'Repeat to yourself, it's just a show - I should really just relax.'

- Love Theme From Mystery Science Theatre 3000

Star Trek: The Last Generation created by Leila Fetter & Urac Daria Sigma

With apologies to the late Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry

Dr Graham ran his tricorder over the massive pale beachball that rose forth from Chief Scholes' open uniform. 'You know something, Bobbi?' he asked.

Bobbi, who had been lying in this same position for almost a minute, and was already uncomfortable, replied, 'What?'

'Seeing you like this...you remind me of one of my old girlfriends.'

'Henstock,' moaned Bobbi. 'I don't want to hear about some Talarian chick you knocked up after a drunken cast party, if that's what this story is.'

Graham ignored her venom. 'No, that's the thing. She wasn't pregnant at all. She was just...built like this.'

'That's odd.'

'You're telling me. Caused all kinds of trouble when she joined the convent, I can tell you.' He flicked the tricorder shut.

'So, what's the news?' she asked him, but he'd already become distracted.

'Hey, that's weird,' he was saying. 'You're only getting stretch-marks on one side.'

'Graham!' she barked.

'Sorry. Yes, everything's fine. But I--'

'Graham - I don't want to be induced now!' she told him.

Graham sighed. 'Bobbi - women carrying triplets usually need to be induced before term. And how pregnant are you now?'

'Ummm...six and a bit months?' she attempted innocently.

'Try eight. All right - I'll let you go today, but if you don't come in of your own accord by Friday, I'm going to have to make it an order. And it'll be no use pleading with Euan - the chief medical officer can override anyone on the ship.'

Bobbi scowled, and covered herself up.[1] 'Well, you're not doing it today...that's all.' She heaved herself off the biobed, and started for the door. 'I'm going off to find Ratbat.'

Graham shrugged. 'Ratti knows this stuff as well. Trust me, she'll just say the same thing I do.'

Bobbi said nothing as she left sickbay. Ratbat will say 'Hey, Emma, let's have seven Guinni each and then see if we can write our names on the wall'? Somehow I don't think so.

Lieutenants Botham and Bontch-Osmolovskaia rematerialised on the transporter pad. 'The Saporo?' Sarah was asking as the haze faded.

'What's wrong with that?' Daria replied.

'Well, you'd think they'd at least name it after a beer some of us had heard of!'

'It's a Japanese beer. You figure out who named it.'

'Oh...' The rest of their conversation was lost as the door to transporter room seven closed behind them.

Emma the Techie watched them go. Typical. Not a word. Not a 'thank you, Emma'. No 'we really appreciate your diligence at this godforsaken post'. Not even so much as a simple fucking 'cheers'.

Fine, then.

That had been the last straw.

This had been building up in her for months now, and things hadn't got any better. They still treated her like a lift attendant, only worse. The pressure was too much. She felt underused, under-utilised, under-appreciated, and angry. The anger was like a knife, twisting inside her.

There was a dull throbbing at the base of her skull. She felt hot and tingly all over, like her skin was electrified. This was more than just irritation. It was rage.

'Well, fuck them all!' she thumped her fist onto the console hard enough to shatter the perspex cover.

She'd make the knife hurt someone else.

The door opened again to admit Ensign Schwinghamer. 'Hey, Em--' The assistant transporter chief got no further before Emma's hand lashed out and thumped her head against the wall.

Emma pushed past the bewildered Noomy into the corridor. She'd show them who was irrelevant.

''e's right, though, Bob -' said Ratbat. 'It's a good idea for multiple births to be induced.' She rubbed the enormous belly of the woman sitting on the bed next to her. 'Four,' she re-iterated. 'Multiple.'

Bobbi scowled. 'I know...' She took the tea Ratbat offered her.

'Besides,' Ratbat added, 'wannit you who kept saying you wanted it to be over?'

'I know...' Bobbi repeated, 'it's just...giving birth is going to...' She trailed off.

'Hurt?' prompted Ratbat.

She nodded. 'Yes,' she said honestly. 'And I'm scared, Ratbat. I'm very, very scared.'

Ratbat gave Bobbi's hair a stroke. 'Hey...no-one can blame you for that. It does hurt. But I'll be there...and Graham'll do everything he can for ye...'

Bobbi nodded. Graham and Ratbat were both right, of course. Better it happen now, while everything was on track. Besides, what else did she plan to do? Stay pregnant for the rest of her life?

'I'll go in on Friday,' she nodded, leaning back on Ratbat's bed. 'And then, on Friday, I'll finally be...hey, these aren't yours, are they?'

Ratbat covered her face with her hand. Somehow, at this late stage of the game, Bobbi had found it very easy to get distracted whenever the conversation was taking a serious turn. 'What aren't mine?' she responded, decided to play along.

Bobbi picked up the garmentry lying by Ratbat's bed. 'This underwear,' she told her.

'Oh. That.' Ratbat adopted a slightly stupid expression.

Bobbi's eyes took on a naughtyish look. 'Ohhh...did somebody score, did we?'[2]

Ratbat groaned and shook her head. 'They're Leila's, as the additional amount of size might indicate. There was a laundry mix-up. I have to say, I'm kinda surprised she hasnae come to switch them back.'

'And I'll tell you what else he did...' Terri trailed off as she waited for Leila to catch up. 'Are you all right, Lil?' she asked.

'I'm fine.'

'It's just that you don't normally walk that way...'

