Mission One: Milos System

||Starbase 12
||Shuttle
||August 2, 2387
||1018


Lillian smiled a little bit at Max's display and yet part of her felt a little bad because she hadn't wanted Taylor punished exactly--she had just wanted the show on the road. She had people to find and heal and he and Dahlia flirting wasn't making anything happen any faster and at the moment she just wanted to be as well underway as possible and was even happier when her nurse got in and out of the cockpit without being noticed...almost like Max had caused a distraction for her. Now Lillian was being handed a PADD with data on it she could mull over on the way to the Milos System and the more she knew the better. She liked to be prepared for anything and when going into a situation with potential wounded, she liked to know that she was clearly up for the job.

Mostly, Lillian was glad to be able to have something to focus on even though her attention was drawn away again when Max sat down next to her again and she offered him up a smile. After all, she had a pretty powerful feeling that he was doing some of this stuff for her and she wanted him to know that she appreciated it even though she was a bit worried about everything that was going on right now between everyone--they had to all find a way to function as a team and she knew that. If they weren't together, they were separate and they all needed to be together on this because it sounded like something was wrong and that meant that they had to have each other's backs because you couldn't go into a hostile situation at each other's throats when you were the calvary...that was just bad form.

Then Max's words hit her ears.

Smiling sadly because she wasn't the only one having a rough time with this, Lillian shrugged and then nodded because she wanted Max to know that she was going to be just fine. Reaching up to touch his face gently, she set the PADD in her lap for a moment and she looked him in the eye so that she could give him her attention and in turn take his so she could say what it was that she was going to say. Right now, part of her job was making sure that morale was up and right now that started with Max because he was having a rough time and he was the one with the reins at the moment and it made her feel a little guilty for feeling bad about anything.

"I'm doing better than you right now, but you know what? I've got your back," Lillian promised with a nod. "We've got this." That said, she let her thumb slide along his skin for a moment before pulling her hand back and picking the PADD up off of her lap, looking it over and letting Max drink in the words.


<Taggles: Away Team>

||Starbase 12
||Shuttle
||August 2, 2387
||1020

The marine in his mid-thirties gave his scowl and crossed arms combination as he sized the man up. He didn't say anything until Max had sat down and started talking to Lillian before he piped up again. "I hear a good drink calms the nerves, sir." he said acidly as he turned back to his console.

He looked at Dahlia and gave her another wink and a smile before shrugging. "I won't see the inside of a brig cell. Not because he can't handle being in command without having to reach for a bottle. Two officers in Starfleet Stedenko....one's like you and me who are fit to command...and those like him, a waste of oxygen and atoms." said Taylor lowly to avoid the conversation from being heard. "I know his type. In Starfleet for the uniform to attract the women and the cushy lifestyle of promotion. Soon as something goes wrong though, he'll panic, he'll flip. He'll make mistakes and people will die. Crae? She looks like a steady officer. For a doctor. But I won't be commanded by a man who hasn't got the nerve to say no to a drink when there's lives at stake."

Taylor drew a breath as he leaned back into his chair. It wouldn't be a long flight but it felt like it was already dragging. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed lightly with his eyes closed before opening them again. "Combat landings are easy. It's about the speed of getting this thing on the ground and their speed of leaving it. Transporters might be blocked by battlefield EM generators and they might have anti-aircraft emplacements. But you're a pilot, I trust you to do this even if I wasn't riding shotgun. Call it a marine thing to unconditionally trust pilots."

<tag: Dahlia, away team>

||Starbase 12
||Shuttle
||August 2, 2387
||1023


Trying to ignore everything right now, Lillian ran through the information about the system and the planet they were going to in her mind, chewing on her bottom lip. Max was right: it was probably some sort of colonial squabble. If that was true, Lillian wanted to make sure that they got more information before they went in guns blazing and after a small smile thrown in Max's direction, she got up and went into the cockpit even though she didn't entirely want to. Still, it was her job and right now she could be professional--besides, she wanted this Away Team to actually work like a team and for now it was important that everyone know what was up.

"Thalos, the fifth planet in this system, is pretty broken up as far as leadership goes and I have a bad feeling about that vague distress call," Lillian explained slowly, resting one hand on the back of Dahlia's chair and one on the back of Taylor's. "There's a possibility that we're about to be caught in the middle of something and we're just rushing in without really knowing what's going on. If there's even a slight chance that we're about to get dragged into something that we need a Diplomat for...I dunno, I'm just worried. Park us in orbit when we get there. I want to find a way to get in touch with whomever is down there that sent that distress call."

There was a chance that she was just over reacting, but she couldn't stop that queasy feeling in her stomach that something was up and she did genuinely want to help people. If there were wounded and dying then she would be right there to help them, but she didn't want to start a war or get in the middle of a war when the Federation had such strict laws against letting people handle their own affairs. Still, Milos System was in Federation space, so it wasn't like they were trespassing. Perhaps it was just her having an over active imagination, but something about that vague distress call just didn't add up and she knew she couldn't be the only one to think that they were just going in guns blazing...could she?

"Just...tell me when we're in orbit," Lillian said with an affirmative nod.


<Taggles: Taylor or Dahlia>

||Thalos Orbit
||Shuttle
||August 2, 2387
||1036

When the chime alerted her they had arrived, Dahlia keyed the controls and the shuttle slipped out of warp. The Milos System loomed ahead, an unimpressive scattering of planetoids and a collapsing gas giant orbiting a somewhat young star. The fifth planet was easily spotted, a standard terraformed class-M that had likely been colonized on the cheap by independent-minded settlers who disliked excessive Federation interference.

"Coming around on a seven-zero-niner for final orbital approach," Dahlia narrated out of habit. The shuttle slid past on of Thalos' moons and settled gently into a holding pattern in an area free of excessive orbital debris.

"And…entering standard orbit," she offered over her shoulder to Lillian, gazing down at the planet below, mostly dark at the moment due to its slow rotation. Something down there gave her the shivers, but she reflected that was always the case when she was faced with the prospect of leaving the comfortable expanse of space and flying down to a planet where there could be all kinds of unpleasant things and people hiding in caves and the like.

"You think the XO knows of anything going on down there we should know about too, Lieutenant?" Dahlia asked coyly, a bit less intimidated by the metal on the woman's collar because of her voice and appearance. Taylor had spoken for her, and Dahlia had missed the looks Lillian had been shooting at their backs when the flirting had begun.

