Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar Choi Zarah G'Deneb © Engineer Jess
Thanks to EMZ for ideas to this story and criticism... and thanks to CaptainBuzzLightyear for detail help.
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Episode 2:
HUNTED BY TWO WARRIORS
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You.
I see you.
You're in my heart.
I see you with the eyes...
The eyes of my black soul...
There are the shadows in my heart
that tell me you are there somewhere.
Maybe you think of me, too, in your dreams...
Or, am I forgotten? I know you once felt the same.
Zarah... are you still there, somewhere... waiting for me?
I still love you... And your smile is here, with me, as if you were real.
A yellow crystal lamp cast its warm light upon a table. A man leaned to his hand and stared at a holo-picture where lines of text cruised. Bored he snapped the holo-screen shut and stood up from his chair.
"Half a year... time goes fast forward, but I can't just dispossess this memory..." he sighed to himself. "And I was gonna brighten up myself with that holo, not to begin scribble gooey poems. What would the others think seeing me mushy like this... a big, tough man writing poems? You're pathetic, man, you know that."
But the thoughts did not vanish. "It's been six months... I guess you have started a new life, finally found someone to lighten up your loneliness..." he pondered, taking a coat from the back rest of the chair. "Gotta go back to my work... bye, bye, memories!"
Warp pushed a button on the wall and a pair of electronic ladders whooshed down from the ceiling, leading to a hatch. He stepped up and vanished to the darkness.
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Two red eyes flashed in a violet-murky chamber. In front of a large screen, a menacing figure took reports from a couple of dubious-looking men.
"You ought to find him! This is not a request, it's a deadly demand!"
"We were close then, once. But after that, he vanished like he would not exist any more."
"He is alive. He is out there. And he will face his death in my hands as long as I breath and rule it all!" the cloaked man at the comm. device roared.
"We continue the search, sir."
"And you better DO it, because I, I shall not bear deception against ME! I am the morning and the evening star, hmm... I mean death star, a black hole that will soon conquer all the pathetic solar systems that... hmm... well, that's for my brilliant-malicious speech! You go after him, now!"
Zurg shut down the holo and flopped down to his throne, swearing silently in his mind, before he let the chamber echo in cataplexy: "Curse you, Darkmatter! I'll get you, even if I have to haunt you till the end of the universe!"
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Choi Zarah G'Deneb took long steps along a corridor of Star Command HQ. She had a wide smile on her face. Every one passing her wondered what was going on. Hardly anyone had seen this little creature with such a grin for a long time. Usually, at least during the latest months, she was timid and isolated, barely giving a light smirk when she was greeted.
But now, it was her holiday time! Finally an escape from the work, albeit she enjoyed it. Only her holiday plans were a bit strange, she did not have an actual route. She had thought a kind of cruising a bit here and there around the galaxy, something a bit adventurous. While she was there leaping forwards and buttoning her small coat, she almost stumbled to XR who was rolling from behind a corner.
"Aww, isn't it my sweetie! I haven't seen you in weeks! Hey, what's the big celebration 'cause ya look so jubilant? Did ya find a uni-buck from the corridor floor?" the robot sang.
"No, no, I'm taking my annual leave. I put the LGM to handle my energy source project. We're developing some new parts to the reactor which's prototype was completed months ago", she answered friendly.
"No... just when I found ya, ya're gonna leave me...?" XR moaned in his usual way. He did not mean anything with it, it was just casual flirting.
Zarah's eyes attached to the wall as a displeasing memory dug itself up from her thoughts. 'Leave me...' the words were almost the same, but the voice was different, a deep voice of a man...
She woke up from her illusion when someone was waving fingers in front of her vision.
"Good day, there, ma-am. Do you still remember the rest of us?" a voice came above her.
"Oh... I'm sorry, I was in my thoughts. Good day to you, Captain Lightyear, ranger Nova and ranger Munchapper", she greeted the rest of Team Lightyear that was gathered around her.
"How is your work today, Miss?" Buzz asked politely.
"Well, I was just telling your more down-to-earth fella here that I'm gonna cruise away for to take some relaxment", she giggled and pat the robot's helmet. With her joke she had meant mainly the size difference, it meant always for her stretching her neck when she was talking to someone, except the LGM... and XR. The rest of the members of Team Lightyear were kind of half-acquainted for her, since the happenings beyond six months.
The discussion of the rangers turned to the engineer when they had left her and headed to the launch bay.
"She was completely a different person today!" Booster noted.
"Hmm... didn't you XR once tell that she was somewhat a happy woman? You worked with her last summer, didn't you?" Buzz fingered his chin.
"Well, she was! Like a songbirdie! Just tittered and chirped for my joy..."
Lightyear rolled his eyes. "That wasn't exactly what I meant. As long as I have seen her here, she has been like a shadow."
"Certain rumours have told that she ate antidepressants for months after we brought her back from... what was it... Yrrz?" Mira commented.
"Yrmh, missy, grunt it just like ya'd been told that you gotta pass level 11 an ice cream cone as yar weapon! YRRRMHH!" XR helped.
"Wonder what on Rhizomia she went through there? If I had escaped such torture and helped to save one hundred workers and then made a success with a magnificent new invention, I'd be very happy." Booster raised his brows.
"You said it..." Buzz smacked his lips and looked contemplating.
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-Two days later, somewhere beyond Rigel System-
Zarah sat in the pilot seat of her personal speeder. There was no need to use Star Command's personnel ships any more as she afforded now to buy her own. She enjoyed high earnings and more was to come, as her skills in terms of the landanah project had been noticed and she was granted with a promotion.