'It's nothing!' Leila almost snapped. Buggered if she was going to be the one to step forward and admit she'd cocked up.

'What about names?' Ratbat went on. 'Have ye thought of any names?'

'Oh, I've thought of plenty of names,' Bobbi told her. 'Just none I'd want to give my children.'

'Maybe it would have been a good idea to find out if they were boys or girls after all.'

'Nehh...spoil the surprise. Actually, you know something, Ratbat?'

'Wossat?'

'I don't think I will get induced on Friday.'

'Bobbi--' Ratbat began, but then she realised what Bobbi was saying. 'Oh, cruk.'

'I'm sorry about your duvet,' she added sheepishly, before allowing her face to contort painfully.

'Sod the duvet! We'd better get you to sickbay. Sigma to transporter room seven!'

'Nnnhhh...Schwinghamer here.'

'Noomy? You dinna sound-- No. Sorry, Noom, but this is an emergency. Beam me and Bobbi to sickbay, now!'

'Oh. It's...'

'Yes, it's.'

'Consider it done,' Noomy told them, and parents, babies and all dissolved into blue light.

Emma stormed past a group of bunties into the rear alcove in engineering. Aidan almost went to ask her what she was doing, but what was the need? She was only the transporter chief.

'Computer,' she spat at the console she reached. 'Give me access to the engineering masters. Authorisation Techie, Lieutenant Emma Jane Cole, clearance code lizard 4306 bourbon can-opener.' There was still a twisting feeling inside her. The throbbing in her head only seemed to have got worse. She scowled at the console, daring it to ignore her.

The computer paused for a moment, then recognised the code as that of the transporter chief, and therefore a head of department (engineering), and granted her access.

Emma grinned mirthlessly to herself, then went to work.

'You're losing horribly,' Ruth told Ensign O'brien. 'Can't you at least try to hit something?'

Niki groaned. She'd forgotten precisely why it was that she didn't come to the phaser range with her department head. The sheer discrepancy. Niki O'brien was a trained security officer, highly qualified in a number of Starfleet security disciplines, not to mention what she'd picked up in three hundred and ninety-five years of her own existence. Ruth Crabb on the other hand, was a raving psycho nutter.

Determined to at least cut the 'horribly' from her loss, she snapped her phaser out at the glowing dot in her own colour that appears, and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

'Wha'fuh?'

'Too slow!' laughed Ruth, then fired her own phaser at a dot.

Again, nothing happened. Niki laughed back at her, but Ruth silenced her with a look.[3]

'Computer?' asked Ruth, after trying both Niki's phaser and her own a few times.[4] 'What safeties are in place in this room?'

'A level one ship-wide weapons deactivation has taken place.'

'Fucking what?! On whose authority!?'

As soon as the computer told her, Ruth had stormed from the room, heading straight for a turbolift.

Back in engineering, Aidan realised what had happened. 'Emma? Did you just do that?'

'Yes,' she muttered, the same almost shark-like smile making his blood run cold. 'And now I advise you all to get the fuck out of this room.'

Aidan spluttered. True, she was his superior officer, but this was a bit much! 'No!' he told her.

'Suit yourself,' she said, and struck him over the head with a magnetic clamp.

Before any of the other engineers could reach her, she slid her fingers over the panel and beamed them all to 10-Foreplay. Thinking about it later, she realised she could have just beamed them into space, but she needed to be quick.

Good. With them gone, she could make her next move...

'Ship answering all stop,' reported Terri.

Euan looked up. 'I didn't order an all stop. What are you doing?'

Colleen shook her head. 'She's not answering any all stop, Euie...the Compromise is. The warp core's powering down...ah.

'And the power's cutting out,' she added to the pitch darkness.

Bobbi squealed.

The pain was terrible! Everything she'd read, everything Ratbat or anyone else had told her...it was like it was all for nothing! She'd never known pain like this! Shit, she didn't even think she'd even heard of it! There were the gaps between, when she thought she could handle it, and she'd brace herself, and then - her self-preparation would suddenly feel so futile!

And that last one had sent her blind!

A quick scan of the reaction of the others in the room reassured her against that notion.

'Ah, fuck it,' said Graham.

'A power failure,' mused Fiona. 'That's not really what we need right now.'

'Sickbay to engineering,' called Graham. Nothing. The intercom was gone too. 'Wonderful,' he cursed. 'Nicole, can you get to the maintenance lights?'

There was no way Emma could shut off the maintenance lights, not unless she physically went and removed every bulb.

'Hang on,' said Nurse Wylie's voice. She stumbled around for a bit, and recoiled when her hand made contact with something organic and soft-feeling.

'Hey!' said Nurse M^cMillan's voice.

'Sorry,' muttered Nicole. 'Did I just touch a sensitive spot?' She was answered when the nurse's sister slapped her in the face. 'It was an accident!' she protested.

'Just don't do'

'it again.'

'Wait...' said Nicole, as her fingers found a catch in the wall. She opened the door it was attached to, and flipped the switch.

'Great,' muttered Graham. Before returning to the task of trying to aid one of his best friends in becoming a single-parent family, he allowed himself a moment to wonder just what the hell was going on with the electrics.

The person who was responsible studied the one live console on the ship for a moment, then isolated and activated the comm system for one special task.

'Ladies and gentlemen of the starship Compromise,' announced Emma's voice through every intercom on the ship. 'You might remember me. I'm Lieutenant Techie, your transporter chief.'

