Disclaimer: Yeah, well, Ok, so I forget
this thing a lot. I think I have it something like every other chapter. Does
anyone know if I have to put one in all the time? If so… *looks around
suspiciously * I know you lawyers are hiding under the computer desk! Come out
with your hands up! I've got a castor and I know how to use it! *pleads that
they don't call her bluff. They don't. Grr-ing, the lawyers stalk out the door
* Hehe. Anyway, I don't own OLS, so scoot on down to the story, K?
Do
you know how long it takes to make a decision? A nanosecond? No, smaller. A
picosecond? No, smaller still. Whatever the speed of thought is, that
immeasurable amount of time, that is how long it takes. That increment of time
is what can change someone's world, or the universe at large. Never
underestimate the power of a decision, because the backlash that could come
from it is just as likely to help as to hurt. Then again, the ramifications of
a decision are all in how you take it. What one may see as the best thing to do
may seem to others as the worst kind of last resort….
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It
was Suzuka's turn to watch Jim in the makeshift sickbay. Watching both man and
boy intently, she could see the inner war going on in the one who was
conscious. It was strange; she never realized how much she and Jim really were
alike. They had both lost their families, though Jim had never volunteered how,
and they had both found a new one in the crew of the Outlaw Star. Like a
sentinel, she stood watch over the people that she…well…she cared about. It was
hard for her to imagine, but she had to admit to herself that she would,
without a second thought, lay down her life for one of these people.
As
she watched Jim's eyes shift, as if looking for an answer from the universe,
she couldn't help but empathize with the boy. He had been through so much that
slowly watching the vitals of his Aniki lower was a torture beyond belief.
Still, he sat there and watched them, doing penance for a sin he didn't even
commit. He started as he looked up at the monitors again.
"Suzuka,
Gene won't make it, will he?" Jim turned his drawn face to the one person that
he felt would give him a strait answer. Everyone else tried to placate him,
tell him it would be Ok, tell him everything but the truth. He hoped Suzuka
would be different.
Suzuka
knew what Jim wanted, but wasn't sure if she could give it to him. "I think…I
think that." She hesitated, and then decided that putting a veil over the truth
would only make it hurt to uncover later. "No Jim, I don't think that he will.
He's going to quickly now and…" As strong as she was, Suzuka couldn't finish
the rest. Not for the first time Suzuka wished that Melfina or Aisha were there
to comfort the distraught boy. She had never been one that cared much about the
feelings of others, but now she felt that she should be doing something to ease
the pain. Unluckily for her, Melfina was on the bridge, navigating the ship to
their destination, and Aisha was making sure that she wasn't alone. No one
could afford to be an island at a time like this.
"Thank
you, Suzuka." Jim answered tiredly. "Thank you for telling me the truth." Then,
much to Suzuka's surprise, Jim stood up from his vigil in the chair next to the
bed.
"And
where are you going?" she asked. She was half-way frightened of the answer,
something she had been precious few times in her life, but she still had to
know.
"I'm
going to be right back. I just can't sit still any longer. I'm going to see if
I can figure out how our cargo works." Jim began to wring his hands tightly
together, "I just can't do nothing."
Suzuka
nodded, understanding fully that this may help release some of his feelings of
helplessness. "I will help you." She stated. Even if this was a ploy to leave
her and be by himself, it wouldn't work.
With
a shrug that was so uncharacteristic of Jim at a time like this, he replied
coldly, "Do what you want." What Suzuka wanted, along with everyone else in the
ship, was for Gene to miraculously heal, and for Jim to smile again. She wanted
all of them to smile again. Still, knowing that what she wanted was impossible,
she settled for following Jim out of the door towards where they had stored
their cargo.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Aisha,
do you think that Jim is alright?" Melfina projected from her tank. Aisha was
sprawled out in her usual seat, to the left of where Gene usually sat, and
started at the bio-androids question.
"Well,
it's hard to say with humans. Jim's a tough little cookie, I'm sure he'll make it
through." Even as the words came out of her mouth, she could hear her own
uncertainty in them.
"You
don't really believe that do you?" Melfina's voice held a tinge of fright.
"Um…look
Mel. Jim won't be the same after this. Even a strong Ctarl-Ctarl wouldn't, but
I know that he will make it through somehow." 'Either that or he'll do
something drastic,' Aisha thought. Just the thought of it brought a shiver
to cover her.
"I
hope you're right Aisha. I know I will never be the same." Melfina looked on
the brink of tears. In one of her rare philosophical moments, Aisha answered,
"None
of us will."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It
had been almost an hour since Suzuka had help lug the 10 pound piece of
machinery up to Gene's room. Ever since then Jim had been tinkering away at it,
while Suzuka could only watch. Every time Gene's vitals dropped, even the
slightest bit, Jim seemed to have a sixth sense about it. He would look up,
frown, look at his partner sadly, and return to his work. Suzuka wished for a
reprieve from the cloud of oppression that was blanketed in the room, but with
everyone else doing something just as essential as she was, there was no way
that she could leave Jim alone.
"Jim,
you haven't eaten in almost 24 hours. Why don't you take a break and find something?"
Suzuka asked softly. She didn't mean to intrude on his hard work, but his
health had to come first. Getting your mind off of something horrifying was one
thing, starving yourself was quite another.
"I'm
not hungry," was Jim's repetitive reply. Every time she had asked before, she
had gotten the same answer. Dragging the youngster to the kitchen was not
something that she took pride in, but she knew she would do it if she was
forced. That was one of the only threats that actually got through to Jim these
days.
"That
is quite impossible. You're body needs more than just water and whatever
Melfina, Aisha and I can force down your throat. You will go have something to
eat." She stated bluntly. Jim looked up at her with eyes as wide and blue as
the sky.