<Tag>

||Thalos Orbit
||Shuttle
||August 2, 2387
||1038


Lillian was happier when they were in orbit and really wanted to get a channel open, but for a moment she looked at Taylor and then at Dahlia because this was important. They were here and she still felt like something was off and that meant that she really needed to make sure that everyone knew that she was worried as sometimes her feelings were a bit more than just a queasy feeling in her stomach--she was a Betazoid. So she looked at Dahlia as Dahlia asked her the question and she took a deep breath before she spoke, thinking her answer over in her head a moment before letting the words spill out of her mouth.

"I think that the problem is none of us knows anything that we should," Lillian explained slowly. "We came because someone called for help, but who called for help and why? I just want to know what's going on, so..." moving to the console in the cockpit, Lillian punched in a couple of commands and smiled to herself, "...there we go. This is a rescue shuttle from the Federation Starbase 12. We received your distress call."

She was prepared for this as she should be, having gotten the frequency beforehand and she was sure that Max could have done this as well, but she was on the ball. Lillian wanted to talk to the person that had sent the distress call and figure out what it was that was actually going on, and a crackle on the comm made her smile as it came to life: someone was there. Beaming, Lillian felt rather proud of herself, but the smile was soon wiped right off when she heard the ominous voice come floating through. This whole mission was a rescue mission and yet something told her that they were trespassing--the voice that came floating through for all to hear.

"You have come to aid the traitors," the deep voice told them.

Lillian shook her head. "We came to aid a distress call--"

"--you came to assist. We do not need assistance," the voice told her and then the channel was cut.

"I have a very bad feeling about this..." Lillian said shaking her head.

She turned around to ask Max what he thought that they should do, feeling the whole shuttle shake when a shot was fired from the surface, hitting the shuttle directly. The computer told them then that there was a power failure and they had no Engineer...they were stuck in this shuttle as it began to lose power, another shot firing and hitting, Lillian stumbling toward Max as thoughts ran through her mind about what could possibly be happening. What if 100 percent of the people on this team didn't make it back and the starbase suffered an even bigger loss of morale than they had before? What if this was something that they could never come back from? Another shot was fired...


<Taggles: Away Team, and yes we are crashing and just an fyi, a crash from orbit means everyone gets hurt>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1052

Taylor woke with a ripe feeling in his head which was placed against a console. He could feel the warm trickle of blood along his face which told him that his and Dahlia's attempt at a less violent landing hadn't gone as planned. It was a struggle to get himself back into his chair since his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. Taylor's hand searched for Dahlia's shoulder which he found and have a small squeeze. "You ok?" he asked quietly, his vision blurring and clearing before it managed to settle back to normal. He could see from the window's view that they were in some type of grassland field.

It was a lot of work to get to his feet but Taylor somehow managed by gripping onto his cracked console and seat. His head pounded and with each pound a trickle of blood would drip along his face. He fell into the crevice between pilot and co-pilot seats and scrambled around for one of the medical bags which he opened and rummaged through, pulling out a dermal regenerator, activating it and running it along the pulsation. With his head headed superficially he would lose no more blood but Taylor was still looking somewhat pale.

"S-Sound off!" he stammered, laying his head against Stedenko's seat. "Is anyone alive in the back!"

<tag: Away team>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1055


The last thing he remembered was hearing Lillian on the comm, and being slightly annoyed. That was his job, as the Executive Officer. Still, he had been willing to forgive it since it was her. Then she had turned to him, and he had smiled inside, prepared to take over after she had introduced him as the ranking officer to whatever colonial functionary was talking to them from the surface.

Time seemed to slow then, as everyone's eyes widened in horror at the screeching alert at an incoming round from an old model planetary-based mass driver, a crude but effective weapon even now. The supercharged slug screamed past them, tearing the back off the shuttle and sending the whole twisted of mass metal that was now their ship hurtling to the surface in a welter of proximity alarms and failing containment fields. He recalled the pilot and the Marine scrambling to try and right them, Lilly stumbling towards him, and then, as the ground loomed up before them, a single thought before the blackness.

This is it. This is fate.

Time passed. Max lifted his head slowly, blinking blood out of his eyes. That meant he wasn't dead at least, but his first thought after that was a certainty that if fate hadn't wanted him dead in the initial crash it was only to keep him alive for some infinitely more horrific and justified death later on. As he shook himself back to consciousness, a second thought came to him and he spat defiance at the fates, spat blood and saliva onto the LCARS that was for some reason below him instead of above him.

The shuttle was upside down, he realized. They had crashed. Certainly a hostile situation. Why hadn't his department notified him of the colony having a surface-to-orbit mass driver? They didn't know? There was a sinking feeling as he realized this might have been exactly what the other away team had felt before their tragic end. Max felt sick, and then he was sick, all over the console before him.

Once it was all out of his system, blood and bile and the last of the brandy, he crawled out of the mangle of his chair to slide to what was once the ceiling and now the floor of the shuttle. Landing with a grunt, he cursed and peered around the cabin for other signs of life. Just then he heard the Marine shouting something from the cockpit, and it took him a moment to remember his feelings about the man. The jealousy. The brig sentence. Lillian. Lillian.

"Luc-" he started, then paused. "Marine! Where's Lil-uh, the Chief Medical Officer? We've got wounded back here!" He assumed that, not having checked yet. Max was more interested in finding out the status of the CMO herself at this point. The rest of the team could wait until his vision had cleared a bit.

<Tag>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1058


Lillian knew that they were going down and wasn't quite sure what it was that she wanted to do, but she remembered being violently tossed at one point and she could remember the screams. She remember hearing the crunching of the shuttle as it broke apart and it landed, crushing into the earth below it and she knew that she had lost a nurse...she could feel it. Unfortunately, she also felt part of the shuttle land on her leg and it sliced right in, making blood spill out as she let out a scream herself, head tilting back because there was something in her leg--part of the shuttle in her leg now as she thought about everything that was happening.