'When I say you might remember me, of course, I mean you might remember me as you remember your toilet. Good enough for getting crap away. And while it gets the job done, there's no real reason to appreciate it as a sentient being.'

(Lieutenant Callum Bowen, who had been caught in the bathroom when Emma made her strike, looked towards the convenience on the other side of the room. 'What do you think she means, Clive?')

'So, seeing as I'm so beneath your regard, and not worth giving even the briefest of fucks, flying or otherwise, about, it probably won't bother you at all to know that I now have sole control of this ship - not to mention the lives of all fourteen-hundred-odd of you living on board it.' Her voice was bitter, mocking and caustic. It almost hurt to listen to. But it didn't hurt to say it. She smiled. The twisting sensation was still there, but it felt good. She was letting people know about the ache inside, and it seemed almost pleasurable.

'You probably aren't even listening right now, so I won't bother to tell you any demands I might have in case anyone wants to normalise life-support or anything. Maybe if I get really bored later on, I'll just tell it to the air, anyway. Or to myself. Being left alone in that little room for so long, I've gotten used to doing things by myself.

'Techie out, but I don't really think you care.'

'She's insane,' said Noomy.

'I think she's incredibly insane.'

'I don't think she ever liked this job as much as I did.'

'Who knows? Maybe she just snapped. It happens.'

'True.'

'Noomy?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you know that you're talking to yourself?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Good. And so long as it's not an irrational conversation, at least you know you're not going strange.'

Nic turned from her fruitless task. 'No use,' she told Euan. 'The internal doors all need power to work, and there's no way the turbolifts will be active.'

Euan thought about it. 'Don't we have emergency capacitors for just this sort of thing?'

'If I told you that someone had sent them all to engineering last week for repair, how would you react?'

'I'd hit whoever it was.'

Nic handed him her phaser, butt first. 'Better take first crack, Captain - it was you.'

Somehow he had seen that coming.

Emma laughed to herself.

Hey, that sounded good. She laughed again, just because she could. Ha, she had over fourteen hundred lives on board...and they were all hers now. About time they started looking to her, wasn't it, now?

She tapped at a panel to tell her precisely what was going on on the ship. What? Why wasn't it working? Who the fuck had shut her machine down?

You did, you pratarse, she snapped at herself internally.

What? Oh, that was all right, then. Now she just needed to decide what to do with all these people. Well...something! Something, all right? Godfuckingdammit, she didn't need to decide right now! Whatever it was, they'd notice her at last. Oh, they might think they knew what she was doing but soon oh yeah she'd do something don't you worry about that

Emma laughed to herself again. It lasted quite a long time.

'I said something like this would happen, didn't I?' Matt reflected loudly to anyone in 10-Foreplay who would listen.[5]

'Something like what?' asked Ksenia.

'Don't let that bald chick run the transporters, I said. She'll only be trouble, I said. But would anyone listen to me? Oh fucking no.'

'When did you say that? If I recall correctly (which I always do), Emma was assigned to transporters before you even joined the Compromise program.'

'God, you're so bloody nit-picky, Forde. I've almost got half a mind not to sleep with you.'

Ksenia groaned at him. 'Matt, you've almost got half a mind and that's it.' She walked off.

Matt turned to face the teddy-bear sitting on the bar next to him. 'Hey, I'd call that a yes. Come on...you owe me fifteen strips.'

'Crabb to Captain Bowen,' sounded a voice.

Euan narrowed his eyes. 'Did everyone else hear that?' he asked.

Colleen and Terri both nodded.

'Crabb to Bowen. Euan, are you there?'

'I don't understand it,' fussed Colleen. 'There's no power anywhere. If the intercom was working again, I'd know about it!'

'Euan, you should be able to hear me...'

Terri thought for a moment. 'It's not the intercom. The sound was different. It's...it's your comm badge, Euan.' She snapped her fingers. 'That's right. They run on their own power, not the ships. And they're cer--'

'HEY!! Get off your bum and tap your badge, you weeny-bopper!'

Terri shut up, and Euan cautiously pressed his communicator. 'Hello?'

'About bloody time. Captain...Niki and I have managed to prise open an access panel on the corridor we're in. I think there should be enough clear Jeffries tube between here and engineering for me to get down there and do something about that skinhead.'

'But she's got control of the entire ship! You won't even have a phaser!'

'How long have you known me, Euan? I don't always need a phaser.' Even over a communicator, she managed to sound quite scary when she said that.

'No! Ruth, it's too risky! You're not doing it!'

'Says who?'

'Says me. I'm giving you an order, Ms Crabb.' There was a pause. 'Ruth?'

Niki's voice finally cut in. 'Sorry, sir,' she said. 'Ruth says that her comm badge just suddenly and inexplicably broke.'

'Well, she better not being going into that tube.'

'She apologises...but she says that she can override your order because she's a lieutenant and you're only a captain.'

'Oh. Right. Bowen out.' There was a moment's pause, then he realised. 'Bollocks.'

Ratbat had learnt to recognise that look on Graham's face. It was the type that he'd use to cheerily announce 'I'm all right' when he'd come in with a leg that was bleeding like there was no tomorrow. This time, he was using it as he pored over the tricorder - one of the few working things on the ship, never mind sickbay - that was that he was holding over Bobbi's downstairs area. There are certain times when you just don't need to see that kind of expression. This was all of them.

