking her brain, trying to disseminate all the reasons this alien would have to appear to them as a child.

And none of it was good.

So when Julia approached the ‘child’, Kate’s first reaction was one of caution. After all, if Julia was right and this was indeed a sophisticated mainframe interface, then it might not be as benign as it was attempting to appear.

“Lieutenant,” Kate spoke up. “Maybe you two should step away from it.”

“It’s alright,” Mary tossed her a quick look to stand by. Child or machine, the child was the key to figuring out this whole mess. “I’m sure she doesn’t mean us any harm.”

“I agree,” Julia said, dropping to her knees so she could meet the ‘child’ at eye level. Now that she knew what they were dealing with, she knew how to proceed. “Besides, it spoke of something bad happening. Whatever that might have been, it could be responsible for damaging the mainframe enough so this was the best representation of its AI persona it could manage.”

Just like she had done when she first came on board the Maverick and was an action only Ezra knew, Julia introduced herself.

“Hi there honey, what’s your name?”

“My name?” The girl’s dark eyes widened and stared at Julia for a moment, bewildered by the question. Julia could imagine her processors kicking into gear, searching the banks for an answer.

“Lisi!” The child burst out after a moment, a smile of genuine pleasure on her face. “I remember! I used to be called Lisi.”

Life Support Interface? Julia speculated silently and supposed the acronym would suit for their purposes.

“Hi Lisi,” Julia said kindly. “My name is Julia.”

Mary marvelled at the pleasure appearing on the girl’s face at Julia’s greeting and wondered if the machine intelligence did indeed feel the emotion. Then again, when Chris and the Away Team returned from Fury 361, they brought with them the remains of a 21st-century android named Bishop. Alex in particular, had grown rather fond of the construct and instilled its computer core into a holographic matrix and given it autonomous control of its program.

Bishop, as he was known, was a regular fixture on the holodeck until his transfer to the Daystrom Institute after the Maverick’s run-in with the Vrihan. During the few times Mary interacted with Bishop, she found it very difficult to imagine she wasn’t talking to a flesh and blood person. Both Alex and Chris had become very fond of the android and it, in turn, returned their affection. Enough so that Bishop actually displayed sadness when it was time for him to be relocated to the Institute. Mary recalled Chris refusing to agree to it until Bishop consented and the Captain was assured the transfer would bring one step closer to Bishop getting his own body and an existence beyond the holodeck.

Julia always reacted well to a smile, and she decided whoever programmed this AI was a certifiable genius. She wondered if they were still on this station.

“Lisi, can you tell me what the something bad that happened was?”

Lisi nodded, and her expression became serious as she searched what Julia assumed were her damaged memory banks. Something catastrophic must have taken place for this level of damage to be inflicted on the main computer. Judging by what Lisi had revealed thus revealed to them, Julia guessed the entire station was fully automated and somewhere on board this craft, were aliens with no idea how much peril they were in because of it.

“It was...it was...an ion storm!”

Lisi stuttered out the response, punctuating the last three word like the gasp from an escaping breath.

Except for Julia, every member of the Away Team winced, perfectly aware of how damaging an ion storm could be if one were lost in it, unprepared for the worst.

“Ouch,” Kate made a face. When she was serving on the Lexington, they had been caught in such a phenomenon and nearly stranded for a whole day before they could reinitialise their systems.

“Agreed,” Mary concurred. Chris usually navigated around such storms and when he did, issued orders to keep the ship running on minimal operation to avoid any overloads that might damage the ship’s systems.

“An ion storm could have fried the main computer,” Julia looked over her shoulder at them. “Enough so, the memory banks were fragmented. By the sounds of it, the computer was able to maintain primary functions, because there are tons of auxiliary systems in place to keep those from deactivating, especially if it's responsible for maintaining life support.”

“But anything pertaining to historical data may have been compromised or deactivated because it isn’t considered an essential system,” Mary added.

“Exactly,” Julia nodded. “The system might have sacrificed certain areas of its memory banks to maintain the primary duty of keeping the station running.”

“You mean if we could somehow help it to repair its damaged systems, we might end all this?” Opa was unable to believe all their troubles could be solved by repairing what was mainly a memory glitch.

“No,” Mary shook her head, aware there was more to it than just a problem with the station’s computer. “It doesn’t explain how these aliens are capable of controlling the Captain and the Senior staff or why they might be doing it. Addressing Lisi again, Mary needed more information to determine this. “Lisi, what about the people on board, the ones you have to take care of, where are they?”

“They’re sleeping,” Lisi answered, “they’re supposed to sleep until...” her voice faltered as her expression melted into dismay at her inability to remember. “I can’t remember!”

“It’s okay,” Mary touched her shoulder gently. “Can you show us where they are?”

The girl’s eyes brightened up, “I can show you, but you have to hurry.”

Lisi’s expression darkened, and Kate knew a warning when she heard one. True to form, the security officer reacted immediately to that statement. “Why?”

“Because someone on your ship has made them angry.”

“Angry, how?” Mary exclaimed, realising that someone had to be Alex.

“She’s interfering with the war.”

“The war?” Kate exclaimed, wondering if this situation could spit out any more surprises. “What war?”

“It’s the only thing we remember. The war. The fighting. Everything else is gone.”

“Oh God,” Julia groaned, quickly grasping the extent of the problem. “Mary, if the historical data banks were damaged. The only information that might have survived the storm could be a war.”

“I don’t understand,” Kate looked at Mary. “They’re using the Captain and the Senior Officers to fight a war? How?”

“I think I know,” Mary stood, the pieces finally falling into place, giving her a hypothesis that would make any science officer proud. Still, like Alex, who seldom proceeded without empirical data, Mary needed to be sure. Only then, could they have any hope of saving Chris and the bridge crew. “Lisi, take us to the others now.”

“Yeah,” Julia agreed, “before whatever Alex has done gets them killed.”

Pinned behind a large rock formation near the canyon wall, Vin and Alex remained trapped, unable to leave their hiding place because Anderson was not only raining down cannon fire on the Seminole village but a deadly barrage on gunfire on anyone not caught in the shelling. Somehow, despite their sentries and lookouts, Andersen had found a way up the canyon and captured the high ground, making it exceedingly easy to obliterate the Seminoles from above and kill anyone else who might try to stop him.

Even though Chris could not remove himself to see what was happening down in the village, the cries following the explosions of cannonball fire offered a chilling insight into what was happening. The community wasn’t terribly big and was almost entirely enclosed by walls. It was too small an area to withstand the bombardment for very long. Taking refuge behind this balanced rock was all Chris, Vin and Alex could do to keep themselves from being cut down when the gunfire started, and yet Chris knew they had to get to Buck and the others. They didn’t stand a chance otherwise.

Alex couldn’t be sure if Anderson had spotted Chris from his lofty perch, but by the way he was directing the Confederates’ guns in their direction, Alex suspected Anderson had given the order to kill the black-garbed gunslinger at all costs. It was a smart play, the science officer thought. With the rest of the seven in the mindset they were presently in, killing Chris would severely cripple their defences, not to mention their morale.

No, that was not an option. Whatever the situation, there was no way in hell Alex was permitting a holographic Confederate to kill her Captain.

Around them, the roar of gunfire and bursting artillery shells was deafening. Bullets were bouncing off the rock in the effort to reach them, sending dust and sharp bits of stone flying through the air because of the ricochet. If they remained trapped like this for long, sooner or later, the Confederates would sneak down here for a face to face confrontation, and they’d be overwhelmed by numbers. Gripped by that realisation, Alex decided this was no longer about playing a part. She was the Science Officer of the Maverick, and her Captain was in danger.

“Chris, I need you to trust me.”

Chris, who was in the process of reloading, continuing to fire even though his bullets were doing nothing to help their situation, paused and looked up at her. Even Vin who was on the other side of the boulder, firing into the canyon top with his mare’s leg, stopped and looked at her. Something in her voice compelled them to pay attention.

“What you got in mind?”

“Something you’re going to have trouble believing, but I need you to trust me.”

Chris let out an exasperated groan. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means exactly that! I need you to trust me!” Alex knew what she had done by revealing her relationship to Vin had prompted the aliens' into escalating their attacks. What she was about to do now would make that one transgression seem slight in comparison. Unfortunately, Alex had no choice. There was a real chance they could all die right now, so she had to take the gamble the aliens’ game was more important than her attempts to thwart it.

Alex reached into the pocket of her vest. When she removed her hand, she was clutching the combadge she had been carrying throughout this insanity. She hadn’t intended to use it or to make the Captain or the Senior Staff aware of it, not after how the aliens had reacted to her attempt to fill Buck in, but it was too late now. This was about survival.

“What is that?” Vin’s eyes widened, staring at the gold trinket in her palm.

While Alex continued to maintain her silence on the subject, Chris Larabee was mesmerized by it. It was polished gold, shaped into a triangle resting on a circle. The configuration made no sense to him and yet he couldn’t turn away because there was something about that symbol, touching him on a level he couldn’t understand. His mind told him it was an unknown to him, but his heart knew it, Chris was certain.

Alex didn’t answer Vin, choosing to tap the badge lightly, producing a light chirp that was all but swallowed up in the roar gunfire. “Commander Styles to bridge! Charlotte, come in!”

Both men gaped at her as if she had lost her mind because to them, she was talking to herself in the middle of a gunfight. They probably thought she was delusional until Charlotte Richmond, acting science officer, chose to respond...

“Commander, what’s going on? Is that gunfire?”

“Jesus Christ,” Chris fell back against the boulder looking around for the source of that disembodied voice and knew, without doubt, it was coming out of thin air.

“Nevermind that!” Alex barked abruptly at Charlotte. “Put me through to Chanu right now!”

Vin was trying to get over the fact he could hear the voices too and wondered if her madness was infectious. Her words didn’t make sense even if he understood the language. Suddenly, the chaos around them receded into the background, with everything taking place on in front of him and Chris was capturing their undivided attention.

“Yes Sir,” Charlotte replied promptly. “Standby!”

“Who the hell is talking? For that matter, how are they talking?” Chris grabbed her arm, completely overwhelmed and reacting in the only way he knew how - by violence.

“I don’t have time to explain!” Alex wrenched free, not having the patience with his outrage right now, not when she was trying to find them a way to escape and join the others. She already had enough reservations about what she was doing without having to explain herself.

“Commander Styles, Chanu here! What’s going on?”

Relieved at the sound of the Assistant Chief Engineer’s voice, Alex didn’t mince words. “Chanu, listen to me, I need you to tap into the controls of Holodeck 1. Do not under any circumstances shut down the program but I need you to alter the environmental conditions. Give me stratocumulus with a density comparable to an event in London, circa 1952 in the middle of the 20th century. The records should be on the main computer.”

“Are you sure? Can’t I just erase the characters?”

“No! “You do that, and there’s no telling what these aliens will do. Just follow my orders and hurry! We’re getting cut to pieces down here!”

“Are you able to leave?” Chanu asked even as his hands were working fast to comply with her order.

“I can leave, but the last time I tried to get Buck out, he slipped into a coma,” Alex replied and then met Chris and Vin’s astonished eyes respectively. “I can’t take that risk with the Captain and the others. Besides, I think I’ve pissed the aliens off enough already!”

“Understood,” Chanu needed no further explanation than that. “Standby Commander. Effects should be visible in less than thirty seconds.”

“Good! Styles out.”

When Alex faced the two men in front of her again, the assault of gunfire and cannon balls were temporarily forgotten as they stared at her, both wearing expressions of understandable confusion, as well as suspicion. She tried to imagine what was running through their minds, especially with their 19th-century sensibilities and knew of no explanation that would make any sense to them. Aliens, mind control, holodecks? These were constructs so far beyond their time, it would almost seem like witchcraft.

“Chris, I can try to explain it to you, but nothing I tell you will make sense. I’m asking you both to trust me. I’m trying to save us.”

The wedding ring he had seen, the one with his name and the fact she knew he could not read, told Vin Tanner, that something very strange was going on, but she was not a threat to them. He could feel it with an instinct he could not ignore because when she said she was his wife, he believed it.

Chris was wrestling with similar uncertainty. He had not missed hearing the unseen Charlotte calling her Commander nor what she said about trying to get Buck out of here. The fear in her voice regarding her oldest friend was no act. While he was utterly bewildered about what was happening right now, of that much, he was sure. For a few seconds, he did not speak even though he knew he should. The gunfire was intensifying, with a bullet striking alarmingly close to where Alex was standing causing her to jump. She almost collided with Vin and dropped the odd piece of jewellery into the dirt.

“Pard, we got nothing to lose. We’re dead anyway if we don’t get out of here.” Like Chris, Vin had a multitude of questions, but right now was not the time to discuss it. They needed to get moving.

Instead of answering, Chris bent over and picked up the object on the ground and stared at it. That strange symbol had him trapped, like a moth who had discovered the flame. It meant something. Everything in his gut told him that he ought to know, but there was a wall in his mind, between him and the answer. Raising his steel coloured eyes to her, he asked the question that was on the tip of his tongue the instant he heard her mention it to the woman neither he nor Vin could see.

“Am I the Captain?”

Alex saw the struggle etched on his face, the barrier he was trying to breach but could not because the aliens’ influence was simply too strong. Drawing in a deep breath, she saw no reason to lie, because she was confident the aliens would not let him remember even if she gave him his answer.

“Yes,” she nodded. “You’re Captain Chris Larabee, Vin is one of your officers, just like I am. Something happened to all of you, and I’ve been in here trying to figure out how to help. For reasons I can’t explain, the people doing this to you want you to fight it out with Anderson and his men, but because I told you the truth, they’re taking it out on us by this attack. He wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow. I was hoping this would be over by then, but they’ve changed the rules of the game, and I don’t know what’s coming next.”

