SEASON FOUR

EPISODE 4: THE GIFT
PART TWO

By: X-C

SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER. THESE ARE THE VOYAGES OF THE WWF TITANPRIZE. IT'S MISSION: TO EXPLORE AND ENTERTAIN NEW SOCIETIES AND NEW CIVILIZATIONS.  TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO WRESTLER HAS GONE BEFORE!

TITANPRIZE CREW:
Captain Vincent K. McMahon
First Officer, Commander Shane McMahon
Chief Engineer, Commander Stephanie McMahon
Chief of Chiefs, Commander Linda McMahon
Chief of Security, Commander Kane
Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Taker
Communications Officer, Lieutenant Rock
Counselor Al Snow (assisted by H.E.A.D.)
Diagnostics Officer, Lieutenant Jericho
Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Austin
Transporter Chief, Lieutenant Commander Debra McMichael
... And many more!

WWF TITANPRIZE-CAPTAIN'S READY ROOM

    "Captain's Log, Stardate 061144.00. My daughter has not recovered from the attack by the Ja'Ret orb. There is nothing Dr. Taker can do to heal her body...that is in perfect health."

    Captain McMahon laughed, a short unpleasant bark.

    "Stephanie is on a bio-bed in Sickbay with a perfectly functioning heart, lungs... everything. Yet I am to understand that what is Stephanie has become a prisoner of that evil Ja'Ret... toy!" Captain McMahon spat the word out.

    As his eyes pierced the log book before him, the captain reflected on the decisions he had made in the last few hours, decisions that came with a large price...the lives of his entire crew. They could all die, and he could not offer them the mercy of evacuating the ship they had called their home for so long....Wrestlefleet had read his report on the Ja'Ret orb, a report he would've never sent had he known the chilling judgement they would pass. The orb has proven to be unpredictable. The orb could be infectious and you have no way of knowing. Your crew could be carriers of an alien disease. They will not leave the Titanprize.

    The captain still seethed at the admiral's flat, business-like voice as he was handed the impossible choice. He squared his shoulders and prepared to deliver the final log that Wrestlefleet would receive.

    "Captain's Log, Final Entry. The piece of Ja'Ret technology aboard the Titanprize has been deemed too dangerous for study. I have been ordered by Wrestlefleet to beam the orb outside the ship and destroy it. I have refused to obey a command from a superior officer. I will not be a party to my daughter's murder, not now, not ever. I was reminded that the needs of the many outweigh the few. My flesh and blood outweighs the dictates of Wrestlefleet. I have been told that we will be intercepted and destroyed by a Wrestlefleet warship if we still have the orb on board when we are met and scanned. The Titanprize will not be taken. I have asked Lt. Commander Austin to go to full warp and head for a destination known only to the two of us."

    "Captain McMahon, WWF Titanprize."

    He closed the log book, waiting in silence. He knew he could not visit Sickbay and look into Stephanie's empty eyes....

JA'RET HOMEWORLD

    The floating sensation had stopped. It had all been a dream, Stephanie told herself, as her eyes struggled open. A wonderful, terrible dream, a beautiful, horrible nightmare. She had felt as light as a feather, the air around her had been so warm, a breeze had blown her hair from her eyes...and then the fear had struck like a cold hard dagger in her heart. Commander McMahon had suspected a transporter beam at first. Her simple explanation for the bizarre phenomenon had been dashed as she felt the blackness creep out from inside her brain, as she felt something pulling everything she was out of her pores, as she had watched her own body fall in a heap in front of Ensign Matt...

    Pink. It was everywhere. As the fog in her vision cleared, Stephanie realized exactly where she was. "My room!" she squealed with delight, clapping her hands together as she sat up in her plush pink bed. She happily bounced to her oval shaped window, but her face crumpled as there were no stars, no nebulae, no comets, no asteroid belts. Below, in a courtyard was paradise: lush flowers, turquoise water spraying from enormous marble fountains, and crowds of similar looking Ja'Ret milling about the square, their frosted blonde hair gleaming in the warm, golden sunlight. Women of all species walked through the courtyard as well, but they made eye contact with no one; their heads remained bowed for as far as Stephanie could see them. She shuddered at how all the Ja'Ret males appeared as identical twins; only a handful of other humanoid type men crossed her line of vision.

    "Does this atmosphere not please you, Commander McMahon?" the ingratiating voice of a Ja'ret caused Stephanie to whirl around, bringing a small fist up. The Ja'Ret caught her hand with ease, applying just enough pressure to halt the attack. "Ineffective."

