Yilaan, Freeman, and Chief Engineer R'lanna were in the Bonaventure's main shuttle bay, looking over the craft's only shuttle. "She appears space-worthy Captain," R'lanna reported after giving the shuttle a once over.
Cecilia Yilaan folded her arms and looked the thing over. She wasn't impressed, especially since it wasn't even as big as a Federation Runabout; they'd be limited in the amount of personnel and supplies they'd be able to carry.
"Very good, Commander," the captain replied. "Get her ready. We can still make it to Earth in time, I think."
Yilaan couldn't contain herself any longer. "What? In this? Are you crazy?"
Freeman looked at her in bewilderment. "Let's see," he said, counting off points he made on the fingers of his right hand. "I ditch my friends and allies in the Resistance on the word of a woman I had known for maybe twelve hours at the time, beautiful as she may be. I take my ship back through time, damaging my engines, and suddenly find myself stranded in the past, with everything banking on this aforementioned woman's word. I take my ship into combat with a superior foe and lose several close friends and good officers in the process, making my ship naught but a bit of floating space debris. Now you ask if I'm crazy for wanting to take my shuttlecraft to Earth to finish my mission?" His eyes grew large and his smile very wide, "Some would say I'm already there, Commander Cecilia Yilaan of the United Federation of Planets." Freeman made a large sweeping gesture with his left arm towards the open door of the shuttle, "Wouldn't you care to have a look?"
R'lanna rolled her eyes at her captain's display as Yilaan smiled ruefully. "Very well, sir." Yilaan stepped into the shuttle and discovered it was even worse than she'd expected; the seating was cramped and the quarters for sleeping were virtually non-existent. "Where does one sleep here?"
At the sides of what she thought were maintenance hallways, Freeman and R'lanna pulled down two big metal shelves. They pushed them into place until a clicking sound was heard. "Right here!" Freeman responded excitedly. Yilaan sighed and Freeman glared at her; he was proud of his ship, and that included his shuttlecraft. "I'm sorry we don't have the creature comforts you're no doubt used to on your fancy Federation vessels, but it's a sturdy craft and it will get us where we need to go." He turned to face R'lanna, "The commander will be going with me, but I want you to stay." R'lanna started to object, but the captain put up his hand to stop her. "Someone needs to stay and get things ship-shape on the Bonaventure, and to look after the rest of the crew. If I don't return, and this time line doesn't suddenly fix itself," he continued, shooting Yilaan a glance, "then I want you to beam everyone down on some nice planet somewhere and start a life for yourselves. I'll be taking Chief of Security Volok and that Bradley woman with me. Everyone else stays; am I clear?"
"Yessir."
"If it will be ready, this shuttle will leave in an hour," the captain finished. R'lanna nodded, and the captain left, with Yilaan staring after him.
Thirty minutes later, the four were strapped in and getting ready to depart. They brought numerous side-arms and some emergency rations. Each also had a communicator. Unlike her Federation colleagues, Yilaan and the others carried the hand-held variety of personal communicators.
The officers were going through a pre-flight check when R'lanna's face appeared on the shuttle's viewscreen. "Have a successful journey Captain," she said simply.
Freeman nodded and smiled to her, "Thank you R'lanna. Good luck to you as well."
"Any departing orders, sir?"
"Sure," Freeman replied after thinking a moment. "If you get the warp engines and cloak restored in the next couple of hours, consider joining us at the party. Your discretion, Commander."
She smiled at him, "That's not very likely sir, but we can always hope for miracles."
The captain made a fist with his right hand and struck his chest, "Kaplagh!" She nodded, and the screen went dark. "We can indeed," the captain muttered to himself as he finished the flight check. "All systems are go. Warp drive on line and the cloaking device is operational."
Yilaan turned, startled, and blinked at Captain Freeman. "Pardon? Warp drive? A cloak? What are you kidding?"
Freeman looked at her strangely. "Of course I'm not kidding." He then went back to take-off procedures. "Engines powering up; Bonaventure's external door opening. Thrusters initiated," he finished, as the shuttle lifted off the deck and left the ship. Once the shuttle was a safe distance, he tapped a few buttons. "Initiating warp nine-point-five to Earth. Estimated arrival time, 9 hours or so. We may just make it. Engaging cloaking device." Noted Yilaan's flabbergasted expression, Freeman asked, "Something amiss, Commander?"