Her answer created fresh riddles but her fears for him and Vin was real, and Chris pushed everything aside because right now, they needed to deal with the here and now. At this moment, he knew who he was, Chris Larabee, gunslinger, widowed husband and grieving father, responsible for protecting a village of innocent people with six other men. When the fighting was done, he’d turn his mind to her story and who he was meant to be.

“Alright, we’ll talk about this later,” he took a deep breath and saw the relief appearing on her face, not just hers but also on Vin. “What did you just tell this Chanu fella to do?

Alex was about to answer, but Vin cut her off.

“Look!”

A minute ago, the clear night sky had given the enemy above the perfect advantage to take them and the village apart with bullets and cannon fire. Now the stars had disappeared behind a blanket of cloud so thick, it was as if heaven itself was starting to smoulder. The heat seemed to bleed out of the New Mexico night, and it was cold with the air feeling thick and heavy in their lungs. All three of them watched the swirling mists descend, enveloping the canyon with its dull, grey mist.

Above them, the sudden appearance of the thick cloud had disrupted the shelling and gunfire as the men above lost their advantage on their targets below.

“This?” Chris stared at her in wonder, “this was what you asked Chanu to do?”

“Yes but I don’t know how long it's going to last so if we’re going to get out of here. It’s now or never.”

“Can’t argue with her there,” Vin said, maintaining his unflappable persona, not about to question this miracle, at least not yet. He had enough to fill a train, but right now, the opening provided by this sudden fog was not to be wasted.

“Guess not,” Chris agreed and in typical fashion, took the lead. The fact this woman was able to call down a fog was already overloading his senses, he did not want to know what else she could do to aid their situation.

In any case, they had a way out, and he was taking it.

Buck didn’t believe in miracles but when the fog descended upon the village, coming seemingly from nowhere after enjoying a cloudless night, he was almost ready to believe.

Anderson was continuing his shelling but this time his aim was blind, giving the village a little breathing room to get clear of the fire. As it stood, the village was being pulverised into submission, with most of the larger structures already reduced to rubble. That wasn’t counting the injuries and deaths on top of the damage. As the remnants of Tenessee’s piano disappeared into the mist, Buck knew the old man who played the keys so deftly was also gone.

Around him, the thunderous bursts of exploding artillery, coupled with the familiar stench of gunpowder and the screaming, transported him to a memory he had tried hard to forget. Closing his eyes momentarily, he tried to force away the chill making his skin crawl, as if he were back there on that battlefield, splattered with mud from the ruined landscape, bombarded by cannon fire.

And just like it was then, he shoved his terror into some forgotten place because the need to forge ahead despite the overwhelming situation demanded it. People were gripped with panic and fear, not a good combination in Buck’s opinion. Despite feeling overwhelmed by their present circumstances, Buck’s mind forced past his own anxieties, enough to act. There were plenty of wounded thanks to that bastard’s callous disregard for the women and children, not to mention the men who had bravely tried to fight the barrage of gunfire raining down on them from the top of the canyon. Those who were still standing needed direction.

Buck hollered on top of his lungs. “Everyone into the caves and the woods right now....!”

His words were halted when his boot struck something soft and froze him immediately in his tracks. Following the sensation was a low rumble Buck recognised as a groan of pain. Looking down, he saw a shape that had him dropping hastily to his knees when Buck realised it was Josiah. The preacher had been hit in the battle earlier in the day but not even serious injury would keep him from helping others during this evacuation. Buck caught him by the arm and hauled him gently to his feet, no mean feat considering Josiah’s formidable bulk.

“Come on Preacher,” Buck said as he got to Josiah upright. “No rest for the weary.”

“What about the wicked?” Josiah drawled before coughing, an action which made his chest ache with pain.

“They can come to see me when this is all over.” The rogue returned promptly and shepherded Josiah to the safety of the rocks.

He had no idea how long this fog had come or what agency had allowed it to appear in the first place but he was certain the way their luck was going, it wasn’t going to last long. They needed to use it to their advantage while they still could. Finding his way across the village while lending support to Josiah, Buck sought out the others, thinking they had to regroup to decide what came next. With any luck, they’d run into Chris who would have a plan all thought out by now. Chris was good for plans, always had been, just like it was during the war when they first ran into each other.

“Josiah! Are you okay?”

Nathan Jackson’s voice penetrated the fog before his actual person and emerging through the mists to quickly flank Josiah. The healer appeared along with Ezra Standish whose expression was unreadable.

“I’m alright,” Josiah assured Nathan. “Just feeling my mortality a little more than usual.”

“Well quit it,” Nathan grumbled, his concern about the preacher’s condition mounting. Only he and Josiah knew the strength of the bonds between them and no matter what, Nathan could never let any harm come to this gentle giant who saved him more than anyone could be saved in any life. “Leave your mortality be until I can take a look at what stitches you managed to rip out.”

“They’re pounding us into dust!” Buck grumbled, “we’ve got to get these people out of here before we can figure out how to stop those varmints.”

“How we stop these scum,” Ezra said through gritted teeth, “is to hunt them and put them down like the rabid animals they are, with extreme prejudice.”

The words were spoken with such venom Buck did a double take and stared at the gambler with some shock. Granted Buck had only just met Ezra, but the brief association had given Buck the impression Ezra was not a man prone to violence, even if he could rise to the occasion and defend himself when required. Right now, there was nothing in his face that displayed his normally wry, affable charm. Instead, Ezra was wearing a storm cloud on his face that would have given Chris’s drunken rages a run for its money.

Buck’s gaze touched Nathan briefly, who simply shook his head to tell Buck this was not the place for that discussion. Nathan knew why Ezra was so enraged and he couldn’t say he blamed the man. Over the last two days, Nathan had seen how fond Ezra had become of the children, or his little helpers, as the gambler liked to call them. Harm to any of them flew against Ezra’s well-hidden sense of chivalry and he simply would not stand for it.

“Okay one thing at a time,” Buck decided to leave the subject alone for the moment because a cannonball had struck a section of the canyon wall and the resulting explosion brought down tonnes of rock down on one of the huts, obliterating on impact. “Let’s get someplace where we won’t get our head blown off to discuss it!”

Fragments of gravel and dirt pelted them after their ears stopped ringing from another blast. The scream that followed became a wail of despair and it was one that could only come from someone dying. In front of them, the ground was revealing the craters from each blast and the destruction that was caused because of it. It revealed itself to them in the debris of a village being blasted into oblivion and the broken bodies at the same time.

“BUCK!”

Relief flooded the big man when he saw Chris Larabee, Vin Tanner and Alex Styles appear through the smoke and fog, closing the narrow distance between them.

“Chris! Where the hell have you been?” Buck demanded, before thinking what was it he thought Chris could do to stop any of this when it was clear Anderson was plain loco. “That son of a bitch plans on burying this entire valley. We got everyone heading for the caves and woods but that ain’t gonna keep them Rebs from hunting them down!”

“I know!” Chris barked not needing to reminded of this fact. “We got to deal with that damn gun of theirs.” The gunslinger’s eyes lifted up as if he could see through the fog to the weapon delivering such punishing abuse upon them and the Seminoles.

“We gotta get up there,” Vin stated. “Somehow.”

“We ain’t never gonna make it up any trail before that cannon blows us to kingdom come!” Nathan pointed out.

“Is there any other way up there?” Chris asked out loud, just as JD and Imala, the Chief’s son reached them.

“BUCK! CHRIS!” JD’s voice reached them through the sound of artillery and gunfire.

The kid was pressed against a fissure in the wall just big enough for a few bodies to take refuge but not enough for the cannons to penetrate. Like the rest of the seven, their newest member and the Seminole warrior were covered in dust and enough blood to reveal they had been helping the wounded get to safety. As they ran towards him, Buck saw JD was shaken, undoubtedly unprepared for the effect reality was having on his dreams of gunfighters and the West.

Standing beside him was Imala, the chief’s son. His earlier hostility at their presence was somewhat abated after their defence of the village. The Seminole warrior bristled with anger at the violence inflicted on his people and was eager to reach the enemy responsible, even if it meant tolerating the assistance of these outsiders in his home.

“We managed to get most of the women and children to the caves,” JD explained breathlessly when they reached him.

“It will mean nothing if we cannot stop that cannon,” Imala stated the obvious.

“No argument there,” Chris returned. “Do you know another way up the canyon? We can’t take the trail, we’ll get cut down before we get even halfway.”

Imala’s expression became thoughtful for a moment before his eyes lit up. “We can climb.”

“Climb?” Alex looked up instinctively, not relishing the climb even though her tactical training at Starfleet Security made rock climbing a requirement. “All the way up there?”

“It’s okay Alex, you can stay here,” Vin said quickly, not liking the idea of her making the attempt, especially after what she revealed about their relationship.

“Like hell I will,” Alex bit back, not about to entertain that idea in any shape or form. “I’m going with you. You need all the help you can get. Even if we reach the top, they still outnumber us five to one!”

“Darlin...” Vin started to say.

“Vin don’t even start,” she shot him a look. “I’m GOING.”

Well, Chris Larabee thought silently, at least this proved one thing.

They were definitely married.

The fog remained in place for most of their journey along the canyon wall. Despite all entreaties to the contrary, Josiah insisted on joining them as they scaled its formidable height, with Imala leading the way. The preacher was determined to keep up with them and Alex was grateful the terrain was a steep incline as opposed to a sheer cliff face. While still nothing to take lightly, it would be less strain on the wounded counsellor, who probably thought this was fitting penance for whatever demons his preacher persona was out running.

Meanwhile, Alex noticed the gambler’s presence in their company and wondered why he was still there. If Alex remembered the outline she studied before entering the simulation, Ezra’s conman/gambler character had run on the group during the surprise attack by Anderson. True, the Colonel was a few hours early but she didn’t think it would make much difference until she saw the expression on his face.

Alex had only ever remembered seeing Ezra wearing his emotions so close to the surface and that was a split second before he put a bullet into the brain of one Silas Poplar. When the Q entity transported them into a real-life version of the Magnificent Seven program, pitting them against all the Seven’s adversaries, Poplar had murdered Julia Pemberton. Alex never forgot how Ezra looked when they found the redhead’s body, bloodied and broken because Julia had put up a fight.

Now she saw that dark gleam in his sea-green eyes and wondered what on Earth could have provoked such fury in the man because when Ezra was like this, he was damned dangerous.

“Josiah, what’s wrong with Ezra?” Alex whispered over her shoulder at the Counsellor who was next along the chain of climbers after. Thanks to Ezra being further ahead of her, she could ask her questions discreetly without his notice.

It was Nathan who answered. Nathan was last in line, insisting on taking up that position behind Josiah in case the older man faltered and needed to be helped back to ground level.

“One of the kids Ezra took a shine too, the little girl named Rosita, was killed in the cannon fire.”

“Oh no,” Alex winced remembering the sweet child who followed him around, staring at him with the adoration only a little girl could feel for a handsome, distinguished man like Ezra at that age.

Despite his claims he had no desire for a family, made Alex was certain because he was terrified of progressing his relationship with Julia to a state of marriage, every member of the Senior Staff knew how Ezra felt about children. The rumour he’d once called through a conduit to retrieve a hamster for one of the crew’s children wasn’t a lie, he had actually done that. Whenever the Maverick came under fire, Ezra’s primary concern was the safety of the children and he was personally affronted by any invader who targeted civilians.

More recently, during the incident with the rogue changeling who murdered Chris Larabee’s wife and child, an attack while they were investigating the wreckage, caused Alex to miscarriage hers and Vin’s first pregnancy. While Alex did not blame him in the slightest for it, Ezra felt responsible for it and she could only imagine what he was feeling right now. Whether it was masked in the persona of the gambler, Ezra’s need to protect the young was just as strong as ever and the loss of even one, made him react in the extreme.

“Every man has a soft place in the heart for something” Josiah rumbled, empathising with the gambler pleasantly surprised to see the man was more than the facade of the cynical gambler who would sell them out at first opportunity. “Can’t say I blame him for wanting a little retribution for the murder of a child.”

“Me neither,” Nathan agreed “Any man who’d fire on women and children ain’t no better than a dog and ought to be put down like one.”

Alex couldn’t say she disagreed with the sentiment and as she looked up ahead, she saw they had reached the top of the canyon. The rest of the way was a gradual slope they could cross easily without the need for ropes. Patting the sidearm at her hip, she knew they were minutes away from another firefight and once again, wished she could use her phaser. However, phasers against holodeck simulations were pointless and she had no wish to set off the weapon in such close quarters. Despite how vast the place may appear, they were still inside a holodeck.

BANG!

The gunshot immediately made all of them look up to see Imala tumbling down the slope to come to a rest a few feet away from where Chris and Vin were standing. The two men had taken the lead, unaware that in real life, they were both expert mountain climbers. Like the rest of their party, Chris and Vin went for their guns even as Imala lay face up in the dirt. The stain of crimson spreading across his chest, revealing the presence of the single bullet that had taken his life.

Appearing over the top of the edge, no doubt having anticipated their opponent might be driven to this course, were Anderson’s men. The Captain who ordered the Confederates to open fire during their earlier confrontation was looking down at the seven, with more than a dozen guns aimed in their direction, ready to fire. With the advantage of higher ground, any attempt they made to fight would be an exercise in futility.

“Surrender,” the Captain spoke in his thick Irish accent. “Or die where you stand.”