Then she remembered the chaos and Nurse Rhodes screaming about Nurse Franz, but then her screams were silenced and Lillian tried to get the ringing out of her ears as she tried to not focus on her leg. She was having a really hard time trying to focus when the throbbing pain was shooting through her and for a moment she blanked out and lost consciousness, only to be jolted back by Taylor sounding off and she wasn't sure what it was that she was supposed to be saying for a moment. All that she could think about was how she could only half feel her leg and she needed her medical bag and then she heard Max and at least she knew that the MCO and CIO were alive and that took a weight off of her heart.

The two men were important to her for reasons she couldn't think about right then, but knowing they were alive made tears come to her eyes and she blinked them away as she tried to figure out her position. She didn't just have part of a bulkhead in her leg--there was a bridge of debris covering her, but she had oxygen and she could sound off...was that a metallic taste in her mouth? That meant that she had internal bleeding and if she didn't treat herself and as soon as possible, then there was nothing in this world that could save her and she really needed to speak up, so she wet her mouth and she lifted up her arms, both of them sore from being crushed. Pushing the lighter metal sheet off of her, Lillian let the ringing in her ears dissipate and then wet her lips even though she could feel the bit of blood on them, trying to move but keep her leg still just in case there was something terrible happening...artery?

"Medical bag?" Lillian croaked out. "My leg is stuck!"

She groaned a little as she turned her head, seeing the medical bag strap and reaching her arm out for it, stretching her fingers as much as she could towards it, gently brushing her fingertips against it, but it was no use. Lillian tried to take a deep breath even though her whole body was sore and probably bruised, but she had been through the Dominion War--she couldn't just lay down and die and there were people that needed medical attention other than her as their shuttle had been shot out of the sky. She needed her medical bag so she could figure out how bad her injuries were and then she had to tend to everyone else. How was Dahlia? The other two marines? Was Nurse Rhodes dead like Nurse Franz? Lillian needed answers to her questions and her struggling breaths weren't helping her to calm down--neither was everyone else's panicked feelings clouding her own.

"For the love of the Four Deities..." Lillian muttered under her breath as she closed her eyes and kept reaching, immobilized basically, on her bag in more pain than she could describe.


<Taggles>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1100

"I have a name..." he protested as he got to his feet, feeling along the side of the shuttle as he picked up a nearby med-kit as Taylor walked towards Lillian and inspected the leg. His head tilted as he looked at the object before popping open the medical kit. "I know you're not supposed to move the object trapping a leg but we have to move to a more defensible location lieutenant. Whoever shot us down will probably come by to do BDA and I'd rather we weren't around when they came by to satisfy their curiosity." He made his point by shoving the bag into Lillian's hands before inspecting the bodies of the two marines. They were dead, plain and simple.

Rather than pause for a moment, he simply took their tags and rifles before stuffing the latter towards both Lillian and Max. "They won't be needing them. I'm taking a look outside." he declared before he felt along the 'ceiling' for the hatch. After working the release, he opened the hatch to let in a stream of sunlight before popping his upper body through. With rifle in hand, he scanned around with his eyes as if he expected a squad of enemy soldiers to come running towards the shuttle.

"Looks clear." he said down to them before pulling himself out. They could sort the wounded out amongst themselves but if they were shot down Taylor needed to get a clear tactical picture. The shuttle was in the middle of a field and as a result there wasn't any solid cover to hide behind. Taylor slid down onto the grass and stumbled forward as his inner balance wasn't yet established. His ears pricked up as they scanned for the sound of shouts, vehicles or footfalls and was wishing he was a Caitian right now. With the area 'secured' he scrambled onto the top of the shuttle and poked his head through, looking at them upside down.

"Right, we need to get a move on. We need field equipment, rations and portable long-range communications. Leave the dead, might not be long before whoever brought us down sends someone to kill or capture. Lieutenant, how's the leg? Can you move?"

<tag>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1105

Max was a bit perturbed at Taylor's hasty exit from the wreckage, but when he realized what the man was up to he let it go. Instead he clambered over a smashed chair to crouch beside Lillian. "I think he's right. Brace yourself and I'll lift this thing off." After giving her a second to prepare, he bent down and pulled the wrecked bulkhead section off with a grunt of effort and shoved it aside to let it fall to the deck with a clang. That done, he crouched beside Lillian again and looked on nervously at her with a feeling of helplessness at all the blood. Lamely he offered a selection of items from her medical bag, but cursed himself for not paying enough attention in first aid class. Physician, heal thyself, please.

"Uhh, well, Doctor do you think you can handle this for the moment? I need to check up front," he asked quietly. Excusing himself and making his way to the cockpit Max found Dahlia still slumped over her console, albeit at an odd angle. Swearing quietly at the memory of the two dead Marines and now this, he made his way back and wordlessly snatched up a medical tricorder. With it he examined the ensign and found she hadn't suffered anything too severe, just knocked out. They could move, and probably should at some point.

Just as he had that thought Taylor stuck his head in and voiced the same opinion. Max squinted up at the marine for a moment, thinking, then nodded. "Right. We might be able to find some of the first two but I doubt anything good for long range communications made it through all this in one piece." He sniffed, still a bit dazed, and at that moment began to consider the long term implications of all this. They were not good any which way he pieced them together. So he tried to ignore that and focused on the present.

"The pilot's unconscious but breathing. I'll carry her since I want you up front holding that rifle unencumbered. Lieutenant Crae may need assistance walking though. Either she hitches a ride on your back or you find something to use as a crutch," Max shrugged, leaving it up to Taylor and not caring which solution was chosen so long as it got them moving. The blood trickling down from his forehead was doing wonders for making him forget the jealousy that had been present within the shuttle not too long ago.

<Tag>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1107


Lillian was surprised that Taylor knew such a thing and nodded because he was also right--someone was undoubtedly going to come and check the wreckage for them and they shouldn't be here. When he shoved the bag into her hands she gave him a look, but everything mean she wanted to say faltered on her tongue because he was just doing his job here and giving her her medical bag gave her the tricorder she needed to scan herself before she got to move anywhere. Everyone always said to heal yourself so you could heal others and while Lillian normally thought that was ridiculous notion, right now she understood it because if she didn't take care of herself, there was no way she could heal anyone else.

So, she pulled out the tricorder and scanned herself as Taylor went to take a look around and Max came to her side, finding that yes, there was internal bleeding and thankfully, her leg would be alright. She wasn't sure she had what she needed to fully heal herself, but she could at least get herself fixed up enough to stand...maybe she could make a splint. First things first though, as she needed to find herself free from the wreckage and then she needed to get them all patched up--maybe once they were safe she would have what she needed.