Bobbi - probably fortunately - couldn't see Graham's face. 'Why did I do this?' she babbled at Ratbat. 'Why am I here? I don't want children. I...I think I'll just...go home now.' She almost made a move to get out of the chair, but Ratbat gently held her back.

'Ye do want children. Ye've always wanted children. Just think, then: after this lot, gettin' up for a four o'clock feed won't seem bad at all...'

Bobbi laughed weakly as the chiropteran flicked hair out of her face. 'Who would've thought that Emma the Techie would have been the one to get me pregnant?'

Ratbat grinned. 'Hey, if you will insist on transporting without protection... Do you realise, we don't even have any idea who the genetic father is?'

'I have to admit, I--' Bobbi suddenly gripped Ratbat's hand as another wave of pain started on her. She squealed in agony, cracking the lenses on Nicole's spectacles. Graham and Ratbat had encountered that scream in theatre productions past. Both had narrowly escaped with their hearing.

Once it had finally subsided, Ratbat slid gracelessly to the floor. Fiona stooped down to her. 'Ratbat?' she asked, observing the twisted expression on her face. 'Are you getting sympathy pains for Bobbi?'

Ratbat grimaced. 'Not quite...' she squeaked. She held up her left arm. 'When this last contraction hit, she grabbed my hand rather hard... I think she kinda broke the bones in it.'

As Fiona inspected the hand, both she and Ratbat glanced up at Graham. Fiona didn't like Graham's expression either.

For she too had seen it before.

Right before Terri died.

'Shuttlecraft Redback calling USS Compromise.

'Shuttlecraft Redback calling USS Compromise.

'USS Compromise, this is the Redback! Do you read us?!' Once more there was no response. 'Kuso!' Suzy slapped the comm panel in frustration. 'They're not responding, sir.'

Val glared at the back of her adjutant's head for a moment. 'Are you sure that we're transmitting?'

'Certainly are.'

Ambassador Valentina Buj rested her head on her hands for a moment. 'Let's concentrate on finding it,' she said at last. 'Then you can do something about the comm system.'

Sitting up on the pool table, Emma wondered how long it had been since she'd cut all systems. She briefly toyed with the idea of de-activating life support, but then decided that it would probably do her as much damage as everyone else.

She felt something wet dripping down her cheeks. Intrigued, she put her hand up to her face.

'Tears,' she said, her voice sounding strange in her ears. 'Tears. Why am I crying?'

For that matter, how long had she been crying? She didn't remember. So many things seemed hazy and odd to her; things which had once been certain were now plunged into ambiguity. But things which had always been ambiguous were still as uncertain as before. She felt off-balance and out of touch with herself. It was like looking at the world through warped glass. But perhaps this was the way life really was and she was just seeing it clearly for the first time. People and places were so much more...definite now. The only thing she had left to doubt was her role in them.

'They only really bothered about me when I made Bobbi pregnant,' she remarked to herself. She marvelled at how steady her voice sounded. She didn't feel steady. Nothing felt right. But what was right? How could she be sure which way was up?

There was an odd ringing sound. Or not even a ringing sound, more of an echo. For a moment she thought it was a noise in engineering, but decided that it was the strange effect of her own voice.

'I suppose everyone else thinks my voice is as strange as I do,' she said to herself conversationally.

Ratbat dared to make her way over to Graham. 'Problem, innit,' she whispered.

Graham nodded, and guided her further out of Bobbi's earshot. 'She's not dilating properly. It's going to be incredibly difficult for what's in there to get out here.'

'Can ye tell why?'

'Maybe it's because of the transporter element. Or maybe it's just happening.'

'So...'

'So, there's not much I can do at the moment, besides hope it suddenly turns right! Half the equipment's in maintenance. I can't even do a simple bloody caesarean!'

'No?'

Graham showed her a laser scalpel and flicked the switch back and forth. 'These get switched off in a weapons deactivation too. Imagine all the things you could do with this if you seriously wanted to hurt someone...'

Ratbat nodded. 'So what do we do?'

'You just go back to Bobbi's side. I'll try to work out what we can do. Melanie and Anthea are working at trying to open the emergency supply, which has non-powered instruments in it. Other than that...fuck, I'm going to do everything I can. And if that doesn't work...'

'?'

'Shit. I guess I just try everything I can't.'

By the emergency store, the M^cMillans worked at trying to release the electronic seal. 'Do you think it's worth trying to plead with Emma?' the brunette asked her sister.

The other brunette shook her head. 'Even if we could talk her - and I doubt we can - I don't think she'd care.'

'But if she knew how much pain Bobbi was in, or what she was going through...'

'If what we've all guessed is true? Then she's probably quite glad.'

Euan sat in his chair, and being the Starfleet flagship's commanding officer in a decidedly foul mood, he did what he knew he had to: he sulked mightily.

'What possessed Ruth to go after Emma?!' he groaned.

Terri turned to face him. 'There's one thing you're overlooking, Euan.'

'What's that?'

'She could win.'

'This is Lieutenant Ruth Katherine Crabb we're talking about,' conceded Nic. 'It's not like she's known for copping out in the face of adversity.'

'And she's got the advantage,' added Colleen.

'How?' asked Euan.

'As far as I can make out, this is what's left going: the gravitron's going to take a lot longer than this to stop spinning, life-support is on emergency minimal, and -' she plucked her phaser from beneath her console and tried to activate and fire it, '- the weapons de-activation protocol.'