While the holographic city around them looked vast, Lisi assured them it was only a few short meters to the nearest version of the station’s turbo lift. The Away Team moved through the urban sprawl, passing the tree-lined boulevards, streets, shops and offices, not to mention the holographic people going about their business oblivious to their presence. Mary saw a peaceful civilisation on par with some of the more advanced cities in the Alpha Quadrant. Its population appeared generally peaceful, although she told herself this could be an idealised version of their history. This simulation was probably one of the hardwired programs unaffected by the memory corruption preventing Lisi from functioning properly.

“Lisi,” Mary suddenly thought as they approached the lift. “Can you show us the war?”

“Why?” Kate inquired, wondering what purpose it would serve.

“Well if it the only memory file still operating, it might give us an idea of what’s going on in these people’s heads,” Julia answered before the Protocol Officer could, understanding the logic behind the request.

“Exactly,” Mary answered. “It might help us to better understand what’s going on with the Captain and the rest of the Senior Staff to know what is the nature of this war they’re fighting. Can you Lisi?” Mary faced the girl/AI again.

Lisi paused a moment wearing an expression of concentration Mary immediately translated as the computer attempting to call up the data. Closing her dark eyes, her thin lips pursed and Mary was reminded fondly of the face Billy made when he was asked to explain himself.

Without warning, the city around them disappeared like the channel of a viewer being changed. Static surrounded them briefly before the scene became one of complete contrast to what had come before. Instead of a metropolis, they were now standing in the middle of an alien landscape, one with a sky painted in shades of cerulean and emerald. Hanging in the sky above them was the faint line of twin moons, both ringed and further than that, was a white star, burning bright.

The landscape was an empty field, not that different from the habitat they had encountered when they first stepped into the station. It was a place of tall trees and wild plants, bursting with life and colour. The field upon which they stood was covered in knee-high grass and distantly, they could hear the chirping of alien birds.

The two armies appeared on either side of the field like two different waves about to crash against each other. They were of the same species that Lisi was appearing to them. Except one side had warpaint painted across their backs while the others were distinct by the clothes they were wearing. The expression on the faces of either side told the Away Team, the two armies were about to fight.

“Oh my God, how long have these people been under?” Julia exclaimed, staring at their weapons.

“Too long I would imagine,” Mary shook her head.

Their weapons were no more advanced than that carried by Roman legionnaires some two thousand years earlier. They carried weapons little more than spears and arrows, wielding shields and breastplates.

“Bronze age definitely,” Kate commented, her security training pinpointing that aspect of the armies accurately.

“So they’re probably fighting a war that happened thousands of years ago in their history.” Opa mused.

“Yeah,” Julia nodded. “Mary, do you notice they’re not speaking. No war cry, no cussing or anything. Not even to each other.”

Mary did notice and it fit with what she suspected.

“Yes, I did. Come on.”

After seeing this, the need to move on felt more urgent, not only for the sake of Chris and their crewmates but also for the people trapped in a hell they could not escape or for that matter were even aware of.

The lift doors slid open before they approached it and once again, the similarities to their own version on the Maverick told Mary, these people were not so dissimilar to themselves. Lisi said nothing which was what one expected from a machine, now they were able to see past the facade of the little girl. It was obvious the AI recognised the trouble its charges were facing but without help, it could not hope to repair the damage and restore them to the world.

The lift came to a stop a good minute after it began its journey, with Mary feeling as if they had travelled across the entire station to reach their destination. As she approached, however, she could feel the growing presence of alien minds around her. While they did not attempt to influence her, she knew it was her sensitivity to them without the powerful shields Vulcans and other true telepaths possessed, that made them consider her little threat.

The doors slid open and as usual, Kate stepped out first. She eyed her surroundings with caution, uncertain of what she was going to find, only certain she was not allowing either senior officers to face it first. What she saw when stepped into the vast chamber, left her stunned with horror.

“Oh my God....”

“What?” Julia asked and then stopped short at what she was seeing.

Mary knew it was going to be bad, she just didn’t know how much. When she stepped out, she realised she’d vastly underestimated the situation.

Before them, in gestation chambers connected by machinery and conduits, were babies.

Of all the things Alex never wanted to experience after spending six hellish months in a Cardassian rape camp, was being the only woman captured with a handful of men by holographic Confederate thugs.

When they were forced to surrender their guns, because the vantage point the enemy possessed would ensure they were cut to pieces if they attempted to fight, and taken prisoner, this annoying simulation had suddenly become something out of her worst nightmares. After the horror of her Cardassian experience, Alex swore she would rather die than be taken prisoner by any force that might inflict a repeat of that hell.

Now as she was forced to sit on the ground with the rest of the seven, noticing the leer of soldiers who were eyeing her with a look she knew all too well, Alex was poised for the moment when their lust evolved into action and she was forced to deal with it. Alex knew without any doubt whatsoever, the first person who laid one hand on her would die for their trouble, and she didn’t give a damn about the consequences that came after.

Because Alex was absolute on one thing. Never again. Not ever.

“I know they’re gonna kill us, but I ain’t happy about what they’re going to do to the village.”

She sat between Vin and Nathan and noted the tension in the healer’s jaw at that statement. Nathan’s eyes were following those grey uniforms, seeing nothing but creatures who would have little difficulty making all his people slaves again. These men had driven themselves mad in the wilderness trying to maintain that way of life, revealing their cruelty by the way they were dealing with their prisoners and the village. Rain immediately came to mind and what might happen to her after his death at the hands of these brutes twisted his stomach in knots.

Seeing his silent rage, Alex leaned over and whispered, wanting to calm him down because he was liable to react strongly to anyone treating him like a slave again.

“It’s going to be okay Nathan,” she assured him, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. “We’re going to get out of this. “

Noticing her talking to Nathan, one of the soldiers, a weasely looking private who wore a uniform two sizes too big for him, with watery eyes and hollow cheeks, approached her while Alex’s head was turned towards Nathan. She noticed the shadow he cast too late before she was hauled upright.

Vin almost jumped to his feet with similar ripples of outrage moving through the group. Buck was also fighting the urge to come to her defence as Alex found herself standing much too close to her liking to the man who dragged her up. His mouth split his face in an ugly leer and in his eyes, she saw nothing but an animal who would force himself upon a woman because he could get satisfaction no other way. This gleam, she saw not in Lemar’s eyes who raped because of power, this one was of lust and it made her skin crawl.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!” Vin growled, impotent in his fury at being able to do nothing because of the gun barrel in his face.

“Is she yours?” The private sneered, enjoying the reaction and then facing Alex again. “You’re a pretty little nigra ain’t you? Never seen one like you before, ain’t all darkie like him.” He gestured to Nathan. “Still, you’ll do.”

Whatever restraint kept Alex back crumbled with those three words.

Throwing her head forward, she slammed her skull against his hard and brought down her foot on his boot in quick succession. As he reeled in pain, her arms flew to his neck and spun him around before he could stop her. She didn’t need a weapon to deal with this scum and what she intended was an object lesson for the rest of them. Before anyone could react, because their attention had been focussed on the seven, Alex broke the man’s neck with a loud squelch of bone before he could utter a scream. She released him and he fell into the dirt, quite dead.

During her enhanced tactical training at Starfleet, she had learned how to apply the Tal-shaya technique though she never imagined she would ever have to use the Vulcan method of a merciful killing on this piece of garbage.

Immediately all guns flew in her direction but Alex was prepared for death if it came.

“You want to execute me, I got no problem with that,” she warned in a voice that was cold with menace. “Anyone else tries to lay one goddamn hand on me, they better shoot me or end up like this pig.”

The seven knew she was able to handle a gun by how well she fought during the earlier battle, but even they had not suspected how much she meant it when she said she could take care of herself. Vin had seen her fight earlier but even he was unprepared for how efficiently she killed that Reb. There wasn’t the slightest hesitation, just a coordinated attack that took everyone by surprise. He thought of her words to him and Chris earlier about them being soldiers and after this, had to wonder what kind they were. No soldier he ever saw knew how to fight like that.

“I’d listen to the lady if I were you,” Buck added, wearing a smug smile because he was glad to see she was able to defend herself without their help. “We’re gonna be out of your hair soon enough. Don’t need to get yourself killed just because you can’t wait to scratch your itches.”

It was sound advice. Their guns were aimed in the woman’s direction but they wrestled with the decision whether she ought to be killed for slaying one of their own. The Colonel had a plan on how these people were to be executed and would not take kindly to his orders being countermanded. Yet how could they let one of their own die unavenged?

“That’s enough!” Anderson emerged from his tent at that moment with his captain following to see what was transpiring. Very quickly, he assessed the situation and appeared mildly surprised by Alex’s presence but offered no comment on why these men were riding with a woman. “We’re executing these prisoners in accordance with the articles of war, not behaving like a bunch of savages. Put her back with the others.”

The Confederate named Darcy, with his grizzled features and Sargeant’s uniform, motioned Alex back into place and Alex returned to Vin’s side, grateful that the Colonel as delusional as he was, retained some semblance of military discipline left in his conduct, even if it wouldn’t be enough to save them or the village.

“You okay?” Vin asked quietly as soon as she was next to him again. Two of the company was clearing away the private's body and Vin couldn't help but feeling a little smug at that.

“I’m alright,” she nodded, not hiding the fact the encounter, even after what she had done to avoid it, left her shaken. “I’m just not going to let that happen to me again.”

“Again Miss Alex?” Nathan stared at her before he was revisited by an old memory that made him understand completely. “Nevermind, I get it.”

“One battle don’t win the war boys. Chain them up Sargeant Darcy! Make em nice and tight boys.” Anderson crowed with glee that was sickening.

As Darcy moved to put manacles around their wrists, Alex saw Nathan growing tense again and realised why. Suddenly, the horror she felt at the possibility of being raped again was reflected in Nathan’s face in a different kind of violation. As the steel manacles were clamped around his wrist, his body tensed like a serpent about to spring. In his Magnificent Seven persona, he was reliving a nightmare even worse than her own. Nathan Jackson the healer and former union stretcher bearer was born into slavery and shackles were a symbol of his bondage. To have them around his wrists again...

Alex couldn’t even begin to imagine what was running through his mind.

“Settle down Nathan,” Buck said gently, recognising the same fury in the healer’s eyes. “Don’t give them a reason to kill you before we figure a way out of this. “

“How likely is that?” Nathan demanded through clenched teeth.

“Very likely,” Alex decided, resolving to put an end to this program if it came down to it. She had been avoiding this course because she feared the effect on the minds of the seven but if there was an imminent threat to their lives, she would do what was necessary. The enemy hadn’t found her combadge because they were looking for weapons, so there was a chance for Alex to use it to contact Engineering.

The instant Chris Larabee felt the manacles around his wrists, he set to work.

Ignoring Anderson’s jibes as the Colonel launched into a diatribe about the Battle of Shiloh and the casualties of the day, Chris hid the grimace on his face as he began rubbing the skin of his wrists against the sharp edges of the iron manacles, exposing raw flesh one stroke at a time. Anderson noticed none of this, too wrapped up in his recollections about Shiloh to notice his counterpart making an attempt at escape.

Chris remembered the battle that took place over the course of two days with enormous losses on both sides. Grant and the Union emerged the victors with the Confederate line along the northern border of Mississippi smashed utterly, but too many men died in the process. As Anderson drifted off into that bloody past, Chris could see the southerner on the verge of a complete breakdown. When that happened, there was no telling how many he was willing to see die to fuel his delusion.

They had to break free before that happened. As Chris felt more pain, he held o to the hope that blood was slicker than water.

After spending most of her adult life in Starfleet, very few things had the power to shock Mary Travis.

The art of diplomacy required an iron constitution, particularly when dealing with alien races whose culture could be so offensive, it beggared belief. When Gul Lemar came on board the Maverick, Mary had been forced to swallow the outrage she felt at the Cardassian’s presence on the ship, even after being told what he had done to Alex. The demands of the situation had forced her to keep her personal feelings in check, to see the bigger picture even if the details made her stomach turn.

In some respects, being married to a Vulcan helped her to strengthen her mental fortitude and her patience, allowing her to approach most situations with a logical mind instead of succumbing to the emotion her species could sometimes be celebrated for. It took a great deal to shake her composure and those instances where they shattered like broken fragments of glass at her feet were rare, like now.

As a mother, what she saw rocked her to the core. The others simply gaped, unable to process what they were seeing. The closest Mary had come to seeing something similar was the way the Borg dealt with the infants they encountered. However, not even that memory prepared her for the sheer enormity of what she was seeing.

The pods filled the room as far as she could see. There were so many of them Julia needed a tricorder to scan the exact number. There were more than a hundred. Inside each capsule, filled with gelatinous pink fluid, was the infant version of the species they had seen in the holographic simulation of the city earlier. Conduits and tubes protruded out of various orifices in their bodies, no doubt for feeding or for waste removal. Pads not unlike electrodes were attached to the infants’ temples and for all the monstrous hardware, the children were lying in their pods, appearing oblivious to the world around them, strangely at peace.

Mary could feel their minds and realised the epicentre of the consciousness spreading its reach across space between this station and the Maverick, was here. It was coming from these babies.

As she wrapped her mind around this discovery, she could feel them still oblivious to her presence, or indifferent. Their focus was elsewhere which Mary guessed when Lisi had explained their sleep. Whatever species these children belonged to, they were natural telepaths, unformed and unaware of what they were doing. Driven by a fragmented piece of data they were never meant to absorb without context, their reality was shaped by whatever stimuli they could find. .

“Spread out,” Mary instructed, still a little shell shocked by their discovery but aware they needed to investigate further, now that they were at the heart of this whole affair. Remembering what Chris would do in this situation, she added, “but keep a visual of each other.”