But... what was the money there to bring her? Nothing. Completely nothing. Only there was the woe of desolation, black nights that fell upon her. Never, never she had felt herself as miserable as during the previous months. In addition, she knew the reason for it as she fumbled her collars and the metal that was hidden under them. Her only memory... her only company, this soulless piece of steel, but still there to remind about the lost one, the only one that had ever cared for her...
"Okay... where am I gonna go..." she stopped her mind-play and stared dull at the holo-map. "I got actually none kind of destination... hmm..." She leaned back in her seat and just let her imagination run wild. "Dandes... no. Kalajoki System... no. Mondoshawan... nope, doesn't sound interesting. Xaneda? But there's nothing, except the mining moon. Not even a colony any more, just desert and mountains. A nice, empty place to play a hermit and descend into self-pity? Is that what ya want to do during a holiday? C'mon, pull your socks up, you're an adult!"
But there was something nearly mythical in that planet that intrigued her. And now a recollection of some scientists' talk came into her mind. A small conversation was gone through not so long time ago about the mineralogy of the main planet; could it namely be possible to find some kind of occurrences, perhaps more landanah? She knew that the planet was quite unexplored. Therefore, an interesting thought came into her mind. What if she would go there to examine a bit, would maybe spend a couple of days there, do some mineral tests and enjoy the ravishing solitude that her depressed mind had to come to thirst? It felt odd, how she had at first thought to search for company for her vacation, but now headed towards wilderness where she knew she would find no intelligent life anywhere.
Thus, she snapped the autopilot on and gave the computer the instructions to head straight to Xaneda. She went to the backroom of her ship to check out what kind of scientific instruments she had there. A small particle accelerator, out-of-date, but still working. Mineralometer, scales, all kinds of old-fashioned little widgets, a structure analyser along with some bio-plastic cubes for storage. What was there to prevent her any more? She had enough food rations as well as water and there was no need for a space suit in Xaneda, since the atmosphere was suitable for a human being. The climate was quite hot, but she thought she could survive.
The view through the windshield was extremely dismal. Dry, grey sand continued wherever a random spectator cast his eyes. Here and there were rocky cliffs and in the horizon a mountain range was delineated like a mirage, waving above the hot ground.
"Ahh, Xaneda!" Zarah blurted sarcastically to herself and let the ship remain the low flying. She wanted to get near the mountains. There would be the best possible places to do some research. After two hours of slow flight, she thought to find a good patch and landed to the shadow of a big boulder. The glaring sunlight blinded her eyes for a moment as she stepped off her vehicle. It was sweating hot out there, but after the cold vacuum of the space, it was welcome for her. She took a big bottle of suntan cream and poured it over her very pale skin. She actually did not stand much sunbathing, so she also dressed to a light shirtwaist, put huge sunglasses on and decorated her head with a wide-brimmed hat.
As she leered there around her in order to search for some knoll to start the mineral studies, she remembered how she had, for the first time six months ago flown to the second moon. It jutted in the sky emerald green of its lush forests, unlike its grey sister. Xaneda... a planet that no one knew well in this galaxy. A planet that bathed in gloomy mystery. There were the legends, ancient stories that told odd things about this planet. Nevertheless, no one believed in them seriously. It was said that a race of very intelligent aliens once lived here, but then had come a catastrophe along. The planet, because of some altering of its sun, began to dry very fast. The seas evaporated away. Therefore, according to the saga the people dug themselves under the ground and founded a new society there. But after some generations had passed, a lethal epidemic would have struck all the colonies and destroyed the race to its last member... Zarah's nanny android had told her bedtime stories that still some people lived here, hidden, strictly away from the view of the Galactic Alliance. A sanctuary for hunted murderers and scoundrels, maybe, who knew?
She giggled lightly to her wild imagination and to those fairy tales that once had got her to the world of soporific. "Okayday... where was I? Yeah, talking about the research, there's a nice shadowy place..." She screwed up her eyes for to peep through the sunlight a bit further. She went back to her ship, took a flagon, a backpack where she had jammed her instruments and food and then laced her huge and heavy landing boots. After a couple of hours of walking, she reached her destination. The travel had taken so much, because on the way she had studied interesting-looking pebbles and their structures with her analyzer. She gradually forgot the time and place as this new activity took totally the control over her.
But unfortunately nothing valuable was there to find. She went trough dozens of tests and only discovered some granite and gneiss. "Wonder why this mother planet is so worthless... unless the richness is there deep under the ground", she sighed. "Nah... they're be never discovered in there. The surface of this planet is somehow so intact that any scanner doesn't penetrate it further than a couple of tens of metres. And I guess the scientists that once had their colony here, have studied this area where I am straying now."
She sat down on the sand to take a break. She had wandered kilometres towards the mountains and now she was very close to them. Her sitting place was actually in a wide canyon, scarps on both sides, rising to the highnesses dry and majestic. Vegetation was found nowhere here in this area, not even any cactus-like plants.
A small gust of wind surprised her there as she was enjoying some chocolate. Some sand was blown onto her delicacy. "Odd. It has not been winding at all when I've been traipsing around..." Then came another blast, this time a lot more violent. She winced and looked to the horizon. "Jumping supernovas..." she gasped as her regard approached the scene. The whole view was grey from the sky to the ground. A sand tornado whooshed with a magnificent speed towards her. This was the last she had expected: a sand storm. Moreover, on this planet, the twisters grew crude and dangerous very fast. Now, after a few minutes of the first little whisper of the wind, it was hazardous to stay out much longer.
She picked fast up all her things and looked for shelter with her regard. "Oh, no... I'm a bit in a wrong place for a raising storm... I have to try to run towards the other side of the canyon, there seems to be a lot of rocks and maybe some hole where I could hide..." If the hot atmosphere did get sweat drops on her forehead, at least this menace did. Like a ghost, the squall approached her as she ran with her heavy bag towards some life-saving protection.
...To be continued...