Crazy

He was going crazy. Scratch that. He was crazy.

This whole situation was utterly insane.

He didn't know how long he had been in this box. He didn't know where he was or what was happening outside the box. He couldn't remember what had happened. Why he was here or even where here was. He hurt in a number of places, but when he tried to figure out why, he couldn't remember. He checked his extremities again and they all worked, so that was good.

The box wasn't like anything he had ever seen before. It felt fleshy instead of metallic when he touched it.

It was-

Something changed, but he couldn't define what. His world shifted.

He was sitting in something that moved. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was very familiar. He was surrounded by controls and displays. Hands that he knew were his were moving over the controls quickly. In front of him was a windscreen of some kind, the panes angled sharply on either side of him. To deflect incoming fire that got past the barriers. He knew that. But from where?

And what were 'barriers'?

Everything was cold, hard. Angular. He heard a voice that he knew wasn't his speaking behind him, but he couldn't see the speaker. For one thing, it was female. For another? It was younger than he was. She was 23. He knew that. Somehow.

"You better be sure about this, Walrus. The brass will have our asses if we don't-" The voice cut off as a loud 'bang' sounded nearby. A short moan cut off suddenly and he felt a pang of grief flew through him. But… why?

He saw something through the windscreen. It was big, blocky and ugly looking. Its colors were all wrong and it was… it was growing! It was getting closer. Or he was getting closer to it. It was hard to tell what was happening.

He stared as bright lights flashed by the windscreen. Somehow, he knew what they were. Tracers. Mass driven projectiles that were treated with a substance that made a light and smoke trail as they traveled. The bullets flew so fast that it was could be very hard to aim with them even with technological assistance. How did he know that? He wasn't sure.

He did something and whooshes sounded form either side. One, two, three, four, five six corkscrew trails of smoke arced away from him into the side of the large thing he was aiming for. His hands did something and the area ahead of him filled it a buzzing noise. He watched as the six trails hit the object ahead of him and burst into bright fireballs, each impacting something that shimmered blue. Was it his imagination that the shimmer was weaker? The buzzing became a roar and he stared as a torrent of tracers went ahead of him and…

Yes! The shimmer had failed! The barrier was down!

A growl that the knew came from his lips sounded as the hands that he knew were his slammed controls and the object was suddenly huge in his screen.

His world shifted.

"...this stupid fracking human cost us everything!"

Pain flared across his entire body. Every single muscle hurt. What had happened? He couldn't remember. Someone kicked him and he bit back a groan.

"The entire shipment was in that one container?" A hard female voice sounded as something grabbed his arm and gave a yank. "Oh, stop that. Haven't you hurt it enough?"

"We hadn't had time to shift the animals into processing. The Alliance was on us too fast. And this one..." Another kick and he felt ribs break. "It blew the container supports. The ship couldn't lift with the container hanging loose. We had to abandon it all."

"Well, that explains why you are so pissed off." The female voice laughed. "Was your stash in the container too?"

"This isn't funny!" The other snapped. "The Hegemony is expecting a load of slaves. If we don't get a load, they will put us in the pens instead. You know that."

"There are always more animals. Humans breed like flies." The female sounded clinical now. "But this one… Was he the pilot?"

"Don't know. Don't care." Another kick and suddenly the male gasped. "Let go!"

"If he is pilot trained, he can be worth a lot more than a pile of menials." The female sounded savage. "Heal him and get him processed. We got instructions. We are heading to join a fleet."

"Oh?" The male sounded confused now.

"Yeah, we got a nice fat target." The female chuckled. "The humans didn't bother to protect their 'Elysium' at all. We can take the whole colony, steal everything and take all of the humans before their silly little fleet can react."

"I don't know about this, boss." The male said slowly. 'If those humans are anything like this guy and the team he was carrying… They died to the last human to keep us from taking any slaves."

"Well, then they will be worth a lot, won't they?"

Another shift.

"Damn him! That lying sack of krogan shit said it was an easy target!" The female was in rare form. "Sneaky humans had to have more than one soldier there no matter what the reports said. How many did we lose?"

"Only four made it back to the ship, Boss." A young sounding female. This one sounded weak or hurt. "We will need more meat to corral the animals if we are going out again. We got two containers full, but… No one to process them."

"Gas them and we will work on them together." The one who had to be in charge sounded tired now. "We need to have something to show the rep when we arrive at Torfan. This one… He is healed enough. Start with him."

"Yes, Ma'am. Sorry soldier." The weak voice said quietly. "But better you than me."

Agony tore through his back and then his head. He couldn't fight. He couldn't resist. He couldn't even scream. All he could do was…

The world shifted.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know! There were no scans, nothing on sensor! It was a hulk!" The weak voice sounded frantic. "Ripe for salvage!"

