II. Hell
"Ohhhhhh….Pretty!" Gune broke the awed silence.
Cale laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, Gune, I guess that just about sums it up," he said, putting his hand on Gune's back. He glanced sidelong at Akima and was startled to see a long tear sliding down her cheek. It was an unusual sight to see on the face of the tough young fighter pilot. "Oh my God. Akima, what's wrong?"
She just leaned further forward, staring at the sight of the planet forming before them. Her dangling purple forelocks obstructed his view of her eyes, which were, in any case, bright and brimming with tears. The Mantrin on the other side of her gave him a dirty look. "What the hell do you think is wrong with her? She's happy, idiot." Stith's eyes softened as she looked back at her friend, put a muscular arm across Akima's shoulders and squeezed gently.
Akima made an odd sniffling noise and laughed as she hugged Stith in response, then turned to the male human. "Cale—just look at it. It's so beautiful."
"Yeah. It is, isn't it?"
Gune nodded his head emphatically, startling Cale into pulling his hand away. "Good work, those Earth scientists. Put work into that baby like Gune could never do."
"Maybe, but you're still the best, Gune," said Cale. The little inventor purred a little in surprised pleasure.
***
A dying supernova burned behind his eyelids as he lay there.
"Cale—just look at it. It's so beautiful."
"Yeah. It is, isn't it?"
Their voices. They weren't dead. What was more, he wasn't dead. Unless this was the Afterlife's strange idea of Hell. As Gune's annoying voice joined in, he decided maybe that theory wasn't so far off. The pain that wracked his twisted form was mind-boggling. Air escaped his body in a wheeze, too low to be heard by the others.
"—work into that baby like Gune could never do."
"Maybe, but you're still the best, Gune."
There was a hiss. A faint gurgle. He heard the sounds his own neck was making as he tried to breathe: soft sickening sounds loud in his ear as his own heartbeat. He wanted to die, it hurt so bad.
A familiar grunt. "Hey, Akima, Cale, you gonna stay here much longer?"
:Stith.:
"You kidding me? I figure I could watch this forever."
"Huh. Well, you two look like you might wanna be alone. Gune and I'll just give you some time to yourselves." There was the sound of the Mantrin's heavy tread on the rail, the creak and scrape of her toenails. "Hey. We forgot about this garbage."
"Huh?"
"She means Preed, Cale."
"Oh."
"Damn right I mean Preed. That bastard. That complete and utter bastard. How could he do that to us?"
Step. Step. Then brief silence, followed by an enormous slam that sent powerful vibrations through the floor. He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut tightly as the violent tremors jarred him. Typical of Stith. She rarely used the stairs when she could jump.
A rough hand on his arm. And then abruptly he was jerked up and flung across a hard shoulder. His head hung loose, awkwardly smacking against the small of Stith's back, and he wanted to howl with the pain, but all that came out was an odd sigh, like the mew of a kitten. Something wet dribbled out of his mouth and nose.
"Stith! Stith, wait! Hear that? Preed alive."
"What?!"
"Preed alive! Put Preed down."
"You're crazy, Guney. No one could survive that. His head's doing a one-eighty, for God's sake." Nonetheless, accustomed by habit to the reliability of Gune's assumptions, Stith set her load down. She did so none too gently, stepping back to give Gune room.
Small stubby fingers suddenly pushed at the loose skin of Preed's neck, feeling, searching. Needle stabs, hot hard pinpricks, and he was gasping, sounds that Gune didn't miss. "See?"
"Son of a bitch," breathed Stith overhead. Through watery, hazy vision he could dimly perceive her hovering over Gune, shaking her head in amazed disbelief.
"Gune right!"
"Ya sure are, Guney. Now let's kill him."
A shudder went through his body, one of anticipation rather than fear. Of course the logical part of his brain was rationalizing as usual, working this through, trying to figure a way out: a scheme, a scam…ultimately, merely an intellectual exercise. Because there was no way out. He was Mantrin chow. Hell, maybe death would be a good thing. It would mean a release from this agony. What did he have to live for, anyway? There was nowhere to go, no one who cared. Only the memories of life on the run, fighting and stealing and hustling and hard living—a handful of space stations that all smelled the same and a dirty little nowhere slum on P'lochda….His benefactors, the Drej, were down the tube, he had sold out his fellow crew members, he had betrayed his partner and the closest thing to a friend he had….
:Maybe it's not so long before I see you again after all, Captain.:
Lost in his fading thoughts, he didn't hear the argument that was breaking out over his head as he slipped into unconsciousness.
***
Gune gasped. "No! We not kill Preed!"
"Yeah right. He tried to blow us up, Gune! He betrayed us. And I'm gonna bash his stinking smirking face in like an overripe Jumolla melon." She made a step towards the unconscious body.
"Eeyew!" Undeflected by her threatening approach, Gune stood blocking her path, making a disgusted face. She tried to move by him on one side, then the other, but he kept sidling to prevent her from passing. Finally, growling in annoyance, she simply picked up the little inventor and deposited him easily to her right. "Cale! Akima!" cried Gune, realizing that there was nothing he could physically do to stop the Mantrin from attacking Preed.
Cale and Akima had run to the railing and were staring down at the scene below. "He really is alive," Cale said in disbelief, seeing the blood that was actually bubbling out of the Akrennian's nostrils.
Akima was silent a moment longer. "Nothing can ever just be simple, can it?" she finally muttered.
Cale was agitated. "We have to do something! I mean, we can't just stand here and—Stith, don't do it! Put him down!"
Stith had hauled up Preed by the front of his dirty tank top, his head hanging in a sickening way on his shoulder. As she brought her other fist back behind her for a heavy blow, she paused. The composition of the two figures became a tableau of frozen violence. Stith broke the mood of the piece, swinging her head around and glaring up at Cale. "What?" she growled.
His jaw worked, and he finally jerked his head from side to side. "This isn't right! This just isn't right!"
"Oh, it doesn't get much more right than this," she almost whispered, as her eyes shifted again to the unconscious Akrennian.
"Stith!" This time, the voice was neither Cale nor Gune's, but Akima's. "Stith. Don't." Her voice was quiet but not to be denied.
Stith considered momentarily. Although she had come to develop a certain respect for Cale, she was still more prepared to listen to her best friend of several years than to the tow-headed monkey boy. She lowered her fist. "Yeah?" she said slowly.
"If you want a good reason why you shouldn't kill him this moment—well, I can't give you one. But that doesn't mean there isn't one. And maybe I'll think of just what it is while I'm working on him." Akima's eyes flicked to Cale briefly, then back to Stith. "There has to be a—an infirmary, or at least a lab somewhere on this oversized time capsule, if not more than one. We're going to go look for it."
***
Disclaimer: Titan A. E. and related concepts, characters and events are copyright 20th Century Fox, with special credit and respect to Don Bluth. The story Loose Ends and the second installment "Hell" are copyright The Lauderdale (cartoon6@hotmail.com), as are all installments, concepts, characters and events save where otherwise indicated. "Hell" first published on fanfiction.net, April 5, 2003.
Shelter: Oh good. I hope this delivers on both in a satisfactory fashion. Neat screen name "Shelter" is, by the way. Simple, yet poetic.
April: I've been lucky—I don't think I've ever gotten a flame yet. I'm kind of looking forward to it someday. Maybe this fic once I get further down the line.
Cat: Thank you! You make me happy. Eager readers are fun. 8)