The rain was noticable as I materialized, but it helped me realize I was alive. I had managed to escape the brig aboard the I.S.S. Razor,

but the phaser burn on my shoulder reminded me the it had been a narrow escape indeed.

Suddenly someone or something slammed into me from the side knocking the wind out of me and sending me sprawling into the mud against a

wooden walkway. A wagon rumbled by being pulled by two animals resembling horses. If I hadn't been knocked aside, it would not have been

going by, but rather over me. My shoulder screamed in agony as I tried to push myself up out of the mud, and blackness threatened to

consume me. Shaking my head to clear the fog from my brain I felt two hands gently helping me over onto my back. I noticed a small crowd of

people gathering around me and a strange looking alien kneeling beside me looking at me with silver reflective eyes, set into a redish

tinged face. He, at least I assumed it was a he by the deep voice and somewhat masculin features, was talking to me in a language I didn't

understand. he looked at the wound on my shoulder. I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, but his firm hands urged me to lie

still and he motioned for another to help him. Letting my head lay back in the mud with the rain gently falling on my face, I closed my

eyes.

I must have lost conciousness, because the next thing I was aware of was laying on a soft blanket in a room lite by a simple flame bearing

lantern. Quickly taking inventory of my surrounding told me that the inhabitants of this planet were a simple folk, and definatly not as

advanced as the federation. A small fire burned in an alcove on one side of the room, and a metal pot hung over it by a hook. My shirt and

jacket had been removed and my wound had been dressed and was covered by a strange smelling moss. Touching it experimentally I noticed the

pain was gone. Whatever this stuff was, seemed to be working well. from a doorway across the room my savior enetered. He was about 6 foot

tall and lean, dressed in simple overalls and a plain shirt. His head was roughly huminoid, but with pointed ears, a ridged brow and nose,

and a redish pink tinge to his skin. His eyes were no where near human. One solid silvery color with no pupils.

"Forgive me Captain, I was not aware that you were awake"

I looked up and smiled, "Just woke up actually...Wait, you speak english?", surprise clearly shown on my face.

He let out what sounded like a small laugh and said, "I do now. Please forgive me. When you lost conciousness I needed to know that our

treatments would not injure you further, so I entered your mind. Thus I learned your language and all about you. This is never done amongst

my people without permission, but given the circumstances, I was left with little choice"

Blushing slightly I asked, "So you now everything about me?"

"Yes. You are Marshal Palen, Bajoran, but born on Earth in Illinois. You enetered starfleet at 20 years of age. Your ship is the U.S.S.

Imbrium. Your mate, the vulcan/human hybrid Bryan disappeared when the Klingons attacked..."

"Stop!" A flash of anger had mad the comment come out more harshly than I had intended. Bryan had died during a klingon raid almost 15

years ago, but the pain was still there. And although he hadn't meant to be insulting, calling Bryan a "hybrid" had put me on the defensive

immediately.

"Forgive me Marshal, I had forgotten that you humans process your emotions differntly than we do. Do not be alarmed as I am the only one

who touched your mind, and your secrets are safe with me." A small smile creased his lips. "Now you must be hungry. You have been sleeping

for 3 days.

A loud growl from my stomach told me he was right. He helped me off the pallet that i was on and steadied me me when the blood rushed to my

head and my legs threatened to dump me back onto the floor. We enetered a small simple room with a wood burning stove and a small table

with two bowls set at each of the chairs. After setting me in one of the chairs, he turned and filled my bowl with a spicy smelling stew.

Taking a small spoon, I tasted it, and was surprised that it tasted like clam chowder. One of my favorite dishes. I began to eat quickly as

hunger overode my thoughts of everything else. Halfway through my bowl my host sat opposite me and set a small piece of bread beside my

bowl. Realizing I was making a pig of myself, I swallowed and appologized.

He laughed, sounding almost like a turkey gobble and said, "No appologies Marshal, eat and be well." With that he began shoveling the stew

into his mouth almost as rapidly as I had done. Smiling I tucked back into my meal. And three bowls later we were both sitting back and

enjoying a companionable silence.

The light outside the window had began to fade and my mind wandered to the events of the past few days. It was hard to remember what

exactly had happened, and the events that lead me to be marooned on this primative planet.

"You say you know everything about me, but I am having trouble rememberng the last few days. Would you mind gong over some things with me,

so I can try and get it straight in my head."

My host looked at me with those strange eyes for a few moments then said, "I think I can do better than that. With your permission, I can

join with you again, and relay the memories that I have to you directly. This will relay days of memeories in but a few moments."

I was skeptical about letting this guy back into my head again, but after thinking about it for a minute realized, he had already been

inside my mind. He knew everything about me, including things that I had never told anyone. I looked at my host and nodded. "Alright, let's

try that." I knew a telepathic link would not only be faster, but clearer than trying to describe was each other was thinking.