"Well, it is not a hulk now!" The voice of the leader was angry beyond belief. "Whatever the hell these things are, they have torn through most of the ship. Why didn't you blow the airlock?"

"You are the only one with the codes to-" The younger voice cut out with the sound of a gunshot.

"Yeah. My bad." The leader said flatly. "Oh well. At least I don't have to face the Hegemony's rep with this… what? No! NO!"

A horrible gurgling scream cut her words short and then there was silence. He could hear things around him. But the sounds did not make any sense. Was that music he heard?

He was..

It was…

Lieutenant Senior Grade Jackson Collains, nickname 'Jak' and to a very select few, call sign 'Walrus' jerked awake with a scream that cut off as soon as he realized where he was. It was 2184, eight years since... It had happened.

He felt the bed around his lower body and winced as he felt wetness.

"Damn. Not again."

The tiny room was as it always was on waking. The small bed that he used was rumpled form his tossing and turning. He would change the sheets before he left for the day. They always told him that he didn't have to do that, but it made him feel a little better after he made messes in the night. At least he hadn't done number two this time. The only other furniture was a chair that currently had a datapad in it and nothing else. He didn't need anything but the drawers under his bed for his meager possessions.

Collains gave himself a shake and sat up. The room's sensors, seeing him move, activated the illumination at his desired level. Blinding. He had been military for so long that it was the next best thing to having Reveille or a General Quarters alarm played loudly at his ear for waking him up fast. Those had never endeared him to his neighbors so he had compromised with the lights. He took a few moments to breathe, banishing the residue of the nightmare before stepped out of the bed and starting his routine.

Every day, barring any day that he was physically unable to do so, he did a hundred pushups and a hundred jumping jacks before showering. There wasn't a lot of space in his room, but he managed. He was sweating and wide awake when he finished. He stripped the bed quickly, adding the sheets and pillowcase to his dirty and sweaty nightclothes. Then he pulled his robe from where it lay under the bed, unfolding it with the care of long practice. He needed the routine, it soothed him with everything else that was going on in his life.

It had been years since his ordeal. Since Elysium. Since his small team had been wiped out preventing a slaver raid on an isolated human outpost. Since the Alliance had found him and not only given him a medal, but promoted him. He had thrown the medal into a trash bin as soon as he had left the general's office. They had tried to give him assignments and he hadn't been capable. Some of the Alliance officials were kind, others spoke of cowardice and dereliction of duty. He ignored them all. He had not -quite- fallen as far as he could. The docs had done what they could, but he couldn't fight anymore. He couldn't fly after whatever the hell the blasted slavers had done to him. Now? All Jak could do was take it a day at a time.

He slipped on the robe that was provided and slipped out into the common area. Thankfully, no one else was up at this early hour, so he would have the shower area to himself. He didn't have a problem with showering co-ed, but some did and he much preferred to be left alone. The scars left buy the slavers and their machines would either draw pity or derision and he didn't like dealing with either.

Collains finished his shower quickly and efficiently, then toweled off just as quickly before putting the towel into the laundry bin. Such speed was just as the Alliance had trained him. Waste as little as possible, because you never knew when that water you were washing with was going to have to be recycled and then drunk. He remembered living on the onboard rations of a Mantis gunship for a week once, while stuck in the back of beyond with…

He slammed a fist into the wall hard enough to hurt.

"It is over." Collains snarled at himself and pulled his robe on over only slightly damp flesh. "I am not… I am not..." He gasped as the pain flared back into his head and he bit back a scream. Whatever the slavers had done to him lingered even now.

A familiar acerbic voice pulled Collains back from his past.

"Gonna pass out now, Hero?" Collains didn't need to look to know that Sergeant Kooper was standing there. He too was a veteran, if of a very different stripe.

"No kids to torment here, Kooper." Jak retorted as he pulled himself up straight through sheer force of will. Kooper flushed at that. The former Alliance Drill Instructor had been diagnosed with severe PTSD and depression after more than a dozen marines had been killed in a training exercise on Luna when the VI there had gone nuts. He had been in charge of the teams there and lost most of them. To friendly fire. But the rivalry between space and marine had to be kept up. "But for what it is worth, if I do pass out, you have my royal hero permission to piss on me."

The sergeant stared at him and then he laughed. He held out a hand that Collains took. They were good friends, not that many would know it from hearing them talk.

"Bad night, sir?" Kooper asked softly. Collains nodded. "Me too. I saw Richter blown in half again." He slumped a bit. "Gotta talk to the docs again. Man, I hate it when they change my meds. I get all fuzzy and useless for a day or so."

"Know the feeling, sarge." The lieutenant said weakly. "I relived most of it." The sergeant hissed and nodded. He knew the real story, not just the pretty pieces the civvies knew. "Wet the fracking bed again. What am I? Three?"

"Which they had a magic techno pill for this crap, sir." The sergeant said with a growl. "This really sucks."