"You can lift this off," Lillian told him nodding. "There's no slice in the femoral artery and I can't get it off myself."

She closed her eyes and bit her lip as Max told her to brace herself and then lifted it off, Lillian feeling tears in her ears at the pain of the object being removed and pulling out of her leg. Lillian nodded gently with her eyes still closed, trying very hard not to cry, sitting up and feeling like she was a bit lightheaded as Taylor asked her about her leg. Wanting to answer but needing to focus, Lillian let Max tell him about a crutch or carrying her and she blushed as she searched for a hypospray, but she only found one that wasn't utterly useless and that meant that she was a bit screwed. It meant that she had painkillers, but she didn't have the bone drugs she needed.

"Well, fuck!" Lillian exclaimed loudly, shaking her head. "No, no, no, no, no...Taylor? Max? I can make a splint, but I can't walk on my own unless you want me to slowly limp the whole way. I need to get to a building with materials. I can channel the war and fix it, but we need a safe place and then I can heal everyone. Does anyone have a head injury? That needs to be treated before we go anywhere..."

She scrambled to try and get her materials together even though she couldn't really use her leg, and put the hypospray to her neck to get some painkillers in her system. Then she worked on at least getting the skin fixed up so nothing could get in the wound, trying to pull herself up to at least stand, leaning her back on the shuttle and shaking her head a little bit. She was still in a little pain, but it was going away pretty fast and she grabbed some materials to make a splint, hoping not to slow them down because if that was going to happen, she was just going to heal them up and stay put so they stood a chance.

"Anyone have a normal tricorder? We should be able to find the origin of the distress call...they should be friendly as we're their reinforcements..." Lillian explained slowly.


<Taggles>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1110

Taylor slipped into the shuttle and shook his head at Lillian's words. "Yeah, too slow." he said, slipping his arms underneath her legs and arms, carrying her like a newly-wed bride. He didn't mention his head wound from its smacking off of the LCARS terminal but he figured a dermal regeneration was enough to take away some of the damage. Still, the world seemed to spin every so often but Taylor managed to regain his balance as he fed Lillian through the hatch and placed her onto the surface of the shuttle. "I'll carry you. After all you're not that heavy and having you on a splint might negate us being able to traverse rough terrain. Right now we need rocks and hills, not this flatland." he said before disappearing into the shuttle again.

He fetched the canteens from the dead marines' tactical vests and placed them in a nearby day sack along with a broken communications unit, some ration packs and a heater from the emergency supply storage. "Least the station's crew had the courtesy to leave us some of these supplies." said Taylor out-loud. Max said he'd take care of Stedenko and he mentally held him to that before surfacing again.

The marine helped Lillian get down onto the ground along with himself before inspecting her leg. He was medically trained, at least to a basic degree. Enough to hold any bleeding until someone more qualified showed up. "Leg looks ok but we need to get moving soon. I don't have a tricorder but before I blacked out I saw the signal on a north-west bearing. Course...that was before we hit the deck." Once more Taylor slung her up against his chest and walked away from the shuttle, looking back to see if Max was following before he stopped. "You can ride on my back or walk with me holding you, your choice."

<tag: Away>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1114


Lillian was busy trying to get to making a splint when Taylor came over and swooped her up in his arms to carry her out of the shuttle wreckage and she was certainly surprised, her cheeks tinting red with a blush. His arms were muscular and strong and he picked her up like she was nothing, holding her close to him as he took her out of the shuttle and if she said she wasn't a bit turned on by the display of take charge masculinity, she would be lying and Lillian Crae wasn't a liar. She could tell that something was wrong as she was there in his arms, but before she could ask he had set her down and gone back into the shuttle to get some effects that they were undoubtedly going to have to use and she wanted to make sure that Max and Dahlia were alright too. The nurses and the marines were dead, but the four of them could make it through this.

The young doctor found herself smiling a little bit again when Taylor helped her down to the ground and inspected her ground, which made her breath catch in her throat. It really didn't do her any good to be attracted to the man, but he was making sure that they were all going to make it and he could carry her so easily that she almost felt like that was how it was supposed to be...no, stop it, Lillian. They were in the middle of a crisis situation and they had to make it away from the wreckage before they were caught by the people that had shot them down. Right now they had to get to a safe place so that she could get them all fixed up and Max could handle the situation, so she had to focus on anything other than Taylor's arms and his heart beating in his chest against her body when he picked her up. What did he just say about a north bearing?

"Marlo taught me how to tinker tricorders, but I don't know if I can get it back to do scans if I reset things or not," Lillian explained to him gently. "I think, however, that we should head in that direction and see if we get lucky."

Before she knew it, she was in his arms again and she had to try really hard not to stare and though she was very obviously a bit flustered by him and this heroic display, he was a marine and this was his job, right? Then his words hit her ears and she realized that she was going to have to make a choice because they didn't have all day--the four of them had to find a way out of this mess and to civilization and there had to be signs around here to guide them. On his back he could at least continue pretty well as he was strong and he said she wasn't that heavy to carry, whereas if she went on foot then she was going to have to limp and it might just keep them slowed...and his head...there was blood on him and she now knew that maybe staring at the handsome man was for the better.

"Your back will keep us moving quicker, but first I want to use the dermal regenerater on your head," Lillian told him, reaching up to ever so softly touch his forehead for signs of bleeding or bruising, with her fingertips. "Are you in any pain at all? I still have the medical bag."


<Taggles>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage
||August 2, 2387
||1115

Taylor didn't know why but he dodged away from Lillian's fingers as if they were scorching hot pieces of metal. Inside he cursed his lazy run with the dermal regenerator which had obviously lacked the needed amount of finesse, more so than he was able to provide without a mirror. "I'm fine." he says flatly. "Sometimes the ears buzz, vision gets a little bit blurry but so far I've kept myself together. Thought I had patched myself up properly but obviously I've got a long way to go before becoming a doctor."

