It seemed instantaneous. One moment she had been standing, near a window in the spaceport's docking area, as Chief Anderson, Tiny and Keyop all stared at her with anxious eyes and the alien dissolved into shining, faintly greenish goo at her feet and then began to defy gravity and rise up to flow all over her, coating her completely. She'd nearly panicked, almost screamed, just before her face was covered, but had forced herself to take one last gasp and then close her mouth and eyes...
The next moment, she was... here. Where was "here"? The goo was falling away from her face, running down her body in thick rivulets and pooling at her feet. Damn it -she was still in her civvies! She glanced around hastily. She was in some kind of small shipboard docking bay, a narrow room with the Spectran demon symbol on the far wall, marking the large exit door to space. It was completely empty, but for one thing sitting near the exit door. It was the strangest object she'd ever seen.
It was taller than her, spherical, and appeared to be made out of some crystal stuff, but blue light moved through it in random swirls. All over its surface, needle-like tendrils of differing lengths protruded and they seemed to almost be moving, growing longer and shorter. Its utterly alien appearance, made of moving, glowing crystal, made her realize it could only be a thing of the aliens she'd so recently encountered.
And it came to her then, as she recalled the male alien's mention of a "hyperpod." That was what she must be looking at -the vessel in which the female alien had accidently ended up in this dimension instead of the one she was supposed to be in.
The male alien was still just a puddle on the floor. Was he... dead? How was she going to get out of here and back to the spaceport? They hadn't discussed that part of the plan!
She pulled her arm up before her face and said "Transmute!" Seeing the flash of light and feeling her civvies change into her G-Force uniform always calmed her, made her feel stronger.
She was going to need to be strong.
"Number three," whispered a voice from below, "Princess..."
She stared down at a face that was taking shape in the midst of the puddle of goo, the same bland, middle-aged face the male alien had used earlier. He wasn't dead -she felt a rush of relief- he was taking shape again.
But he wasn't, she realized. He got no further than shaping a face; the rest of him remained sickly green liquid. She knelt down closer, to better hear him.
"The longest tendrils on the hyperpod," he continued, "If you pull on them with your hands, it will open up for you."
"How are you doing?" she asked him, "Are you..." She faltered.
"Still dying, yes," he replied, his expression serious, but calm. "I will fight as long as possible to keep enough of my matrix intact to..."
A quiver ran through the puddle, making his face ripple too.
"To be able to talk to you. But I fear you will need this hyperpod now, and not me, to be able to leave this ship. I will teach you what you need to know in order to use it."
She slowly stood up, looking warily at the hyperpod. How did it work? Would there even be breathable air inside of it?
But as she swept her eyes over the hyperpod's surface she could see three tendrils, grouped closely together, that were somewhat longer than the others. She walked towards them, apprehension still slowing her pace. The male alien's face dissolved away within the puddle that was him, but he flowed along the floor beside her.
She was glad her hands were gloved now, as she reached for the three tendrils, cupping them and pulling them together. Who knew what kind of strange, mind-warping properties this bluish crystalline stuff might have? Despite what the alien had told her, she remained uncertain the hyperpod would open for her, a human.
But the tendrils, and the region around them, accepted her touch -glowing more brightly- and an opening appeared in the side of the hyperpod, expanding until it was big enough for her to get inside, though she had to stoop to peer into the hyperpod's interior.
It was roomy enough inside for her, and its interior surface was traced by lines and conduits of pulsing light. Were those its controls, she wondered, staring at them in incomprehension. How would she ever manage to use them?
But her gaze then fell on one object, tucked into a nook in the hyperpod's interior, that she understood all too well.
It was the satchel the female alien had been carrying. Princess lunged for it, yanking it close to her chest and backing out of the hyperpod as quickly as she could. The male alien was still a puddle on the floor outside the hyperpod's door but even as she pulled open the satchel and found Mark and Jason's civvies inside it, his face took shape again from the greenish liquid.
"I found them!" she told him, "It's what she stole from me!"
She was grinning vindictively, she realized. The female alien had gone and made the very same mistake that she herself had made earlier when she'd left Mark and Jason's civvies in her hotel room, thinking no one could possibly take them.
"That is good," said the male alien, looking up at her.
Was he shining a little less brightly now? Her grin faded. She needed to leave this Spectran ship as quickly as possible. Tiny had been certain it would go to warp imminently and it would be a hell of a lot easier to find her way back to the spaceport if she could get off this Spectran ship before that happened, especially if she were going to be travelling in that bizarre hyperpod. Sadly, it seemed unlikely the male alien was going to last long enough to be able to teach her much about how to operate it.