“Yes Sir,” Kate nodded and gestured for Opa to stay close to Julia while she remained within several dozen feet of Mary.

Kate had no desire to countermand her orders but Kate knew the Chief’s standing orders when it came to the Senior Staff and Mary Travis in particular, even if she wasn’t about to tell the woman that. Mary wasn’t just the Protocol Officer of the Maverick, but the love of Chris Larabee’s life. His crew was aware of this and security knew even if he never voiced it, the Captain would want her safe at all costs.

The four women fanned out in different directions, never losing sight of each other as they investigated the menagerie of children. The infants were tiny like all newborns, unaware of the intruders, even with their sophisticated mental abilities. The pods came in clusters of seven, with a control station displaying the status of each between a dozen crystals protruding from its face. All the stations appeared to be blinking languidly with a green glow, which ad to be the universal axiom for ‘situation nominal’.

After ten minutes of investigation, where they determined there were indeed at least a hundred pods and each one of them occupied with precious cargo, the group returned to their starting point. While Julia had conducted a more scientific study, Mary’s own examinations revolved around the telepathic reach of these children. Lisi stayed close to her, answering her questions even though the AI’s damaged memory banks kept her from giving fully coherent answers.

“Okay, what have you found?”

“They’re a combination of sleeper pods and stasis chambers,” Julia explained. “From what I was able to determine, they regulate all body functions, provide sustenance and I believe may also be responsible for the neurological development of these infants.”

“Neurological?” Kate stared at her and then glanced at the pods, her keen senses focussing immediately on the pads attached to the infant’s temples. “For what purpose?”

“My guess,” Julia met Mary’s eyes to indicate this was just speculation and by no means proven, “it’s for education. While they’re in the pods, I think they’re supposed to be educated so by the time they reached their destination, they would be fully functioning adults. “

“Then why are they still babies?” Opa demanded, finding this whole thing rather profane. She wanted nothing more than to break the glass and save them. Children should be held with warm arms and plied with love, not left in this sterile, isolated hell.

“Lisi,” Mary looked down at her. “Why can’t you wake them up?”

“I can’t,” Lisi’s expression showed her dismay at this revelation. “They weren’t supposed to sleep so long but I can’t wake them up because their heads are empty.”

“Empty?” Opa stared at the AI, “I don’t understand.”

“I think I do,” Mary answered, all the pieces of this riddle falling into place and knew by Julia’s expression, the Chief Engineer understood it too. “It’s more than likely this is a colony ship. From what we’ve seen so far, this station was built to preserve the civilisation of this species from whatever caused them to leave their homeworld. I believe whoever this race was, they felt their children were their best hope of starting fresh. The children were placed in the sleeper pods, with the ship’s AI caring for them, as well as educating them on route.”

“However,” Julia took up the narration. “Something went wrong during the trip. As Lisi said, there was a disaster that damaged its memory banks. Conditions on board may have deteriorated below the threshold of what the computer deemed safe to continue normal operations. Instead, the AI kept them in complete stasis, halting their growth and development, leaving them as infants.”

“And since the war we saw was all that’s left of the educational matrix, that’s what they’ve been replaying over and over again.”

“Oh my God,” Kate exclaimed, unable to hide her shock.

“They’re a telepathic race,” Mary continued, sharing Kate’s horror, especially when they knew now how these children were affecting others. “They’ve got no context for the war, no understanding of why they have to fight. I believe the computer scanned the Maverick’s databanks when we approached, most likely finding the Magnificent Seven program which was running at the time, the perfect scenario to play out their war, using everyone in it as their avatars.”

“Then why is it helping us now?” Kate stared at Lisi who did not contradict anything Mary was saying.

“Because we were the first to come on board aren’t we, Lisi?”

Lisi looked at Mary and nodded. “I have to protect the Sleepers so I don’t let anyone come here, but when you did, I knew you could help them.”

“The AI must have determined that if we have the technological expertise to penetrate its defences, we might be able to understand their technology and repair its damaged systems.” Julia declared.

“Is that possible?” Kate swept her gaze across the vast chamber.

“I think so,” Julia replied. “I don’t think a sophisticated system like this would be without backups. Unfortunately, the level of damage sustained may have been so extensive, none of those contingencies were initialized and as a result, remained offline.”

A thought occurred to her then and Mary looked at the AI’s avatar in front of them. “Lisi, how long have they been like this?”

Lisi pursed her lips and once again that expression of concentration fell over her face. “176 revolutions of our native star.”

“Revolutions as in years?”Opa burst out, shocked at the thought that these babies were trapped like this for almost two hundred years.

“It’s possible,” Julia remarked, standing by one of the pods and giving it a deeper examination. “Judging by what Lisi has been saying, it's been her responsibility to ensure they remain functional at all cost. That core directive is probably what’s kept these children alive and allowed her to take extraordinary steps to protect them.”

Mary swept her gaze across the pods, trying to imagine what it must be like to have no memory of anything, beyond a war they probably didn’t even understand. All they had was the compulsion to fight because they were denied memories of love, friendship and touch because of the damage to the AI’s memory banks. The holographic scenario of the Magnificent Seven program on the Maverick must have seemed ideal, a world where the players had a story to act out, one involving two forces fighting each other, the way their war must have been fought on their homeworld so long ago.

With a surge of conviction, Mary knew what had to be done. It was the only thing that could be done.

“We have to shut this all off. We have to disconnect them and wake them up, damage or not. They know nothing else other than this war because they’ve had no other way to absorb data. We need to bring them into the real world so they can develop normally. Right now, the only reality they know is the simulation. We have to give them a chance to grow up.”

Well, this was just dandy.

Somewhere out there, the love of her life (well the present life anyway), was playing what amounted to a sophisticated version of cowboys and Indians, while she was sitting in this cave trying to figure out what to do about it. What she wanted to do was shut down this silly fantasy program once and for all, dismantling the holographic peril into nothingness so they would return to their right minds.

Except she couldn't.

The alien influence taking over their minds, (damned rude if you asked her), would keep their personas trapped in the program, to say nothing of what the aliens might do to their bodies. So now, she was here in this cave, cowering with the rest of the women from the Seminole village, painfully aware that the shooting and artillery fire had ceased with none of the men coming to tell them it was safe to emerge. The only conclusion one could draw from all this was the village had fallen, and the victors had no idea of their hiding place.

As Rain paced the floor of the darkened cave, ignoring the frightened chatter of the village's women, she considered her situation. Commander Styles had not checked in and that was concerning. The commander had a com badge, just like Rain and her silence did not bode well for the situation. At the very least, Alex would have apprised her of what was happening.

This would never happen in Middle Earth.

As it was, Rain's mood was growing steadily more frustrated because when Nathan wasn't in the guise of the healer, he was one of the sweetest men she knew. Harming anyone was something he just couldn't process. Hell, Nathan got twitchy when he had to shoo away flies! Now he was out there alone, thinking he was some knife-wielding lawman/healer and not one of the best medical minds in Starfleet. It was enough to take an utterly rotten day and make it a worse one.

At Buck Wilmington's behest, Rain followed Buck's orders and retreated with the women and children to the hills, or rather another corner of the Holodeck, to keep out of reach of the devastating bombardment threatening death with every explosion. Due to her conditioning to obey the First Officer of the ship, Rain had gone, even though when she arrived in the caves, she realised she had come into the Holodeck to help him and the rest of the Senior Staff, not hide away like some damsel in distress.

With her, were the other women, including Dyani, Toakhulga and Inola who had sprung the traps when the Confederates were attempting to ride out of the village. As brave as they had been during the battle, the ominous silence was playing havoc with their nerves, as they imagined what the quiet men for their men. Some were weeping because that question had already been answered by the dead they had to leave to reach this place.

Even though they were holodeck creations, Rain knew their grief was as real as any she might feel. Once again the loss of Tennessee Eban stung. The old runaway slave and pianist had thought himself her father and tried to protect her as best he could. He had died defending his beloved piano and Rain knew the instant this crisis was over, she was restoring his character. She wanted to hear him play his songs again.

But first, they had to get out of here.

Leaving the others in the main chamber, Rain headed towards the mouth of the cave intending to use the combadge without uncomfortable questions being asked when one of the women warned her not to leave. Her name was Knasgowa, and she was one of the village matrons, surrounded by a gaggle of children Rain knew were not her own.

"I won't go far," Rain assured her, appreciating the woman's concerns even if Rain was beginning to tire of this chauvinistic world where women were forced to sit quietly while the world collapsed around them because of male stupidity. She was starting to see why Commander Styles took such exception to it. However, she did take into consideration the danger and made sure she was far enough for privacy but not enough to put herself at risk.

"Chanu," Rain tapped her combadge. "Come in."

"Rain?" Chanu's reply was almost instantaneous. If she didn't know better, she'd swore he had been waiting for someone to respond. After all, someone had to be responsible for the mysterious fog allowing them to escape. She was certain it wasn’t apart of the program.

"Are you alright? Have you heard from Commander Styles."

"No," Rain frowned, unhappy by that fact. "'I think she's been taken prisoner by the Confederates."

"Great," Chanu's tone revealed everything he thought about this program. The Old West had not been kind to his people and replaying it was not something he wished to experience or had any patience with. "What do you need?"

"I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines," Rain said firmly. "By the looks of it, Alex and the rest of the men are in trouble, so we're going to have to get them out of it. I need you to produce some weapons for me."

"Weapons? What type?"

"Period specific. These people are hopelessly outgunned, we need to even the odds a little to mount a rescue."

"Okay," Chanu considered, "rifles and handguns then. You know how to use them?"

"Point and shoot," Rain rolled her eyes. "How hard could it be?"

Chanu started to get a headache.

Alex had to confess, in the long list of endings she could possibly face during her career, being obliterated by a cannon was not one of them. Staring down the barrel of the weapon, it would almost be laughable if the situation wasn't so dire. She knew the time to put this situation to a stop was dwindling. The Holodeck would obey her commands but if she intervened so overtly, what would be the consequences to the Captain and the others? Already, she'd provoked them into moving up Anderson's attack by revealing the truth to Vin and the Captain? What might they do if she interfered with this execution?

They were moved to the edge of the canyon after Anderson retreated to his tent, positioned directly in front of the barrel. The renegades had gathered to watch the execution, relishing their role as spectators in the carnage to come. Then as if things could not get any stranger, Anderson emerged again. This time, two of his soldiers, including the sergeant called Darcy, was dragging the Captain of the company towards them. The man was handled roughly, and his former subordinates were enjoying his demotion quite gleefully.

The man was shoved between her and Nathan, forcing Alex to push closer against Vin. The soldier appeared a little shocked, but the expression on his face as he watched Anderson was one of disappointment. Anderson looked similarly grieved, and Alex wondered what could have caused the break between the two men. As the dust settled and the schedule for the execution resumed, Alex found herself once more trying to decide if they were at the point of no return, where she would have to save them by employing a 'deus ex machina' trope to this scenario as she had done with the fog.

"What about it Johnny Reb?" Buck spoke using a voice that sounded like the slow crawl of molasses across the skin. "I bet you never thought your boss would go loco on you."

"I'll have you know," the captain spoke with dignity, defending his Colonel even now. "Colonel Anderson was one of the finest soldiers in any man's army. I owe my life to him."

"And soon your death," Vin drawled.

Alex bristled at such talk because she was being cornered and she knew it. Glancing at the Captain, hoping Chris Larabee had some plan. She noted he was grimacing. Then he spat on his wrist. Her eyes widened when she realised what he was doing and looked up to their jailors to see if anyone else had noticed. There was just enough blood and spittle on his skin to manage what he was attempting to do if given enough time. What he needed was a distraction. What could capture their attention? Inspiration struck her so loudly, she was surprised no one else heard it.

"HEY!" Alex shouted at the soldiers preparing the cannon for the grisly work ahead.

Immediately all eyes, including those of the seven, turned towards her in question.

Darlin! What are you doing?" Vin hissed.

"I have no idea," Alex muttered, not looking at Vin as she stood up. Newly minted Captain Darcy approached, cradling his gun in his hands. She noted his caution as he stopped a few feet away, probably remembering what she'd done to Private 'Weasel'.

"What you want?" He eyed her with desire as all the men did, but with wariness as well. "Colonel's passed your sentence unless you can think of a way for us to talk him out of it...?"

Alex's gut heaved in disgust but ignored the statement. "How about if I told you where the gold is."

Darcy's eyes sparkled at the possibility.

"You want gold?" Alex stared him down. "We know where it is."

Vin stared at her in shock, wondering if she had lost her mind. This was an extremely dangerous game she was playing, and yet he did nothing to refute her claims. Shifting his gaze to Chris, Vin suddenly realised what Chris was doing with his hands and understood Alex had seen it too. She was stalling for time. Uncertain whether he or to be relieved that she had a plan or worried for her at what would happen when the enemy discovered there was no gold, Vin did the only thing he could.

Shut up and let it play out.

"She's lying," one of the soldiers grunted sceptically at Darcy. "She's just trying to save her skin."

"Am I lying? Tell him, Ezra."

Ezra had been oddly silent since their capture. The man was still smarting over the death of little Rosita, and Alex knew when Ezra was quiet, he was at his most dangerous. Unfortunately, right now she needed the consummate gambler and con artist to continue with this charade. If anyone could sell this fiction, it was one Ezra P Standish.

"I'm afraid the lady is correct," Ezra stood up, managing to do it with grace despite his manacled hands. The gambler was all business as he dusted the dirt off his jacket. The persona of the smooth-talking conman fell over his feature so subtly, Alex couldn't help but admire how expertly it was done.