Nic nodded. 'You heard Ruth. She doesn't always need a phaser. Emma won't have one, so what's she going to be armed with?'

A final kick freed the panel, and Ruth tumbled out into engineering. Slipping her dirk out of her boot, she crept into the main body of the room. Mysteriously enough, Emma seemed not to have heard her. As she approached, she noticed the side of Emma's face. She slowed as she realised the transporter chief was crying.

Hmmm: Everyone on board in mortal danger versus Emma's feelings might get a bit hurt. She clasped her blade more firmly and advanced.

Before Ruth reached the pool table, Emma spun around to face her. 'Go away. You can't do anything here!'

'Release the ship,' Ruth said firmly.

Emma blinked some tears away. 'If I wanted to release the ship, I would! See? You all think I'm really incompetent!'

'Emma'll be no good at hand-to-hand,' Nic continued. 'So she can't really have anything already replicated that Ruth couldn't cope with.'

Terri nodded. 'It's not like anyone was dumb enough to program projectile firearms into the replicator.'

All eyes turned to Euan as he started to sink into his seat.

Ruth sighed. Didn't Emma know who she was? Didn't she want to save herself getting hurt? Oh well, all the more practice for the chief of security. She made quite sure Emma could see the dirk. 'I'm armed. You're not. Release the ship.'

Emma looked at her. 'I am armed.'

'What with? A phaser rifle?' Ruth almost laughed.

'No.' With that, Emma reached down and produced her revolver, which she pointed at Ruth.

'Replicas,' sighed Nic as she backed off from Euan. 'Why didn't you say so?'

'It sounded obvious to me!' protested Euan. 'Everyone knows I'm a gun-nut, so of course I keep exact replicas on file!' He sighed. 'Honestly, it's like commanding the flagship of a kindergarten!'

Ruth started. 'Where did you get that?' she demanded.

'Did a bit of replicating the other day. You'd be surprised what the computer knows about.' She grinned - or tried to. Her eyes were still a mass of saltwater. 'It's useful when your captain's got a hobby like ours has.'

Ruth realised, and brought her alarm back a notch. 'Ah,' she realised. 'Then I suggest that you don't test me. Not with my real knife against one of Euan's replicas.' She slowly walked towards her prey.

Something went off in Terri's head. 'Wait a minute.'

'What?' Euan was still pouting, but only a bit, because it made him look about ten years old.

'How exact do you mean by exact replicas?'

He waved a hand. 'Oh, pretty damn exact.'

Terri subjected him to a calculating stare. He melted under the blowtorch of her gaze.

'Um. Exactly exact.'

Ruth's reflexes reacted before her brain did, and she hit the deck as a bullet shattered the panel behind her.

Emma wiped her eyes and aimed again. 'You never did take me seriously, did you? Did you?' she screamed. 'There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm only the transporter chief!' She fired again. Ruth rolled out of the way behind the pool table.

'Well, I think you should have taken better notice of me! Because this poor lowly insignificant transporter chief is going to kill you!' She fired again.

Ruth ducked. This was intolerable. She was hiding - hiding, would you credit it - from a semi-bald transporter chief with a gun from over a hundred years ago!

Pulling a small knife out of her sleeve, Ruth tensed all her muscles, ready to spring forth.

'You're taking too long! Come out of there!' Emma felt her voice crack, but she didn't care. Before she'd just felt miserable; now she was in the white-hot grip of rage. She revelled in it, in the feeling of power. She had outsmarted everyone on the ship. No one would believe that the measly transporter chief, with a pissweak gun from centuries before, could have killed the one and only Ruth Crabb.

She bit back another burst of sobs. Even this short, psychopathically violent idiot was better appreciated on the ship than her. She cocked the gun again.

Ruth leapt forward, drawing back her arm to throw the knife. Emma fired, just as the knife-bearing hand was brought forward. Ruth felt the rush of the bullet, and the sting as the knife spun out of her grasp. This left her in plain view of Emma, and with no available weapons.

For a minute they stared at each other; Ruth too amazed to move and Emma too stunned to shoot.

'I've done it, haven't I?' she said, almost in wonder. 'I've beaten Ruth Crabb. The most psychopathically insane person on the ship.'

'I'm only in second place now, Emma,' Ruth remarked acidly.

Emma's lower lip started to tremble again, and she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the tears. She also squeezed the trigger.

Ruth dived forward, the only direction where there was room. Emma was screaming with the effort of not crying, totally uncaring about the security officer trying to get to her feet in front of her.

There was a shot, and a thud.

Emma froze, suddenly finding her tears shut off like a tap. She was still in engineering, still holding a gun, and still angry as anything, but there was something new. A new sensation. Ruth was lying on the floor in front of her, with a bullet hole in her chest and her eyes shut.

Emma took a step backward. She'd lived through the 20th and 21st centuries, and seen more than her fair share of gunshot wounds. She knew what a shot through the chest meant.

The anger abruptly vanished, replaced by a hot, tight feeling. The throbbing at the base of her skull returned. 'I killed the security chief.' She knew that this should fill her with horror, but it didn't. She felt strange - almost good. But there was something she needed to do. What was the point of killing the security chief and not having anyone know about it?

Euan had managed to fight Terri off him and was protesting that it wasn't his fault and loony transporter chiefs weren't supposed to be a contingency he should plan for. His comm badge gave a chirp.

