"Into the Fire"

Author: Cmdr Lee Carter, West
Earthdate: April 14, 2386 - 1330 hrs
Location: Vincent Kelly's secret hideout

Lee Carter and West were shoved and prodded along the dank underwater hideout's metal-lined corridors by the two goons, headed for whatever grim and final fate awaited them, and it soon became apparent what that fate was to be when an airlock hove into view around a bend in the corridor. They would be expelled into the freezing depths of Blue Lake and drowned, to wash up on the shore, their bodies discovered by some local fishermen who would briefly lament the senseless deaths of yet two more victims of the dreaded but rarely-glimpsed Ogopogo lake monster, and then forgotten.

That was the goons' plan. It was not Carter's, and a quick sidelong glance at West confirmed that it wasn't his either. If they were going to make their escape, it was now or never. Another quick sidelong glance initiated their break.

Carter pretended to trip and stagger forward, forcing her guard to extend himself forward as well if he wanted to maintain his hold on her arm. At the same time, West twisted away from his own captor and charged into the first, ramming his shoulder into the man's midsection with the force of a battering ram and slamming him back against the corridor's wall. His breath exploded in a mighty WUMPH!, paralyzing him, giving West the opportunity to deliver a solid knee-slam to the side of his head, finishing him off.

Carter meanwhile, spun around and delivered a vicious kick to the second goon's head, sending him spinning away, and followed up with a one-two kick to the chin. The goon went down on one knee, setting himself up perfectly for the knock-out blow, a devastating sideways kick of Carter's heavy boot.

Pumped by the adrenaline rush, Carter found herself grinning madly. She rushed over to West and planted her lips against his and kissed him quick and hard. West was startled at first, but he quickly reciprocated with equal passion, all the while struggling against his bonds in his desire to grab and hold Carter to him. "Come on!" Carter said breathlessly after pulling away. "Untie me so we can get out of here!" She and West reluctantly turned their backs to each other and began working on each other's tied wrists.

Vince Kelly supervised the loading of the last of the life crystals onto his private shuttle for transfer to the new base. He was just going through his office looking for any last-minute items he may have forgotten when the explosions started. From the sound of them, they were from inside the base.

"West and Carter!" he hissed, guessing the source. His new employer would not be happy about this turn of events. He grabbed his disruptor from the desk drawer and ran from the room.

After untying themselves and relieving the two unconscious guards of their weapons, West and Carter ran side by side back in the direction of the morgue, intending to somehow rescue Sam Beckett and the other comatose victims and liberate the life crystals from Vince Kelly for the purpose of reinstalling them in their proper bodies.

Along the way, they ran into a guard patrol and were forced to gun them down, but not before a stray shot from one of the fallen guards struck a pipe snaking along the wall behind Carter's head causing it to rupture. Inside was a plasma feed, which immediately began sputtering and moments later exploded. The explosion set off a series of chain reactions echoing from ever deeper inside the base. The floor plates under their boots began rumbling and the thick glass in the nearest porthole shivered, threatening to buckle under the terrific pressure exerted by the water at the lake bottom.

"This whole place is going to go," said West as he was forced to brace himself against the wall in response to a particularly violent detonation. Carter was tossed against him and he caught her around the waist and held her briefly before she disengaged herself. "Guess firing weapons in here wasn't such a hot idea," he said, covering over a sudden surge of emotion. This was neither the time nor the place for that sort of thing. Later, when this is all over, he promised himself.

"We need to find Kelly," said Carter, once again all business. She had her own unexpected feelings to cover over.

Choosing a direction, they ran on.

Careening around a corner in the corridor, they skidded to a halt when they saw a group of base personnel running towards them. West raised his disruptor, but Carter placed her hand on his arm and said, "Wait a sec." The running men all had frightened expressions on their faces, and ran past West and Carter without hardly even glancing at them. "I think they're just trying to get out of here," said Carter.

At the end of the corridor, they came to a large, thick door. It was open, and from the other side they heard a familiar voice shouting angry orders. They stepped across the threshold into a catastrophic scene. The room was obviously the control complex for the underwater base, with an array of control consoles arranged in a classroom layout, but there were bodies slumped over the stations and sprawled across the floor, all with charred disruptor burns on the their chests and backs. And in the midst of the devastation stood Vincent Kelly, waving a pistol indiscriminately and shouting at the few terrified subordinates still standing.