He took this time to sit down and relax as well as enjoy the sunlight that blazed down upon them. The grass was light and cool against the back of his neck and he seemed to generally smile a lot. It reminded him of Betazed, Risa...Earth. M-class planets were always a welcome sight to Taylor and even more so when he was allowed to walk upon them. He could be fighting or simply on shore leave, something within his mind simply accepted the naturally occurring gravity, air and light as one of the best things in life. "If I'm going to carry you on my back, someone needs to take this backpack. You're injured, Stedenko is out of it and somehow I don't see the lieutenant commander burdening himself with it unless it was filled with enough drink to carry him off into the sunset. No, I'll carry you as I did...I can take it."

Gingerly he rose up and took Lillian into his arms again. If he needed to get control of his weapon Taylor would simply dropped or put down Lillian before engaging. Of course if they were ambushed by enemy forces then it would be a moot point. Taylor looked at her face with a small smile as he tried to reassure her. "Don't worry. I do this type of thing all the time."

<tag: Any>

||Thalos
||Shuttle Wreckage > Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1118

Satisfied that Taylor seemed to be seeing to Lillian, Max gathered his pack and the fallen marine's rifle, and carried them outside the wreckage, then ducked back into the cockpit to retrieve the pilot. Dahlia whimpered softly, but gave no sign of returning to full consciousness yet. Frowning, he did his best to ease her out of the mangled flight deck and carry her outside. Setting her down in the grass next to his pack, Max took a moment to clear his head. Noticing Lillian and Taylor talking as he held her in his arms made Max fret again, and he chose that moment to cut in.

"All right, Lieutenant…and, uh, Lieutenant." He had decided to hold off on the first names for the time being. A command presence was needed, he reminded himself. "Let's get moving. North-west sounds like our best option, since it looks like there might be some concealing vegetation in that direction at least. It goes without saying that we had better avoid the indigenous population for the time being. No one fires without my authorization and we keep quiet if we see anyone. Move out."

With that he hoisted his pack and rifle, then lifted the unconscious ensign over his right shoulder in the classic fireman's carry. As they started off to the northwest, he stayed to the the right of the marine carrying the doctor and a little behind, to better keep and eye on them on his left. On his right was Dahlia's shapely backside, and he didn't sneak more than one or two glances at that.

After a period of silent trudging through grassland and then forest they came to the outskirts of a small outpost. Max stopped still at the sight of man-made structures in the clearing ahead, and looked over at the other two. He was just about to signal them to turn back and retrace their steps when a loud voice interrupted the forest's calm.

"All right, freeze, all of you! Drop those rifles."

<Tag>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1132


Lillian held her hands up a little and looked at the voice, seeing that there were other people here on the outskirts to do protecting and she had to speak up before something bad happened. "I'm a doctor! We got a distress call and we came to give aid." She was hoping that she could get through to them somehow, not ready to die yet. "We were shot out of the sky by someone saying you didn't need any help, but we're friendly and peaceful, I swear it."

"You got shot out of the sky?" One of the men asked holding a gun, nodding gently at her as he eyed her up and down. "Not in a position to heal anybody, are ya?"

"I could be, if I had a place to set up. The four of us need medical attention," Lillian explained gently as Taylor set her down, but she kept close to him, feeling safer near him and Max. "I need to tend to my internal bleeding before I'm rendered useless."

She hadn't told Max or Taylor about her own injuries other than her leg thus far, but she was feeling weaker and weaker the whole trek to this colony and she needed medical attention--they all did. If they were in any sort of position where fighting would be needed, then she had to make sure that everyone was checked over and Taylor and Max both seemed to have head injuries. Besides, if she was in a position to get supplied then she could make this quick and send them back out, smiling at the people and avoiding eye contact with the others in case they chastised her for not telling them the extent of her own physical nature right now.

During the Dominion War, Lillian had gotten used to telling people only what it was that they needed to know right away because most people could read her mind, but this was different. Max and Taylor couldn't just read her thoughts and tell that she was in distress, she had to actually come out and voice that and she was in a position where she thought it would just worry them...then again not telling them was a risk because she could have fainted and been lost to them. What would have happened had she just started coughing up blood all over the place in Taylor's arms and slowed them down even more?

"We have wounded that need tending as well," the man explained holding out his hand to Lillian. "Regus. This is my colony--I can show you to our medical building, Ma'am."

Looking at Max and Taylor with a smile on her face like she'd done something right, she felt the man's hand on her lower back and suddenly the smile was gone. He was trying to lead her away from her team and she wasn't sure how she felt about it as he'd eyed her on the way in and now his hand was in a place she'd rather it not be, moving her hand to gently push on his arm like it was nothing but she was just trying to limp along on her own. Perhaps Max or Taylor would step in...maybe Taylor would swoop her up and carry her and keep her away from the handsy leader...or perhaps she was going to end up having to limp along with him with his hand there on her...


<Taggles: Feel free to get some things started. Basically, they're at war with another colony and everyone gets attacked soon. They have a ragged team and a couple of messengers, a lot of weapons, including high tech ones.>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1133

It was never a good feeling; being ambushed. For a marine it was a feeling of failure that you had been unable to read a situation and had basically been caught with your pants around your ankles. His rifle hit the deck and he could feel hands grasping away his phaser pistol to fully disarm the man. Though for some reason that had neglected to take the fighting knife sheathed on his side. Either they thought it was no problem with so many men armed with rifles or they simply didn't notice it.

He let Lillian do the talking. As a doctor she was better at it. Taylor instead looked at the weapons presented to them. Ancient pulse plasma rifles, 23rd century phasers and even a few more modern disruptor rifles. It was a typical sign of a civilian army; no standard issue to be found. Their uniform was designed to blend into the surrounding terrain but Taylor doubted they had any sensor blocking technology which made the whole thing somewhat moot. One woman was equipped with a very modern phaser sniper weapon and a smirk on her lips. Her eyes locked with Taylor's, then she look to Max and then back and Taylor again. The smirk wasn't one of playfulness, it was a dare.

It said "Make a move if you think you'll come out on top."

As Lillian was led away Taylor felt a pang of protectiveness. She was a woman and she was wounded. The man was strong, a fighter. Alarm bells were ringing in Taylor's mind that he might have had other plans for her than her medical expertise. He wanted the group to remain together. Or at least not leave any of the female crew alone. Despite the weapons trained on his chest he slowly walked forward towards Lillian and the man before he took one of her arms and brought it across his shoulders. "Keep the pressure off of your leg, let me take the weight." he said to her.