"Surely, you did not think we would be wasting our time with this village out of the goodness of our hearts, did you? We are here for the same reason your Colonel is, we are here for the gold."

"Are you now?" Darcy's scepticism was apparent. "Show us."

"Do I look like a charity?" Ezra's eyes hardened like flints. "You want the gold, release us immediately."

"Or maybe I put a bullet in her head," Darcy aimed his gun at Alex's skull.

Vin immediately stiffened, but Alex told him to stay calm for now. She stared down Darcy's barrel and lifted her chin to show she was not afraid to die.

"Go ahead," Ezra shrugged with such cold indifference, butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth. "I have no particular affection for any of these men or the lady."

"You bastard!" Alex snapped angrily, playing the role of a discarded lover if it captured everyone's attention for a few minutes. "You said you loved me! We were going to run off to Paris together!"

"My dear," Ezra tipped his hat in her direction. "You were a distraction, little more. Something to keep me warm during our stay in this hovel. I'm afraid you cannot take the word of a man in the grips of in flagrante delicto to speak truthfully."

"You pig!" she kicked at the dirt, sending a dust cloud into the air that made the Confederates burst into laughter while leaving the rest of the seven confused.

"Siddown," Darcy growled and waved her to sit with the barrel of his gun. Alex obeyed, still glaring at Ezra but secretly confident he could take it from here.

"Now, I reiterate my offer," Ezra replied. "Let me go, and I'll show you so much gold it will make all of you rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

Darcy's eyes glimmered, and Ezra knew with confidence, the way a shark could smell blood in the water, the man was hooked. Holding Ezra's gaze for a moment as he imagined how he would be rewarded by Anderson for getting them the gold their needed for the cause. Below them, they could hear the drumbeat of Anderson's victory as he carried out his plan to raise the Confederate flag over the Seminole village.

Ezra didn't see the flag.

What he saw was the little girl who was probably lying on the ground where she had fallen, her small body ruined because of the cannonball fired from the powerful weapon these men were worshipping like it was some dark god at their disposal. Little Rosita whose mother would have to bury her when this was all over, because one of his own kind, a Southerner, simply couldn't let go of the past. He thought of how he behaved to Nathan and felt ashamed.

This had to end, and it had to end now.

"Alright then," Darcy waited for him to speak. "Where's this gold?"

"Up in the hills where they hid the women and children," Ezra gestured to the rocks and saw Buck's jaw tightened because the big man didn't like him bringing them into this. Darcy's eyes moved in the direction he pointed, a gleam of something vile crossing his face then and suddenly, Ezra had an idea what was in store for the women of the village if he and his compatriots were executed. Wasting no time taking advantage of Darcy's distraction, Ezra reacted with lightning reflexes.

Effortlessly, the derringer slipped out of his sleeve into his palm the instant Ezra triggered the mechanism. The bullet blew out the back of the man's skull, and as it did so, Chris Larabee leapt to his feet, grabbing the nearest soldier whose attention was on Ezra. Locking one arm around the man’s neck, Chris liberated his gun with the other and immediately shot dead the Confederate about to move on the gambler. Another soldier prepared to fire but the one caught in Chris's grip had left his rifle and Vin went for it, shooting it even though his hands were manacled. The bullet put an end to any threat to Chris and Ezra promptly liberated Darcy's gun for himself.

Everything happened so fast, Alex could only watch impressed as the men left behind to guard them and oversee their execution were now either captured or dead. Relieved that her opening to Ezra had worked, Alex saw Chris unlocking the manacles around Vin's wrists first before moving to her.

"Nice distraction," he commented, the barest hint of a smile on his face.

"It's all I could think of," Alex shrugged, never comfortable with compliments and was just grateful no one was hurt.

She was about to ask him what came next when suddenly, the chirp of the combadge interrupted their conversation. Alex's eyes widened, and she immediately reached for her back pocket where she'd placed the device during their climb up the canyon.

"Styles here," Alex expected it to be Charlotte or Chanu.

"Alex! Thank God!" Mary Travis's voice filled the air, capturing Chris's attention immediately. That voice sounded familiar. Though for the life of him, he could not figure out why.

"Mary!" Alex exclaimed with relief. "Where are you?"

Casting a glance at Chris and the others, Alex quickly moved away from them, wishing to have this conversation in private. Chris felt compelled to listen, but Anderson still needed dealing with, so he let her go off on her own while he used the keys he'd taken from one of the dead soldiers to free the others. Yet, even as he watched Alex draw away, something about that voice tugged at him.

Alex found herself a quiet corner away from the others, taking note of Anderson and his men in the village below, spreading across it like cancer as the company's drummer continued to play to its captive audience. Flying high on a pole in the middle of the village, the Confederate colours swayed in the wind while Anderson, swigging something from a dark bottle, seemed exultant by the sight of it.

The son of a bitch was mad, Alex thought before Mary's words snapped her back to the present.

"We're still on board the alien ship, but we've found them. Alex, the aliens are children."

"What?" Alex's jaw dropped in astonishment, thinking she heard wrong. Children were responsible for all this? She almost refused to believe it. "Children?"

"I can't go into too much detail," Mary continued her report. "The children are telepathic. That's how they're controlling the Captain and the others. They've been trapped in stasis for centuries, with no memories except for a war their species fought centuries ago. Julia and I think the way to end this is to revive them."

Alex wasn't sure if that was such a good idea, but then again, she trusted Mary Travis's judgement. "What about if we terminate the program? I can order Chanu to do it from Engineering. Will that help?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," Mary answered, her tone firm enough for Alex to understand the danger without seeing the woman's face. "Their psychic powers are formidable, but they have the minds of infants. They're following the program because that's all they know how to do. Terminating it before we can revive them could be dangerous, not just to our people but them as well. Alex, they're infants. They've been left in gestation pods for centuries with no formative input except that program."

"Great," Alex muttered unhappily, realising they were going to have to play this scenario to its conclusion after all. She hoped shutting it down would keep them from having to fight Anderson and his men, but it appeared that had always been a slim hope. "Alright, I won't order the program shut down, but you need to resolve this and soon. We're almost reaching the end of the scenario, and God only knows what they have in mind once this story ends."

There was a slight pause, and Alex knew Mary was letting that knowledge sink in before the Protocol Officer responded. "Acknowledged. I'll tell Julia to get a move on."

"Good," Alex nodded, intending to return to the others, but Mary wasn't entirely done yet.

"How is Chris? Is he alright?"

Lifting her eyes to the Captain who at this moment was strapping his gun belt around his waist, she took a deep breath and felt profoundly grateful none of them were seriously hurt yet. "He's fine, they all are. You can tell Julia Ezra is okay too."

"Thank you Alex," Mary said gratefully. "Keep him safe, okay?"

"Always. Keep me informed of your progress, Styles out."

Sometimes, when Colonel Emmet Anderson was sitting by the campfire, thinking about home, there were moments of clarity where he questioned his cause.

A sane man would have returned home by now, would have accepted the decision at Gettysburg, no matter how unpalatable it might be. Except he had no home, not anymore. Before the end had come, Anderson returned to his family in Georgia to find the plantation where he and his wife raised two sons and a daughter burned to the ground. Manderley had been in his family for four generations, and yet it's loss was nowhere equal to learning his wife Ophelia and daughter Verity were dead.

From what remained of the nigras still on the property, they revealed Manderley had been sacked by Union soldiers and his wife and Verity, paid the worst price any woman could. Raped and then strangled, their bodies were left behind to be buried by the slaves out of respect to their absent master who was always fair and never cruel. With two sons already lost to the conflict, Anderson had lost everything to the Union.

Returning to his company, he intended to vent his rage on the enemy when the final blow was struck to what remained of his dwindling sanity. The Confederacy surrendered.

Anderson and the men who followed him refused to accept it. Living under the Union after everything he'd lost was unimaginable and that stubborn refusal had driven their existence in the wilderness, determined to bring back the Confederacy at all costs. It was why he was sitting astride his horse, watching the real flag of the nation rising into the air, the way it should be across the land. The gold in this village would make that a reality, it would give him the capital needed to raise a new army, to take back what was lost...

The sudden explosion of gunfire tore him abruptly out of that beautiful dream and Anderson blinked away his confusion to return to the dusty reality he and his men were fired upon. As the ringing diminished just long enough for more gunfire, he saw at least three of his men, including the company drummer, tumble into the dirt, the spread of crimson marking them for death.

"What the hell...?"

He raised his eyes to the top of the canyon where the men who defended the village were being held captive and saw no sign of them. However, the gunfire was not coming from above he quickly realized, but from the hills. Scanning the rocks and trees surrounding the village, he saw the figures taking cover using the natural terrain, to deliver their sneak attack. Long hair and even longer skirts caught his eye and the idea he and his men were being set upon by women, was more than he could stand.

"Get after those bitches!" He swore loudly, waving his horsemen at the direction of the small handful of women who had somehow manage to get their hands on some rifles and were attempting to ambush them.

Leaning against the large boulder that not only provided her with protection from returning gunfire but also a suitable surface to steady her rifle, Rain squeezed the trigger on the Winchester rifle and braced herself. She seldom got to use any guns when she was in the program with Nathan, mostly because her role in the scenario was always as a damsel in distress. Rain had to admire the kick produced by the weapon on firing. Accustomed to the smooth delivery of a phaser, she struggled to maintain her aim.

Scattered along the area, were the women of the village, themselves firing blindly at the enemy, uncertain whether they were hitting what they aimed for. However, a few lucky shots had landed and the enemy on horseback or on the ground, slumped into the dirt dead. Dyani and Toakhulga were surprisingly good shots. A young lady named Grace was taking to the rifle as if she had found her calling. The girl, no more than eighteen, was born free from a mother who had been a runaway slave and found a home among the Seminoles.

They had not asked where the weapons had come from, only considering themselves lucky that Rain was able to lead them to the cache secreted inside one of the smaller caves, so they could launch this attack. The objective was not to win but to give those who were still trapped under Anderson's boot the opening they needed to escape.

It was an effort the Chief did not waste, and as the gunfire erupted, Rain saw him barking orders at the women and children still trapped, to run, which they did.

A short cry made Rain flinch, and she saw one of the women, Melani, who had been anxious about handling a gun at all, drop the weapon in her hand to crumple behind the tree she was using for cover. . Rain couldn't tell if she was hit bad, but Melani didn't get up, and that did not bode well for her condition.

"Get back! Get back!" Rain warned when she saw the horses coming their way. Guns or not, they were no match for the cavalry coming at them. This distraction had freed a good many of the Seminoles and Rain hoped, provided an opening for Alex to extract herself from whatever situation was she was facing with the Captain and the Senior staff.

"What's going on down there?"

The gunfight below drew all the men and Alex to the edge of the canyon with puzzlement. After freeing themselves and restraining their would-be executors, they had retrieved their weapons and were preparing to descend into the village to deal with Colonel Anderson and his renegades. Alex was in better spirits, now that Mary's report about the aliens revealed an end in sight to this entire affair, though not before they could dispense with one final confrontation.

"Look," Vin gestured to the women spread out across the edge of the village, engaged in a firefight with Anderson's men with the advantage their surprise had given them, quickly running out.

"Is that Rain?" Nathan's voice rose an octave, horrified that the girl he had taken a liking to was about to get herself killed. "Where they get the guns?"

Alex saw Rain and guessed quickly what the Transporter Chief had done. Leaning over to Chris, she said quietly. "She got them the same place I got the fog."

Chris blinked at that revelation, "you mean she's one of yours?"

"Actually yours," Alex shrugged. "She wasn't staying out of it because Nathan's her fiance."

Gesturing him away from the edge, there was one thing she had held back from him, one thing she knew without any doubt would get him to cooperate now they were almost at the end. He needed to understand the stakes they were fighting for, which was not the Seminoles but the friends he had found defending this village.

"What is happening?" Chris demanded his patience with all this, almost at breaking point. Strange things were happening, feelings he did not at all like were gnawing at him, and his reaction to such emotions was always anger.

"I told you," Alex drew a breath expecting his ire. She couldn't blame him. In the persona of the gunslinger, his entire world view was starting to crumble, and like the real Chris Larabee, the man had a temper. "I can't explain, but there is one thing I can tell you, one thing I swear on my life," she glanced at Vin, "on his life as true."

"Make it fast," Chris snapped, conscious of the gunshots below them and knowing they had to get down there fast.

"Adam is alive."

Of all the things she could have said, that one floored him. For a moment, he felt nothing but outrage at such a claim. How dare she? How dare she use his dead son like that? The urge to shoot her dead was so strong, he had to fight to restrain his fury. Turning his high powered gaze on her, he saw her flinch at the intensity of his anger.

"No he is not," the word escaped him like the hiss of steam from a boiler about to explode.

"Just like Vin and I are married, I'm telling you Adam is alive. Yes, you remember Sarah and Adam dying but there's more you don't. At this moment, your son is sitting in his qu..." Alex corrected herself, “... room, waiting for me to help you remember who you are."

"No," Chris blinked, refusing to believe it. He couldn't. Adam was dead, he had buried his body and Sarah's after finding them in the ashes. The memory had been branded on every corner of his soul, it was so strong, there were nights only the drink made it barely tolerable. To know there was a life where at least one of them was alive was a hope that could break him if it were false.

"Chris," Alex tried to be kind, "the only reason he isn't here, is because I wouldn’t let him get caught up in this mess. The kid's like you, headstrong, smarter than he looks and brave as hell. He worships you Chris, and he's waiting for you to get out of here."