    "I demand you return me to the TitanPrize RIGHT NOW!" Stephanie wailed.

    The Ja'Ret ignored her, his gaze unreadable underneath silver-framed visor-style glasses. "Welcome to the Ja'Ret Homeworld, Stephanie. Heaven compared to flying tin can you call the almighty Titanprize. Here, you will want for nothing. You will be treated like a queen...because you will be our queen."

    Stephanie laughed, and even to her own ears, she sounded slightly mad. "There is no chance in hell of that happening! I would rather die than lead such a backwards, malevolent people! You know what? Fine! Don't return me! Daddy will send every Wrestlefleet officer, he will use every Wrestlefleet weapon available to get me back!"

    The Ja'Ret laughed. "Impossible little one. You see, the technology of the Ja'ret is millennia ahead of that pitiful human endeavor known as Wrestlefleet, and your father will find nothing in his bag of tricks that will ensure your return."

    Stephanie lapsed into a sulky silence. There were no lies, no bluffs in this man's words. He spoke like a person accustomed to flaunting his superiority and never doubting that he could back it up.

    "Now." The Ja'Ret became more serious. "Our former leader met with an unfortunate accident. She came into some rather funny notions about the males and females being equal, and the proper role of a Ja'Ret queen is to manipulate the women on this planet into accepting their inferior roles. Women here are handed virtually anything they could possibly want; they should be grateful that all we ask is subservient behavior. You were chosen because you always get exactly what you want under any circumstances."

    Not everything. Stephanie quickly banished the thought. Where had it come from?

    "You will find your wardrobe in the closet. I suggest you wear it without complaint. Your life will be easy, extremely easy here on Ja'Ret. But only if you choose to make it so." He spun on his heel to leave, a patronizing smile plastered across his face.

    Stephanie's lower lip had started to tremble. "I want to go home."

    "You are closer to home than you realize, Stephanie." The Ja'Ret now seemed smug. "You see, your universe is finite, I believe Dr. Taker knows about that. But the Ja'Ret universe is endless, endless and within the pink orb that was beamed aboard the Titanprize this very day."

    "The orb..."Stephanie could not grasp that an infinite world could exist within that beautiful, jewel-like sphere that she was inside it now. "What are you?" she whispered.

    Her eyes grew wider as the color drained from her face, while the Ja'Ret imparted to her the true horror of her new existence.

    "I will die here." Stephanie realized, voicing the words aloud in the now silent chamber that pretended to be her room. "I will never leave here alive."

WWF TITANPRIZE-SICKBAY

    "What have you learned about the orb?" the voice of Dr. Taker rumbled like thunder in the otherwise quiet Sickbay. He leaned over Ensigns Jeff and Lita, who scanned the loathsome Ja'Ret "gift" as it shimmered on a medical station.

    Ensign Jeff sighed. "Nothing we didn't already know, sir. It has all the qualities of your typical holographic device. It does indeed contain Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley's neural patterns, as well as numerous other patterns that are more subdued."

    "There are other beings in there?" Dr. Taker demanded. He had not counted on this development.

    "Yes, sir." Ensign Lita replied matter of factly. She did not have a personal stake in rescuing Stephanie, a woman who had tried to crush her career on a silly whim. She simply wanted to succeed, wanted to defeat this nasty little device. "There could be hundreds, thousands."

    "I don't dig this at all!" Dr. Taker proceeded to utter an obscenity that startled the two Ensigns.  "Can you tell me anything that might help me extract Stephanie's neural pattern from the orb?"

    "We can only confirm what Lt. Jericho's tests from last night told him." Ensign Jeff replied. "The orb is made of an unknown material that can not be penetrated to perform an extraction. It is powered by unknown means. It is also shielded by unknown means."

    "And where is the brilliant Lt. Jericho," Dr. Taker spat on the floor, making Ensign Lita flinch with disgust.

    "He said something about a project in engineering that might be helpful." Ensign Lita offered.

    "I suppose if anyone can free Stephanie, it's that android." Ensign Jeff said, after Dr. Taker had stalked out of Sickbay, leaving Nurse Saturn in charge. "Geesh, can you imagine what she'd owe the guy?"