A thought darted into her head, restoring her smile.
It would only take a minute or so to plant some of her most powerful explosive charges in the vicinity of this docking bay...
Was Zoltar on this ship? She could only hope, but even if he weren't, blowing up that thieving, impersonating, murdering female alien would be very satisfying.
She quickly explained her plan to the male alien, telling him she'd only be gone briefly, and would be ready to leave the ship as soon as she returned.
"She will only bring chaos and havoc to your dimension," he replied, "and it is too late now for me to take her back to our dimension. Yes, reason dictates that you must do this."
His face dissolved into liquid again as she turned away, heading for the door out of the docking bay and into the rest of the ship. She took no chances that it would lock behind her and she left it slightly ajar. She kept the satchel with her too, over one shoulder, taking no chances that Mark and Jason's civvies would get stolen again in her absence.
Thinking of the faintly glowing puddle that was the male alien, it occurred to her that now she understood how the female alien had likely escaped the ropes that she had bound her with in the hotel room.
"I will never assume anything again," Princess muttered, "Certainly not that someone I tie up couldn't possibly dissolve into goo and get away."
Leaving the docking bay as surreptitiously as she could, she found herself in section of wide corridor, lined on one side with doors like the one she'd just exited. There was no one in sight, at least for now. She wasted no time opening up some removable wall panels, where she was pleased to see what looked like important primary wiring and other conduits, and placing all her explosive charges, set to maximum detonation
She wanted to leave this ship as soon as possible, but she also was going to need a lesson from the male alien about how to launch and guide the hyperpod...
She set all the timers for ten minutes, praying that he was a quick teacher.
She heard the sounds of footsteps now coming from beyond a corner in the corridor, many of them and heading her way. Spectran soldiers' boots -she was all too familiar with that sound. Princess closed her belt pouch and moved quickly and quietly back to the door to the docking bay containing the hyperpod.
This ship still hadn't gone to warp yet. Time to leave!
She pushed the ajar door open, stepping back into the docking bay. The hyperpod was still at the far end of the bay, near the exit door. She didn't see the male alien's puddle-
That was all she had time to notice before someone was suddenly behind her, seizing her wrist to bend her arm up behind her back and shoving her forward.
Princess staggered, but regained her footing just as her wrist was released. Clutching the satchel tightly, she spun around to see Agent Hannah facing her, glaring.
And about a dozen machine-gun wielding Spectran soldiers were pouring into the docking bay and taking up flanking positions behind the female alien, guns ready and aimed at Princess.
But of course this wasn't really Hannah, it was the female alien, and she was still wearing the blue hotel uniform she'd had on when she'd been impersonating the dead employee, though it didn't fit her very well.
"There are hidden security cameras in the docking bays of this ship," hissed the female alien, "Were you too stupid to realize your presence in here would be seen by me?"
Some part of Princess' mind certainly knew she should be assessing the situation at once, immediately launching an attack plan.
But staring at "Hannah," all she could think about was watching her trying to climb all over Mark in the disco last night, and what she'd said to Princess while in the other female form, in the luggage cart alcove...
It felt delicious, when I was in each of their beds, in each of their arms, and they each believed that I was you. That 'Mark,' he had only ever been with one woman, Hannah. Yet such passion. Mmm...
Her own glare met the female alien's and Princess was sure that the alien was seeing just as much personal hate in hers as she was seeing in "Hannah's" blue eyes. More, even.
She moved her hand for her yoyo -she didn't care what might happen if all the soldiers opened fire on her! Her uniform would protect her from the bullets. Or, well, most of them-
The female alien was damned fast. She lunged for the satchel strap over Princess' shoulder and almost got it but Princess had moved just enough that the alien ended up grabbing only her upper arm instead. She felt the alien's fingers dig into her skin, but nothing was stopping Princess now from punching her in the face-
Nothing except that suddenly Princess was hit with a rush of scenes, images, like memories except they couldn't be her memories, flooding into her mind with paralyzing intensity. Touch, scent, smell, taste, sound -all of it, far more vivid than any real memories could be...
She was whispering to Jason, "Make me feel, everything I've missed. Make me feel alive…" Oh my God, it was her -but it wasn't her- and she was in his bed, in his arms, he wasn't wearing anything...