Image was important. If he had taken her into his arms like a bride she might appear weak or helpless. Instead she looked like an equal, one of them. It made sense at the time as they walked towards the colony. It was a mess. The dead were left to lay while the dying were piled into a 'medical' centre which was little more than a collection of tents. Structural damage from artillery was everywhere and Taylor was starting to doubt that there was any power.

<tag: Away team>

|Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1137

Max had let the phaser rifle slide off his shoulder at the demand to do so, and stood motionless as the armed colonists surrounded them. It grated on his nerves to be powerless like this, and more so when Lillian did the talking. Still, he didn't feel like he could establish a good command presence with Dahlia slung over his shoulder, and he didn't want to just dump the pilot on the ground. So he followed wordlessly as the colonials led them to the outpost and the medical building.

After finding a cot to deposit the ensign on, Max made his way over to the colony leader, who was still paying just a little too much attention to Lillian (in his opinion). Tapping the man on the shoulder, he finally offered authoritatively "I'm Lieutenant Commander Max Ritter, Executive Officer of Starbase 12, in charge of this relief mission…such as it is. Our objective was to offer assistance, but we seem to be caught in the middle now. As it stands, my top priority is to reestablish contact with Starfleet and arrange a relief mission for the relief mission," he said wryly. Turning serious again, he looked at Regus, trying to get a measure of the man. "So what can you tell me about this conflict? Obviously the Federation is not interested in taking sides, just rendering aid and mediating a peace. In fact I'm sure-" but the man cut him off.

"I'm sure of your noble intentions, yeah. If Starfleet was that serious about putting an end to the fighting, why'd they only send a single shuttle with brush doctor, a two-bit grunt, and a throwaway XO?" Regus practically spat. Max bristled at the comment, but kept his mouth shut for the moment. He had often regretted his speech, but never his silence, and at the moment he liked to think that it was a far more rational action than someone like, say, Tayor could have attempted. The leader of the ragtag militia continued.

"So I don't know what kind of relief your Federation will send, if any. That being said…I guess you deserve to know the score. A few months ago a fellow named Brantigan organized a whole collectivity movement amongst the miners in the southern outpost. Basically it boiled down to an ideology that anyone who was outside of the in-group was a bad guy. He had a lot of fancy political terms for it all, but what he really meant was that anyone who spent some time alone started thinking dangerous thoughts. So first they went after the outlying prospectors, guys who spend months at a time on their own in the mountains looking for mineral veins. Said they were cooking up anti-group sedition out there. Led to some pretty nasty trials, but it gave Brantigan control of the southern outposts in the end." Regus grimaced at some memory from that time before resuming.

"Then his group-members started expanding, preaching their message in other outposts. It spread quick. Times have been tough around here, a lot of good mines running dry and a lot of demands disappearing after the new finds on Pyktus IV. People were getting desperate, looking for something new, someone to blame…it helped to have a guy giving them a scapegoat. First it was the prospectors, then the transport drivers, then the power grid operators for some reason. Anyone who spent time away from other people. It started building so fast that eventually they had enough people and guns to not care about preaching, only shooting. Brantigan had them invading nearby outposts, and one day he sent his thugs to Outpost 47…where my family and I worked…" the big man trailed off, his icy gray eyes turning even colder. Even Max knew what the look in those eyes meant, and though there was much left unsaid in that statement he did not press the man, only waited for him to continue.

"From that day on I've been fighting them. That's what we're doing now. That's what you're doing now, whether you like it or not." He looked accusingly at Max, who swallowed hard and took a moment to respond. This was all accelerating a pace beyond what he was used to, and worse still he wasn't dealing with it all from behind an encrypted LCARS. He was witnessing it firsthand, with all the possibilities for bodily injury that presented. So his first response was a bit lame, given the gravity of the situation.

"If your report turns out to be accurate, I can assure you that Starfleet will make every effort to restore peace and bring any guilty parties to justice." It was a canned line, but it would have to do. Max did his best to fix the colonial leader with a confident stare.

"Oh yeah? And what about your precious Prime Directive? What the hell can you and your fancy uniforms do out here with that hanging over your heads?" Regus asked bitterly, but for once Max's eyes hardened and he retorted in a steely voice.

"Everything we can. And I have several friends in the Judge Advocate General's office. You let me worry about the Prime Directive." With that, Max turned and strode over to Lillian and Taylor. "How's the leg, Lieutenant?" he asked with what he hoped was not too much concern in his voice as he addressed Lillian. Taylor he gave only the briefest of glances and nods.

<Tag>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1140


She knew that this colony was the colony that had sent for help, but she had a feeling that they hadn't meant for Starfleet to answer the call...maybe a passing ship or something, but not Starbase 12. They were here for aid but it was obvious that they were in the middle of a war and that meant that there was fighting to be had and that the Prime Directive was in question and yet all Lillian wanted to do was to help and she blamed her bleeding heart for that. The young woman had been raised to always think about others before herself and right now there were people that needed her help and she had to lend her aid in any way possible--that was just how it was.

Lillian felt better when Taylor came to her side and helped her to walk along, taking her to the medical tents and suddenly her heart was panged with guilt and compassion. She wanted to tend to their wounded and help them bury their dead and so when Taylor helped her to a cot, she rummaged through her medical bag and then called a nurse over to her and started asking for all sorts of things as authoritatively as she could to establish her presence and her need to control this situation now. Right now her job was to get everyone fixed up after she got herself healed and so ordering about a nurse made quite a deal of sense to her and she even had a small smile on her face as she did so.

"I need some Netinaline for my Ensign and an osteo-regenerater," Lillian explained with a nod. "I also need some more anetrizine so I can work on my leg. I can patch myself up rather quickly, and then I need to see all of the patients so I begin my work. Lieutenant, I want to fix up your head wound if you're going to be fighting and that's not a request, that's an order."

Regardless of the statement, Lillian smiled at Taylor to let him know that she really just cared about him, and set to work on her wounds, the internal ones first before she set in on her leg. She was in a little bit of pain and the painkillers would only last so long, but she healed up her outer wounds and patched herself up internally enough to find herself able to stand even though her pants were a bit ripped where she had been trapped. Unfortunately, they didn't have the best of internal healing tools and she had no change of clothes and instead moved to her bag so that she could set in on healing Taylor and Max and reviving Dahlia. The colony was low on painkillers, so she had opted to use a splint instead because the moment her painkillers from the crash wore off, she was going to be in a fair amount of pain but she knew that she could handle it.

