The first ones to emerge from the damaged ship were several ensigns and lieutenants I didn't recognize. Many were uninjured and were supporting those that were. Our medics rushed forward to tend to them, pulling them clear from the airlock or sending them to the medical bay.

The injuries got a little worse. I recognized a few of these crewmen, but none of them glanced in my direction. Then the alien I least expected to see, Lt. Jihal, appeared. He had gashes along his left arm and his webbed hand, and more around the gills lining his neck. He gasped for breath even as he supported another familiar person, Nurse Ginger Gray. The woman who'd stolen everyone's hearts back when I served on the Excursion wasn't looking so good; she was limping and had burns all over. She didn't appear to be very conscious of what was going on.

"Ginger!" I said, running forward to help Jihal. I glanced around for a medic, but I couldn't see one amid the mild chaos of people. I did spot Alpha Crew. "Lt. ch'Taal!" I said, addressing Mil'nor. "Get a medic over here!"

"Harris?" Jihal said, staring at me. He started coughing again. "What in Prel'kesh are you doing here?"

"I work here," I told him. "Now stop talking. That's an order, lieutenant!"

The medic arrived, and I reluctantly released my old friends to his care. "Friends of yours, commander?" Mil'nor asked me.

I nodded before glancing around me, looking for more familiar faces. I spotted the Excursion's second-in-command, Commander Richard Petrovsky, and jogged over to him.

Half of his body looked perfectly healthy. The other half, from his face down to his foot, was covered in third degree burns. Despite all of this, Petrovsky was trying to get up and back inside the Excursion. He wasn't in that great of shape or he could have taken on those orderlies easily.

He started when he saw me. "Harris!" he said. "Tell these men to let me up. The captain's still in there. So are the Elmwoods!"

My heart skipped a beat. Captain Jules Kibar, Dr. Joel Kibar Elmwood, and Lt. Commander Blakelee Elmwood were all blood relatives - not to mention members of one of the oldest Watcher families around. They were also close friends. "We'll look for them, Rich," I told him. Any minute now, Alpha Crew would be sent inside the ship to check the engines and make sure no accidents were about to happen. Too many warp core leaks had occurred in the past. The sooner we made sure that sort of thing didn't happen, the better. If Blakelee, the ship's engineer, was out of commission, there was no telling just how much danger could be in store for the Excursion, Deep Space Eight, and every other ship docked at the station.

The flow of Starfleet officers from the ship thinned out. "Okay, Alpha Crew," I said. My team snapped to attention. "Let's get to the engine room."

I rushed into the airlock with my team at my heels.

We passed through the doors separating the two air locks, passing from white-and-glass construction to gray metal alloy in a matter of feet. The ship's annoying red alert suddenly flared to life. I glared at the flashing red lights along the walls. Why oh why hadn't I destroyed that while I was assigned to the ship?

Once inside the corridor, I glanced from left to right. The corridor was empty.

Lt. Coleman glanced over her PADD. On the screen were the blue prints for the ship. "Okay, the engine room is…"

"This way," I interrupted. I turned right and headed down the curving corridor.

My team followed me, exchanging raised eyebrows and puzzled looks. "Commander, do you know where we're going?" Kira asked me.

"I used to serve on this vessel," I explained.

"Oh."

We reached the turbolift. Fortunately, it was still functioning. "Deck 29," I told the computer when we were all inside. Once on Deck 29, I lead my team to the engine room's double doors. The automatic doors were jammed and repeatedly opened and closed halfway. We slid through the gap and got our first glance of the engine room.

It was much like I remembered it, only if was half-destroyed. Half of the panels along the wall and on stands around the core were destroyed from small electrical fires. Several crewmen I couldn't see all that well lay on the ground, dead or unconscious.

I forced myself to ignore them for now as my eyes settled on the warp core. There was nothing I could do for them; if we didn't stabilize the warp core, we'd all be dead.

Mil'nor and Kira immediately went to two of the consoles while I ran a scanner up and down the warp core. "There's a crack in the coolant tank," I reported. That was not good. If that crack turned into a hole, we'd have one big explosion.

"Where?" Jessica asked me.

"Twelve meters up."

"On it," she said. She climbed up the ladder attached to the side of the warp core. It took her only a few minutes to fix that leak. "Done!" she reported.

