Conversations II

Chapter 7

On the Way Home, Part 2

*****

"You found WHAT on that ship?  That's impossible, it can't be; there are NO others.  Wait, I'm coming out to you, I've got to see this for myself."  Washu cut the comm connection, very agitated.  She turned to Sasami.  "I'll be back in a few hours.  Those amateurs don't know what they're talking about.  Keep my dinner warm, ok?" she patted the little princess on the head.  Washu's forehead began glowing and she flickered out.

*****

The diminutive scientist appeared suddenly in Ryo-ohki's control cabin, startling Ryoko so badly she fell out of the command chair.

"Jeez Washu, er… Mom, when'd ya learn to do that?" she asked, looking up at Washu from the deck.

Washu smiled, "I'm a goddess now honey, I can do things that you wouldn't believe.  If I want to that is.  I still like doing it the old way, but I'm in a bit of a hurry right now.  Why don't you show me what you found?"

Tenchi, Ryoko, Ayeka, Mihoshi and Washu grouped around the three survival pods gathered in one of Ryo-ohki's small storage rooms. 

"You say there were originally ten of these pods?  Huh.  I wouldn't've believed this if I hadn't seen it myself.  The other seven were lost then?  Too bad.  And we've already informed the Juraians about the ship too."  Washu sighed.  "Ah well, it's probably for the best, although Lady Funaho's going to have a fit when she finds out about this.  I suppose I'm the one that should tell her, after all, I promised.  You guys just make sure these make it back safe.  And whatever you do, don't open them.  If they're like my design, they'll bond to whomever they see first.  Just keep 'em in the pods, ok?  Oh, and enjoy the rest of your trip."  She winked slyly at them then disappeared.

Mihoshi looked at the others.  "Now, why does Lady Funaho say we can't open them?"

*****

One of the Ryo-ohki crystals floated over the pods, she was curious about the contents.  She knew that it wasn't what the others had expected, but no one, not even Tenchi had told her what was in them.  Ryoko had opaqued the viewing ports on the pods before they went to bed, but the cabbit thought that she could interface with the controls well enough to make them transparent again.  She sent out a signal to one of the pods.  Nope, try again, and again, and again. Ah, that got a response, one of the little lights went from green to amber.  Try this combination.  This time another light turned red and a slow, quiet hissing sound began coming from the top of the pod.  Ok, that's not working, let's try something else.  Let's see, Tenchi had pushed that button there to allow Washu to look in.  Hmmm.  The crystal moved over the button and poked at it with its pointy end.  Click.  Ha!  Sometimes the simplest ways do work best.

*****

Ayeka got out of bed to get a drink.  She looked down at her sleeping spouses and smiled.  I love them both, and they've changed over the course of this trip, as have I.  Ryoko's mellowed and Tenchi's gotten stronger.    She wandered out of the cabin toward the galley in search of her glass of water.  As she passed the door to the storage room she heard Ryo-ohki Miyaing wildly.  "I wonder what her problem is?" she said to the empty hallway.  Obviously it couldn't be an emergency or Ryo-ohki would have woken up Ryoko or Tenchi.  She shrugged and continued drowsily to the galley.

Ryoko woke from a wonderful dream about her, Tenchi and Ayeka.  That was nice, she though, as she stretched her arms above her head and yawned.  But I don't think our relationship's quite ready for that yet…   She leaned over and gave Tenchi a peck on the cheek then noticed that the princess was missing.  I wonder where she's off to this early?   She tried to ask Ryo-ohki where Ayeka was, but for some reason was blocked.  This didn't concern her much, as the cabbit had blocked her before when she was busy and didn't want to be disturbed.  She stood up and phased into her clothes and looked back at Tenchi lying in the bed.  He was awake and watching her.

"Sorry Tenchi, I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't, I've been awake for a little while.  But you seemed to be having such a pleasant dream that I didn't want to bother you." Tenchi chuckled, remembering the quiet moans and giggles that Ryoko had been making in her sleep earlier.

Ryoko blushed.  "Um, ah, thanks."

"Where's Ayeka?" he asked.

"I don't know.  I'll go look for her though.  Maybe she's making breakfast."

"Ok.  I'm going to get dressed.  It takes me a little longer than it does you, you know."