"No joke, sergeant." Collains nodded to the sergeant. "Better get your shower done before the admiral graces us with his presence." He smiled as the sergeant groaned, but it wasn't really funny.

'The Admiral', also know as Ensign Teman Burns Geoffrey Sinclair the Second, was yet another of the inhabitants of this place. He wasn't a bad sort, not really. He wasn't violent or even loud. What he was, was highly delusional. He thought that he was Admiral Horatio Nelson, the British admiral of Trafalgar fame. It didn't matter that Nelson had died centuries before Sinclair was born. It didn't matter that the reason he thought that he was a British naval hero was that a freak power grid failure had exposed the poor ensign's brain to far too many joules of energy. Only his duty armor had saved his life and that hadn't saved his sanity. What mattered was that he had been hurt on duty and that put him here. He wasn't a bad sort, just… He put on airs and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

"Get out of here, ya silly flyboy." The sergeant growled. "Or do you need a little boy with a lantern to show you the way out of the the latrines again?"

"I thought it was just ground pounders who couldn't figure navigation out without GPS, three computers and a call to HQ." Collains said with a smile as the sarge shook his head. Then both turned and went their separate ways. He started for his room, only to pause as he heard a small sob from nearby, followed by a giggle. "Oh, not again!"

He spun around a corner and found what he expected. Lara was backed against a wall and Cross was leering at her, making suggestive motions with his hands. He coughed slightly and the man spun, eyes huge as he took in the soldiers standing there. Cross was many things, he wasn't stupid. He didn't have a chance against Collains in a fight and he knew it. Even in a robe, Jak knew he was intimidating.

"Leave Lara alone." Collains said flatly.

"You want a piece too, man?" Cross said with a grin that showed far too few teeth to be healthy.

"No." Collains said firmly. "I want you to leave before I call an orderly. You know they don't like upsetting everyone before breakfast, but if you keep hounding her, I will."

"You think you are so special." Cross tried to swell, but he might mass half of Collains and it didn't have the desired effect.

"No." Collains reached out to Lara and she grasped hold of his hand as if it would vanish. "Actually, I don't. But I do know that if you keep pushing, they will toss you out on your ear, maybe send you back to a regular prison." Collains wasn't sure what Cross had done, the docs were very tight lipped about it. What he was sure about was that the man was a snake. "I catch you hounding her or any of the others again and I will tell the docs. They will punish you."

"Gonna tattle, army boy?" Cross laughed, but it felt weak.

"Better tattling than breaking." Jak Collains had always been proud of his glower. It was one thing that he had practiced again and again in front of a mirror as a child, working to get just the proper inflection and arch of eyebrow to get the most bang for the buck. Cross could only take a few moments of it before bolting for his room. Jak shook his head and looked at Lara. "Why are you here? You know he is dangerous, right?"

She nodded, her short brown hair bobbing as she smiled at him. Her hazel eyes weer downcast as always. She never seemed to be anything but sad and she never talked. She was older than she looked, when asked, the docs had placed her age closer to Jak's 24 than her apparent teenage years. She smiled at him and he felt his heart melt. She too had run afoul of slavers and her mind didn't work quite right as a result but somehow, she knew he would protect her.

He had never met Lara before arriving here but as soon as she had seen him, she had swarmed into his arms as if they had been long lost friends or more.

"Lara, why are you here?" Jak asked. "The female dorms are separate for a reason. Cross is hardly the only one who is dangerous here. Come on, let's get you back." He took her hand and led her towards the hatch that led from the male dormitories into the larger hospital proper.

She looked at him and her face creased with effort, but no sound came out when she opened her mouth. She looked vexed but then sighed and gave his hand a squeeze before pulling him towards the hatch.

"What?" Jak asked, confused. "You want me to come? I cannot go into your dorms." He paused as the door slid open and the head nurse came in, her face a study. She relaxed and smiled on seeing Lara and Jak. "Janice? Cross cornered her, but I got her away from him."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Janice was always so blasted formal. "We have a visitor, and in the excitement, she slipped out of her dorm and into yours."

"I have no idea why she thinks I am so special." Jak complained Lara clutched his hand tight and he relented. "Sorry, Lara, but I don't."

"There are worse people to focus on." Janice reached out and took Lara's other hand. "Come on, honey. Jak needs to dress nice and you need a shower."

"Uh… why?" Jak asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Some bigwig has come to talk to you and the other veterans." Janice shook her head. "We tried to put him off, but he is insistent and has powerful friends. We did insist on a personal interview with one of us present."

"Best I can hope for." Jak said with a wince. "I... Um...I need more sheets."

"You know we would handle that, Lieutenant." Janice frowned slightly as Lara clung to her hand.

"My mess, I clean it up." Jak replied instantly. She shook her head, but he was sure she was successfully fighting a smile. "What is this bigwig's name anyway?"

"Ryder."