'Euan?' a female voice came.

'Is that you, Ruth?'

'No. It's her badge, Euan, but this is definitely not her. In fact, you'll never get her on her comm badge again because she's dead. That's right, she's dead. I killed her. Me. I killed her so she's dead.'

Euan slumped.

Dead.

Ruth is dead.

Euan had had to deal with it before, and every time he thought at least it would make the next time easier.

It never did.

Ruth Katherine Crabb, 1978-2375.

RIP.

The faces of the others on the bridge reflected his own expression: blank.

He tried to summon his voice, but all he got was a squeak. He tried again. 'Emma,' he breathed. 'What are your demands?'

'Fuck you. Fuck you twice. You don't get it, do you? You still think I'm like some crukking Tamagotchi or something! Press my little button and I'll go back to sleep! No. No, Euan, it isn't going to happen. I've just shot your precious Ruth. When are you--' Euan ripped off his communicator and threw it across the bridge. He didn't need to hear any more.

Trying to overcome the fact that despite a systemful of drugs her entire body was the anthropomorphisation of pain, Bobbi looked up at Ratbat. 'What's happening?'

Ratbat smiled gently. 'Everything's fine, Bobbi...' She trailed off as Bobbi started laughing and crying, at the same time. 'What is it?'

'You're sweet, Ratbat...but you never could lie very well.'

'I'm...' Ratbat gave up. 'How'd ye tell?'

'Apart from the fact that you just can't make yourself do it...you said everything was fine. You never say that everything's fine. There's no way you can resist rattling off every possibility.'

Ratbat said nothing. She just felt tears start to escape her own eyes. 'Come on...' she squeaked. 'Ne'er say die...'

Bobbi cried some more as she felt the sole daughter of Elizabeth I grip her hand even tighter.

Suzy clamped the shuttlebay door closed, then removed her thruster suit. She felt herself spin slightly. The atmosphere wasn't returning to the room as quickly as it usually did. Was it on low priority for some reason?

Once she was sure it was safe to continue, she went over to the Redback and slid the door open.

'Good, Suzy,' Val said as she disembarked. 'Now, plug the shuttle back into the ship's power, and find someone to take care of the communications.'

'Hai,' replied Suzy. And she was absolutely bubbling over with enthusiasm, honest.

Val looked around the shuttlebay. This was odd. The Compromise crew often neglected to give her the red-carpet reception, but there usually at least a few crewmembers wandering around. 'Suzy?' she called the lieutenant back. 'Where is everybody?'

'Wakarimasen,' Suzy replied, then made to return to the interior.

'Wait!' called a voice. Both travellers turned to see the XXXX, her manual door easing open to reveal Leila.

'Leila...'

'Don't lock the shuttle onto ship's power!' the counsellor continued.

Val stared at her. 'Whyever not?'

Leila briefly outlined what she knew of Lieutenant Techie's actions. 'The shuttle,' she repeated. 'That could be the key.'

Val thought about it. 'I don't entirely follow.'

'I do, sir,' Suzy put in. 'While the shuttle's still on its own power, Emma can't do anything that'll affect it. We won't have weapons, but we'll still have the onboard computer...'

'...and a transporter,' Leila concluded grimly.

Val's eyes narrowed. 'What?'

'I'm the ship's counsellor. I'm going to work out where Emma is - then go and try to talk her down.'

'OK, people,' Euan said firmly. 'I want ideas. I want a plan. Give me anything. Even if you think it might be crazy, I want to hear it. Emma's crazy too, so it might just be what we need.'

There was silence for a moment.

'I've got a plan,' Colleen said at last.

'Lieutenant Hick, you have the floor.'

'We defeat Emma and regain control of the ship.'

'And just how do you plan to achieve that?'

'God, I don't know! You're the captain! Geez, you only asked for a plan. You never said anything about getting specific!'

Euan whimpered and started banging his head against his console.

Lieutenant Kettle addressed the small group that had gathered around him. 'Listen, you blokes,' Mark said seriously. 'We are in deep trouble. Hard times have hit, and we need to decide what to do.'

'What do you mean?' asked Lieutenant Parfitt-Murray.

'Well, some hours ago, Transporter Chief Techie went apeshit and shut down half the ship. That...that's bad, but we can cope with that. But since then, a crisis of severe proportions has arisen. And thanks to the woman with her finger on the trigger, we can't deal with it in our usual way.'

'We have to know,' Hal told him.

Mark took a deep breath. 'The emergency beer kegs have run dry.'

Everyone thought for a moment. Finally, Matt looked up.

'Ritual suicide,' he said. 'It's the only thing.'

Leila, Val and Suzy leant over the Redback's flight console as it completed its scan. 'She's in engineering,' read Val.

Suzy nodded. 'I thought so.'

'She'd have to be,' agreed Leila. 'To do all this to the ship's systems.'

'Are you sure you want to do this?' asked Suzy. 'She sounds dangerous.'

'What else can I do?'

Suzy grinned mischievously. 'Stay here with me.'

'Why, Suzy...you're a married woman,' Leila giggled in return.

'I'm sure Niki would want me to keep in practice for her...' Their flirting was cut short by the diplomatic officer clearing her throat.

'Yes, well.' Leila regained her composure. 'I'm going to do it. No, I don't want to. But I think I have to.' She stepped onto the transporter pad as Suzy programmed it. 'Energise.'

