Commander Lee Carter had crept from West's barn quietly and quickly, making a bee-line back to Lake Town. She was pretty sure the Smiths would have given up their search by now, and if she stayed away from the seedier side of town she should be safe enough. At West's insistence at the outset of this debacle, she'd left behind anything that could identify her as a Starfleet officer, meaning her communicator, so the first order of business was to get to a comm terminal and call Max Vasser and have her come pick her up. Then they'd have to come up with a new plan for finding Sam Beckett.
She cursed West again for wasting so much of her time. Time that would have been spent searching for Sam. Who knows if it wasn't already too late to save her!
The orange Serenity sun had come up a few minutes ago, lighting her footsteps and warming her back as she followed a dirt road back to Lake Town. She was feeling tired and footsore from yesterday's exertions and last night's lack of sleep, but as luck would have it, a flatbed truck came rumbling up on the dirt road from behind her, and when it drew even with her, stopped. The driver, a wiry man with a shaved head leaned out the window and called to her in a friendly voice. "Need a ride, lady?" He unwrapped a stick of gum and stuck it in his mouth, and tossed the crumpled wrapper on the ground at Carter's feet.
Carter approached the truck cautiously, and replied, "Heading to Lake Town?"
The driver chuckled. "No place else to go 'round these parts. I'm heading for the spaceport."
"Perfect. Thanks!" She circled around the front of the truck and climbed into the passenger's seat. The driver smiled reassuringly at her as he put the truck in gear and drove off.
West trudged along the dirt road leading back to Lake Town. He reasoned that Commander Carter had to have gone this way -- there simply was nowhere else to go in these parts. Not on foot, anyways. He was feeling uncharacteristically despondent. He knew he'd completely lost Carter's confidence and for some reason that bothered him a lot more than it should.
Why should he feel this way? The woman was bossy and loud, constantly belittling his efforts, and a major pain in the neck! He was better off rid of her! So why was he schlepping along this dusty dirt road after her like some abandoned puppy? West was forced to admit to himself that he missed her now that she was gone and he worried about her. Damn her! She'd gotten under his skin. It was the only explanation. There was something about her that attracted West -- her fire, her compassion for her teammates, her strength of character and determination in the face of impossible odds.
Or maybe it was just that she had ta-ta's 'til Tuesday.
At about ten in the morning, West came upon an intersection in the road. He'd been following Carter's footprints, clearly visible in the loose dirt, but now tire tracks from a wheeled vehicle that had come up the other fork partly obliterated the trail. He studied the tracks and signs carefully. Carter's footsteps ended where they were intersected by the tire tracks, meaning she had gotten into the vehicle. A crumpled gum wrapper caught his eye. He picked it up and smelled it -- still fresh. He wasn't too far behind.
The truck carrying Carter and the driver rumbled through the streets of Lake Town while Carter sat and looked out the window and brooded. The last three hours had been spent mostly in silence. Neither she nor, thankfully, her benefactor, were predisposed to making small talk.
The buildings rolled by, and Carter suddenly was roused from her idleness by something odd. "Hey, buddy," she said to the driver, turning to face him. "I think the spaceport's back that way." She pointed off to the right. "Where are you taking me?"
"Relax, Commander Carter," replied the driver. "You'll be with your friend Sam very soon now." His friendly smile had turned decidedly chilling, made all the more so by the disruptor pistol Carter suddenly found leveled against her.
She was momentarily speechless. How did the driver know her rank, or that she was even in Starfleet? She was wearing civilian attire and hadn't mentioned anything about her occupation during their brief introductions. But much more importantly, how did he know about Sam? There was only one way, of course.
Carter lunged for the driver's weapon, but the man was faster. He delivered a vicious punch to Carter's nose with the butt of the pistol, snapping her head back and causing her vision to explode in a thousand agonizing shards of light. The driver's sinister grimace intensified as he delivered another thunderous blow to his victim's head, not even bothering to use the weapon for its designed purpose but deriving more pleasure from a primitive pummeling.
Carter faintly felt the warmth of her blood flowing freely from her nose and tasted the saltiness in her mouth, but blackness overcame her senses with swift finality as the driver delivered the knock-out blow.
West heard the truck rumble up behind him long before he saw it, and so had time to run off the road and find some modest cover amongst the prickly chaparral. He sorely wished he had a weapon on him, but anything he carried would have been confiscated before he was let in to see the Smiths anyway. Which hadn't prevented them from bringing disruptors into the meeting, but that was another beef altogether...
To his dismay, the truck slowed and stopped just when it was even with his concealed position. An amplified voice said, "Hiding won't do you any good, West! Come out and no one'll get hurt!"
Except me, thought West wryly. He was fifty yards from the road. If he ran for it, the truck would never be able to follow him over the rough terrain, so he might actually have a chance of outrunning his pursuers on foot. It was either that or surrender. He peeked through the leaves of his bush and saw a single person standing beside the truck, scanning the terrain with a small device. West scrounged around in the dirt beside him for a few moments, and selected a fist-sized rock.
Tensing every muscle, he took a few deep breaths and sprang out from the bushes and threw the rock with all his might at the man. The missile smashed into the side window of the truck, smashing it into oblivion with a piercing crash and throwing the man into a desperate dive for cover. In that instant of opportunity, West sprinted away from the road, pouring every ounce of energy he possessed into his legs.
It took the truck driver a few seconds to recover during which West gained precious ground, but all too soon the orange disruptor beams began sizzling past his head, and a few shots struck the ground around his pounding feet, blasting small craters into the countryside and showering him with dirt. He urged his feet on all the faster, knowing if he could get out of range he'd be safe.
Sure enough, the disruptor bolts stopped. Risking a quick glance back, West expected to see the frustrated truck driver reduced to hurtling ineffectual curses at him now that he was out of range of his weapon, but instead the man was hefting something large onto his shoulder. West's heart fell as he recognized the device. He saw the puff of white smoke from the barrel of the launcher and heard the whistle of the mortar as it arced towards him. He tried zigzagging, but knew in the pit of his stomach that it was too late.
The grenade landed less than three yards from West's fleeing feet and instantly burst into a blinding nova of light and sound and anti-neural energy, paralyzing every nerve of his body. His dead legs, stopped in mid-lunge, simply stopped working, propelling him face-first into the rough ground. His leaden arms were useless at his side, unable to break the fall. West took the full brunt of the impact on his chest and face, unable even to turn his head to spare his teeth. The last thing before the blackness swallowed him up was the sound of running feet approaching from behind.
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