"Is that it?" I asked Kira.

"Affirmative."

That had been easy, considering the danger. "Okay, team. Let's get these people out of here."

*****

(ships are mentioned on page 9)

Among the other new arrivals were the USS Ferguson, the USS Explorer, the USS Galaxy, and the USS Artemis. The Ferguson and the Explorer both had minimal repairs and injuries among the crew, and they were cleared to depart within a matter of hours. For an hour or so, everyone feared that the Explorer's computer was so damaged that it might activate the self-destruct the next time the Explorer crew went to red alert, but Gamma Crew got that fixed in no time.

Deep Space Eight was abuzz with activity. Several groups of people were shuttled to the hospital station, while many others filled up DS8's new medical bay. The Spinning Top was constantly filled with starship crewmembers and station personnel relaxing in between repair shifts.

After all of the immediate dangers to the Excursion had been taken care of, my team set to work on other repairs. It felt strange being back inside my old ship, even though only four years had passed since the last time I was on the vessel. I never thought I'd see the Excursion again. Pretty stupid of me to think that, really. After all, the Excursion was used as a prisoner of war transfer ship nowadays. It would be near the front lines often, and if they got in a battle, it was very plausible that the Excursion would come to DS8 for repairs. It was just wishful thinking on my part.

Alpha Crew worked for several hours before the shift ended and we called it quits until the next day. Many of our helpers stayed to continue their work, but we didn't need to supervise it. If the ship's engineer wasn't available by the next day, Alpha Crew would continue to oversee the repairs.

Speaking of engineers…I waited impatiently near the lift doors. I wanted to get to the medical bay to see how my old crew was doing. When the doors finally opened, four or five people stepped out. I didn't recognize any of them except…

My eyes met the brown ones belonging to Lt. Commander Kava Ek'noor, the assistant tactical and head of security for the Excursion.

"Mark!" she greeted me, smiling. The Andorian woman grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into an enthusiastic hug. She pulled back enough to give me air, only to take it away when she forcefully pressed her lips against mine.

She pulled back, leaving me standing there doing my impression of a fish. I didn't even register the blue-colored fist heading toward my face until I was sprawled on my butt on the ground.

My hand slapped up to cover my cheek. I could feel Immortal healing doing its work and didn't want Kava to see it. My butt felt very sore. I slowly stood up and backed away from my ex-girlfriend.

"Lieutenant Mark Harris, where in Prel'kesh have you been for the past four years?" she demanded, fire in her eyes.

"First of all, it's commander now," I said, hoping that subtle reminder about how it was not good to strike a superior officer would be enough to make her back off a little.

No such luck. "Second of all, we broke up, remember? I had to leave, and we didn't want a long-distance relationship."

"What, you think I still care about that?" she asked, incredulous. She laughed. "Hell no, Harris. I was worried about you, you dimwit! We all were! Starfleet sent you on some dangerous secret mission that you couldn't tell us about, and then no one hears from you until now!" She glared. "I'll admit I still like you - the kiss was for me. The punch was for me, too, but it was also a little message from Jihal and Ginger. They both want you to come to the medical bay immediately."

"Going."

We entered the turbolift and were soon walking into the medical bay.

Every bio bed was occupied. The rest sat on the ground or lay on emergency cots. The entire place was abuzz with activity, but the initial rush seemed to have passed; all those present sported casts or fresh bandages.

The injured crewmen had been divided into their ships. Galaxy and Artemis crewmen alike took up the first room. More from the same two ships occupied the second, and third, the largest room in the station's medical bay, held crewmen from the Excursion.

I didn't recognize half of the people there. Others junior crewmembers seemed a little familiar, others very familiar. Kava and I stopped to talk to a few of them and catch up on what had happened in the ward so far.

I finally spotted senior crewmembers. Jihal was sitting up on his bio bed, keeping watch over his girlfriend who lay conscious on the bio bed next to his. Ginger was looking annoyed, and even as I watched, I saw her attempt to sit up, only to be pushed back down by a mothering Jihal.

Commander Rich Petrovsky lay unconscious on a bio bed not that far away from the couple. Methos stood over him, going over his vitals. I glanced around for my other old friends. "Where's Joel, Blakelee, and the Captain?" I asked Kava.

