TITLE: A Tale of A Techno-mage and a Telepath

AUTHOR: CelineV and Crusaderat2002 Beater and edited By crusaderat2002

FANDOM: Crusade

RATING: G

ARCHIVE: Sure, but let me know where.

SUMMARY: When a Telepath and a Techno-mage get together, is it a good thing or not. Lt. Matheson and Acate are up to no good and poor Max is on the worst end of it.

DISCLAIMER: Warner Brothers and JMS owns Crusade. I own anyone you don't know.

NOTE: Italic Conversation between these means it is private. No one but the two people speaking can hear it. Many thanks to Rat and Azrah Syed for betaing this. You are truly a Saint!

**

Captain Matthew Gideon and Galen walked down the corridors of Excalibur toward the mess hall. They had been in the Captain office for hours. The Captain had run out of coffee. So they moved their meeting down to the mess hall to get the human more coffee.

As the door opened and the two men could hear a voice coming out of the room. They stepped into the hardly lite room. They could see Acate siting at one of the tables. The voice they heard was male, so there was someone else in the room too. The men stepped into the darkness.

"OK so how does ten thousand volts sound to you then?" asked Acate to no one.

"Now why would you zap me with that much voltage?" said a male voice. Sitting up in the chair across the table was John Matheson, the Excalibur's XO.

"Well ten thousand sounded like it would get your attention."

"Now that would kill most humans. If you want to get someone's attention, just use a voltage of three. That would do it."

"OH well I don't want to kill anyone. OK I will use three voltages on you then." Acate smiled at the telepath.

Gideon thought to himself, 'why is she thinking of executing my XO?'

"So what are you working on?" asked John.

"I am putting my report in an order that will help me work on the cure better. When I gave Brother Captain Matthew, copied of the report on data crystal. I left it in the way that I did the tests. Now I want my hard copies in a different order. I believe in a different order it will generate a better response in me." Acate kept going through the different stacks of paper and pulling out things and putting them together.

"So looks like you throw yourself a little party here," said John.

"Well yes, I did. Today is kap'ta. Not that is important," said Acate.

"What is kap'ta?"

Galen closed his eyes. 'She would remember it,' thought the techno-mage.

"It's a holiday. How do I explain this? It's basically Wierden, the first mages birth day. Not when she was born, but the day when she was able to use the magic." Acate made a face when she said it. "So we celebrate that fact. We have tirga (pointing to something that looked like popcorn) and vihi (pointing to what looked like a potato chip) and salut (a drink in a glass). You want to try them?" Acate just smiled at John. "I should warn you the tirga does have a little bit of a kick."

John popped a piece of white kernel and almost spit it out. "My God that taste like booze."

"Well it is." Acate started to really laugh then. "You bake this fruit and they fermented while they bake. You can get very drunk by eating them. That is one thing you never want to see is a drunk Techno-mage."

"Oh I don't know about that. It would be fun to see you or Galen drunk," said the Earth Force officer.

Gideon gave Galen a side glance. The thought of Techno-mage being drunk made him laugh.

"Well me, maybe. I am a funny drunk. Galen... he could be a totally different story. We are just like you humans, there are happy drunks, mean ones, funny ones."

Acate put down the paper work and stretched out.

"You know if you asked Captain Gideon, you could get a room on the ship."

"Why would you think I don't like sleeping on my ship?" Asked the mage as she popped a tirga in her mouth. "I have been in fact hunched over the paper work for a while. I have been sleeping on the ship nicely." Acate stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling. She laughed, "except for the fact that every once in a while I get a visit by him who isn't there."

John just looked at the woman. "He who isn't there? What is that a ghost or whatnot?"

"No it's something that just rattles things to make noise or messes around with your ship. Makes things break down and stuff like that"

"Oh you are talking about Gremlins. We have those too." John turned some of the papers that Acate had been piling up. "This stuff really makes sense to you?"

"Yes, it does. I have a big advantage on working on this. My Mother was a person doctor and my father was an animal doctor. I have been studying stuff like this since I have been able to read. Before I started to study for mage, I wanted to take up plants. I was tired of people and animals. Plants sounded safe. Then I started to study to be a mage. I realized I was going to need it all to be a mage. So I am covered with Animals, people and plants." Smiling at the telepath.

"So the Techno-mages knew they were asking the right person to come and help us."

"Yes they did. They also knew I wouldn't turn them down either. So before we got so serious, we were talking about holidays. So do you have anything like kap'ta?"

"Well there is Christmas. That is the day we celebrate when Jesus was born. That is the last holiday of year. First Holiday is New Years for most of the world. After that it varies between countries. There are some standard holidays. April Fools Day which is the day we play jokes on people."

"What kind of jokes?" asked Acate.

"Nothing hurtful. You do silly things to them or something else funny. Why do you ask?" John smiled at Acate.


