"Live To Tell"

Rahel and her Marine escort picked through the ruins of the science complex. Not much had been left behind by the Jem'Hadar. What surprised her, though, was what had been taken.

Normally the Jem'Hadar destroyed equipment indiscriminately. Medical equipment, analytical equipment, communications--it didn't matter. Here, however, all scientific equipment had been taken. Expertly removed, from the look of it. Everything else had been trashed.

"Ma'am, over here," her escort, a Marine who was probably 19 years old only on paper, called out. "You may want to see this."

Rahel made her way through the wreckage of what had been the base refectory to find a circle of burned corpses surrounding the body of a man. The man looked as though he'd been stabbed repeatedly. A large puddle of congealed blood lay beneath him. In his hand he held a phaser.

She scanned him. "He's barely conscious. We can save him if we get to him now," she said. "Help me move these carcasses." The burned bodies proved to be huge animals not unlike prehistoric pigs. Local scavengers, Rahel thought as she and her companion moved the animals. The smell of burned pork permeated the air, mixing with the blood and decay smells.

The young Marine, though not exactly a weakling himself, was astonished with the ease with which Rahel was able to heft and throw aside the porcine carcasses. "Look out!" he yelled as a loud squealing noise assaulted her ears. It wasn't long before one of the giant animals was upon her!

In what seemed like an instant, Rahel grabbed the animal around the head and wrenched it. A sickening crack was heard as the animal immediately stopped moving. She just dropped it to the ground.

"Now that the excitement's over, lets get back to work and get to that man before he dies."

The young Marine looked stunned as Rahel strode past the remainder of the pig-creature's brethren toward the wounded man. She noted that the man was wearing work coveralls rather than a Starfleet uniform. A civilian, or someone doing heavy work at the time, she thought as she scanned the body. He was a human male in his mid-30's. Rahel opened her medkit and administered a synthetic blood replacer as she repaired the wound with her protoplaser. A phaser burst behind her, followed by a loud squeal, indicated that her companion had kept off yet another of the creatures.

Rahel scanned the man again. He was stable for the moment, but he would need to be move to sickbay a sickbay as soon as possible. Since they hadn't yet reached the infirmary, she didn't know what condition they were it, but she had a feeling they weren't in any better condition. She would have to hope she could keep her and anyone else she found stable until the Taurus returned.

"We need to locate any other survivors and find a secure location for them where I can treat them. He's stable for the moment," she said.

"Twenty meters away to ze west," the man croaked. He was obviously dehydrated. The Marine guard called for another of his fellows; together they moved the man to a stretcher and found a corner of a building that had somehow survived. The area would be easily defensible and provide at least some shade.

"Lieutenent Floten," Rahel began, "Chose your guards for this area, then lets get going . . . We have survivors to find."

She looked at the the ruins around her and shook her head as she pulled out her tricorder and began scanning for more lifesigns.

[Acknowledged, although I don't think you're going to find anything here,] Floten replied. [Our tricorders aren't picking up anything.]

"I'm unwilling to give up just yet," Rahel replied. Closing her eyes she reached out with her mind and felt for any presence that might be there that wasn't from their Away party. Sure enough, she was picking up other thoughts . . . Fear . . . There were others here. They had hidden. They had survived . . .

She allowed her mind to guide her through the wreckage of the building. Suddenly, she noticed something in a far corner. It looked like part of the tile pattern on the floor, but there was something that was different about it. She felt around it and suddenly, one of the edges came up just a bit. As she opened it, she saw eyes glittering in the dark and immediately perceived a weapon being raised at her.

"It's all right," she said to the woman. "I'm Lieutenent Rahel Kahfre. I'm from Starfleet. We're here to help you."

"You're a little late!" she spat, but suddenly the woman melted into tears and lowered the weapon.

Rahel grabbed it and moved into the underground chamber. There she found three more wounded and four dead.

She then tapped her commbadge "Lieutenent Floten, I have found some survivors . . ." But there was no answers.

"It won't work until you leave this chamber," the woman explained as she tried to dry her eyes, but couldn't.

Rahel crawled out far enough to relay her message and then went back in to tend to her new patients. As she neared the dead and saw how badly two of the wounded were, visions of tending to the dead on the Baltimore flashed in her mind. Friends she had come to know dying in her arms. Taking a deep breath and trying to shake the images from her mind, she set to her task of assessing the injuries so she could treat them.

The two Marines with their stretcher arrived moments later. "Take them to the triage area," Rahel ordered. "Let's continue our sweep and see how many more people we can get out. It looks like the Jem'Hadar left a few for us after all."

After too much fruitless searching, and Rahel picking up no more empathic traces she called off the search and returned to her patients. The one woman she had first found was still suffering emotionally, though not physically. She had managed to make it through the attack without more than a couple of scratches and bruises. Rahel wished there was more she could do for her . . . But at the moment, her main concern was keeping her other patients stabilized. She had learned that the woman's name was Ginny Campbell. She had been one of the lab assistants . . . The one that had gotten away, she had said quietly to Rahel. As Rahel asked questions, she didn't probe. She simply let the woman talk.

Ginny talked about the ruthless attack. How the Jem'Hadar has arrived just killing everyone in their path and yet, they had seemed to be looking for someone. She had managed to escape as they had grabbed the scientist she worked under - Frank Mitchel a Xeno-geneticist. They had also grabbed one of his three assistants. The one that knew the most about his work. That had explained the missing science equipment from the labs Floten had mentioned. But Rahel didn't understand what the Jem'Hadar wanted. It was a puzzle. When Ginny started crying again, Rahel explained to her she was going to calm her down and gave her a tranquilizer. The woman fell asleep. Probably for the first time in days.

"Okay, I think we've done all we can do here," Floten told her. "Let's see if we can't raise the Taurus. We may have to stay here for a while, so do what you can to settle everyone in."

"I intend to," Rahel replied with an ease to her smile she didn't truly feel.

Luckily the group had brought along a sub-space transciever and the Marines soon had it operational.