Katianna, Kara and Laurissa sat at the table with Daniel in his high chair. Between bites of her own dinner, Katianna fed him his dinner of pureed green beans. But it was obvious that Katianna hadn't eaten much of her own dinner, preferring to push it around her plate and take a bit here and there, pushing her focus toward Daniel.
Laurissa happily chattered about her day in school and about what she wanted to do. One of the things was to get together with Zac, Arianna and Tiyanna again. Katianna listened and smiled.
"We'll see what we can do about that," Katianna replied with a gently smile as she fed Daniel the last bite of his dinner. Taking a final bite of her own with some reluctance, she got up and went to Laurissa, embracing her warming and kissing the top of her head. "Be good for Kara, all right?"
In that instant, Laurissa's face fell. Her green eyes sad. "Why do you have to go all the time?" she asked.
"You know why," Katianna replied, kneeling before her daughter and gently caressing her cheek. "Honey, I have to do this . . . I have to be strong. I have to be ready."
"Do you really think it will help?" Laurissa asked with some fear and doubt in her eyes.
Kat was quiet for a moment, surprised by the response. "I hope so, kiddo . . . I love you and your brother so much and I don't want anything to happen to either of you. I want to keep you safe."
"I know . . ." Laurissa replied as her eyes misted and looked down into her lap. "I just miss you."
Katianna was affected deeply by her daughter's distress and immediately embraced her. "Laurissa, when this is over, I'll make up for this . . . I promise . . . you just to be strong for me now, okay, sweetie?"
Laurissa nodded as she wiped at her eyes.
Katianna kissed her daughter andheld her close once again for just a moment longer. Then she got up.
"I love you, Laurissa," she said as she vanished out the door, only stopping to kiss Daniel on the cheek before going.
Kara watched Laurissa intensely. She watched the little girl try to be strong, but she could still see how upset Laurissa was. Laurissa took a deep breath and let it out as she stared down at her plate trying not to cry. She hadn't finished her dinner, but she suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. As she got up, all she thought about was going to her room.
"Would you like me to read to you now?" Kara asked, as she pulled Daniel from his highchair.
Laurissa shook her head sadly and walked off to her room. "I just want to be alone . . ." she said as she vanished down the hall.
Trying to blank her mind out of the image of her daughter's sad face, Katianna had decided not to use her King Arthur program and opted for something else. She wanted something that took serious agility and skilly and was brutal . . . Personal . . . As she looked through the choices, one seemed to stand out to her. Quickly she chose it and entered the holosuite.
Paul had decided to visit Katianna and strolled over to her quarters. As he set off the sensor, he was greeted by Kara with Daniel in her arms at the door. She immediately let him in.
"'ello, Kara . . . Daniel," he greeted, tickling the baby's cheek and making him giggle, "Where's Katianna?" he asked as he looked around the room.
"Where she always goes," Kara replied with a troubled look in her aqua colored eyes, turning them into emotional churning pools.
"What eez et?" he asked.
"It's Laurissa," Kara replied.
She had to say no more. Paul immediately went o the little girl's room. He might have his moments of thinking of himself, but Laurissa was one of the children that he loved dearly and would do anything for. Knowing she was in distress upset him and he would do anything to help ease it.
As he entered her room quietly, he found her on the bed, curled up and still trying not to cry, but failing. The tears spilled from her young green eyes and to the pillow beneath her to dampen it. In her firm grip was a stuffed animal her mother had given her. A stuffed tiger. She barely took notice of Paul as he came up to the bed.
"What eez wrong, Princess?" he asked, as he knelt beside the bed. Tenderly he caressed some hair away from her face and then wiped away some of the tears from her cheeks.
"Nothing . . ." she replied, still trying to be strong.
"Now, I know you 're fibbing to me," he replied. "Zhose tears are not nozhing."
She was quiet for a moment. "My mom . . ." she began. "She's always training now. I just . . . miss her . . ." Laurissa sniffed as another tear slid down her cheek. "I'm trying to be strong. I am . . ."
"Shhhhhh . . ." He soothed her quietly. "Eet's all right, little one. I understand . . ."
With that she sat up, and he embraced her.
"Everyzhing will be okay. You just wait an' see."
Paul entered the holosuite to find a program quite different from the one he usually encountered Katianna in during one of her 'training sessions'. Before him was a city straight out of the Middle Ages, one that appeared to have endured a sacking. The burned-out remnants of peasant hovels lay at the feet of the city walls, which had been breached. Shouts of fighting and death could be heard inside.