"I
can't leave him Suzuka. What if something happens while I'm gone?" He looked so
anxious and alone that a motherly instinct that Suzuka didn't even know she had
welled up in her. She suppressed it.
"I
will stay to make sure that nothing happens." She tried to keep her voice
steady.
"It's
not the same. Why don't you go and get something and I stay here?" Jim asked.
At one point in time Suzuka would have taken out her bokken and dueled with
someone who thought that she should do such a lowly thing. Now though, it
didn't even occur to her. As she mulled it over, she couldn't help but consider
the fact that Jim might be trying to get rid of her. Even as the idea flitted
in her mind, she couldn't brush it away. Reasonably she told herself that Jim would
never do something as drastic as her mind came up with while she was gone.
These were not reasonable times though, and Jim was no longer a reasonable
person.
"I
don't think I can do that Jim," she closed her eyes, unaware of how Jim would
take this information.
"You
don't trust me." Jim's voice held no condemnation, but when Suzuka opened her
eyes she found herself unable to meet the younger bounty hunter's eyes. "You
think I'm going to commit suicide or something don't you?"
Having
put it finally into the open Suzuka found that once again she could not lie.
"Yes. That is something that all of us have been worried about."
"That
makes sense." Hearing Jim say that, in such a nonchalant tone made her stare.
It also didn't reassure her at all. "Still, you don't have to worry, you have
my word."
Suzuka
had never heard Jim give his word to anyone, and wasn't quite sure what it
entailed. Even so, here your word was your bond. "Alright, but you must promise
that you will stay here."
"I
do."
"And
I will hurry back."
"Alright."
"Goodbye,
Jim."
"Goodbye."
Suzuka
left and Jim made his final preparations.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It
wasn't until she got back that she realized her fatal mistake. Not fatal to
her, but to another. She had warmed up some of the leftover soup that Melfina
had made over a week ago and they had been surviving on ever since. As she
brought in the tray to what was now Jim's personal prison, she stopped short.
The tray clattered to the floor, soup splattering everywhere.
"Gilliam!
Call Aisha and Melfina down here right now! This is an emergency!" Suzuka
yelled at the ships main computer while dodging the various pieces of furniture
that scattered in the room as she rushed in.
"What
is the problem Suzuka?" Gilliam inquired. He had already notified all personnel
on the bridge, but one thing that he was allowed in his programming was
curiosity about what was going on inside the ship.
"Just
tell them!" Suzuka commanded, very unlike herself. In normal high-stress
circumstances she kept a level head, but this was a notable exception.
When
she had entered the room, the first thing she had noticed was that Jim lay
partially collapsed at the head of Gene's bed. Half of him was slowly slipping off
the chair, while the upper half lay sideways on the mattress. At first she had
thought that Jim had simply been keeping watch when he fell asleep. It was a
second later when she picked up on the blinking lights and soft, purr-like
humming of the device next to him. With a start she remembered when Jim was
trying to explain what the device did.
"It
transfers the life force from one person to another, almost as if it were some
kind of gas that keeps the human body working. In a way it is. This apparatus
conducts that energy like a pump from one person to another. How it does it I
don't really know, but it really is amazing. I wish I could find out how
something like this was imagined." Jim explained simply.
"Could
it be harmful?" Suzuka had asked.
"Not
really, I'm sure there's a safety that makes sure that someone doesn't give to
much life energy. What would be the point if it didn't?" He had answered
quickly, to quickly in retrospect.
It
was then that Aisha skidded into the doorway, followed by an anxious looking
Melfina.
"What's
wrong?! What happened?!" Aisha bounded into the room. Suzuka ignored her; since
she was busily try to cut the flow of energy. She noticed a band around both
Jim and Gene's arms, as if they were getting their blood pressure taken.
Following the phosphorescent blue tubes that led from both of them too the
machine, she immediately deducted the purpose they served.
"I
don't have time to talk. Melfina, I need you to get that thing off of Gene's
arm, right now." Suzuka emphasized the last two words. Silently Melfina rushed
toward the bed and struggled with the band. Her eyes were tearing as she began
to realize the implications of the situation, and with one last desperate tug
she ripped the band from his arm.
Suzuka
had done the same to Jim not 2 seconds earlier and she had noticed that the
glowing, blue 'wires' were actually tubes that carried the life force: Jim's
life force. Aisha had finally put two and two together and her ears drooped as
she asked softly,
"Are
they Ok?" It took Suzuka every ounce of courage to put her fingers to Jim's
neck to look for a pulse.
"Huh?
What's going on?" A deeper voice asked this time and all three girls couldn't
help but turn to the source. It was if they were all puppets that were on the
same rod.
"Gene!
But that means…." Melfina couldn't finish the statement; her voice at one time
so beautiful now only conveyed pain. Gene didn't wait for an answer,
"Hey,
what's wrong with Jim. Hey Jim! Wake up there buddy!" he reached over strongly
and messed up Jim's hair, thinking the annoyance would rouse his partner. It
was only when Gene touched his young protégé that he realized how cold the
young boy seemed. He looked at Suzuka, "What happened…?"
"I…."
It was to no avail. Suzuka couldn't answer.
"No…"
Gene couldn't take the implications of the silence. Awareness of what had
happened to him, and what Jim must have done though he had no idea how, crashed
down on him unrelentingly. He shook his younger partner. "Jim! Jim! Jim…!"
*cringes * so what happens next? Is Jim dead? That's
what I can't decide. You'll have to tell me what you want, or it'll be up to
fate. (In other words, I'll flip a coin.) Please don't hurt me for leaving you
hanging, but I need help with where you want me to go! The only way I'll know
what you want is if you review or e-mail me (trekkie606@aol.com)
until the next chapter…ja!