    "I can't believe we're all risking our lives and having Wrestlefleet track us down like criminals all because that impulsive little tramp couldn't resist playing with her precious new toy." Ensign Lita rolled her eyes. "If it was me stuck inside this ball, do you really think anyone would risk getting the TitanPrize blown to bits to pull me out?"

    "I would." Ensign Jeff said, and then flushed pink.

    "Dammit." Ensign Lita growled. She seemed not to hear her Aerialian shipmate. "It's no use studying this thing from the outside. It won't give up its secrets to us. What we need....we need to know what makes it tick, sort of like getting to the heart of it."

    "You mean...?" Ensign Jeff let his voice trail off, his adrenaline kicking into high gear. Aerialians did not weigh the risks for very long before taking a dangerous plunge. Caution wasn't in their nature.

    Ensign Lita nodded. Ensign Jeff nodded back.

    Several seconds later the frantic voice of Nurse Saturn could be heard crackling over his communicator, echoing throughout Engineering. "Dr. Taker! Dr. Taker! Medical emergency in Sickbay. Ensigns Jeff and Lita have been attacked by the Ja'Ret Orb!"

THE BRIDGE

    "Sir, sir!" The young Houdinian, Ensign Crash had been seated at the communications array for two shifts now, as Lt. Rock had taken over Austin's tactical station. "We are receiving an encoded hail from the WWF Shuttlecraft Jakked! It's Ensign Matt! Oh boy-it's Ensign Matt!"

    His boyish enthusiasm might have been infectious, had Lt Rock been that type of person. But, as it was, he wasn't. "Take it easy you little jabroni! Patch it through to tactical and put the Ensign's face on the viewscreen. On the double you piece of monkey crap!"

    "Yes sir!" Ensign Crash's hands trembled a little as he punched the buttons.

    Ensign Matt's face loomed over the bridge, and he grinned broadly from the pilot's seat. "Where is the acting captain? I have some good news."

    "Er...he went to get some beer with the Lieutenants Farooq and Bradshaw." Ensign Crash said.

    "The Rock says...what?" Lt Rock was practically jumping out of his chair. "Does it take three jabronis to get a few cans of beer?"

    "Acting Captain Austin wanted to make sure they got the right brand." Ensign Crash's face was  vividly red now.

    "To hell with Acting Jabroni Austin." Lt Rock snapped. "You get McMahon's monkey ass to the bridge Ensign. Just...bring him!"

    Captain McMahon arrived on the bridge within seconds of being summoned. He gazed expectantly at the Ensign's beaming face, and then he realized he had to temper Matt's good spirits. "Ensign Matt...I don't know how to tell you....your brother and Lita have been taken by the orb."

    Ensign Matt nodded curtly. He had already half-expected them to be there upon his return. The Aerialians would take every chance out there before they surrendered; it was in their blood. "I have a means of escape from the orb."

    "What the hell you talkin' about, son?" Lt Commander Austin swaggered onto the bridge, six pac in hand, fresh from the replicator. "Where'd a young Ensign like you come up with a way to stomp a mudhole in that orb?"

    "Did you locate the Ja'Ret homeworld?" Kane's gravelly voice reminded them of his presence.

    "No." Ensign Matt frowned. "There was nothing at those coordinates except interstellar dust...and a young woman claiming to be a Ja'Ret rebel. The only thing she would say about herself was that she was the last one and the only one not to go. And she gave me this..."

    Ensign Matt opened his clenched fist. In the palm of his hand pulsed a small pink oval, as seamless and smooth and full of celestial light as its larger and terrible counterpart. The bridge crew felt a wave of fear wash over it, until they realized that the Aerialian was touching the object and still with them.

    "What does it do?" Captain McMahon asked abruptly.

    "It's supposedly made of the same material as the Orb, so that it can be absorbed through the surface. It has the capacity to transport two neural patterns outside of the Ja'Ret homeworld. It turns out that not everyone was quite happy with the evolution of the Ja'Ret, and she has spent a lifetime developing a means of rescue."

    "Ya silly bastard!" Lt Commander Austin shook his head as he pulled the tab on a beer from the Captain's bridge chair. "What in the hell does that even mean?"

    Ensign Matt smiled faintly. "No idea."

    "We will beam you and the device aboard." Captain McMahon knew he had turned over control of the ship to Austin, but now was no time for the niceties of protocol. "You will set your ship to self-destruct in 30 seconds."