Chris couldn't process it. The idea of Adam surviving the fire, of living a life where they were father and son, it was too much. He couldn't think of that right now because if he did, he would not be able to function. Yet, despite her words, a small flame of hope was rekindled no matter how hard he tried to believe it fake.

"What do you want from me?" He said finally.

"This whole thing started with the seven of you," Alex explained, relieved at gaining that much from him. "You, Vin, Ezra, Josiah, Nathan, Buck, Ezra and now me and Rain, because we were trying to help you. We're the only ones who can die in here."

"What does that mean?" Chris was baffled.

"It means exactly that. This place isn't real, not really. I know Anderson, and the villagers look like real people, but they're not." Alex wished she could explain holograms and how programs could be rebooted with the holographic deaths rewritten to give life again. The villagers could die, hell Anderson could die, but his character could be reinitialized. How to explain that to a gunslinger from the 19th century? "If anything happens to them, it doesn't matter because the same way I brought the fog and Rain got the guns, they can be brought back. However, if any of us die, we die. Whatever happens, down there, you've got to make sure the nine of us get through it."

Chris didn't understand but once again the strange feeling that came over him after he saw the odd trinket of hers, and that disembodied but sultry voice gliding over his skin with each word, compelled him to trust her because it was simply how it had always been. His mind knew what it knew, but his heart, an organ he seldom exercised these days, was telling him to believe Alex Styles, especially if what lay at the end of this story, was Adam.

"Chris!"

Vin Tanner interrupted his thoughts with more tangible concerns. "We've gotta get down there pard! Those people are going to get killed when Anderson sends his cavalry after them. Besides if we don't get going, Nathan's liable to take off on his own. You know he's sweet on that girl."

"Yeah," Chris nodded, dismissing Alex's talk for now because whatever the truth, Anderson needed dealing with. Still, it would take time to get down the canyon to be of any help to the villagers below, despite Alex's claims. They didn't have time for the delay, and Chris thought quickly, trying to decide what to do when his eyes brushed the dark, rusty barrel of the cannon and a thought formed so fast in his head, the words were out of his mouth before he had even registered the inspiration.

"Anyone know how to fire that cannon?"

He had some experience with it, but Chris preferred to lead the charge to face Anderson himself. Nathan had been a stretcher bearer during the war and had seen the aftermath of battles, not been involved in it himself. Josiah was a preacher during that time, and Chris knew from experience Buck was a foot soldier with little contact with the weapons. Vin and JD were simply too young.

"I believe I can fulfil that requirement," Ezra Standish spoke, already making his way to the weapon.

"You can shoot that thing?" Buck gave Ezra a look of surprise, unable to imagine the scheming gambler fighting in any man's army but then again, as they were starting to learn Ezra was a man of secrets and there was none greater than the person he truly was, beyond the card sharp and grifter.

"I've been in a battle or two that required the expertise," Ezra hid the hint of hurt he felt that none of these men considered him soldier material.

"Good," Chris said approvingly, secretly impressed by how quickly Ezra had weaved the tale of fiction earlier, providing him with the distraction he needed to get free. "Keep them busy until we get down there."

Suddenly what Alex said about Rain crept into his thoughts, and Chris found himself adding. "Make sure those riders don't get anywhere near the women."

"I'll do that," Ezra nodded in understanding and saw the relief on Nathan's face. The healer was itching to go to the rescue of his lady and Ezra wanted to keep her from harm for the sake of the man he had been so against when this all began.

Perhaps he was changing.

"Although," Ezra's eyes narrowed in calculation, even through the dimpled smile on his face, "I do have an idea for my first target."

Julia was already impressed by Lisi, the life model interface to the ship's computer, by its ability to adapt to new situations and its determination to protect the charges in its care. As the Chief Engineer of the Maverick, Julia knew how vital it was for the main computer to continue functioning when it controlled everything from life support to warp propulsion. Once upon a time, Chris Larabee had managed to stave off a Dominion ambush by using the main computer as leverage and saved all their lives. Lisi had not only managed to keep alive the infants under her care but also maintain the systems on the vast complex they were now standing. Lisi's creator was probably dead by now, but Julia would have like to have met them to give her compliments for such a well designed and durable machine.

A machine, she now realized, was half missing.

When Lisi had said there was damage, Julia had assumed a partial system shut down. In truth, the interface had seriously downplayed the catastrophe that halted this culture's attempt to start a new civilization.

"Oh, my God."

It was Mary who made the exclamation as they were led into the Central Cortex, away from the Nursery as they were calling it. One wall of the room was a twisted mess of ragged metal with only a force field keeping out the vacuum of space. Circuitry boards, crystal panelling and other internal mechanisms were exposed where the section of wall and everything connected to it was ripped away. Half the cortex was missing, not merely damaged but torn apart. How the station continued to function, to do all the things it had since the Maverick encountered it was a miracle of engineering.

Julia was already scanning the area where the worst of the damage had occurred, compelled to know what had caused such destruction.

"What could have done this?" Kate asked, her expression similarly aghast. She'd seen damage like this before, but it usually meant the ship was being blasted to hell by an enemy. Had someone taken shots at this station?

"I'm detecting residual particles of highly charged neutrinos, they're almost affecting space-time if they weren't so minute," Julia explained. "Holy cow, I think the station got hit by a quantum filament."

"A what?" Opa had to ask, having never heard of such a thing before.

"A quantum filament," Mary answered automatically, "it's a strange spacial phenomenon that could be no more than a few meters wide and be hundreds long. From what I understand, there's not much known about them because they're tough to detect, but they have the gravitational strength of a black hole. Just brushing against one can cause serious damage."

"I'm just amazed the ship is running at all," Julia lowered her tricorder. "From what I'm seeing, the only reason the ship is still functioning is that the computer, what was left of it, was able to reroute itself using all the other secondary computer systems throughout the complex."

"Can you find the system that controls the Nursery?" Mary asked, wanting to free those children and the mental captives on board the Maverick, especially after Alex's revelation she and the Senior Staff were about to embark on a final battle with their holographic nemesis.

Julia frowned and turned her eyes on Lisi, her expression sombre. "Mary, it's not that simple. To maintain itself, the computer had to tap into every other system on the station to continue operations. There isn't a direct control to the Nursery anymore. To shut that off, I have to shut it all off."

"All as in everything?" Kate gasped as the full implications set in.

"Yes," Julia nodded grimly. "Life support, propulsion, force fields..." she gestured to the one keeping them from being blown out into space, a few feet away. It all has to be shut down for us to sort out and then reinitialized with a new core, reset to default, whatever that is."

Mary thought of everything they'd seen since arriving on this station, the animal habitat, the sizeable holographic system revealing who these people were, even the interface that manifested as the small child watching them, waiting for them to give the assistance she believed them capable of providing.

"How long would it take?" She asked, knowing whatever the number, it would be too long to help Chris and the others.

"If we're lucky a few days. If not, weeks."

"We can't keep the Captain and the Senior Staff on the holodeck for weeks," Kate stated the obvious. "They're about to go fight whatever enemy the scenario cooked up for them with safeties off."

"I know that," Julia almost snapped. "You think I like the idea of my Ezra running through the wilderness, thinking he's a smooth-talking gambler who can get by on charm and a derringer? For starters, he's not that charming and don't get me started about his money-making schemes!"

"Okay, okay," Mary interjected, sharing Julia's frustration and was even more worried for Chris whose gunslinger persona was dangerous to say the least. "Let's calm down. Julia, we need to think of a way to shut the Nursery down, is there anything you can think of to do that?"

"Sorry Commander," Kate said apologetically, reminded by Julia that Ezra Standish wasn't just the Chief, but to the titian-haired engineer, he was the love of her life.

"It's alright," Julia shrugged, hating to be waspish with anyone and considered Mary's question. "The trouble is, we know so little about this system. If I try to reroute, I might be severing connection to something vital. What we need is a backup...." her voice started to drift, and she walked away to the exposed wall, to stare at the space outside. Not space, Mary realized after a second, but the Maverick.

"What is it?"

"We use the Maverick." She turned to face them again, a sparkle of inspiration in her emerald coloured eyes. "We create an interface between our main computer and this system, using it to maintain the primary functions while we repair the damage. That way, we can decide what systems stay off and what stay on, through our main computer."

"What will happen to Lisi when we shut it all off?"

Opa's question suddenly made everyone turned to the little girl who had been silent all this while, listening to these strangers deciding the fate of her charges, and now it appeared herself.

Mary walked over to Lisi and dropped to the child's eye level again. It was so hard to believe she was talking to a computer when her heart only saw a little girl in need. Perhaps it was the mother in her that could not bear such a thing.

"Lisi, will you disappear if we shut everything off."

The girl nodded somberly. "I'll be gone."

"But if we reinitialize the system after the reboot...." Opa looked at Julia.

"If we reboot," Julia's voice was soft. "What comes back will be the primary interface. This one was created because it was the best the damaged core could come up with. Once we repair it, the system will reset back to its original settings."

"It's okay," Lisi said sadly, "you have to do it. You have to help them."

Mary swallowed thickly and wanted to hug the hologram but knew it would do little good. Lisi wasn't real, not in a flesh and blood way, but it still ached nonetheless to understand what they would be doing would be effectively erasing her from existence.

"We will help them Lisi," Mary promised her earnestly. " I give you my word."

"Thank you, Mary," Lisi smiled. "I knew you could."

With that, Mary drew in a breath to steady herself and looked over at Julia, who was also wearing a similar stricken expression. "Let's get started."

In retrospect, Rain supposed she could have thought this through a little more.

When she saw the riders charging across the village towards her, Rain realized perhaps her brilliant plan to provide a distraction for the Senior Staff and the captured Seminoles may not have been so brilliant after all. As their horses thundered towards her, their hooves spitting bits of rock and gravel in all directions, Rain came to the unhappy conclusion this was precisely the situation Commander Wilmington wanted to avoid.

"Get back to the cave!"

It was an order the women fighting with her were more than willing to obey because firing at the enemy from a distance was one thing, but facing them in possible hand to hand combat was something none of them was prepared for. She saw some discarding their guns and turning tail to run, uttering frightened cries while others simply retreated, their weapons still in their grasp. Rain was one of the last to make a run for it, wanting to make sure everyone was safely away.

"Come on!"

Rain saw Dyani calling after her and turned to leave when the first of the riders reached her. All she saw of him before he leapt off his horse was his tan duster and a wide-brimmed hat. Taller than Nathan, he downed her easily. His weight slammed against her so hard Rain felt as if she had the wind knocked out of her when she hit the dirt. Despite the layers of her costume, she felt every bit of the hard ground beneath her.

While she was still reeling, he rolled her onto her back and straddled her, one hand reaching for her wrist to pin her down. The man pulled his lips back in a sneer, one that properly infuriated Rain, enough for her to recover her senses and throw a balled fist against his jaw, knocking him off her. Flipping upright, her skirt swirling around her as she stood up if somewhat shakily, Rain prepared to run when a meaty palm enclosed her ankle and pulled back sharply.

"You ain't going nowhere, you darkie bitch!"

Landing on her face, Rain's head connected with a rock half buried in the dirt. The pain radiated across her forehead like fire, and for a minute, she thought she was flying through space at warp. Without a ship. Warmth ran down her forehead followed by the familiar metallic stench she knew to be blood. This time, when he turned her over, Rain was in no position to stop him.

Fortunately, she didn't have to.

An explosion rocked the air so loudly, it seemed to fill the world, just before the Confederate flag and the pole it was attached to was utterly obliterated.

Standing behind the cliff, Ezra Standish looked at the cloud of dust with some measure of satisfaction, though none would ever be enough to soothe the ache in his heart whenever he thought of little Rosita. In either case, the blast was enough to halt every Confederate in their tracks, tearing their attention away from whatever mischief they intended to carry out.

He was unable to see Rain, but Anderson was screaming and shouting, barking orders to have someone ride up here and retake the gun so they could regain their advantage. With the belief he would soon have company, Ezra picked up another round shot from the cache of cannonballs next to the weapon to fire the gun again.

As the ball of dust he created drifted across the village compound, he saw the spray of wood and burning fragments, the only remnants of the flag he once served. Ezra knew he'd turned a corner. He didn't know how it happened or whether or not he was better for it, but for the first time in far too long, he felt he had stumbled across something important by choosing to follow Chris Larabee into this fight. Something he had no idea was missing from his life, had suddenly become the only thing that mattered.

Friendship.

"Spread out and get Anderson!"

Chris's order reached them over the sounds of blazing guns as they returned to the village and dispersed out under his direction. Vin was sticking close to Chris, making a run for one of the large boulders framing the village square, firing all the way. Although she would have preferred to remain with them, Alex was confident her Captain was safe with Vin at his side, and as always, during these types of confrontations, she stayed close to Buck.

Buck had both guns drawn, firing into the soldiers on horseback, downing one man with a single shot. Seeing one of them about to fire back, Alex fired her own weapon, still finding the kick the gun produced a little jarring. Nevertheless, she put the enemy down before he could harm her commanding officer. Buck gave her a quick glance at that and flashed her a grin.

"See, I knew I was growing on you."

Alex rolled her eyes as a bullet fired too close to them impacted on a rock wall, making them flinch with the bits of grit it sent in their direction.

"Will you just move!"

With that, they ran for one of the empty mud huts and slipped behind the cover of its doorway and open window, to resume shooting.

Meanwhile JD, Josiah and Nathan had found their sweet spot, a Confederate wagon, and was laying waste to the enemy there. The Counsellor who was one of the gentlest men she knew was an absolute demon with a rifle, a stark dichotomy to the preacher he was supposed to be. One after the other, he unsaddled the enemy struggling to regroup from the coordinated attack. Behind him, Nathan was searching the area for Rain in between shots. Alex hoped the Transporter Chief was alright, having lost sight of her once they began their descent down the cliff.

