IV: Stuck in a Moment

"The ship's gone."

"Gone? How the hell can it be gone? That thing was crippled! It woulda taken months to get it repaired!"

"I know coach, but it's not there anymore."

Quite plain and simple. The ship had disappeared. What remained of it was a withered...corpse...for lack of a better word. Nothing of the ship remained but its husk. They'd searched and searched. It seemed to have...decomposed. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

And even more strangely Shard had returned from the labs trying his best to explain that the damn thing was somehow...organic. But there was no possible way anything organic could survive in the vacuum of space. That had been proven through a lot of very nasty experiments and...'accidents'.

Equally strange was the only sentient life form they had found on board the ship.

Stoker looked across at the little girl again. She looked exactly like one would expect any five year old Martian child to look. Her fur was very smooth and very fine, coloured a light smokey grey. Her hair was long and foamy, tumbling in a wild, beautiful cascade down to her slender waist. She was dressed in a faded red shirt and desert camo pants. Her vibrant red antennae drooped slightly forward. The only thing that was striking about her were her eyes. Almond shaped and completely silver, like embedded jewels and yet somehow...alive. He'd been uncertain at first but she soon proved to have no trouble whatsoever with her vision.

That wasn't the main thing that was strange though. When he'd first found her, she hadn't been this sweet little Martian child sitting before him, or even wearing those clothes. When he'd boarded the ship he had found her sitting in an odd-shaped chair, looking like she was waiting patiently to be found. She'd looked almost Terran then, if humans could ever be that beautiful. Sporting a pair of beautiful white feathered wings, wearing a white tunic held by a gold cord at the waist, and flowing white pants. She had reminded Stoker of a picture he had seen in one of his trips down to Earth. Charley had called them angels. She'd still had the white cascade and the silver eyes, they hadn't changed. She hadn't moved as he'd approached her and attempted to communicate. What she had done was rest a hand lightly on his cheek. He'd allowed her to do so, briefly wondering if she was blind. Before his eyes, she had -- melded for lack of a better word -- into the form he saw now.

Impossible. Seeing was believing, but he still couldn't quite believe what he'd seen.

The child's legs kicked idly above the ground as she contemplated him in return. "Are you angry?" she inquired.

"No...no." Stoker shook his head. He didn't know how to deal with kids. Well. Not kid kids anyway. The Freedom Fighters were his 'kids'. The girl had been with them a week since they had discovered her and the craft-that-had-for-all-intents-and-purposes-decomposed. Stoker did not want to turn her over to anyone. Doubtless she would get sold off to Plutark or their own army-slash-government would run experiments on her. He wasn't entirely certain which was worse. As soon as she'd picked up the basics of their language she'd identified herself as 'Windsong' and mentioned a 'Nightshade', whoever or whatever that was. There had been a plant on Mars that was still on Earth known as deadly nightshade but Stoker somehow doubted that was what she was referring to.

Windsong cocked her head to one side, peering through those solid eyes at him. "What's that face?"

Stoker had to think about that one. Body language was a given across any sentient species. It was not something people often had to think about. He wasn't sure he wanted to admit the feeling that was generating his body language. He stared thoughtfully at the child, his ever-lashing mechanical tail doing what it did best. "It's...confusion," he said at last. "I have no idea where you came from or where your ship went."

"Lilandra died." The child patted the glowing stone on a thin chain around her neck. She had retrieved that from somewhere on the ship the day they'd found her. "There...isn't...aren't...enough resources on this planet to grow her. Shade said we were going to the other planet. But we came here instead."

"Other planet?" Stoker scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully.

"The blue one," the child answered simply.

"Ah." Of course. Earth. "Where's your home kid?"

Windsong shrugged. "I don't know anymore. It was Tenaga. Bad things happened. Shade saved me." She spoke matter-of-factly, like saving kids in danger was Nightshade's day job.

Stoker approached the chair and dropped into a crouch, eye level with Windsong. "What kind of bad things?" he kept his tone gentle.

Windsong shifted, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Stoker recognised that look.

"You don't have to tell me anything til you're ready, princess." A look of recognition flitted briefly across her face.

"Thank you," she said simply. Then looked at him straight again. "Can you find Shade?"

Stoker straightened up. He didn't want to tell the kid that her friend's chances of survival out in the desert were slim to none. Wherever she'd come from, she'd been through enough already from the looks of things. "We'll give it our best shot," he said at length.

******

The dreaded sizzle of electricity, accompanied by the harsh hissing of the whip through air, seemed to fill the entire room. Large as it was. It made a faint, wet splat against rended flesh. Rimfire's face contorted in agony, his body automatically flinching away from the source of the pain, held in check by the chains keeping him in place.

