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After a few minutes, she allowed herself to entertain the possibility that she had eluded Sela’s centurions. If that was so, she had to find shelter. She couldn’t go back to the inn where she had been staying-not if there was the slightest chance that Sela had tracked her there.

Fortunately, this wasn’t the first clandestine mission the doctor had undertaken. She had known enough to take with her everything she brought to Kevratas, which wasn’t much at all.

Glancing back over her shoulder, she reassured herself that there was no one in close pursuit. Then she slowed her progress to a measured jog. By then, her breath was coming in fiery gasps and freezing on the air like tortured wraiths, and her heart was pounding painfully against her ribs.

But none of that mattered. She had gotten away from the tavern unscathed.

Thank goodness, she thought. For a moment, she had been afraid that she would perish there in the cold and the snow, and never again see the people who mattered to her. She imagined how Wesley would have felt-and Jean-Luc as well-if she had died on this frozen, faraway world.

The same way she had felt about Jack…

Quickly, Beverly thrust the image away from her. She wasn’t safe from Sela’s centurions yet-not completely. The last thing she needed was a distraction.

I’m still alive, she thought. But I’ll need a little luck to stay that way.

It was then she heard something to her right-or thought she had. A voice? Or was it just the wailing of the wind? She whirled to see, her phaser held out in front of her.

But there was nothing there-just the vague, hulking outline of a building. Beverly felt a wave of relief.

Then she heard something else, from a different direction entirely. And this time, when she turned to investigate, she saw something loom out of the storm-something that looked altogether too much like a Romulan thermal suit.

Beverly squeezed off a phaser blast, digging a red tunnel into the falling snow. Then she started running again, hoping to elude the Romulans as she had before.

It was harder this time. The air had begun to tear the lining of her throat, and her legs were becoming more leaden with each stride, and her coat was a heavy, stifling burden. But she forced herself to ignore it all.

The Kevrata need me, the doctor told herself. I can’t let them down.

She had barely completed the thought when something ripped into her shoulder, spinning her and dropping her into a drift. As she lay there, stunned, her shoulder raged as if it were on fire.

A disruptor bolt, she thought. If it had hit her more squarely, it would have killed her.

Through sheets of silent, falling snow, she saw man-sized shapes advancing on her. It occurred to her to fire back at them, but the disruptor bolt seemed to have knocked the phaser out of her hand, and her arm was numb from the shoulder down anyway.

Beverly wrenched herself about and got to her feet, despite the agony it cost her. Cradling her arm with her opposite hand, she tried to get away, to find a hiding place. But it was no use. The pain in her shoulder was too great and the energy blast had taken too much out of her.

Before long, she noticed a third thing working against her. Without realizing it, she had run into a cul-de-sac formed by three shadowy walls.

Turning, Beverly saw the Romulans had filled the mouth of the dead end, their weapons leveled at her. But they didn’t fire. They just stood there, waiting for something.

Or some one.

Beverly was cold all of a sudden, so cold she couldn’t stand it. Her body began to shiver, coat or no coat. I’m going into shock, she thought.

Then she saw a figure move through the rank of centurions and stop a couple of meters in front of her. It was Sela. Beverly could see enough of the woman’s face to be sure of that.

Raising her weapon, Sela trained it on her captive. She didn’t bother to see who might be lurking beneath the Kevratan hood. She just smiled and squeezed the trigger.

Closing her eyes, Beverly said a silent good-bye to Wesley and