And still more of the "memories" were surging into her brain to the exclusion of all else. Her eyes were open but barely focused. The painful grip of the alien's fingers was hardly registering though she had to be practically gouging her-
Other, different memories also erupting in her mind -she was with Mark, telling him "I'm here, and you're here. That's all we ever need. This is perfect, Mark." Mark was kissing her, Mark was- They were-
He loved her.
Mark...
And Jason. Both of them in her head. Just as if she'd lived it herself. And it was...
Utterly entrancing, gut-wrenching. Totally overwhelming.
She couldn't move. Couldn't shake off the vise-like grip on her arm. And the Spectran soldiers were beginning to close in on her.
A vestige of a thought flickered through her storm of sensory overload, but she couldn't grasp it... Something about "ten minutes."
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Jason heard rather than saw Mark reentering the detention cell from yet another attempt to contact Chief Anderson, the guard leaving, and the door sealing behind him. Sitting still on a bench was driving him nuts now but there was no room to pace properly in the cell (and even if there had been, having to pace while wearing a towel like a skirt would have just made him angrier), so he'd settled, some time ago, for leaning against a wall, arms crossed and eyes closed, shifting his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. Kicking the wall might have been some relief, but he didn't have his shoes either.
"Anything?" he asked, his voice flat.
"Zark still hasn't located him," was Mark's equally flat reply.
Jason kept his eyes shut, still seething; he didn't want to look at him.
At least now he knew where his shoes were -and the rest of his civvies; Princess had told him that she had them. Apparently she had Mark's too, and as far as Jason could tell from the few terse responses Mark made to his earlier inquiries, that was all she told Mark before she'd gone storming off, barely a minute after she'd shown up at the detention center. So, he was still wearing the purple shirt and the towel and Mark was still wearing the bathrobe, and Jason hadn't had a chance to tell her about the meeting he'd scheduled for today with the dark-haired, mustached guy he'd met in the disco that knew Agent Hannah.
So he was still in this cell, useless and pathetic-looking, and still having missed his appointment with the only useful lead any of them had found for the mission they were supposed to be doing at this spaceport.
And it was all Mark's fault they were in this cell! And no doubt Mark's fault that Princess had taken off so quickly -she was probably still so upset with him, she couldn't stand looking at him. And she could possibly have subbed in for Jason at the meeting at the cafe, but it was too late for that now.
Princess... Images from the previous night, with her, flickered through his mind again, as they had been all day, catching his breath each time. He could hardly believe it had really happened, but it had. But during their all-too-brief moment in the meeting room, she'd looked distressed, even confused.
Hell, he was confused too. He couldn't say where he and Princess would go from here. Maybe nowhere, if she did feel it had been a mistake...
But even so, there would be no denying that a change had taken place; things could never be exactly the same again. Even with no one knowing but the two of them, even if they never talked about it, a connection would exist between them that hadn't been there before and even that could subtly change the intra-team dynamic.
And as far as he was concerned, any change could only be an improvement. If she'd wised up enough to lose her starry-eyed adoration of the G-Force Commander and see that he wasn't perfect -despite what Anderson, Zark, or the makers of those damned propaganda vids seemed to think- then maybe the next time he, Jason, suggested a mission strategy, she'd back him on it. Just that could be enough to shift the dynamic slightly.
And it was even possible... maybe, she'd come to feel that last night wasn't a mistake. He'd pretty much given up hope of any real relationship with a woman so long as the war was on and he was in G-Force. But then, he'd never thought about himself and Princess, together -not really.
He opened his eyes and found himself glaring at the main reason he'd been unable to believe that could ever be possible.
Mark.
He looked like he was also seething, or brooding, leaning against the wall with one arm but his eyes met Jason's.
"What?" snapped Mark, "I don't want to be here any more than you do! I'm trying to get us out of this mess -what do you expect me to do?"
A rare show of temper from the Commander. Maybe he should have felt for him, Jason thought. Mark's jaw was tight, his dark-circled eyes locked in a scowl. Jason was all too familiar with the frustration that came from wanting to take action but being stymied by the wills and whims of others. But anger -anger that had been building up inside him for months, even years- overrode any feelings of sympathy. He could sense that Mark was fraying here and he just had to push...
"You could start by admitting that this is all your fault -that you screwed up here!"
"You'd enjoy that, would you?" Mark stood up straight now, fists clenched.
"Yeah, I would, actually -a little balance restored to the universe!" Jason took a step closer to Mark.
"Are you saying that I don't take responsibility for screw-ups?"
"You sure as hell like to hog the credit for all our successes! How lucky for you, this mission isn't being filmed for a propaganda vid!"