"Computer, identify ze setting of zhis program," Paul asked.
<The program is a simulation of the Battle of Orleans, April 29, 1429. The user is portraying Joan of Arc.>
Appropriate, Paul thought bitterly. I ought to burn her at the stake myself for what's happening to that little girl!
A peasant, bloodied and half-naked, rushed up to Paul. "Aidez-moi monsier! Aidez-moi! Je meurs!"
Paul looked at the woman. Sacre bleu! She's practically a child, he thought. Warfare in Earth's Middle Ages had managed to perfect the art of an already bloody business. "Venez avec moi, fille. Je vous protégerai! Nous trouverons l'aide!" he told her, taking the child's hand.
They entered the city through the hole in the wall and Paul quickly found a company of nuns who were treating several sick and dying townspeople and soldiers. He left the peasant girl in their care. "Où est le Dauphin?" he asked, hoping that Katianna/Joan would be in the company of her titular commander.
An elderly nun pointed down a street, and shrugged. Paul bid his thanks and rushed off toward the front. Along the way, he was reminded of the horror of house-to-house warfare and more than once he wished he'd brought Tarik with him as a crossbow bolt, an arrow, or (at least once) a ball from an arquebus nearly connected with his flesh. He'd have a better time finding her in this mess than I would!
It didn't take long before he found Katianna, dressed in plate mail, taking on a dozen English foot soldiers at one time. "Computer, freeze program!" he ordered.
Just as she turned, swinging her sword to connect with several of the surrounding soldiers, suddenly, their movements stopped. She halted her swing and looked around in stunned surprise. What was going on, she wondered. Then she saw Paul.
"What are you doing here? Why have you stopped my program?" she asked, still breathing hard, taking the moment to wipe her face from the blood and dirt that had clung to it.
"Because your daughter is at home, scared and crying for her mama!" Paul yelled.
She took several deep breaths trying to fully catch her breath. "She understands that I have to do this," Katianna replied, almost turning away from him. It tore at her heart knowing Laurissa was upset, but there was nothing she could do.
"No she does not! She only understands zhat you are not there and she needs you!" Paul said. "Tabernac! Ah don' even understand why you are doing zhees! 'Ow do you expect a little girl to understand?"
Katianna turned around and her green eyes turned to marble. "You think I enjoy putting my little girl through this?" she asked with a hard edge to her voice. "Paul, this is either I save the universe or the universe ends up a cinder in a nightmare . . . Training is the only thing I can do to prepare! If I didn't think I had to do you think I would?" She planted her sword suddenly into the Earth, but at an angle that was easy to extract if necessary. For a moment she bent over on in, hiding her eyes from him. She didn't want him to see how weak she felt. She had this awesome responsibility heaped on her shoulders. She knew she had to do it, yet she saw no real way how . . . Every day she kept at the things she knew hoping beyond hope that something would happen to give her some kind of edge . . . or miraculous idea that would save them all . . . But so far there was nothing . . . No vision . . . No miracle . . .
"Don' you think zhis eez exactly what zhis Kalimar wants? He eez turning you into exactly ze wrong person for ze job! Abandonning ze ones you love...is zhis ze way to defeat evil? Eet eez a way to become evil!"
She sighed and looked at Paul, her green eyes misted with unshed tears. "Kalimar doesn't care about that. What he would like is to kill me, you, Kara, Laurissa and especially Daniel . . . If I don't train, I will have absolutely no chance in protecting us . . ." she said, "Love sometimes isn't enough to repel evil . . . Especially when it's in a solid form that can actually, physically harm you . . ." She shook her head. "I have to train, Paul. I have to do this . . ."
"A sword will not defeat Kalimar if he eez powerful enough to destroy ze universe!" Paul said, pulling the sword from the ground.
"Maybe not," Katianna replied quickly, "But it will help defuse my anger and hate before it can poison me and it will sharpen my response time all at the same time . . . I'd say this is a perfect thing for me to be doing."
"An' what should Laurissa be doing een ze meantime to defuse her anger and hate?" Paul asked.
"Laurissa isn't going to fight Kalimar . . ." Katianna replied, though the thought crossed her mind that if she failed Kalimar would go after both Daniel AND Laurissa . . . He would make sure to destroy her line first. She shuddered. Maybe she should train Laurissa, she thought.