Lillian Rose Crae was a lot tougher than anyone ever gave her credit for.

Moving to Taylor, Lillian rested her hand on his shoulder and scanned him with her medical tricorder before she set in to help him with the dermal regenerater because she wanted to fix his injuries. Lillian gave him a gentle smile to try and let him know that she wasn't going to hurt him and she wasn't going to let anyone hurt him, not saying a word, just looking him in the eye as she worked away and debated giving him a stimulant. It would help with the light headed feeling and she was certainly going to make sure he was outwardly healed, but as she opened up her mouth to ask him if he wanted the stimulant or not, Max came over to them and inquired after them. She hadn't even moved to help Max or Dahlia yet, but she knew that she had to answer because this was crunch time and he needed to know how his team was fairing.

"I'm as good as I can be--good enough to help the wounded," Lillian said with a nod. "I will be able to fully patch myself up when we get back to Starbase 12, but these tools...when the painkillers wear off my torn ligament will twinge a bit, but I have a splint. What I want is to patch you two up in case there's a fight to be had, and then I want to revive Ensign Stedenko and get their people fixed up. What is the plan here, Commander? I feel like we're in the middle of something we shouldn't be, but we can't walk away from this..."


<Taggles>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1143

Max chewed his lip, pondering his response. "Well…do what you can do for the wounded. No one can fault us for that. And pay special attention to the pilot. We may need her services sooner than you think. As for the two of us…" he glanced and Taylor for a moment, thinking.

"I'm concerned that if we actively assist these people in combat then we will confirm the other side's fears, that we are their enemy and here to fight on one side in this conflict. That's a decision that is far above any of our paygrades, and it puts us in danger as well. The optimal plan would be to contact Starfleet and have them deploy a proper peacekeeping force with a clear mandate from the Federation council. To that end…"

Max fixed Taylor with an authoritative gaze. "Lieutenant, you and I will move around this camp making inquiries. Be on the lookout for a long-range transmitter we can use, or even some kind of spacecraft. It's in everyone's best interest if we reestablish contact or even evacuate, including theirs."

He swept the camp with a penetrating gaze, allowing his eyes to rest for a long moment on the woman with the haughty grin and the phaser sniper rifle. She took her eyes off Taylor long enough to sneer at Max, then returned her scrutiny to the Marine. Max frowned, and continued.

"Use whatever means necessary…no matter how unorthodox."

<tag>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1145

"I like to be as unorthodox as the next man." stated Taylor. "However these people have made it abundantly clear that they don't trust the Federation, or us for that matter. Even if we do find a way to communicate or escape it's highly unlikely that they'll let us use them or even worse; catch us doing so and get the wrong idea."

The camp was a mess. A total shambles. It was obvious that with the fighting everything was put on hold. You never got used to seeing civilians effected by war. The closer you got to any kind of front line the worse it got so Taylor was beginning to wonder how close the other side was if a civilian area was like this. He also recognised that hollow look in their eyes. The civilians were as much targets as the fighters.

"There is one way to gain their trust. With these uniforms we risk violating oh-so many regulations about remaining neutral. However if we were to...remove them...for something of the local colour and assist them....well, I can't imagine how grateful they'll be. Nothing major of course. A small, solid victory."

<tag: Max>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1147

"That's why we will not let them catch us doing anything other than our duly appointed relief and assistance tasks," Max hissed, glancing around to make sure no colonists were within earshot. He was angry to have to spell this out, but supposed he should not have expected more from those who bore no burden of command like him. All part of the tests that fate decreed, he reminded himself.

"And what do you think the consequences will be if any of us are captured or killed fighting on the side of some colonial partisans? Near-explicit confirmation of Starfleet's involvement outside of its stated policy goals by using its resources to settle colonial disputes in its favor,or at the very least, that the Federation quietly condones its personnel participating in local conflicts as foreign brigades?" he whispered angrily. The matter was a touchy subject for him, since he was at the moment picturing how a review board or even Captain Sorren might judge him based on his actions here.

"Therefore you will not strip off your uniform and take arms as a result of whatever the latest colonial casus belli may be, you will not jeopardize Federation neutrality on a galaxy-wide scale, and you will not endanger this away mission with delusions of acting as some sort of 24th century filibuster!" Max snapped as quietly as possibly, the strain starting to show on his face. "You will conduct clandestine inquiries as to how we may extricate ourselves from this situation while avoiding participation in local hostilities, and myself and the Federation Council will thank you for it!" Max huffed, and subconsciously touched his rank pips, as perhaps a sublte reminder to them (and himself) of where their overall responsibility lay.

"And you-" he said abruptly, pointing at Lillian "-will get that pilot on her feet as soon as possible, in the event that a suitable escape craft is located. Do I make myself clear?" he asked them both with an uncharacteristic harshness. He felt bad for snapping at Lillian after he did it, but justified it by telling himself they were in dire straits in which a command presence needed to be maintained.

<Tag: both. Feel free to have an attack occur on the colony at any time to render all this moot, btw>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1150


Lillian was moving toward Max to check him for wounds when he snapped at her, pausing and yet still moving in to help. They were stuck here and Dahlia would get treated in a moment, Lillian worried about Max and their immediate situation. It was plausible that they were already inevitably involved in whatever was going on here and Lillian didn't know what it was to do. Every instinct inside of her told her to help and yet Max brought up a very good point: there were Federation rules and regulations for a reason.

There was a chance that this could all go terribly wrong and they'd be caught in the middle in a bad enough way to be relieved. The Federation didn't go around meddling in personal affairs and yet...this felt so much like self defense now that they'd been shot out of the sky. It was a moment where Lillian was listening to her gut and it was times like these where she felt like that was the right decision.

"The wounded I can handle," Lillian explained as she leaned back to admire her healing work, "but if we are attacked I refuse to be a sitting duck...that's the Earth saying, right?"

She looked at Max and Taylor both, hoping one of them would say something and also feeling the tension between them. Part of her wanted to put a stop to it and calm them down for what felt like a long day ahead, but she didn't have time for that. Lillian didn't even feel like she could say her opinion right now and not have them both snap at her for one reason or another. Then she heard it: a very loud 'bang' and all she could feel was panic.