"GET ANDERSON!" Chris shouted as he put down another Confederate soldier, with Vin keeping pace with him, making sure no one could draw on the gunslinger. Captain or gunfighter, Vin was not about to let any harm come to Chris. As much as he cared for Alex, there was something inside Vin, something that felt compelled to always have this man's back, no matter where they were.

"NO MATTER WHAT! GET ANDERSON!"

Whether or not Chris Larabee remembered his true self, the Captain of the Maverick still taught a masterclass when it came to strategy. Before they had descended into the Seminole village, Chris mapped out their plan of attack, unaware he was directing them to set up a kill zone. Once they surrounded the Confederate renegades on all sides, locking the enemy within their snare of bullets, there was only one order that mattered.

Take out Anderson at all costs.

This rabble was only as good as the fanatic that led them, and Chris was confident without the Colonel, they would disband.

Comprehending the danger their commander was in, a number of the riders surrounded Anderson, their bodies and horses acting as shields for their Colonel. As the village's defenders focused on their gunfire in the square where Anderson was presently trapped, the Seminole Chief had mobilized his own people to attack. Wielding the same guns used by the women who had provided their escape earlier, they were now firing upon the Confederates outside the square, cutting down those numbers before they could sneak up on the seven and their familiars.

Not that some didn't come through.

Alex heard movement behind her and turned just in time to feel the sting of a gunshot across her bicep. Uttering a small cry, she spun around and fired, putting a bullet in the man's chest before she stumbled back against the corner of the doorway behind which she was taking cover. Another rider rode across the back door, preparing to finish the job when Buck fired once, ending him before he could pose any more threat than that.

"You're hurt," his expression showed his concern and once again, Alex was reminded why she loved this big idiot. The heart on this man was like a red giant and at moments like this, it showed.

"I'll live," she winced, even though she was lying because she knew Buck. If he for one moment thought she was seriously injured, he would think of nothing else. There was nothing the man abhorred more than harm to a woman. "Keep firing! We've got to kill that crazy son of a bitch!"

Buck flashed her a grin. "Miss Styles, you do turn a lovely phrase."

Chris took aim, lining his shot to take out Anderson, who was still surrounded by his men and had retreated to the trees in the middle of the square, using it for cover. Firing again, his bullet struck the tree bark, and Chris cursed, simply unable to gain a clear line of sight to make the kill. Cursing under his breath, he glared at the Colonel, painfully aware if they didn't kill the man, this thing could go on indefinitely, and if he got away, he'd just put some other community through this hell again.

"I can't get him!" Chris hissed angrily, pausing a moment before making another attempt.

Vin took aim and fired with his mare's leg, faring a little better when he struck Anderson in the arm, however instead of faltering, as a man with a large hole in his bicep ought to do, he stared Vin dead in the eye and fired. The tracker had barely enough time to duck down behind the rock to avoid getting hit. As he did so, he glimpsed Buck taking his shots and noted Alex was not visible. He'd seen her a moment ago and wondered where she was. Had she been hit?

Buck's bullet struck Anderson in the other arm, and yet the man was still in the saddle. Josiah made an attempt, and it still did nothing to stop him. With the same stubborn determination that refused to accept the war had come to an end, Anderson continued to fight, oblivious to the pain, caring only that he would not yield the position.

"Bastard won't go down!" Josiah's voice carried over the gunfire.

Chris took another shot, this time striking the flesh of Anderson's thigh. While the man registered the pain, he did not falter, reacting only by removing the brown bottle in his jacket to take a swig of its contents.

"You can't kill me!" He shouted each word with a slur. "I am a ghost of the Confederacy, and I will not die!"

"He's so pumped with that laudanum, someone could chop his head off, and he wouldn't feel a thing!" Nathan shook his head in disbelief, finally understanding how Anderson was still managing to fight after failing to shoot down the Colonel. With each greedy gulp of the dark fluid, Anderson was gaining strength to keep going.

"He'll feel this!"

JD ran out from behind the wagon, both guns blazing, offering a clear challenge to the Colonel, who was more than ready to take up the gauntlet thrown in his direction. Continuing to pull the trigger on both his guns, it was only when the audible click of the empty chamber reached his ears, did JD Dunne realized he was about to die.

"Alright," Julia looked up at Mary after securing the remote interface to the exposed circuitry of the Central Cortex, where it would link to the Maverick’s main computer. "It's now or never."

"Do it," Mary ordered.

Thanks to Lisi's help, the station's shield was lowered, allowing the Maverick to create the link needed to maintain the facility's primary functions. Where the Maverick had been a distant sight in space through the exposed bulkhead earlier, now the ship's hull blocked out the stars. Other members of the engineering team had transported into the area, with Claire Mosely leading a team to seal the hole in the hull before they made the switch. In the Nursery, Doctor Zheng and Maria were ready to take charge of the infants the instant they were disengaged from the stasis pods and their simulated world.

"Here goes nothing," Julia took a deep breath and keyed in the shutdown sequence...

"Buck, what the hell are you doing?"

Alex shouted after Buck, whose reaction to JD in danger was almost Pavlovian. As soon as the kid put himself in the Colonel's sights, Buck bolted out into the open, ignoring the fact there was still a lot of bullets being exchanged, and he was running out into the open. All Buck could register was the fact JD was in danger. In this scenario, they had known each other but only a few days, but Buck's protective instincts, when it came to JD Dunne, overrode the power any alien had over his mind.

He was sprinting through the line of fire in full strides when suddenly something struck him with the intensity of a sledgehammer to the brain.

Memories crowded in so fast, Buck's race across the ground faltered momentarily as his head swam, trying to process the floodgates that were just opened in his mind. However, all that was shunted aside because slicing through this deluge of information was one thought overriding all others.

The Colonel was about to kill JD.

This time, when Buck resumed running, he did so with a new determination in his step. He was moving fast with the kind of agility that came with being a Starfleet officer, required to complete annual survival training requirements and hand to hand combat 2with aliens a good deal bigger and meaner than he was. He was also running with the awareness of someone who knew how to assess the situation and approach it with caution at a second's notice.

Launching himself at JD with only seconds to spare, he slammed into the kid with a full body tackle, sending them both sprawling out of Anderson's path and into the ground. Both men tumbled across the dirt in a tangle of limbs like a rolling dervish. Unable to stop after being denied the swipe that would have killed JD, the Confederate colonel rode past them, his sabre finding no flesh to blood its blade. Conscious the man was coming back, Buck scrambled to his feet and saw Anderson pull up his rein to his horse, forcing the animal's head to rear up in reaction.

Buck dragged JD to his feet. The junior lieutenant still looked dazed, but the fresh gunfire exploding around their ears snapped him out of his disoriented state.

"Get clear!" Buck shoved JD towards the safety of the wagon, his eyes fixed on Anderson who was barking further orders at his men.

Scanning the area, Buck realized there had been a slight pause in the shooting. From where he was, he could see a similar effect rippling across the faces of the men he was fighting with...no serving with, he realized. He was serving with them because...

"Buck, what's going on?"

JD looked confused. The kid was looking around the area, trying to understand the situation through the still thick fog in his mind.

"We're in the middle of a gunfight, that's what!? NOW MOVE!"

While he still felt a little muddled, JD Dunne's conditioning to obey that voice was too strong to ignore, and his feet were moving even before the words had stopped ringing in his ears.

The First Officer of the Maverick, now entirely in charge of himself, straightened up as Anderson charged again. The Colonel was galloping towards him, raising the sabre Buck was certain Anderson wielded in dozens of battles throughout the war, preparing to cut him down. Except this time, he wasn’t coming after a kid who didn't know better, this time he was coming after someone who was prepared for a fight.

Drawing both his guns, Buck didn't waste time trying to reason with a mad man and fired every round at his disposal. Anderson was a mad dog who needed putting down, and Buck was done with any kind of man who would rain down death on women and children.

The first bullet struck Anderson dead centre. The crack of the gunshot was loud enough to make the white stallion beneath him stop in its tracks. This time, Anderson felt the pain. A grimace spread across the sallow complexion of his leathery face, at the same time the spread of blood appeared across his chest. The second bullet silenced his cry of indignation when it struck him in the throat, making the words become sickly wet gurgles of agony.

Unable to remain in the saddle, the Colonel fell from his horse and landed on the ground hard. Despite the mortal wounds he sustained, his expression took on the determination of one who refused to die on someone else's terms. Forcing himself to stand, even as he was dying from a thousand cuts, Anderson faced Buck Wilmington intending to use the last second of his life to make a final stand.

He never got the chance to draw the gun he attempted to reach.

Buck's final shot ended him once and for all. This time, the back of Anderson's skull exploded outward, the gruesome climax from the single gunshot wound to the head. Buck watched dispassionately as Anderson fell flat on his back, his eyes staring into the sky he could no longer see. Buck stood over him for a second, noting the sabre still in Anderson's hands and decided he would not have like to have known how that steel would feel against his flesh.

Around them, the remaining renegades, shocked by the death of their commander, had stopped shooting, uncertain what to do next. With Anderson dead and their captain no longer there to lead them, they were in disarray. Too many of their brethren had fallen in the battle for this village, and their faces registered the dilemma of men who no longer knew why they were fighting.

It was not a predicament they would have to suffer for any longer.

"Computer, halt program."

The world was suddenly locked in frame. From the Seminoles who were valiantly defending their homes alongside the seven to the renegades who were debating whether they ought to keep fighting, the village was frozen. Smoke and dust swirling about the area were now stationary clouds going nowhere. Silence enveloped the cacophony of noise into a comforting blanket of quiet.

Buck looked over his shoulder to see Chris and Vin approaching him, the Captain's order having brought about this premature end to the battle. "Chris..."

"Yeah," Chris Larabee nodded, having regained his senses enough to comprehend the situation they were in and the danger that came with it. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Buck nodded. "What did we just go through?"

"I'm not sure," Chris admitted looking around the village to see Josiah, JD and Nathan coming towards them. Even Ezra was making a brisk descent from the cliff top to join them. Then out of one of the huts, Alex emerged, clutching her shoulder as she came to join them. Beside him, Vin's reaction was immediate.

"Alex!"

The helmsman's blue eyes widened at the sight of blood and hurried towards her.

"Vin," Alex burst into a smile before they met in an embrace Vin was careful to deliver without aggravating her injury further.

Alex felt her chest surge with relief as they held each other, grateful he survived the fight. With the safeties disabled, there had been no way for her to know for sure. However, the instant she heard the Captain disable the program, Alex knew whatever Mary had done on that alien station worked. The gunslinger was gone, and the Captain, who always put the safety of his crew above all else, was back.

"Hey a little help here!"

From another corner of the village, Rain's irate voice snapped as the lady sat up from where she had been lying amidst the bushes and tall grass. Her forehead was bleeding, a sight that instantly drew a reaction from Nathan whose healer's instincts were already prompted when he realized Alex was injured. Upon seeing his fiancee's condition, those instincts went into overdrive.

"Rain, you're hurt!"

"Gee whiz Doc," Rain grumbled getting to her feet unsteadily. "Can't put anything past you."

"What's happened here?" Chris demanded.

"Well," Alex let out a sigh. "It's a long story, Sir, but I can tell you one thing for certain."

"What?" Chris stared at her in expectation.

Alex's eyes narrowed. "I really hate this program."

"Captain's Log - Stardate 2378.623

It has been almost a day since myself, and the Senior staff were released from the influence of the race we now know to be the Val'ea.

From what Lt. Travis has been able to conclude from her preliminary studies of the Val'ean archives, the race fled their home planet two hundred years ago when their native star system in the Beta Quadrant was on the verge of nova. Due to limited resources, it was decided an infant population would be easier to manage during the journey. Embryos were placed in sleeper tubes, slowing their growth while their mental development would be aided by the simulated reality prepared for them.

If all had gone according to plan, the children would have spent their formative years being educated, developing social skills and experiencing a normal childhood in their mental playpen. Meanwhile, in the real world, their bodies would continue to grow and mature, albeit at a slower pace than usual. When a suitable planet for colonisation was found, the Val'ean children would then be revived as fully functioning adults, ready to begin life on a new world.

Due to the almost total obliteration of the Central Cortex during the station's encounter with a quantum filament, the computer intelligence was forced to improvise as best it could. Attaching itself to the auxiliary computer systems on board, the AI called Lisi maintained the ship's environment and course, but the programming for the simulated reality was lost in the destruction. What remained of its memory banks was the record of an ancient battle fought very early in the history of the Val'ea.

With no other experience to draw from and still trapped in their infant forms since the computer had deemed the conditions for revival unsuitable without adult presence, the children played out their war, aided by their formidable telepathic abilities, on any helpless ship that happened by. The AI understanding the children's desperate need for mental stimuli facilitated this goal by capturing ships and allowing its charges to play out the war through its crew. This sometimes resulted in the crew either fleeing the scene or killing each other.

When the station encountered the Maverick and the Holodeck on board, the AI or Lisi as Lt. Travis called it, realised the Holodeck was the perfect environment for the children to play out their war. It would have trapped myself and the Senior Staff in an endless loop fighting Colonel Anderson and his band of renegades until we were dead and then moved on to the rest of the crew. It was only after the Maverick penetrated its formidable shields to beam an Away Team on board, did Lisi recognise we might be in a position to help the Val’ean children.