    Ensign Matt's face disappeared from the viewscreen. The young Aerialian initiated the self-destruct sequence and set the timer on it for thirty seconds exactly. Normally the thought of such an imminent explosion sent a shiver of excitement through his body, but not today. His brother had gone into the orb with Lita. Only two would come back. He had seen Lita in engineering, watched her fail to mention a minor anomaly in the Orb to Commander McMahon before she had touched it. It had been revenge, his mind could wrap itself around no other possibility. And now his brother was a living, breathing shell like Stephanie, who, witch or not, deserved better from her crew. If Jeff lived, he would forgive Lita, probably not even blame her. The trouble with Jeff, Matt was beginning to realize, was that he was far too trusting.

JA'RET HOMEWORLD

    Three pairs of human eyes, eyes that back on the TitanPrize held no expression, were locked in  a staring contest.

    "Well." Stephanie finally cracked. "This is the rescue team. Rainbow Brite and the castrating shrew who won't give him the time of day. I might as well slit my own wrists, except the scars would be so....ugly."

    "I won't stop you." Lita said coldly. The scene was surreal. It was Stephanie's little girl, pink hell of a room, yet it wasn't. And what did Stephanie mean by that?

    "We just felt if we examined the Orb from the inside, the answers would all be there." Ensign Jeff said earnestly, hoping his face wasn't as flaming red as he feared it was.

    "Hah!" Stephanie laughed, a chuckle devoid of any real happiness. "There are no answers, Jeffrey. You've just sentenced yourself to spend eternity on the Ja'Ret Homeworld."

    "She is correct." A Ja'Ret had materialized in the entrance of the room, seemingly out of thin air. "But you musn't be afraid. Stephanie has adapted very well to her role as Queen of Ja'ret, and you will soon find this much superior to your meaningless flesh and blood existence on the TitanPrize. I must confess I didn't expect anyone else to be so stupid as to touch the Orb, but you Aerialians are a very unstable species."

    The Ja'Ret laughed. Stephanie flinched. So many identical Ja'Ret came and went that she didn't bother trying to tell them apart anymore. How many days had she seen these freakish clones parade through her room? There were no days on Ja'Ret, she recalled bitterly-time was irrelevant.

    "I think I should like this spitfire as one of my servants."  The Ja'Ret's eyes raked over Lita, and the Ensign could almost feel her flesh crawl.

    "No!" Stephanie bit her lip, shocked at herself. "I need like a....lady in waiting or something." Dear lord...had her daddy's lectures on the value of the crew's lives rubbed off on her? She hoped not. She hoped all it was...was a need to have someone who could help her escape nearby. Yeah, that was it.

    "Then the Aerialian male is free to go." the Ja'ret declared.

    "He would make a fine toy for me." Stephanie leered at Ensign Jeff, who blushed furiously. "Leave him."

    The Ja'Ret nodded and left the room. Lita felt sick to her stomach, watching Stephanie in her royal element. Although watching her drool over her Aerialian shipmate twisted her gut just as much, for some reason....

    "Don't expect me to be grateful." Lita warned her.

    Stephanie shrugged. The Aerialians felt disoriented as the scene shifted from pink to a bustling, earth-like city. The magnificent ancient city of Greenwich, birthplace of the McMahon family so many eons ago. How many times had the captain described it to all the new ensigns who had come aboard? The two almost smiled at the memory that struck them both at the same time.

    "Neat trick huh?" Stephanie winked at them both as they strolled down a sleek marble sidewalk. "Ja'Ret can be anything you want it to be, if you get your mind trained just so."

    "Oh dear." Lita groaned. "She's now a travel agent for this pit of space."

    "But it's not space." Stephanie explained. "It's a hologram within the orb that my nimrod father beamed aboard the TitanPrize. Of course, in a way, it's much more than a hologram."

    "Fascinating." Ensign Jeff tried to imagine his favorite place in the world, a place on Aerilia, but the world remained Greenwich.

    Stephanie wagged her tongue at him. Ensign Lita felt the urge to rip it out for her. "It won't work for you Jeffrey. I'm beloved royalty and have accepted my life on Ja'Ret, therefore I am worthy to learn how to direct my telepathic powers."

    "You haven't accepted a darn thing." Lita scoffed.

    "True." Stephanie's face clouded over. "I miss wrapping Daddy around my little finger, being everyone's boss in engineering, and Ch-..Hunter. I just thought..." She lowered her voice. "If I could just latch onto something...to get myself out of here, I should try."

    "Er...does that mean you can read our minds?" Ensign Jeff asked.