Leila solidified in a maintenance cubby-hole in engineering. Things weren't much brighter here than in the shuttlebay where she'd been caught.

She looked about, hoping she wouldn't run straight into any insane goldies. While that didn't happen, she did manage to almost trip over a near-dead one.

'Ruth!' she exclaimed quietly. She stooped to the shallow-breathed individual lying in front of her. 'What...?'

'Shot me...' Ruth managed. 'She replicated a revolver... Get out...' She paused for a few seconds while pain overrode her desire to use her voice. 'She's not safe... She shot me...she didn't hit too close to anything vital, but she thinks that if she....urrrh!...shot me, that I'm dead. That's what she's like now...'

Leila nodded. 'That helps,' she told Ruth, then rose to her feet once more.

Emma was sitting on the pool table with her head in her hands. Things didn't seem to be going as well as she'd hoped. Ruth was dead, but no one had come down to see her or ask her why she was doing this.

Come to think of it, she didn't know why.

'Emma,' a voice came from behind her.

Emma turned slowly, suddenly feeling rather tired. 'What do you want? Come to take control of the ship from me? Come to save yourself and everyone on the ship from the evil menace of the transporter chief?'

Leila shook her head. 'No. I've come to see you.'

I've come to see you. Emma tried the words out again in her mind. They sounded good but... they didn't fit. They weren't right. 'What do you mean?'

The counsellor's normally cheerful face was clouded with sorrow, but had a determination that Emma had never seen. It was intriguing. She remembered being intrigued, once upon a time. Now it was a distant memory, but she recognised the feeling.

'Emma, you might not want to believe it, but we do care about you. And what you're going through is important.'

'Don't give me that counsellor's bullshit! You don't know jack! You don't care about me, all you want to do is save everyone else and be a hero! That's all you've ever wanted!'

Leila's expression didn't change. 'You're hurting. Inside. It's the kind of hurt that you don't understand and you can't rationalise, because it's nothing tangible, but it's real and it's there.' She clasped both hands over her heart. 'Right in there where you can't get at it.'

Emma started to tremble. 'So what?' she asked, nervous bravado making her voice unsteady.

'So I want to help you, Emma! You're wound up tighter than a violin string, and you've got so angry and miserable at everyone on the ship that you don't know which way's up anymore!'

Emma felt her mental feet slipping out from under her. The anger and pure misery and frustration which had fuelled her desperate actions were dissolving before her, leaving only confusion. Her fingers tightened around the barrel of the pistol.

'You may think you're going to talk me down, and save the day and be a hero,' she said, trying to get back on to her original tack. 'But it isn't going to work.'

'Oh, fuck everyone else!' Leila lost her composure. 'Emma, at this moment, what's important? To you, I mean? Do you really think I give a shit if the others decide I'm a hero or something? I'm your friend, and I care about you!'

Emma bit her lip. She raised her pistol. 'I don't think you should lie to me,' she snarled through clenched teeth.

'I've got no reason to lie to you. You see, Emma, you need help to make the pain and the misery go away. What you're living through is awful, and no one should have to go through it. I want to help you.' She began to move toward Emma, one hand outstretched. 'Please?'

Emma's face twisted in an agony of indecision. With a strangled cry, she aimed the pistol and fired.

Click.

She looked down at her shaking hand, and the gun she held in it as though seeing them for the first time.

'Emma?'

Leila was still there, a little wild around the eyes, but still caring and understanding.

Emma shook, her whole body wracked as though with convulsions. The strength of emotion which had kept her tight as a bowstring was gone, just leaving a terrible emptiness.

'Computer,' she heard her voice say from a million light-years distant. 'Restore normal ship's operating status.'

All her dreadful power was gone. And she was glad.

'Will you...' Emma paused and bit her lip again. But she didn't need to say the words.

Leila gently removed the gun from her grasp. 'Yes, I'll be there. I'll take care of you.'

The transporter chief sagged, like a puppet with the strings cut. Leila caught her and held the skinny body close to her own.

She tapped her comm badge. 'Fetter to Bowen,' she whispered, tears standing in her eyes. 'If you would like to regain control of the ship, I'd ask you to take me and Emma to Titan. We'll be staying there for some time.'

'Will do, Counsellor.'

'And send a medical team down here for Ruth.'

'Wha...? Ruth's alive??'

Leila sniffed. 'You think a little hot lead through the chest could stop her?' She helped Emma down from the table. 'Come on,' she said softly. 'It's over.'

It wasn't over, not by a long chalk.

Graham heard Euan's call for medical help for Ruth. 'Melanie, Fiona,' he said. 'Go to engineering and help Ruth.' If nothing else, I'll get to see which M^cMillan is which now.

'I'm busy with Bobbi,' Fiona shot back. 'Anthea, you go.'

'Right,' chorused the M^cMillans. They scooped up a medikit and scuttled out of the room.

Damn. He paused, looking at Bobbi.

'What?' Nicole prompted him.

'I'm not sure if I can do it!' he hissed in panic. 'I first worked it out hours ago. I don't know what the babies in there have done, never mind if I can get them out properly!'

'Do what you have to!' she encouraged him.

'I'm not sure what that is!'

Nicole's brain whirred. There had to be something. Something that would tell what was going on, and what to do about it. It couldn't be that hard, surely? All they needed to do was find a way to move the babies from inside Bobbi to outside...