"Captain Kibar ought to be around here somewhere." Kava answered. "Blakelee and Joel were both shuttled to that hospital in the nearby solar system."

"Are they all right?"

"They're going to be. The commander's in worse condition, but Dr. Adams says he'll be all right in a few days. Joel and Blakelee ought to be back before then."

"They'd better be." I turned and saw my former Captain, Jules Kibar, approaching. "Hello, Harris," he said, smiling at me. His arm was in a sling, and there was a slight bulge in his uniform where a few of his ribs were bandaged. Old-fashioned splints and casts were being used on many of the people there in the medical bay until Methos could run a regenerator over their wounds.

Captain Kibar's eyes drifted to the collar of my uniform, and he blinked, surprised. "You're a commander now? From Lieutenant?"

"It's a long story," I told him, grimacing. "And, also, kinda classified."

He sighed. "I knew you were going to say that. So you work here?" I nodded. "Know where I can find the chief medical officer? I'd like to have a word with him."

I nodded over to Commander Petrovsky. "He's with Petrovsky right now."

"Good. Would you mind getting together later for a drink?"

"Sure, captain, I'd love to."

"By the way, do you know who's working on the Excursion?"

I smiled. "That would be my team, captain. Alpha Crew. Don't worry, the Excursion ought to be back to normal within only a few weeks."

He smiled. "Good to know. Let's wait to have that drink until Lt. Commander Elmwood gets back so we can go over what still needs to be done."

"Yes, sir."

The captain left us and walked over to Petrovsky's bio bed. As he passed their beds, he exchanged a few words with Lt. Jihal and Ginger. He must have mentioned I was there because they both looked around for me. Spotting me, Jihal waved me over.

"Mark!" Ginger sprang up off of the bio bed. Before Jihal could haul her back down again, she'd given me a hug. "It's good to see you. Do you work here on the station?"

"Same here, Ginger, Jihal. And yes, I work here now. I'm the head of the Alpha Repair Crew."

"Isn't that the team that's overseeing repairs on the Excursion?" Jihal asked. I nodded. "How is she, then?"

"Stable, at the moment," I reported. "Any immediate threats have been taken care of. We'll start working on restoring her hull tomorrow, then move on to the interior."

"That's good to hear," Ginger said.

I looked around at all of the injured officers crowding the ward. "How did all of this happen?" I asked my old friends.

"That is a tale," Jihal told me.

"The Excursion is sometimes used as a prisoner-of-war transfer ship," Kava began.

That was news to me. "Prisoner-of-war?" I repeated.

She nodded. "If any enemy soldiers are captured during a battle, we transported them to the prisoner-of-war camps. Commander Petrovsky acts as tactical officer now instead of me. I'm still head of security, but that entails being a prison warden more often than not."

Jihal continued, "Prisoner transfer duty only happens occasionally. Most of the time, we cart supplies or passengers to Federation colonies that are close to the front lines. Sometimes we act as back-up in battles if we're close enough to help out. That's what happened this time."

"We were on our way to the Pelios Cluster to pick up a group of Cardassian and Breen prisoners," Kava told me. Pelios, I knew, was only a few light-years away from Deep Space Eight. "On our way there, we received a distress signal from the (two of the other ships), which were under attack of several Cardassian (warbirds? Cruisers?). The Excursion and the _____ were the only ships in range that could respond fast enough, so we did. We forced the Cardassians to retreat, and only then did we come here for repairs."

The Buzz blossomed in my mind. Looking around, I saw Methos approach us. He nodded to me before running a scanner over Jihal and Ginger. He ran a regenerator over their burns. "It looks like you’re both going to be fine," he assured them. "However, both your gills, Lieutenant, and your lungs, Nurse Gray, need rest…"

Only after Methos had given his recommendations did Jihal let go of Ginger’s shoulder, allowing her to sit up. Ginger leveled one more glare at Jihal before turning to Methos, all business now. "Do you need any help, doctor?"

"Yes, that would be great, Nurse Gray." They started to walk away. Jihal began to follow them, but Ginger persuaded him not to. Methos told her as they walked off, "I need you to grab a scanner and a regenerator and check the patients in the next room…."

