Part Six: Turn Of The Tides
CAPTURED YEERK FREIGHTER, SEHKMET, AUGEST FOURTEETH, 2000…
DAVID
We found the remains of about a hundred controllers. The captain sat slumped in his command chair on the main bridge, Dracon Beam in hand. The identity of the captain surprised us, being Fred Durst. He had taken the easy way out, shooting himself once in the head.
The rest of the crew had died from a combination of dehydration, starvation, and exhaustion.
We awoke in the corridor very confused. Had this Puck character been a dream? Or a real entity? What was his agenda?
I decided it was a dream, but four mysterious piles of a muddy grey substance left doubt in my mind. The things we had killed weren't mud. It could have been there when we came in.
But it still bugged me.
"What's this cargo that we came to check out?" I asked LaRouche impatiently as he searched the Sehkmet's databanks, "Don't give me any more of that encryption bullshit. You've had a day to crack the code."
"Jesus H. Christ, man. It ain't going to get done any faster with you barking at me like a Nazi. Sod off," My pilot muttered nonchalantly.
"We'll see who sod's off, kid," Aleks growled, "Why isn't Britz helping? He's the computer. Literally."
Britz seemed very distant over the past 24 hours. He had seemed distrustful of Aleks and I. Not that he had been talking much to any one of us, just that he had pretty much refused to look either of us in the eye.
Britz looked sharply at Aleks, but did not speak.
"What's his problem? He's gone catatonic, seems to be," LaRouche muttered, his eyes focusing intently on the computer screen.
"Clones aren't the same. Britz was never real in the first place. I'm a human mind and a clone body. Britz has no humanity in him," I explained.
"Enough waiting!" Ripper snapped, "Why don't we just go into the hold and see what this cargo is for ourselves?"
"We don't have any clue. It could be pure, unprocessed Uranium or Plutonium. We could ALL be dead if we open those blast doors," LaRouche said nonchalantly.
Ripper was right about one thing. We had done enough waiting.
"Inform me when you find a way around the code, and continue along the original course to Taxxis, so the Yeerks think everything is going well," I said, " Sara, stay with LaRouche. Watch his back. Everyone else has some off time," I said, suddenly realizing how tired I was, "Just don't do anything stupid."
ALEKS
The stone looked deep into me and told me what I desired.
Power…..you desire, thirst for power…I will give you what you crave. I am the Machine, the HellBringer…
Puck…Puck, the thing from my dream, he said something about a Machine.
Puck plays the smallest part, yet his creation shall return me to my glory.
"What are you? Really?"
I am Hell.
"Tell me what I must do."
Ascend.
LaRouche
When I cracked the code, I immediately realized that I hadn't.
Sara sat behind me, picking on her toenails.
"Call the others. I know what we're hauling."
Sara activated the ships intercom, and called my comrades to the bridge.
Fifteen minutes later, the seven of us had assembled, looking motley and ragged.
"What's the story, mourning glory?" Asked Sara, coyly.
"Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen. I cracked it."
"Just tell us, for Christ's Sakes!" Snapped Aleks.
"We are hauling, straight from the planet Earth, over ten thousand nuclear warheads."
Silence.
No one moved. It was total quiet. Ten thousand nukes.
"Why do the Yeerks have them?" Asked Skorre, nonchalantly.
I drew a deep breath, "They're de-militarizing Earth. Taking all the big guns to the other planets. I'm guessing that these nukes to Taxxis because it's within firing range of some Andalite planets. We know that they have a foothold in that system, maybe they want to nuke anything that gets in the way."
"But the Yeerks have far more advanced weapons than the humans!" David countered, "Quantom bombs, Particle accellorators, and advanced Tiberium-fusion weapons. What do they need with ten thousand nukes if they want to attack the Andalites?"
"Strength in numbers," muttered Ripper.
"Mother FUCKER," cursed Aleks, "They have more, maybe, this might not be the only ship!"
"We can strike first," said David decisively, "Hit them while they're not ready, with their own weapons."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Asked Skorre, not quite convinced of Davids new "plan".
David said smugly, " We keep going to Taxxis. We'll be there in under a month at this speed. Then…We nuke the fuckers," He smiled evily, "Ten thousand times over."
"Trojan Horse 'em! Yeah! Nuke the dogs kamikaze style!"
Britz, silent until now, spoke up.
"I must protest. Violence is not the matter with which to combat the Yeerks. I am here to learn, not fight. I cannot allow you to do this."
Aleks and Ripper began to circle the Hybrid.
"We don't have to do SHIT what you say, freak!" Sneered Aleks, shoving the clone into Ripper.
"Piss off, you dog! Got dog blood in you, don't you? Why don't we do him now? Spill some dog blood and hang him from his 'testines?" Ranted Ripper, salivating at the thought of that gruesome act.
"SHUT UP!" Roared David, throwing his two henchman back, " Same to you, traitor," pointing at Britz, " Clean up your act, or your going to find yourself floating back to Rekklaab five!"
The two stared coldly at each other for a moment.
"Perhaps that strange dream I had was right. You are a Beast."
"Dream? You had that too?"
"I dreamt of some guy named Puck and he licked the freak…" Aleks whispered, "Ascend…"
"Same here," I replied.
"We all did," Sara reasoned carefully, "We had the same dream."
Well, now things got very awkward.
"Whatever," shrugged David, "I make the orders around here. Now, lets go roast some slugs."
"Maybe that demon was right…Beast," I spat. I doubt that David heard me.
If he had, knowing what I know now, I don' think I would have lived.