"She already eez, Kat. Every time you go off to 'train' she eez forced to fight Kalimar and what 'e's doing to you!" Paul shouted.
She fought the tears as it felt as if her heart was being squeezed. A tear escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheek. "I can't help that," she said as she took a deep cleansing breath. "I can't . . ."
Suddenly, everything around them came back to life. Paul had Katianna's sword so she grabbed another she saw on the ground and was again quickly immersed in the battled.
"Computer, freeze program!" she called, but nothing happened.
"Computer, freeze program!" Paul shouted. Nothing happened. Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement in a second-floor apartment just above the street. He pulled Katianna to the side just as a crossbow bolt shot out from the window. The bolt caught Paul in the leg.
"I thought I had the safeties on! Damn! Maybe I disengaged them automatically without thinking about it!" Katianna replied as she dragged him to cover. "This isn't suppose to happen! ARCH!" But again, there was nothing. She tenderly brushed some hair away from his face, "You saved me . . . Thank you . . ." The sounds of battle were so close, she knew she was going to have to go back out and join it.
"Ah 'ad...some close calls...on ze way 'ere!" Paul said as he tried pulling at the crossbow bolt. "Zhis theeng eez een deep!"
"It's not safe for me to just stay and do nothing. I'll have to defend our position until help comes," she said as she picked up two swords this time. One for each hand. It was time for some serious swordplay.
Paul tore a strip of his tunic free and tied a tourniquet above the wound in his leg. Gritting his teeth, he wrenched the crossbow bolt from his leg, grimacing at the gore that accompanied the bolt. A dark brown smear on his hands confirmed the worst. "Merde!" he exclaimed. "Zhis bolt eez covered weeth feces!" He hobbled to his feet. "If zhis eez what eet takes, zhen let's get to eet!" He took his sword and stood at Katianna's back.
A squad of English foot soldiers saw the pair and rushed toward them amidst the rubble of the city. Paul, hobbling on one leg, managed to kill one of the English and severely wound another while Katianna parried a series of attacks from a spearman with her two swords. Finally, with a sweeping blow, she lopped the spearman's head off.
More soldiers began appearing in the narrow street, seemingly out of nowhere. Not only had the safety protocols been disengaged, the program was randomly generating more soldiers to replace its dead!
"Oh, this is not good!!" she muttered under her breath, readying her stance to meet the new soldiers. She wanted challenges, but this was more than she could handle at the moment. Even with someone as skilled as Paul. And even in his current condition, Paul was an good fighter.
Paul continued to hold his own, picking up a shield to cover his wounded side as he continued to fend off the advancing English. But his leg was not strong enough to support him for an extended period. Finally, as he swung one last time to decapitate an oncoming thug with a mace, the leg gave out and Paul collapsed.
"Paul!" Katianna cried as she quickly thrust her swords into two soldiers on opposite sides of her and then run to him, gabbing another in the gut on her way. She stood over him, protecting him as best as she could, easily decapitating one man. But then she felt an arrow from a crossbow graze her cheek and hear it as it whizzed past her ear. She ducked and leaned over Paul. Just as she looked up, an English soldier was holding his sword ready to kill her. She lifted her sword ready to fight him off in a final attempt, when suddenly he and the other soldiers were frozen in place. Katianna was stunned and for a moment wasn't sure what had happened as she looked at the soldiers and then at Paul.
A man in a white jumpsuit strode through the wreckage of the city toward Katianna and Paul. "Prophets! What were you two doing in here?" he asked. "Every single safety protocol in this holosuite was disengaged and that's before the malfunction!" He tapped a civilian model combadge. "This is Senior Technician Baz at Holo Pursuits. I need someone from Sickbay here immediately," he said, looking at Paul's wound.
"Paul . . ." Katianna asked, her green eyes filled with concern. "Are you going to be all right?" She was completely oblivious to the blood dripping down her own cheek.
Paul's eyes rolled up as he fell unconscious. Two medical technicians beamed into the holosuite and began working on him. The technician turned toward Katianna. "Ma'am, for the time being while we figure out what's going on, we're going to have to ask you to stop using our facilities. You have a history of bypassing safety protocols and we've overlooked it because of your position, but we just can't afford the liability now."
"Look, don't worry about the liability," she said, anxious to get to sickbay, but determined not to lose her holosuite. "I will pay for the liability. Anything dealing with me and my program is my responsibility. I will have my lawyer write up something that absolves your facility of any wrong-doing and me of every financial responsibility for any damage I should cause to the holosuite I use and harm that should happen to anyone accompanying me. Is that fair?" She asked.