"I'm sure your girlfriend will be all right, Jihal," I consoled the lieutenant with a small smile. With the way he acted around her, he might be mistaken for the nurse instead of Ginger.

"They're engaged," Kava said, smiling and as unceremonious as usual.

"Congratulations!" I said, grinning. I hadn't seen them in four years, but I still felt close to them enough to feel overjoyed for them. I paused and assumed a thoughtful pose. "Would that make you Mr. Ginger Gray, or would she be a Ms. Jihal?" I turned to Kava. "What do you think sounds better, lieutenant?"

Kava just rolled her eyes. She wasn't getting into that one, especially with Jihal glaring at her like that. I noticed that she had trouble holding back a grin. "It's good to have you around again, Mark," she told me. "Only you can get on Jihal's nerves like that and yet avoid being scathed."

Jihal let out a growl of frustration. The gills along his neck puffed out when he let out a huff before stalking toward the doors. We followed him, but before we left, Kava stopped me. "That's a new scar," she said. She ran a finger up and down the small scar at the top of my throat.

I almost groaned. First Methos, now Kava. I really needed to get that thing removed.

"When did you get it?" she asked, carefully. "Was it on that mission Starfleet sent you on?"

I nodded. No point in denying it.

Her eyes narrowed. "That looks like a knife wound. Now why would you have a knife wound from a mission for Starfleet?"

I sighed. "You know I can't tell you, Kava."

The weeks went by. Blakelee and Joel returned, fully recovered, in a matter of days. Petrovsky was a different matter. The Commander flatlined twice; Methos and Joel had to operate at least once. In the end, however, Petrovsky recovered. After a week and a half in the medical bay, he was released.

Repairs were going well; by the end of fourth week, everything would be finished. The other three ships had already left, and two of the other repair teams had joined us, speeding up repairs even more. Between Lt. Commander Blakelee Elmwood, Alpha Crew, Gamma Crew and Beta Crew, pretty much everything under the sun was checked, fixed, and accounted for on the Excursion. Kira even took the opportunity to refit the ship with an improved weapon’s array.

At least two more days of repair work remained. Alpha, Gamma, and Delta Crews, along with about half the crew from the Excursion, sat in The Spinning Top, enjoying a well-deserved break. The medium-sized bar was overcrowded with people. Everyone was relaxing and having a good time; funerals had taken place during the first week, and everyone was trying to move on from that. The week’s list of dead soldiers would be posted the next day, but until then, no one wanted to think about that.

Jessica and Kira sat at a table to my left. They shared the table with Blakelee, Captain Kibar, and Delta Crew, and few others. Ginger and Jihal sat a table a little ways away on my right. I glanced around my table. Mil’nor and Kava sat next to each other, deep into conversation in Andorian. It had turned out that they were cousins, and they had spent most of their time catching up on old friends and relatives with a few blackmail stories thrown in from either person about me, no doubt. To my right was Commander Petrovsky.

He pushed his glass towards me. "Pour me some more, would you, commander?"

"Certainly, commander." I poured out another glass of synthehol and slid it back to him. "Feel good to be out of the medical bay, Rich?"

"Be grateful we have the same rank. If you’d called me that back when you were a lieutenant, you would not have liked the consequences."

He was joking, I knew, but only long acquaintance made that obvious. Petrovsky had quite a poker face.

"Yes, sir, Commander Petrovsky, sir!" I said, snapping off a salute that the United States military used before the government was abolished.

"Hello, all." I glanced to my left to see Methos slide into the chair immediately to my left.

"Hi," I told him. I slid the jug over to him. He took it and a glass and poured some synthehol into it. "Where’ve you been?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I had some reports to fill out. So what have I missed?" He took a sip of the synthehol before grimacing. "What is this stuff?"

I gave him a raised eyebrow. "Uh, synthehol." I shrugged. "Couldn’t bring the good stuff, sorry. Everyone has to work tomorrow and Admiral Parrington would have my head if everyone had hangovers."

"Everyone, we have an announcement to make!" We looked up to see Ginger getting to her feet. She pulled Jihal up to stand next to her. Even though Jihal seemed reluctant to be in the spotlight, I noticed him smile happily anyway. "Jihal’s asked me to marry him," Ginger announced.

The bar filled with applause and calls of congratulations.