As of now, Engineering with the assistance of Lt. Travis is rebuilding the Central Cortex so the backup archives of the Val'ea, fortunately, kept in a separate location on the station for just this very type of emergency, can be uploaded again. Upon completion, the station will be directed to one of the many habitable worlds in Federation space to fulfil its original purpose. The children however, will not be returned to stasis and will now have to reach adulthood in a real-world environment.

The USS Potemkin is presently on route to join us at our location, where they will take charge of the Val'ea and its occupant for the journey to their new home. In the meantime, however, the Maverick is playing host to the one-hundred infants removed from their stasis tubes."

After it was all said and done, Chris had to admit he was somewhat embarrassed.

When fragments of his behaviour in the Holodeck return to his memory, and he remembered just how menacing he had been to Alexandra Styles in particular, Chris was inwardly mortified. It was one thing to play the surly gunslinger in a holodeck fantasy, but something else entirely to be that man. The Man in Black, for all his attractive qualities, was a dangerous character still grieving for his family and more than willing to let his Colt peacemaker do the talking for him.

Chris remembered how he physically handled Alex at points during the affair and was somewhat surprised she was as restrained as she had been. Except for Vin Tanner, anyone putting their hands on Alex without her permission was generally going to have a bad day. Yet she tolerated his manhandling and made him feel worse when Chris remembered how determined she was to keep them all safe.

In fact, Chris made a mental note to put in commendations for all the ladies who worked so hard to free himself and the Senior officers from the influence of the Val'ea. From Alex and Rain having to deal with the situation on the Holodeck to Charlotte who was left in charge of the Maverick, and finally Mary and the Away team on the Val'ea station. All of them had displayed exemplary conduct, and Chris wanted them to get the credit they deserved.

For now, however, they had other concerns.

"Buck, really?"

Chris stared at Buck Wilmington who was wearing some kind of harness across his back, with one of the older Val'ean infants bouncing happily in the contraption. The child was no more than a year old and staring at the luminous surroundings of the bridge with wide-eyed fascination. The little girl's expression of wonder was so precious, Chris couldn’t helped but be touched by it all. He still remembered what a delight Adam had been as a baby, and a part of Chris Larabee was still saddened at the memory he and Sarah never had any more children.

"Oh come on Chris, I'm just helping Nathan with babysitting duty, beside Daisy is no trouble." Buck peeled off the harness and removed its precious bundle as he prepared to take his seat next to the command chair. Handing the child to Mary, who was next to Chris in her customary position, the Protocol Officer's arms were already outstretched to take the little girl off his hands.

"Daisy?"

"Well we got to call her something," Buck insisted, looking at the baby reaching for Mary's gold locks in interest. "Can't just pin a number on her. Besides, she looks like a Daisy."

"Daisy is a lovely name," Mary agreed with a smile, delighting in that sweet face as all mothers were known to do when confronted by a cherub that brought back fond memories of their own child at the same age.

"I know that," Buck shrugged, aware he'd miss the little girl when she was gone. "I mean Nathan's team is stretched to the limit. Audrey King and some of the teachers in the school have helped out, hell even Josiah is babysitting in his office."

"Josiah?" Chris exclaimed, trying to picture the Counsellor with a baby in his arms. Next to an infant, Josiah would look like a damn giant.

"Yeah," Vin drawled from the helm. "Says it's practice for when he becomes a grandfather."

"That's true," the Captain had to admit. Josiah's oldest daughter was present in the family way and was not that long from giving the Counsellor his first grandchild, something the man was extremely pleased with.

"Think of it this way, Captain," Ezra said from his station. "The children have delivered us from the mission on Kreetassa ."

Chris broke into an involuntary grin and then stifled it when he saw Mary's frown. No matter how guilty he might feel sy his behaviour in the Holodeck, one thing he certainly was not regretting too deeply was the fact the mission to Kree had been handed over to Captain Khalish and the USS Endeavour. When Chris thought of Khalish (an arrogant Menken who thought the sun shone out of his ass), performing the humiliating ritual in his place, he could not help but burst into a smile.

"Yeah, that's a shame," Chris's expression was one of pure innocence.

"Right," Mary narrowed her eyes at him telling Chris he was fooling no one with that. "At least my speech isn't going to waste. Lt. Able of the Endeavour is going to use it instead of drafting one of her own."

"Vin, how is Alex doing?" Chris asked, still grateful his dignity would remain intact.

"Oh, she's fine," Vin swung around in his chair to face the Captain. The Maverick was holding position next to the Val'ean station they were calling the Ark for now, and so Vin could afford a little time away from the controls. "Nathan fixed her up good after we got out of the holodeck, so she's resting in our quarters."

"I’m surprised she's not here," Buck remarked. "You know Alex, she hates doing nothing. I didn't think you'd be able to keep her away from the bridge."

"Me neither," Vin admitted, giving the matter some thought at Buck's remark. Alex was rather vague when he asked her how she intended spending her day off. "She said she wanted to catch up on things."

"Well she deserves the rest if she wants it," Chris declared, once again reminded of how hard Alex had fought to keep them alive while at the same time, dealing with their Magnificent Seven personas.

"Still," Ezra remarked, always one to latch on to a mystery. "I wonder what that could be."

A day and a half later, after the Potemkin had arrived and on the eve of the Maverick's departure from the area, they found out.

Answering the invitation from their Science Officer to come to the Holodeck in their Magnificent Seven costumes. Chris Larabee and the rest of the senior staff, including Inez and Casey, stepped through the arch and found themselves once again in the square of the Seminole village.

However, instead of the battle-ravaged community near decimated by artillery and gunfire, what was before them was a vibrant, living community with no sign of the damage inflicted by Anderson's renegades or his cannon. The mud huts had been replaced with sturdier brick constructions, adorned today with flowers and colourful decorations. The landscape surrounding the village was also greener, with the trees and bushes growing through it flowering. Instead of hard, dry dirt, the ground was covered with wildflowers and lush green grass. It also appeared there was now a creek meandering through the village, its source a small cascade flowing from a fissure in one of the canyon walls.

Music filled their ears as they sighted Rain standing next to Tennessee Eban, who was playing his beloved piano, now restored to its original state. The Transporter Chief was wearing a lavender dress, smiling at the old man who appeared to be having the best day of his life, playing his music with his daughter at his side. Meanwhile, the delicious aroma of spices drifted through their air, rankling their stomachs as the village women laughed and gossiped at the table where they were preparing food.

"Welcome," Chief Tastanagi greeted with arms wide. "We did not think to see you again, but we're happy you've come on this special day."

Chris glanced at the others in confusion, though he was still glad to see the village in such good condition. "We were just passing through, but what special day?"

"The day we name my son," Imala, who they last saw dead on the ground at the top of the canyon was beaming broadly, cradling his son in his arms as he approached them. No longer was he the hostile man they knew when they first encountered him. Instead, the child in his arms had softened his temper somewhat, enough so he could see the men who had tried to defend his home as allies, not enemies.

"Imala!" JD exclaimed, a small smile of pleasure crossing over his face at the sight of the man. Even though Imala and the rest of the Seminoles were holographic fantasies, they had become very real to the Senior Staff during this whole affair with the Val'ea. Imala's death had stung, especially when he had been willing to trust them enough to help him defend his village, despite his dislike of the 'white' man.

"This is your lady, gunslinger?" The Chief smiled graciously at Mary, who wore the pink dress she often favoured in this simulation, with gold hair flowing loose across her shoulders.

"Yeah," Chris afforded himself a smarmy grin. "This is my woman, alright."

Mary shot him a look that told him plainly what she thought about that but still managed to meet the Chief's eyes and offer him a smile. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Mary."

"EZRA!"

Ezra Standish, who like the rest of the seven, was marvelling at the state of the village when he was suddenly surrounded by a group of children, one of which was the little girl called Rosita. Like all children, she was clothed in the traditional Mexican dress of the day, wearing a hibiscus in her hair as she beamed in Ezra in obvious delight. There was no sign of the terrible injury that had taken her life and once again, she stared at Ezra, her face beaming in pleasure at his return.

Ezra returned Rosita's gaze, feeling a wave of emotion coursing through him, one he didn't realise Julia who was standing next to him, dressed impeccably like the Emporium owner she played in the simulation, noticed. Threading her fingers through his, he didn't register her touch until she squeezed. For a second, his sea-green eyes touched her eyes, and Ezra knew despite her somewhat Pollyanna view of the world, when it came to him, Julia saw through all his masks.

"Well hello my dear," Ezra said, returning his attention to Rosita, brushing an errant strand of dark hair out of her face. "Aren't you as pretty as a picture today?"

She giggled and then asked in a meek voice. "Can we have a trick?"

"A trick?" Ezra exclaimed with fanfare, his dimpled grin showing. "Would all my little helpers like that?"

"YES!!!" Came a chorus of replies. Some of the children were bouncing up and down on their feet, others clapped, which only made Ezra's grin wider.

"I will, of course, need the help of my lovely assistant here," he gestured to Julia.

"Hello Julia," the children waved at her brightly before she and Ezra were led away from the group.

As they drifted into the village, surrounded by children, they passed by Rain who had left Tennessee at his piano to join her comrades. Nathan, upon seeing her approach, met her halfway, sealing their greeting with a chaste kiss.

"Rain, what is all this?" Nathan asked, speaking on behalf of the others.

"We wanted to see how the story ended. You know, after we chased away Anderson and his army of morons. Unfortunately, we did leave the place in a bit of a mess, so we decided to put things right and add a couple of little extras for the Seminole people."

"Like the creek?" Josiah gestured at the waterway that wasn't there before. Some children were drawing water from the stream, while women were filling up buckets for the drinking and washing needed for the festivities.

"Yes," Rain nodded. "Carrying water from a well is just too hard. After having to do it myself, I didn't want to inflict that on anyone else, even holograms. So we made a few improvements, added the creek, made the land a little more receptive to farming and increased the livestock just a little."

It was foolishness Rain knew. After all, when they left this simulation, this world would cease to exist, but like Alex, the Seminoles had become real to her, and knowing in some digital realm where programs existed beyond the view of the world, these people's lot in life had improved made her feel better.

"We?" Buck inquired, aware of only one person on board the Maverick, other than Ezra Standish, with the expertise to alter a holographic simulation to this degree.

"Hi all," Alex chose that moment to appear.

Alex had been looking over the program, wanting to make sure the adjustments she made to the setting had taken place without any corruption to the data. For once, she was dressed in the persona of the doctor in the Magnificent Seven story, wearing a long dark skirt, her favourite white blouse and red vest.

"Alex!" Vin exclaimed, taking note of what she was wearing and thinking she looked amazing in the costume of the period, no matter how much she might abhorred it. "You did this?"

"With help from Rain," Alex winked at the Transporter Chief. "What do you think?"

"I think it looks outstanding Alex," Chris looked about approvingly, enjoying the mood and the colour of the place. By now the Chief and Imala had gone back to the festivities, avoiding the talk about holograms and adjustments. "It's nice to see everyone back here again."

Alex caught his meaning and tended to agree. "When you can fix some things for the better, you should."

"Damn straight," Buck grinned, pleasantly surprise at Alex's efforts on behalf of the Seminoles. "I didn't know you had such a soft side Commander."

Alex made a face at Buck before regarding Inez, whose arm was wrapped around Buck's waist. "It will be a great day when you have him properly trained, Inez."

"It's a work in progress," Inez, wearing the costume of the barmaid in this scenario, winked at Buck who brightened up cheerily.

"You shouldn't mess with perfection."

"Ha!" JD snorted and before Buck could react, took Casey's hand in his. "Come on, Casey, let's go dance."

"Sounds like a plan," Josiah remarked and saw Dyani waving at him, trying to catch his eye for just that very purpose. "Gentlemen," he tipped his hat at them and headed off in her direction.

"So does this mean you're gonna join us from now on?" Vin looked at Alex hopefully, wondering if she had turned a corner in her relationship with this time period.

"I didn't say I liked the program that much," Alex groaned and then supposed she had asked for this considering what she had done with this scenario.

"Actually," Buck spoke up. "After all this, I figured we'd try something different Chris. I mean I think I speak for us all when I say I think we might need to give this program a rest for a bit."

Chris couldn't deny he wasn't receptive to the idea. He still felt uncomfortable by his behaviour even though Alex assured him she took no offence because it was entirely out of his control.

"Yeah, I can't argue with you there. This has all been a little too real for my liking," Nathan admitted. He had not liked seeing Rain hurt in the aftermath of the battle and considering the situation, was aware she could have been killed because their 'game' took on deadly proportions.

"Chris, this wasn't your fault," Mary pointed out. "It was just an unusual set of circumstances."

"Captain," Alex reinforced Mary's comment, suspecting she knew what lay at the heart of his hesitation. "Just because I don't like this program, doesn't mean it isn't a good one. You should keep playing."

"Maybe in a few months," Chris gave her a look of gratitude, aware she was trying to absolve him of guilt. "We'll see."

"So what's this something different Buck?" Vin propelled them past the moment. Ezra and Julia were entertaining the gaggle of children, while JD and Casey were dancing to the music being played by Tennessee. Meanwhile, Dyani was plying Josiah with so much food, he looked like a Thanksgiving turkey. Vin suspected the woman figured feeding Josiah was the way to the Counsellor's heart.

"Well, the kid I got this program from, came up with a new simulation that's an offshoot of the Magnificent Seven story. Apparently, after the original version popped out, a lot of different writers tried their hand at new stories, some of them taking the seven completely out of their Old West setting."

"Really?" Chris raised a brow at that. "Like what?"

Buck grinned, glad to see Chris's interest. "You ever heard of the ATF?"

THE END