"You're going to need liability insurance as well," the technician said. "Suppose someone walks into the wrong program, gets hurt, and sues you?"
"That's fine. My lawyer will take care of all the details and inform me of all that I need," Katianna replied quickly. "I will be fully covered before my next session tomorrow. The paperwork will be to you tomorrow morning. Make sure it's signed. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check on a friend." At that, Katianna evoked her special privilege and beamed to sickbay.
As she got there, she asked for Paul and was taken to him immediately. As she went to his bed, she gently pushed some hair off his forehead as he was worked on. "How are you doing?" she asked.
"Ah'll be fine," Paul said sourly. "Ze synthetic blood seems to be 'elping for ze moment, an' mah leg eez healed. Not even any damage from ze tourniquet!"
"That's good," Katianna replied trying to smile. She still had the cut across her cheek and the blood that had dripped down from it, but she didn't feel it. The only thing she felt was this overwhelming sense of having failed. If she couldn't even protect her friend in holosuite, how was she going to protect the universe? Tears came to her eyes. "I'm sorry, Paul. You weren't meant to be dragged into my hell." She almost choked on the words trying to hide how upset she truly was.
"Don' apologize to me, ma cheri...you need to apologize to Laurissa..." Paul said as he started to drift into sleep. The pain medication the doctor had given him was finally winning out over the adrenaline in his system.
A tear slid down her cheek as she tenderly caressed his face. "I can apologize to her, but what's going to happen the next time I leave to go train? It's a no win situation . . ." Another tear escape her eyes. "It will always be a no win situation . . . I have to go . . ." Gently she kissed his forehead and began to leave, wiping at the weakness she was showing.
"Jes' so long as Laurissa eez not ze one losing..." Paul said groggily. "Or else you'll 'ave more zhan Kalimar to worry about..." With that, Paul finally fell asleep.
She shook her head. He didn't understand, but that was okay. She barely understood herself, except that she had to train. There was no other alternative. It was the only thing she could do. But before she could leave sickbay, she was grabbed by a nurse.
"It looks to me like you could use some looking after," came a familiar voice. As she turned she saw Toren Len looking at her face. Because she seemed puzzled, he pointed to her cheek. "Looks like you were in a sword fight," he said.
"Actually it was an arrow from a crossbow," she said. "It grazed my cheek," she said in a monotone voice.
"Are you all right?" he asked, taking in her countenence, listening to the flatness in her voice and glancing at the tears she was trying not to shed.
She took a breath and let it out. "I don't know anymore . . ."
Katianna returned home. After leaving a detailed message for her lawyer she went into Laurissa's room. Her daughter was sound asleep, the covers half-kicked-off her body. Tenderly she kissed Laurissa on the forehead and adjusted the covers over her. She was sorry her daughter was so upset and wanted to take that pain away, but wasn't sure how.
Feeling defeated, she took a shower, shifted into pajamas and crawled into bed herself. Not finding sleep easily, she opted for medication the doctor had prescribed for her for occasional use. She fought images of Laurissa crying and Paul's wound and the feelings of failure that continued to creep up on her.
If only things had been different . . . she thought.
Katianna was laughing as she ran down the beach at the edge of the water. The waves gently lapped at her feet. She was running away from someone chasing her, but she wasn't trying very hard to get away. As she turned around to run backwards and look at who was chasing her, her smile sparkled like the orange sun that was shining in the sky. It was Jovan. She could feel his presence as his emotions touched her mind.
Suddenly, in a burst of energy, he propelled himself forward, grabbing her. Instantly they were on the sand. He was above her. The sand was warm beneath her back. As she looked into his dark eyes, she couldn't have felt happier. She was with Jovan. It was him! It was really him!
Tenderly he wiped away the hairs from her face that were damp from the sea and then he bent to gently kiss her lips.
"I love you, Katianna . . . I have always loved you and I always will love you . . ." she heard him say before he kissed her again, this time with more passion.
"Jovan . . . I love you too . . . I will always love you too . . . Don't ever leave me again . . " she said.
Suddenly, her eyes opened and she found herself on her bed in her quarters on SB901. No beach, no sand . . . No Jovan . . . Jovan was still dead . . . It had all just been a dream. Just a dream . . .
At that, she dissolved into tears.