"Yeah.  Are you still sure you don't need any help?  I'm always willing."

He chuckled.  "No, not this morning.  But I'll keep it in mind for later.  We still have to search that ship for any clue as to how it got that cargo.  The sooner we start, the sooner we get home."

Ryoko pouted, "Why do we have to do it?  The Juraians'll be here in another day or so, let them do it.  We're supposed to be having fun on this trip."

"I know, but knowing the Juraians, they'll clamp a lid on this so tight that we'll never get any information.  I want to get it and be gone before they arrive.  Mihoshi can stay out here and wait for them"

Ryoko smiled at that.  "We'll make a pirate out of you yet, Tenchi.  Well, I'll go see if the princess is burning anything yet.  See ya later lover."  She teleported away.

She found Ayeka in the galley all right.  But she wasn't cooking; she was sitting in a chair, sprawled out over the small table, sound asleep with a cup of water in her hand.

Aw!  She looks so sweet lying there with that little stream of drool coming out the corner of her mouth.  I really hate to wake her.  Not!  

"HEY AYEKA!  WAKEY, WAKEY!  THIS IS YOUR NINE-O-CLOCK ALARM CALL!"  She'd never seen the princess jump that high before.

*****

Ryoko didn't understand it.  She still couldn't talk to Ryo-ohki.  All she'd gotten was automated responses to her queries, almost like the cabbit's personality was off-line.  But that was impossible.  For one thing, she would've felt it if that happened and for another, the ship was still functioning.  Something was up with her partner.  She'd have to look into it when they got back from the derelict. 

Since Mihoshi had shown up in Yukinojo two days ago to process the salvage claim, there had been four of them to explore the wreck.  Today they were going to try to remove any intact memory cores from the command centers.  Washu had looked at the damage and said that some might have survived, even after all these years.  They might even contain data that would explain where the ship had originally come from and what it had been doing. 

Ryoko had to admit, whoever had shot the ship up had done a pretty thorough job; not much was left intact.  She looked around what was left of the ship's main control room with the mummified remains of its crew still in place after 90,000 years of exposure to hard vacuum.  Yuck!  If that's what I looked like when Tenchi found me in that cave, no wonder he ran. Let's see, the main computer station should be just starboard and aft of the captain's command chair, right about… there!   She floated over to the designated console and shoved aside the desiccated corpse of a pointy-eared humanoid.  Hmm. Not everyone's Juraian, this is a mixed crew.  I've seen a few females too.  These people probably weren't as bad as the princess said.   She began examining the shattered control board in front of her.

Ayeka had been uneasy all day.  All the signs of death surrounding her didn't bother her too much.  She didn't know if it was because of her demon side, of because she had seen scenes just like this on Jurai when Ryoko trashed the planet.  Plus the fact that these people had probably been involved in illegal activities when they died.  It wasn't because of the way Ryoko had woken her up either.    No, her unease was just a general feeling that something important was going to happen, soon.  Her gaze traveled around the ruins of what used to be the ship's auxiliary control room.  Nothing recognizable remained.  This is a waste of time.  I wonder how the others are doing?   She turned and left, heading for the main computer core where Tenchi was supposed to be searching.

When Tenchi entered the computer core, he was expecting to find one of the Juraian space trees, like Funaho or Ryu-oh.  What he found was a bunch of torn up electronics.  I guess this ship predates even the tree technology.  I'd assumed that that was what they'd always used. I wish I'd paid more attention in my computer classes now.   Seeing this made the Juraians a little less superhuman in his eyes.

Tenchi.   He heard Ayeka call him.  Auxiliary Control was nothing but a big hole open to space.  I'm coming down to help you instead.  Have you heard from Ryoko?

No, not in the last few minutes.  She should be about done in the Control Room though, he replied.

I am, I'm on my way to you too.  I've got some modules, but I don't know if there's any data left on them.

Well, it looks like there may be something salvageable here.  The room is badly damaged, but intact.  We'll take what we can carry back to Ryo-ohki, then leave.  I hope Washu can make some sense of this, I sure can't.

*****

Mihoshi met them when they returned to their ship.  "So, um, did you guys find anything interesting today?"