"Hurry up, you sluggards! Secure the escape pod or you'll be joining the other incompetents!"

Kelly's lackey's cringed every time their master's nervously flailing disruptor swung in their direction, but they also redoubled their efforts to load the last of the supplies and life crystals onto the escape pod.

Carter stepped fully into the room and leveled her own disruptor at Vince Kelly. She knew the weapon had no 'stun' setting, but found it difficult to care. "Hold it right there, Kelly!" she shouted. "You're under arrest!"

Kelly spun to face his accuser, and seeing it was indeed West and Carter, vented his rage in a primal, inchoate scream. "Why do you plague me?!?" he wailed, enraged past the point of reason. Demonstrating complete disregard for his own life or the lives of his workers, he fired wildly in Carter's direction, spraying disruptor fire all over the room, blowing out panels and circuits.

Men dove out of the way; some screamed and died. Carter lunged for the cover of the nearest control station and West ducked behind the doorframe. At the first break in Kelly's barrage, Carter popped out from her concealment and returned fire, forcing Kelly to dodge aside and find his own place to hide. West took the opportunity to dash from the doorway to what looked like a master control station. Braving the crisscrossing energy blasts, he scoured the myriad switches and dials with a keen eye. Carter did her best to keep West from getting killed by keeping Kelly pinned down with disruptor fire.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted over to West, wishing he would find a little cover for himself before he got his head blown off.

West spared a moment from his search to cast a glance back at Carter. "Looking for the emergency control to make this tub rise to the surface of the lake!" he shouted back. "Aha! This must be it!" He reached for a large red handle and pulled it.

From his crouch behind a console, Vincent Kelly saw what West was doing and shouted in outrage. "Nooo!!! You'll ruin everything!!!" He ran out from behind his cover, firing his disruptor wildly like a man with nothing left to lose. A blast struck the master control console, causing it to explode and throwing West backwards. He skidded across the floor and thumped up against the far wall and lay still.

"West!" cried Carter. Clenching her teeth, she fired her disruptor at the still-onrushing Kelly, forcing him to duck for cover again.

Just then, the entire underwater base shook violently as never before, throwing everyone roughly to the deck. Carter had the queasy sensation of being in a high-speed elevator going up at incredible speed. She tried to crawl to West, but the acceleration pressed her downward making it difficult to move at all.

West's sacrifice hadn't been in vain. The sequence initiated by the lever was indeed propelling Vince Kelly's secret underwater base upwards to the surface, there to be exposed to the scouring light of day and the scrutiny of everyone in Lake Town, not to mention Starfleet. Vincent Kelly's days as a mind stealer were over, though his mysterious employer would still have to be discovered and dealt with.

The abrupt deceleration when the base finally reached the surface was bone-jarring in violence, but all throughout the wild ride, Carter had managed to keep her grip on her disruptor. She sprang to her feet as soon as the shaking subsided sufficiently and sought out Kelly, thinking to finish the game once and for all, but he was nowhere in sight. The few of Kelly's workers who were still conscious and alive did nothing to interfere with her, opting instead to stay as far out of the way as they could possibly contrive. As Carter stalked farther into the control room in search of her elusive quarry, they finally got up enough courage to bolt for the door and run away. That left just Carter and Kelly in here. Somewhere.

Carter spotted a door on the far side of the control room. She had missed it until now and suspected that Kelly had escaped in that direction. Suddenly, she felt the sharp jab of a disruptor muzzle in the small of her back. She gasped involuntarily and began to turn, but another painful jab froze her in mid-motion.

"You have plagued me for the last time, Commander Carter," hissed Kelly. "You and your damned Banshee Squadron have been a thorn in my side for years. You thwarted my attempt to take over Serenity Starbase, then you thwarted my attempt to destroy it. You hounded me across the entire quadrant until I was forced to fake my own death on Nimbus III, but even that didn't throw you off my trail. When I tried to launch a nova bomb into this system's gas giant, you were there too -- but not this time! The Mullurans were weak fools, but my new employer has a winning track record against your Banshees! Just ask your precious Commander Phoenix. What's that? You can't because she's dead? That's right! And you're next! Prepare to meet your maker!"