    "It really is disgusting when two people can't admit they like each other." Stephanie said with a vague wave of her hand, as they entered a mall, no doubt a mall where little Stephie spent so many credits as a child, while little girls on Aerialia had to make due with their paltry allowances, Lita thought bitterly.

    "So this whole planet is just a hologram being generated by the Orb?" Lita demanded, suddenly uncomfortable with Stephanie's last crack. What did it mean? Could the little wench see things in Lita's mind that the Ensign could not?

    "No." Stephanie shook her head, her eyes lingering longingly on the beautiful clothes that hung in shopfront windows. "Not quite. Hundreds of years ago, the Ja'Ret created holographic and virtual reality machines that would make those aboard the TitanPrize seem as cruddy and old as a primitive earth microwave. They became bigger and badder with each generation of machines."

    "And this is the final result?" Ensign Jeff shuddered at the thought of being inside some machine while his body rested in Sickbay.

    "Yes." Stephanie nodded. "One scientist discovered that you could transport neural patterns inside holographic simulations. You could go to any planet, any galaxy, any fantasy world you wanted without having to take your body inside. The first machines like this were unstable, and many people died horrible deaths from various brain injuries, as their neural patterns broke down."

    Lita was silently impressed at the way Stephanie, silly little Stephie Mac could recite this information.

    "Don't look at me like that." Stephanie snapped. "I didn't become Engineer of the TitanPrize for kicks and giggles you know."

    "I can't even imagine a machine powerful enough to generate a virtual planet." Ensign Jeff murmured in awe.

    "Keep up with me here pokey." Stephanie sighed. "The first scientist discovered that once the mind was free of the body, there were no real limitations. It could create any scene it wanted, will any body image it desired. In fact, most Ja'Ret today would prefer to stay in the pure form of neural energy, but it makes the species they lure into the orb feel icky."

    Lita shivered, despite the warm temperature. "So everyone we see is actually just neural energy  that has taken the form of a holographic body. They all have bodies like ours somewhere?"

    "Not all." Stephanie did not like this part of the story, the tale of terror the Ja'Ret had told her."The scientist discovered that once free of the body, the mind could actually live forever, the pattern would never degrade inside the orb environment. Many of these freaks don't have bodies waiting for them anymore."

    "I'd rather die." Ensign Jeff said.

    "Me too." Stephanie agreed. "But there is no way out. One century ago, the Ja'Ret scientist who created this helped all the other Ja'Ret develop telepathic skills, so they could create their own paradises within the orb. They made a pact to destroy their actual physical planet and they all touched the Orb. They exist outside the orb through sophisticated holograms that can fool any scan. And once they have your neural pattern, the shielding outside of the world will not allow it to escape. They have taken many species in order to create greater and greater technology to protect their existence."

    "And they let them live even after they take all their knowledge, because there is no escape." The realization hit Ensign Jeff like a rock. He fingered the senton bombs in his uniform pocket, colorful little balls that created blinding and violent explosions. They had been developed on Aerialia and used throughout Wrestlefleet; their dazzling design distracted the intended victim before they were vaporized. He had not been stripped of them, because weapons wouldn't work here...because nothing Wrestlefleet had meant anything here.

    He and Lita exchanged glances-they were going to spend eternity as Stephanie's servants.

WWF TITANPRIZE-SICKBAY

    "I never thought I would spend so much time trying to help a dirty, filthy, nasty, skanky, brutal bottom-feeding trash bag ho." Lt Jericho muttered as he stood near the Orb in Sickbay

    "I've heard you've spent hours on a special project." Ensign Matt said anxiously. Now that the time for the rescue had arrived, he was overwhelmed with a case of nerves. He knew his brother would send the two women over and stay behind. "Sounds promising."

    Lt Jericho smiled wryly. "Too bad I had to have this gorgeous body infested with nanites to learn my lesson."

    "I don't trust you." The voice was HHH's. He insisted on being present for the rescue mission.

    "I'm not the one with the sexual morals of a rabbit." Lt Jericho replied calmly. " I wouldn't trust your wife to carry out her end of this."

    Triple H lunged at  the android, determined to drive his knee into the bots synthetic ribcage. Ensign Christian, who was standing guard at the doors of Sickbay, grabbed Hunter in the nick of time. "Dude, that is soooo not cool. Like, do you want to get your butt kicked out of here?"

    "Really." The Y2JUnit was poking a long sharp instrument into his wrist panel. "Shouldn't you be doing bootlicking for the higher-ups at the Smackdown?"