Ryoko waved a mummified hand that she had found drifting around a passageway at her.  "Yeah, sure did.  Wanna see?"

"Ulp!  No, I think I'll pass, thank you."  The GP detective ran from the room, covering her mouth.

"Heh, that got rid of the ditz.  I'll have to keep this handy.  Get it?  Handy?  Heh." Ryoko chortled, waving the hand in Ayeka's direction.

"Ryoko, you're disgusting!"

"Oh, like you wouldn't have done the same if you'd've thought of it, princess."

"Yes, but I'm the demon now, remember?  And just why did you bring that disgusting thing with you anyway?"

"It's from some humanoid species I haven't seen before.  I thought Washu might like to run some scans on it."

"Well, put it away somewhere.  I don't want to have to look at it."

*****

Ryoko entered the control cabin and she immediately noticed that something was missing.  All of the control crystals had disappeared.  Ryo-ohki.  Ryo-ohki, dammit, answer me.  Where the hell are you?  Ryo-ohki?   The ex-pirate was worried, this had never happened before.  She dashed out of the cabin to look for Tenchi and Ayeka.  She found Tenchi in the galley fixing himself a snack.

"Tenchi!  Something's wrong with Ryo-ohki.  I can't talk to her and all her control crystals are gone.  We've got to find her!"

"Slow down Ryoko.  If she were gone, the ship wouldn't be here and functioning.  She's around somewhere.  I'll help you look."

"Where's Ayeka?" Ryoko asked, still distraught.

"In our cabin taking a nap, why?"

"I'll get her to search the storage areas, you look in the living area and I'll look in all the service areas.  We have to find her!"  Ryoko teleported away.

"Damn.  It's always something." Tenchi said, then he tried to contact the cabbit himself, Ryo-ohki, where are you?  Ryo-ohki? No answer.  He summoned his some of his Juraian power and tried again.  Ryo-ohki, answer me.  We're worried about you.   This time he heard a faint reply and felt a wave of joy from the link.  It's him. It's him. It's him, kept repeating over and over, but he couldn't get a direction.  He began to search.

Ayeka grumbled as she looked into yet another empty storeroom.  "You'd think that with all this space, she'd at least fill it up with something."  The next room was the one they had put the survival pods in.  Funny, I don't remember locking this door.   She heard a faint sound from the other room and then she remembered passing this way last night and hearing Ryo-ohki's voice from inside.  The feeling she'd been having all day suddenly intensified.  She began to pound on the door.  "Ryo-ohki, let me in!  Ryo-ohki, please, I've come to help you!"  She heard the lock whine and the door slid open.  Crystals immediately surrounded her.  A small screen popped open in front of her.

* Ayeka, let him out!  I've got to get him out! *

"Wha… What do you mean let him out?  Let who out?"

The crystals parted to form a passageway to one of the pods.

* Him!  Let him out, please Ayeka?  Please? * the screen pleaded.

She looked at the pod.  All the lights that had been green were now amber or red and there was a thin stream of gas escaping from the pod's seal. 

"Oh no!  What happened?  The life support functions have been bypassed.  It'll die if we don't wake it up!"  She noticed that the viewport was no longer opaque.  "You did this, didn't you?" she asked the crystals.

* Yes!  Please get him out Ayeka, I need him.  Please? *

"I've got no choice now, I'll have to wake it up.  Just don't get in the way cabbit!"  Washu is going to have a stroke about this, if goddesses can have strokes that is.

Ayeka strode through the crystals to the pod.  She pushed the button that began the revival sequence.  A few seconds later all the indicator lights shut off and the pod whooshed open.  A small white form fell out into Ayeka's arms.  It slowly opened its red eyes and looked up at her face.  Ayeka felt a flood of emotion pouring from the creature.  She sat down and cuddled it close, whispering words of encouragement to it.

*****

Ryoko and Tenchi burst into the storage room to find Ayeka sitting on the floor surrounded by Ryo-ohki's control crystals, gently stroking the soft fur of a small white cabbit.  She looked up at them with tears of joy in her eyes.  "He says his name is Ay-ohki."

*****

To be continued

*****

Author's Notes

Heh, I bet you thought it was gonna be Ken-ohki, didn't you?