"Commander?" Mil’nor began, leaning across the table to address me.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" I prompted.

"One question."

"What’s that?"

Mil’nor glanced over at Ginger and Jihal. "Who’s going to have the kids?"

At that, Kava, Petrovsky, and I burst out laughing, even though it was a legitimate question. For Jihal’s species, the name of which I will never know how to pronounce, the males carried the unborn children, not the females. So since both Jihal and Ginger could get pregnant, I could understand Mil’nor’s confusion.

"I don’t think they’re compatible," I told him, then I grinned. "I guess we’ll find out for sure sooner or later."

Mil’nor, Kava and Petrovsky headed over to congratulate the engaged couple, leaving me with Methos. That’s when I realized that the old man had been silent while the rest of us were laughing. I looked at him. He was staring at something. "Doctor?" I asked cautiously.

He didn’t answer. I turned and looked in the direction he was staring and realized with a start that Methos was staring at Captain Kibar and Admiral Parrington. The two officers were talking.

"DS8 to the old bastard, come in," I quipped.

He blinked and turned to me. "Hmm?"

"You okay, old man?" I asked him. "You’re not getting senile or something, are you?"

He snorted. "Not a chance, Harris."

Harris?

Since when did he call me Harris?

"You okay?" I asked him, worried. There isn’t much that can get to the eldest Immortal. Not like that, anyway. He seemed spacey, as if he’d just taken a major Quickening that he needed to absorb…or he was reflecting on the past. I hoped he was just feeling nostalgic.

"Peachy," was his clipped reply.

"Dr. Adams!" Joel called to our table. He was motioning for Methos to join him.

Methos downed the rest of his synthehol. "Gotta go. See ya," he said.

I watched him engage the other medical doctor in conversation. I couldn’t help wondering if I had missed something.

Kira, Kava, Mil’nor, Jihal and Ginger came over to my table, and soon we were talking, catching up on old times and sharing new stories. I cast aside my worries and just had fun.

Kira told one of Alpha Crew’s tall tales. "We had to fix the replicators on this old cargo ship, the Lucy Abbot. The replicators would give you a bowl of coffee instead of a cup of coffee, that sort of thing. Well, we tried a number of things, but the damn things still wouldn’t work. And then Mad-Eye Mil’nor over there loses his temper and just starts banging on the replicator he was working on. With every punch, he would say another word," and here she demonstrated by pretending to bring her fist down on the air above the table with every other syllable, "Now listen to me, you hunk of isolinear chips and plasma units! You will start working right now or you will be reduced to a heap of melted metal! After that, the replicator started working just fine."

Everyone burst out laughing and applauded Mil’nor. The Andorian took it very well, considering. He actually stood up and bowed.

"You know that cousin of yours has a better temper than you any day," I whispered to Kava.

There must have been something wrong with the synthehol. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have kept my mouth shut. Thankfully, Kava took it well. At any other time, I would have gotten a right hook for it.

"Oh, you think so, hmm?" Kava said, mock-angrily.

"Lt. Commander Kava Ek'noor, I know so."

Kava rolled her eyes. I watched her, and couldn't help thinking, just like I'd been thinking every time we were in the same room over the past three weeks, that she looked absolutely cute doing that.

"Would you like to go out with me?" I blurted. I felt like slapping myself. Twenty-four centuries of living and I wasn't close to being a ladies man.

Kava burst out laughing at that. "Now that's the blustering lieutenant I remember," she teased. "Never could control his hormones."

She got me there. "Is that a yes?" I teased right back.

Kava's expression turned thoughtful. "I don't know, Mark. You'd have some serious making up to do."

"Dinner, tomorrow night, holodeck. Formal wear."

She smiled and nodded approvingly. "Sounds like a good start. I'd love to."

Later that night, I entered my quarters, exhausted yet in a good mood. I took off my uniform jacket and began removing my pips as I thought about everything that had happened that day. I remembered how Methos had acted. I'd rarely seen him as distracted. It was as if it wasn't him at all-

I froze. Then I grabbed my COMM Badge and phaser, turned, and sprinted back out into the hall. One alarming fact, one I should have been aware of immediately, was now alarmingly clear to me. When Methos entered The Spinning Top, I should have known he was there. I should have known he was there long before he reached my table. However…

Part Three

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