The Sands of Time (A Star Trek: The Next Generation Fan Fiction)

Chapter Six

Stop, I told myself firmly. Wait. I forced myself to stand still, slowing my breathing. I could not afford to panic. Someone had put me in this cage, that much was obvious, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me panic. This room had been built for a human or Sandorian, not a shapeshifter. It couldn't be airtight and that meant I could get out. I could just shapeshift and escape. I closed my eyes and shifted.

I came to lying on the hard rug, flat on my back. I blinked a few times, staring up at the lighted ceiling. Cautiously, I rose to my feet. What had just happened? Again, I closed my eyes and focused on changing my form.

When I awoke the second time, on the floor again and still in my Sandorian form, I couldn't dismiss the fact that this wasn't a coincidence. Both times I had tried to shift, I had passed out. Something, I had no idea what, was preventing me from shifting. The idea made my breath come faster and my palms turn clammy. Shifting had always been my defense, my way out of any situation, and now I couldn't do it.

As terror filled me, I fought the urge to simply crawl onto the bed and curl up into the fetal position. The Enterprise would find me. Belatedly, I remembered the com badge I had been given, only to find it wasn't attached to my shirt any longer. It didn't matter, I told myself. The Captain and Lieutenant Worf had been with me. Either they would get out of here and come find me or else Will on the Enterprise would rescue all of us. It was just a matter or time. In the meantime, I wasn't going to cower. I started at the bed and slowly started to look for a way out. Other people managed without shape-shifting and so would I.

Time didn't seem to pass in the tiny room. Nothing changed, not the yellow light emanating from overhead nor the eerie silence that had to come from sound-proofed walls. Long before I gave up my escape attempt, hunger began to set in. I kept up my search, though, until I was forced to admit that this was a perfect cage. There was no way out. Eventually, I sank to the floor, reluctant to even use the arm-chair provided for me.

I was sitting cross-legged on the rug when I heard the rush of air and metallic sound of metal scraping against metal. As I hastily stood and backed up against the bed, a section of the wall to my left slid open. As I saw shadowy movement just beyond the opening, I immediately reacted by instinct and tried to shift. The last thing I saw was someone entering the cell.

I jerked upright as soon as I regained consciousness. Blinking spots out of my eyes, I immediately realized I was not alone. A middle-aged man sat quietly in the armchair near the foot of the bed, hands folded serenely on his lap. As I swung my legs over the side of the bed and shook my head to clear it, a slow smile spread over his face.

"I see you've joined the living," he said, a faint accent tingeing his words, marking him as from the north. "I was getting worried about you. Three times in just a few hours, not very wise."

Other questions came to my mind, but the one that came out was, "You've been watching me?"

"Of course. I had to make sure you didn't hurt you yourself. You do have a history of that." Something in the way he said it made my blood run cold. I couldn't keep my face from showing everything I was feeling as I stared at him. He smiled smugly as he continued. "You're surprised I know? Don't be. I know all about you, Tasha. Miss Lawrence, a common name, probably why you gave it to us instead of picking a new one. Not very wise, though, was it, coming back here after all this time. Not after what you did."

"What do you want?" I demanded, grasping fistfuls of blanket in each clenched hand.

The man's face darkened, his sparse, graying stubble clinging to his clenched jaw. "You. But we can get to that later," he added, waving his hand as if to brush away an unwanted concern. "Right now, I want to know why the Federation tried to get you to infiltrate Sandor."