Mark just stared at him, outraged, but his face was flushed.
"All anyone ever hears about G-Force is how glorious its Commander is, and boy, you must enjoy that! Or maybe they've heard of Princess -you like to trot her out on your arm when it suits you! But hey, now you've screwed things up with her too, haven't you? That's what you get for just taking her for granted!"
Even as he spoke, Jason was aware that now he was really pushing... But it was like a dam breaking inside; he couldn't seem to stop himself. He and Mark were now standing only a few feet apart, eyes locked in a mutual glare. Mark was just spluttering in indignation, but then he found his voice.
"You have no goddamned idea what you're talking about!"
"Oh right, 'cause only the Commander can know anything-"
"Shut up -just shut up! You have no idea what kind of crap I have to deal with, how much I'm getting leaned on all the time to pull off victories for the Federation and how much flack I catch if we don't! Trust me -you don't want to be the G-Force Commander!"
This wasn't a tack that Jason had expected Mark to make, but even as he frowned he snapped back at him.
"I'd rather find that out for myself -not that that'll ever happen!"
"You should be grateful! You don't have to read and reply to all the classified communiqués I get from Kane and Federation brass every week, demanding to know why we can't magically predict and then be where the Spectrans will attack next, or why G-Force costs the Federation so much money but we keep failing to capture Zoltar -though, of course, we'd better keep making them and Galaxy Security look good on the FNN news!"
What? Jason was momentarily taken aback. "They ask you about stuff like that?"
"They ask me stuff like that to my face too -I have to attend their secret meetings." Mark clutched at his hair with one hand. "Think it's fun or glorious having to make excuses, come up with explanations, while they all stare at you?"
"Bloody hell, they've got some nerve! Don't they-"
"Jason, they're getting desperate. This war with the Spectrans is a massive money suck that's gone on way too long -all the planets in the Federation are taxed heavily for the defense budget and lots of them are starting to get fed up and restless. Look at that situation with Achernar a few days ago -you think that's the only planetary government with people looking to try to cut a private deal with the Spectrans and opt out of the Federation's war?"
"Surely Anderson sticks up for you. Doesn't he have your back?"
"He does, but he's catching a lot of flack too. The R&D it took to get us all implanted, to develop all our technology, and the cost of maintaining the Phoenix -it's expensive, especially with all the extreme secrecy involved. But then they're on his case that he's only developed one G-Force team. 'Why can't you make more?' they demand."
Suddenly Jason wondered why he himself had never thought to ask that, and realized that he and Mark had both stopped yelling, and glaring, at each other.
"Why aren't there more G-Force teams than just us? It would sure be nice to not be spread so thin."
"I've asked the Chief that too -trust me- but I've never gotten a good answer; he won't talk about it -too 'top secret' for me, it seems. President Kane's about the only one who doesn't ask about that -I think he knows something."
Jason took a few deep breaths. This was a new perspective on things; all the anger and frustration he'd been feeling for so long seemed...
He stared pointedly at Mark again. "You could have explained all this to me -to all of us. You could have let us in on what's really going on. I don't appreciate being kept in the dark!"
Mark raised his shoulders slightly. "I'm the Commander, for better and worse. I can deal with the 'worse' myself, so no one else has to."
"I say that's one decision you don't get to make for us!" Jason felt his temper rising anew. "And Princess, I don't think she appreciated being kept in the dark about you and Agent Hannah!"
"You don't know-" began Mark, jaw tight.
"-Yeah, and neither did Princess. Let me guess, that was all for her own good and not just so you could keep stringing her along?"
He'd hit a nerve, big time, with that one; Mark's eyes blazed but he didn't move.
"You don't know anything about Princess!"
"I know more than you realize!" Even as the words left his mouth, a part of Jason's mind wished they hadn't. Too late...
"Yeah? Agent Hannah last year -a huge screw up on my part, I admit that! I never said I was perfect! Princess forgives me."
"Forgives you? Looks to me like she could barely stand to be in the same room with you, the way she took off so fast from here earlier. Maybe she found out Hannah was in your room last night too?"
"Like I said before," Mark was really yelling now, "I never let Hannah into my room last night -I don't know how she ended up in there!"
There was anguish in Mark's eyes, and Jason realized he did actually believe him. But now Mark was scrutinizing him...
"What's all this to you anyway? Don't tell me that you're thinking this is somehow your chance to move in on Princess!"
"All I'm thinking -and saying," growled Jason, "is that you don't own her."
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