The whip won. Rimfire's gasp turned into a scream.

Shackled securely against the wall nearby, Quartz winced sympathetically, his bloodied hands curling into fists. Ineffectually he tugged once more on his iron bonds, the cold metal aggravating the raw, weeping flesh on his wrists. He barely felt it.

"Your base location?" The Plutarkian was not too short and not that huge either but had some serious muscle structure happening. Not even a hint of the typical Plutarkian fatness graced this stinkfish.

Rimfire sagged against his bonds, almost but not quite kneeling, held off the floor by the chains that held him so securely he could barely move. Quartz's eyes shifted very briefly to Benihana, unconscious and suspended in a large, glass capsule-like affair with numerous tubes snaking into her naked body. Then back to Rimfire. Buried deep in the pocket of his cargoes, Ruby's ID tags felt like a dead weight, an amazing feat for two thin pieces of engraved metal with a light chain.

The whip hummed louder. Rimfire pre-emptively tensed and yelped as it sliced across the backs of his legs.

"Your next target?"

The monotonous voice itself was psychological torture. Quartz focused on Rimfire, as if he could lend the young mouse some willpower.

Rimfire painfully raised his creamy, brown-maned head. His deep red eyes hadn't lost their fire despite the ordeals he -- that all of them in fact -- had been put through since the botched mission. "...fuck...you..." he managed.

A twisted sneer that quite possibly was intended as a smile flickered very briefly across the Plutarkian's face. The whip hummed, then cracked twice. Rimfire didn't even have time to gasp after the first strike but an agonised cry followed the second. He slumped again, not having the energy to struggle to his feet as he had valiantly done before. His fur was damp with sweat, his exhausted muscles twitching randomly. He looked way past the point where he couldn't take much more.

"Pick on someone who can fight back chicken shit," Quartz snarled, lunging at the Plutarkian. As expected he was pulled up short before he even left the wall. The Plutarkian stepped closer to him, the whip held loosely at his side, humming gently. Blue sparks occasionally shot across its strangely coloured surface. Quartz still wasn't able to determine what it was made of. He exhaled swiftly, tensing his stomach muscles. His timing was still good, the blow didn't hurt as muh as it could have and it didn't wind him like it should have. "Been watching too many bad action movies genius?" he growled through a tightly clenched jaw. He loosened up his neck muscles a little, allowing his head to follow through with the momentum of the next blow. Metallic blood was salty and tangy on his tongue where it oozed thinly from his cut lip.

The Plutarkian sauntered casually over to the capsule Benihana was suspended in. His webbed fingers danced over the console with surprisingly delicacy. A light flashed, and Benihana convulsed violently, thudding dully against the side of her glass prison. Her dark gold hair flowed liquidly over her face. The Plutarkian returned to Rimfire's side. Curling the whip up, he put it under Rimfire's chin and forced the young mouse's head up.

Rimfire glared up hatefully, almost daring the Plutarkian to do his worst. The Plutarkian looked over at Quartz. The fish's scary blue bulbous eyes seemed to stare straight through the russet furred mouse, penetrating into the depths of his soul. Quartz clenched his fists tightly, tensing the muscles in his body to suppress the involuntary shudder that raced through him.

There was a sickening crack as the fish's meaty fist connected with Rimfire's jaw, but it was a blow calculated to hurt rather than cause damage.

Quartz bit his lip.

I know what needs doing. The Plutarkian didn't need to talk, his eyes, his carriage, the way he conducted his...workshop...said it all. I know all your weak points. I know how to get what I want.

*******

Harley started.

She still wasn't entirely certain what to make of the creature that Mace had thrown in with her, and certainly wasn't expecting it...her it looked like...to have recovered. The creature hadn't moved, but she was regarding Harley quite calmly with a pair of deep blue-purple eyes.

"Hey," Harley smiled, a little uncertainly. She squeezed out the washcloth and continued dabbing at the strange female's forehead. The creature didn't move, although her long feline tail twitched, then flicked through the air. A tiny, insignificant little dust devil was kicked up very briefly before its life was quelled by the tail settling on top of it.

"Prrrouuuu," the creature replied. The sound was almost soothing, at the same time sounded like a groan.

"Feeling any better?" Harley tried, brushing a stray lock of chestnut hair back over her ear.

Two clicks that seemed to come from the back of the creature's throat somewhere. The tail lashed again, and one of her large, triangular ears flicked. She studied Harley in an almost contemplative manner, then closed her eyes again.