Her brain stopped whirring and clicked. 'My God,' she told Graham. 'I've got it.' She called to the intercom. 'Wylie to Schwinghamer!'

Bobbi wasn't sure which pain was greater - the physical or the emotional. A third of her body was trying to push her children out, another third was refusing to let them, and the last third was beginning to simply give up. And she was convinced that there was almost no way that she and her offspring would all be all right...

She felt a strangely familiar sensation in her belly - a tingling she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then, slowly, the pain started to ebb away. 'What's happened?!' she panicked. She snapped her head around to look at Ratbat. 'Wh...' She trailed off as she saw her friend pointing across the room, open-mouthed.

There, in the incubator units nearby, lay four human newborns, that Fiona was even now busy cutting the cords of.

She couldn't think of anything to say. Even Ratbat was stunned into a simple 'Nice one, Gra.'

Graham, equally wide-eyed, just shook his head and pointed at Nicole.

'You did it?' Bobbi squealed happily.

Nicole bowed and smiled. 'Such old-fashioned thinking, you two! This is the twenty-fourth century. You want to move something? You beam it!'

Ksenia came across Leila as Emma's door hissed closed behind her. 'So, what's happening with her?' asked the scientist.

'She's asleep now,' Leila said, picking up pace down the corridor. 'I think she just burnt herself out. No more energy. Euan's ordered her kept in secure quarters until we arrive at Titan.'

'Titan?'

'We're taking her to the mental hospital there. They're very good.' She paused. 'It's horrible, Ksenia. She was so angry...she felt that no-one would accept her as one of them, so she had to hurt them as if they were some of her.'

Ksenia looked sympathetic. 'But you didn't have to go in there and risk yourself. Why didn't you just use the comm system, if all she needed was someone to talk to?'

Leila smiled sadly. 'It'd take a while to explain.'

Ksenia gave her an inquiring look.

The counsellor sighed. 'OK, I guess I'll tell you. But it's not the world's most pleasant story.'

'I'm listening.'

The continued down the corridor in silence.

'I had a sister once.'

Ksenia looked up in surprise. She'd always assumed that Leila, like many of the Evil Bunnies, didn't have any family.

'She was tall and beautiful and talented and I loved her an awful lot.'

There was another long pause.

'We were living in a house in Sydney, not long after Terri and I got back from France in the 1920s. She was always very highly strung and emotional, you know. It's one of the things that often goes with talent.' Leila sighed. 'When things got bad, I used to just switch off, while she raved and yelled at me. And she used to beat me up a lot too. Sisterly love.' She gave a wry smile. 'Anyway, I got home one day and I could hear her in the bathroom. She wouldn't come out, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong, and eventually I gave up and went out again.' A solitary tear fell on to her cheek. 'When I got back, I finally got a screwdriver and broke into the room. She was there.' She swallowed hard. 'In the bath. Covered in blood. Dead.'

They stepped into the turbolift. 'Deck 17,' said Ksenia.

'Anyway, I found a note the next day in her bedroom. She blamed me, Ksenia. Said that I'd never taken her seriously or cared about her, and that it was as bad as being dead. I never thought I meant that much to her. But she'd rather have died than lived without my acknowledgement.' Leila sniffed. 'And so she did. But she never knew...'

'Never knew what?' asked Ksenia in spite of herself.

The lift door opened and they walked down the corridor.

Leila rubbed the tears out of her eyes. 'I've had a long time to reconcile myself with this, but the one thing that always seems dreadful is that I did care. And she didn't know it because I couldn't show it.'

'So that was all it took with Emma? Letting her know that everything wasn't all useless?'

'Pretty much.' She smiled. 'Anyway, onto happier things.' They opened the door and entered sickbay. Graham, Ratbat and Euan were there, seeing over the bed that contained Bobbi, with her children resting in cradles close by, two on either side.

'I'm sorry about your hand...' Bobbi was saying to Ratbat.

'Gah, leave it out. I got another one. 'sides, I think it's safe to say you were under a fair bit of stress at the time.'

'Bobbi!!' Leila interrupted them. She paused, considering her shout. 'Were they sleeping?' she asked sheepishly.

Bobbi shook her head. 'Don't worry,' she assured her. 'They already seem to have inherited their mother's ability to sleep soundly.'

'What did you end up with?' asked Ksenia. 'I mean, boy-and-girl wise.'

'Two boys, two girls,' grinned Bobbi. 'Straight down the middle. And no, I haven't thought of any names yet.'

'No?' asked Leila.

'Come on, they've spent the last eight-odd months without names, they can manage a while longer!' she laughed. 'They're born! It's over...Oh, I'm so happy...' She looked proudly towards the one Euan was making silly animal noises over. 'You want to watch out, Ratbat - looks like she could be first officer by the end of the month.'

Ksenia realised something. 'I just realised...what you said about inheriting things from their mother...'

'Hm?'

'Do you know who their father is? I mean, whose cells was it that got transferred into you during transport?'

'I'm still not sure,' admitted Bobbi. 'The best I can guess is...well, they're all redheads.'

'Oh...so who were you beaming with?'

Bobbi thought back. 'I should remember it pretty well. Oh, yeah... Ruth, Leila, Euan, Graham and Fi.'

Ksenia groaned. 'I could do you a genetic test. That would show you which of them was the father.'

Bobbi shook her head. 'I thought of that angle Ksenia, and thanks, but...I really think it's best not to think about it.'

She laughed again, and turned her attention to her new family.