"Very well, shall we find a more comfortable place. I must warn you that the sharing is rather," he paused for a moment searching for the

correct word, "intimate"

Thinking he meant "intimate" as our minds would be joined like a vulcan mind meld, something I had experience with Bryan a few times, I was

not too worried. We walked into another small room where he pushed two chairs to face each other closely, and helped me into one of them,

sitting opposite me. I was about to ask if there was anything I needed to do when he placed his hand on the side of my head and pulled me

forward. pressing his lips to mine. As soon as our lips touched a rush of mental imagages flashed through my head. Many of the memories

were not mine. Later I would realized that I was seeing all of his, and only then did I realize, I had never asked my saviors name. Tiam

The images slowed and I saw myself sitting in my ready room on board the Imbrium, packing my bag for a bit of shore leave on Risa. A friend

was meeting me planetside for some doctor ordered rest. My new ships doctor has nearly come unglued when he had seen how long I had been

aboard ship with no time planetside save the occassional away mission. With the war going on, and starfleet being short on ships, there had

been litle time to think about R&R. When we had stopped to change out personnel, or give the crew some time off, there were systems to

repair and modifications to make and test. Being an engineer had been in my blood, and I was always working on something while my chief

engineer was on break. Trying to convince the Doc that to me that was a vacation was futile, so under threat of being relieved of duty, I

agreed to a week on Risa.

The transporter hummed and light filled my vision as I felt myself dematerialize. When the light faded i stood face to face with 4 red

shirted security personnel with phaseres pointed at me. Their com badges told me that these were not starfleet. The mirror universe crew

had somehow highjacked my transported beam and now had me prisoner. I was escorted out of the transporter room and into an interrogation

cell, where their commander had asked me several questions about earth defense protocols, and security decrytion keys. I refused to answer,

and this seemed to make the captain happy. "I so love a challenge. A mind meld will give me all the information I need, and the more you

struggle against me, the more I will enjoy shredding your defenses and tearing through your memories like a phaser cutting through

duranium."

The guards leveled their phasers at me and the force field lowered...when the vulcan captain reached for my gface, I sprang into action. My

hand snapped into his nose breaking it and driving he bone fragments into his brain, he staggered for a moment, then began to slump

forward. I shoved hard and threw him into one of the guards turning to kick out into face of the other. when he fell i continued my turn to

face the first guard and reached for his phaser. We struggled back and forth, and one of us inadvertantly changed the weapon's setting from

heavy stun to a narrow cutting beam. The phaser fired, burning my shoulder and then continue to lance across the face and eyes of the

guard. He screamed as his eyes burned, and loosened his grip. I pulled the weapon free, quickly adjusted the settings and fired point blank

into his abdomin knocking him out cold. Taking one of the guards uniforms i left the brig and hurried toward the transporter room. Although

there were slight differences, the ship design was that of a Miranda class light cruiser, like my first command. As soon as I entered the

room red lights began flashing and the klaxon sounded. My escape had been discovered, and it would only be moments before they shut down

the transporters. I quickly keyed the panel to lock out external controls and began programing the unit with an equation I remembered from

my transpoter theory class, something I continued to study after i left Starfleet Academy. Captain Scotts transwarp beaming equation. I

tied in the long range sensors and entered a subroutine to erase my destination after the beaming sequence had completed. I set the timer

and was about to step onto the pad when another red shirt entered through the doorway. My surprise must have told him I didn't belong, and

to his credit he assesed the situation quickly and rather than try to draw his weapon before I fired, punched out at scored a hit directly

onto my shoulder. I screamed in pain and he kicked the phaser from my hand, grabbed my wrist and flipped me onto the transport pad. Rolling

as best I could, I barely regained my feet when the beaming sequence energized, sending me to god only knew where.

His lips left mine, and only then did I realize that I had opened my mouth and was actually kissing him. I hadn't kissed another man since

Bryan had disappeared. Or anyone for that matter. Maybe it was my way of holding on to the hope that he was alive somewhere. Waiting for me

to find him.

Something came to mind then. "You have a subspace transmitter here."

"Yes. Your ships is enroute and will arrive tomorrow. We contacted them when you arrived, and I was able to gain the knowledge form your

memories. There was a minor incident which had to be dealt with before they could divert to our location, but there is no need for concern.

Although we choose a simple life, we are not primative captain. My species was traveling the stars well before the humans were."

Now was my turn to laugh. Look like my luck was changing after all.


Not a writer, but figured I would give it a shot. Would love to here some honest feedback, so if you don't like it, feel free to tell me why, and maybe I can improve. Don't be afraid to be blunt, I don't bruise easily :P