"Oh, just this whole warp drive, cloaking device thing."
"What do you mean?"
"Federation shuttlecraft have neither."
"I'll be they don't have weapons or shields either," Freeman teased.
"Shields yes; no weapons though," Yilaan replied.
"Are you sure you wouldn't have liked it better in our time?" Freeman asked, feigning seriousness.
Yilaan smiled at him. "I don't know Captain, it's hard to weigh; freedom versus fancy shuttlecrafts. I'll get back to you in eight hours and fifty minutes. If I decide for the fancy shuttles, we'll still have time to turn around." The two, along with Bradley, shared a laugh which helped calm their nerves on this, the final leg of their journey. The Vulcan security chief Volok remained stoic as usual.
Eight hours later, with Volok and Bradley enjoying a cat nap on the metal shelves in the back of the shuttle, Freeman and Yilaan were left alone. "Depending on our exact arrival time, we may have to beam directly into the Great Hall to stop the assassination from taking place. I've been studying the historical records and have some decent beam down coordinates depending on our situation," Yilaan was saying, as the two discussed their upcoming duties. "Captain, what's wrong? You look a little distracted."
"What? Oh yes, right, beam into the Hall. Sorry Commander," Freeman replied absent-mindedly.
"What troubles you Mark?" she asked, dropping ranks since they were alone.
"I've been thinking about us, that's all," he replied.
"You and I, you mean?" she asked, looking him in the eye.
"You and I," he began warily, "and my people as well. A lot of lives have been lost, a lot of damage done."
"It's all going to end soon enough, Mark. They won't have died for nothing. Heck, they won't have died at all, most likely," Yilaan replied. Mark smiled and nodded, remembering her earlier comments that things would be 're-set' with the restoration of her time line. "That isn't all, though. Is there something else you wanted to say?"
Freeman looked somewhat embarrassed. "I forgot you are telepathic," he stammered. "I suppose you must know...."
Cecilia put a hand up to silence him. "I don't know anything; I don't read the minds of others unless an extreme situation requires it. It only seems like you're holding something back that you want to say, that's all."
Freeman sighed and smiled. "Ah, yes, well. It's just that these past few days with you around...," he began. "Well, I don't recall the last time I enjoyed someone's company so much." Yilaan smiled broadly at the compliment. "If we survive, we'll never see each other again, if you're right about this. A part of me wishes we had more time, wishes our mission wasn't so final."
Yilaan touched his arm and leaned closer to him. "A part of me wishes the same thing, Mark," she said simply. They both looked at each other in the eye, hardly blinking. At last they began to lean slowly closer together, mouths parting to kiss. Just as their lips were about to meet, there was a flash of light. Both officers yelped with surprise.
"Oh that is so beautiful!" Q said, mocking their tender moment.
"Who the hell are you?" a very startled Captain Freeman asked the head and upper torso that was emanating from his console.
"Who the hell am I? Why I'm Q! Surely Commander Yilaan has spoken of me!"
"She has," Freeman replied evasively.
"You must be the captain," Q said. "Captains are always so stodgy. What is it with you people?"
"Q, what do you want?" Yilaan asked, annoyance clear in her voice.
"Why Commander, I'm hurt! What happened to 'Q, am I glad to see you!'?" said Q mockingly.
"Q!" Yilaan seethed.
Q sighed. "Oh, very well. I suppose I did interrupt your little moment, didn't I? I guess that's reason enough to be cross. I just wanted to let you know that that President fellow is going to be speaking soon; you're going to have travel at warp through the solar system to Earth if you're going to make it."
"Travelling at warp in a solar system is very dangerous, Captain," Volok said, having just arrived at the doorway to investigate the commotion.
Q sighed, "You're just like your boring protege."
The captain was eyeing Q suspiciously. "What exactly," he began, pausing. "What exactly are you?"
"Me?" Q replied. "I'm Q the magnificent, Q the all-powerful. Q the brilliant, Q omniscient. Q the..."
"Thank you for the information Q," Yilaan interrupted flatly.
Q made a face, "You're welcome Cecilia." Turning to look at Captain Freeman, he added, "I hope you're a good pilot." With a flash of light, he was gone.