"You," came a man's voice, his hand reaching out to grab Lillian's arm, "you're one of them black eyed freaks, right?"

"Betazoid," Lillian corrected him in a less than friendly manner Max and Taylor had yet to see her display. "Why?"

He handed her a rifle as the whole colony seemed to spring into action. "You look old enough to have been in the war."

"Excuse me?" Lillian asked, but she knew what he was getting at. "Yes, I did plenty of fighting in the war. Do you need my assistance other than healing?"

"We have a medic--he may not be as skilled as a fancy Federation doctor but we need you to do whatever you do...they're here," he said ominously.

Lillian nodded and turned to Max, handing Taylor the rifle. "We may not want to be in the middle, but if we're going to be attacked, Max, we need to defend ourselves...I prefer mind over weapon, but there's no time for calculated plans. I'm going to revive Dahlia and on the way back we all talk a defense plea. Sound good?"

With a nod, she grabbed the hypospray she had asked for earlier, and pressed it to the Ensign's neck--time to fight to survive.


<Taggles: Feel free to fight, but I think the other side should capture them, lol...after I get to write a Lilly fighting post once you guys tag>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1152

The sound of mortar shells was replaced by the distant sound of small-arms fire. Taylor knew that the fight was getting closer and he was standing at the entrance of the medical tent with the butt of the weapon pressed tightly against his shoulder. His head looked down both sides of the 'street' in a bid to catch the glimpse of any hostile forces but the problem was he had no idea of how they were dressed. The soldiers in this outpost were dressed merely in civilian clothing, would they be the same?

"I think we've overstayed our welcome." pointed out Taylor as he saw two soldiers approaching from the left hand side. Rather than blatantly firing into the fleeing crowd the men were checking tents and he had a good notion about what, or who, they were looking for. "I'm going for a walk..." he said slowly as he walked towards the rear flap of the tent. Taylor crouched low and moved along the back of the tents until he was parallel with the soldiers. After peaking around the corner he could see their black armour and much more advanced looking disruptor or particle rifles.

With that intelligence on hand it was obvious that they were dealing with training and the resources to give equipment standard issue. That meant they were not from the camp and obviously part of the attacking force. In Taylor's eyes, that meant they were fair game. He brought himself onto the street and followed them as they walked towards the medical tent. Upon seeing the Starfleet officers they brought their weapons to bear.

"Hands up! Hands up! Do it now!" one of them snarled.

Taylor snuck up to the closest soldier and stood up, placed his boot at the back of the man's knee joint and brought his arms around his head. Since his rifle was slung across his front, he could release it and it simply hung tightly against his body. Taylor roughly jerked his arms to the left until he felt a snapping sensation shoot through the man's neck. The solider went limp in Taylor's arms before his body was thrown to the ground. His comrade turned to face the threat, swinging his rifle towards Taylor but the marine was already bearing down on him.

He slapped the rifle away, unsheathed his knife and plunged it into the solider's throat twice before pushing the gurgling mess over onto his back. Taylor looked to the other officers as he sheathed his knife, bringing his rifle back into his hands. "Can we move now?"

<Tag: Any>

||Thalos
||Colony
||August 2, 2387
||1200


Every time that Taylor did something, Lillian found herself drawn in by everything that he was, but it didn't last this time as she was now torn between what to do do as more soldiers approached. It wasn't just them--they were trying to take this colony back too--but Lillian wanted to help these people just as much as she wanted to get back to Marlo on the starbase and she knew that she couldn't really do that. After all, her painkillers would only last so long and she was still technically down a leg, but she turned to the medic that they had and she rested a hand on each of his shoulders, looking him in the eye. The beautiful young woman had his attention and she smiled a little at the eye contact before she set right in with a series of gentle demands.

"It's important that you get everyone a simple dose of the painkillers before you take this and regenerate whatever outer tissue is damaged. Internal wounds require more time and this," Lillian explained as she dug in her medical bag and handed it to him. "Bleeders and burns first--everyone else later. You're medically trained, you can determine who needs what."

Smiling, she pat the man's shoulder gently and then she turned to Taylor, Dahlia and Max, ready to go. They'd outstayed their welcome, certainly, and she wanted to get out of here as soon as she could regardless of the guilty feeling in her gut like she should stay here...maybe she should stay...could she? It would be against so many Starfleet regulations and yet she felt like she was abandoning people that needed her help--another loud noise, however, shut her mind up.

"The four of us need to move out," she said, having made up her mind.

It was time for action and so Lillian made her way to a safe spot, more soldiers making their way in, colonists springing to action and fighting back. There were a couple in her sights, Lillian using a trick she had picked up during the Dominion War and focusing on one. To anyone watching the scene, it was just a soldier shooting his fellow soldier in the back of his head, but the look on his face as he did that and then placed the barrel to his own head, was that of sheer terror. A trained eye could catch it and Lillian wasn't proud of herself, but he pulled the trigger and that was two down: mind over weapons.

All around her now were loud shouts and weapons fire and she didn't know what to do about it other than fight back. They were stuck, in need to get to some kind of shuttle for Dahlia to use to fly them back to Starbase 12, and that was when Lillian saw it...the colonist get sniped in the neck like a missed head shot. So now there snipers. No, Lillian couldn't in good conscience just leave these people to die no matter her uniform and she moved to some of the fallen colonists as quickly as she could with a splint on one of her legs, checking the gagging man's pulse.

"I...my bag..." Lillian said frantically to no one in particular and just as she got what she was rummaging her, fingers made their way into her hair.

This raid had a particular goal and Lillian yelped as the man pulled her up by her hair to a standing position, looking her over. He knew what she was just by looking into her black eyes and he smirked a little bit as he positioned himself safely behind her, placing the barrel of his weapon to her head, growling in her ear. Of course it hadn't been a good idea to throw herself into the fray, but now there was nothing she could do as he tugged on her hair again, smiling at the pain on her face as he ripped off her bag and shoved it at the man next to him, five of them in number, well equipped.

"I want the Starfleet scum," he said, raising his voice, "come quietly or the pretty little doctor dies."


<Taggles: Just trying to move us to the other camp to get them off planet. Max gets dibs on negotiating with the other leader when we get there.>