    "This is a game you don't want to play Jericho!" Hunter lashed out.

    "Enough!" roared Captain McMahon, as he marched into Sickbay. "Ensign Matt! Something has been troubling me. How will the three know this mini-orb is meant to rescue them? How can we be sure it will arrive in the right place?"

    "We don't." Ensign Matt shook his head. "We can only take the rebel's word for it. She promised..." He saw the wild mix of hope and skepticism on Captain McMahon's face. "Sir...my brother is in there. It's our only hope."

    Captain McMahon seemed resigned. He sucked in his breath and let it out slowly. "Dr. Taker, are you ready?"

    Dr. Taker's gray eyes surveyed the three bodies lying prone on bio-beds, figures so full of life in the most technical sense, yet so dead of everything but the most basic functions. He merely nodded his answer to the captain.

    "Ensign Matt, are you sure you want to do this?"

    The Aerialian didn't reply, merely touched the small pink ball to the larger Orb. He didn't wish to share that the woman who had given him the pink stone had died a painful and excrutiating death after beaming away from his shuttlecraft. This was their only hope... The crew in engineering watched in morbid fascination as the lesser shape morphed with the Ja'Ret device and disappeared like a globule of liquid into a lake. At the exact same instant, the Y2JUnit faded away in a sparkling shower of light. They all held their breaths...and waited.

  JA'RET HOMEWORLD

    "You ruined all my fun." Stephanie shrieked, as her precious mall went away and was replaced by the impersonal, cold reproduction of her bedroom. A Ja'Ret stood in front of the three, arms folded, a frown creasing his features. Still, he seemed oddly expressionless, and they all had to look away.

    "You have an engagement." The voice was frosty but strangely meek. A lesser Ja'Ret, Stephanie deduced. A servant Ja'Ret, perhaps one with a very untalented mind. Maybe she could....

    The engagement would have to wait. A glittering pink oval had appeared in a magnificent flash of white light; it hovered in the center of the room. It spoke, but only in the minds of Stephanie, Lita, and Jeff. Come with me.

    The Ja'Ret's mouth opened and closed, reminding Stephanie of a goldfish. He also knew. He pulled a phaser like weapon from his holster; it looked so much like a Wrestlefleet weapon yet it was clear and glowing with a light from an unknown source. Stephanie knew at once it was powerful, beyond powerful, and it would take away their freedom. She stared into his eyes, focused her mind, and felt him start to die, just as the Ja'Ret who'd taught her the trick had promised.

    He did not die fast enough, she realized, as the phaser burst seared her chest and sent her sprawling backwards. Lita watched as Stephanie was sent across the room by the weapon's hot, white beam. She must be dead.

    The Aerialian Ensign grabbed  Jeff's hand and wrapped her long fingers around the small pink stone, feeling a warmth flow through her veins and sensing the false bedroom fade from vision and the smell of burning flesh going so far away....

WWF TITANPRIZE-SICKBAY

    "I have Ensign Lita's neural pattern on the monitor." Nurse Saturn reported, his eyes fixed on the glowing, flashing, beeping screens above the bio-beds. "I have....I have Ensign Jeff back, but his neural pattern is unstable. He's slipping into a coma, sir!"

    Dr. Taker appeared ghost-like at the Aerialian's side. He positioned a hypospray over Ensign's Jeff neck as Ensign Matt watched, every muscle in his body tense.

    Ensign Lita sat up in her bio-bed and rubbed her eyes. She glanced at Ensign Jeff's bed and gulped. She did not feel fear much-she felt it now. "I touched the stone directly. He was only holding my hand."

    Dr. Taker merely nodded.

    "Stephanie....?" Captain McMahon let the word hang in the air.

    Ensign Lita still could not feel much pity for the spoiled little princess, but she couldn't help the compassion she felt when she saw the pain in the captain's eyes.

    "Commander McMahon received a phaser blast while trying to prevent the stone from being destroyed sir." Ensign Lita spoke as gently as she could. "All evidence suggests she did not survive."

    HHH banged out of Sickbay, knocking over Ensign Christian, who screamed in horror as a hair moved out of place.

    Captain McMahon glared at the struggling body of Ensign Jeff, not caring if the Aerialian lived or died, knowing only that the young man had returned without his daughter, knowing that if the UnitY2J returned, the only thing he would bring with him was his daughter's corpse...