"Good enough, dammit," Freeman replied to thin air. "Volok, wake Bradley. This could be a rough ride." Volok nodded and returned with Bradley soon after. A few minutes later, the ship reached the outer limits of the solar system. "I've had the computer plot a course steering us well clear of planetary bodies on our way to Earth. We'll pray we don't run into any debris." The others nodded nervously as the ship pressed on.
The ship swerved and streaked about as it weaved its way towards Earth. There were a couple of close calls, but Freeman proved to be an adept enough pilot for them to avoid a collision. As they were closing on Earth, Yilaan spoke abruptly, "Captain, there's something on long range scan; an energy source of some kind orbiting the planet."
"The Romulans?" he asked.
"Most likely."
Freeman thought for a minute. "The sensor interference caused by a polar orbit should confuse them just long enough for us to beam down. Do you agree Commander?"
"I do," she replied simply.
"Thirty seconds to orbital approach. Captain, they've spotted us. They're decloaking and heading for us on an intercept course. Their shields are up and weapons are charged," Volok reported.
"Disengaging warp drive; engaging sub-light speed drive. Adjusting trajectory for orbital approach," Freeman replied simply.
"No shields?" Bradley objected.
"No reason to de-cloak to power them and give away exactly where we are. It's not like the Romulans couldn't take us out anyway; this might be a fancy shuttle but it's no match for that," Freeman replied, pointing to the Romulan ship on the viewscreen.
"Captain, I'm detecting several other ships in orbit, moving to intercept them. There is also a network of satellite defenses; all are engaging the Romulan ship!" Yilaan said excitedly.
"They may just buy us the time we need," Freeman noted, smiling. "Commander, input your coordinates into the shuttle's transporter. We're entering a polar orbit." She did so, and the shuttle was positioned in orbit around the planet.
The crew could only beam down two at a time, thanks to the small size of the transporter. Yilaan's and Freeman's sudden materialization in the almost standing room only crowd of the Great Hall in which the President of the UAAW was speaking, caused quite a stir; even more so when Bradley and Volok followed.
For Yilaan, everything seemed to moving in slow-motion now. Guards from seemingly every corner of the room began to push through the crowd towards the intruders. Yilaan whirled her head about this way and that, straining to see over the heads of the people near her, to find the Romulans. The President interrupted his talk, peering out into the audience as pushing and shoving continued. Someone rushed up to the podium he stood at and spoke quickly in his ear.
At length, Yilaan felt someone tug on the sleeve of her uniform; it was Freeman. He was pointing off in the distance and saying, "Over there," though, like the surroundings, his voice was also in slow-motion. The four officers began to push their way through the crowd as the guards, who had been gaining on them, had to now be content with merely following. There was a great deal of shouting and confusion amongst the assembled audience.
The President meanwhile, had crouched behind the podium, with possibly a half-dozen bodyguards. All were looking about nervously as more guards were called in. Someone near one of the many doors to the room had the good sense to try to start evacuating the audience, to clear room to move in at the very least, but it was going slowly.
Yilaan and the others, meanwhile, were making decent enough progress towards a group of what appeared to be Vulcan delegates; the fact that they were shifting about nervously was proof enough for her that they weren't Vulcans at all. This was perhaps confirmed when the Vulcans pulled lasers from their tunics and aimed them directly at the podium.
As if on cue, a space cleared around the Vulcans as they opened fire. They destroyed the podium and killed two of the President's bodyguards. Some of the bodyguards fired back as they attempted to quickly usher the President off the stage; unfortunately due to the size of the room, they had a ways to go. Continued volleys dropped some of the Vulcans, and more of the President's bodyguard. At this point they were at a dead run for back stage.
Yilaan reached a point in the audience where they had thinned out enough for her to take aim at the Vulcans with the side-arm she'd brought. She fired, or tried to fire, but the weapon didn't work. Seeing her compatriots having similar problems, she dropped the weapon and charged the Vulcans. As she ran, one was cut down by one of the Hall's guards, leaving only two. The Vulcans were taking aim at the President and his remaining two guards as Yilaan leapt through the air, shouting a long drawn out, "No!" The Vulcans fired. One hit one of the President's guards, killing him. The other, a shot surely meant for the President himself, struck Yilaan full in the chest. The blast tore a five inch opening, destroying her heart and collapsing both her lungs. Freeman was there in an instant, tears in his eyes, calling out to her, but Cecilia Yilaan was already very much dead.
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