"When is this holiday?" asked the Techno-mage.


"In a couple of months, why?"


"I am going to tell you something that I want you to keep to yourself." Looking at John, she waited for John to agree with her.


"Why is it I have feeling I will be sorry for saying yes to you?" said John. Acate didn't speak, she just looked at the XO. "All right, I won't tell anyone a thing you are going to tell me."


"Brother Max Eilerson has been following me around when I have been aboard the ship. I make sure I stay away from anything that will send you Brother Eilerson into a panic."


"I can tell the Captain for you..."


"No, I have a better idea. You're April Fools Day. We could make him a little crazy. Since he follows me whenever he doesn't have anything important to do. And the Gods only know what he thinks is important. So we could make him believe that 'we' are having..."


"Max would kill himself if he thought we were having an affair. He thinks himself God's gift to women." John laughed even harder. "You are a cruel mage! Remind me to stay on your good side, OK!"


Matthew Gideon laughed to himself. This mage had the guts to take on Max without getting the Zeno Archaeologist in more trouble with command, then more power to her. Galen shook his head with disapproval.


"You will always be on my good side until I'm called to the other side," said Acate. I was thinking that we start meeting for meals and other things."


John just looked at Acate, "Start small and work our way up to what?"

"At some point, since you have quarters on Excalibur, several night I could come to your quarters. Make Max believe that I have spent the night. I could get myself out of there with magic. Come back in the morning and leave in the morning wearing the same clothes as the night before. It's the first thing to pop into my head, said Acate as she put a few more pieces of paper together. The Techno-mage started to look through the pile of paper. She seemed to be lost in thought as she kept looking through the stuff. A smile appeared on her face.


"Acate?" said John.


"HMMM," said the mage as she looked up at the telepath.


"Is the stuff making some kind of sense to you?" asked John.


"Yes it is. The test I ran on Theta Rho 76 was showing nothing special. I went down and ran some soil samples just because of. They came back with high contained of Azeal three."


"What is the stuff good for?" asked John as he got up and moved over to the same side of the table as Acate.


"Most animals are given a shot of Azeal 3, as in case of everything catch all. Well a Doctor on one the moons of Kelno ran out of human meds and started to give the Azeal to humans. It didn't kill anyone, but the Doctor Thomas of Earth, I believe was the name of the Doctor, the Doctor found some of the people actually felt better after getting the shot. The studies of the Doctor showed the people who got the shot where healthier then the people who didn't get it. So I think this is a good sign. If I go back and get some of the unrefined stuff, we could play around with it and see what happens. If this, could be a building block to the cure." Acate talked her hands moved about. One point her hands were inches from John's own hands.




Do not touch him, It can trigger some thing. Matthew and I are in the room with you, thought Galen to the other Mage.

I've known since you and Brother Captain Gideon walked in here I felted your presents. I can feel your disapproval from there on what I want to do to Brother Max. Thank you for telling me not to touch Brother John, replied Acate

Acate stopped talking and looked off into space her hand mire inches from John's hand.


"Acate, are you OK?" asked John Matheson.


"Yes I am. I was just thinking of something I need to do tonight before I go to bed. Any way what was I prattling on about?" asked Acate as she moved her hand away from Johns area.


"Acate,"said Matheson. "You do know I am a telepath?"


"Yes," said the Mage.


"I don't like to be touched by non telepaths just in case I trigger something it's happened before. That's because we can pick up things from touch. It could get me in trouble with Mr. Jones when he comes to check on me every six months."


Acate looked into Matheson's eyes. She could see that it bothered the man. "Can't you just turn it off in your head?"


"I wish it could. I would have had that sucker turned off along time ago." Said the telepath.


"Then I shall find a way for you to do so. I think we will need to get a little touchy feely to make Brother Max nuts for April Fools Day."


"I have no idea how you would do that, but be my guest,"said John.


"Don't you have to be back on duty in six hours?" asked Acate as she gathered up the papers and then the food and drink.


"Well I can stay up late if I want to Mom. Dad Gideon isn't going to yell at me." said John as he helped the Mage pick up her stuff.

"Oh you would be surprised what Dad Gideon would yell at you about. Staying out late with a mage on a work night. If Brother Max hears about it, then we could be in trouble."


John started to laugh. "This is going to be fun. Operation drive Max Eilerson crazy. Do we dare keep this up for months?"


Acate put the stuff into her cloak pockets. She picked up the cloak and put it around John's shoulders, "Oh I believe we dare." The two walked out of the mess hall together.


Galen looked over at Gideon and the captain said, "It's a good thing they didn't see us. They would have killed us."


"Yes, I sure they would have." said Galen as he went out the door to return to his ship.


Matthew could see that Galen was upset about something. Maybe some day he would totally understand that Mage. He wasn't going to count on it happening in the near future.