Title: Planet's Promise
Rating: PG-13.
Author's Notes: Hello everyone! I've recently quit writing for my last fandom (it all just went downhill once I realized that my muse had basically flipped me the bird and flew off), so I've started this story in hopes of refreshing my creativity. I played this game a while back (if there are any inconsistencies between the game and my fic, I'm sorry. The game won't install on my computer for some odd reason), and I never really thought about it as a fandom until I got extremely bored one day and decided to randomly roam for a bit. Lo and behold, I came across this tiny little section called "Alpha Centauri", and I realized, "Hey! I remember that game!" So I read a few of the fics, and decided that there just weren't enough, so I thought that maybe I'd throw one or two into the mix. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed using this as a means to escape real life and its horrors for a few hours every night. I'm warning you now, there's going to be shippiness. Yeah, I know, you're probably thinking, "Game characters? You're making 'ships out of game characters?!? You must be mad!" You know what? You're absolutely right, I'm completely insane for writing this, but I couldn't ignore my personal desire to write a Deirdre/Zakharov fic. Anyways, enough rambling on my part, I do really hope you enjoy!
P.S. I should probably put a disclaimer in here, too. I don't own Alpha Centauri, and I'm not making any money off of this, so don't sue me.
Planet's Promise - Chapter One
Lady Deirdre Skye gazed out across the flaming sunset of Planet. It was a sight to behold, really, the sky illuminated with an array of colors, the fading day sky yielding to a pink backdrop that complimented the tone of the earth below it. The pale xenofungus stretched as far as the eye could see, surrounding the many complexes of her home base, Gaia's Landing. She smiled as the planet seemingly retired for the night. She knew, however, that nature never stopped, it never ceased in keeping its balance. She turned around as the dual suns faded below the horizon, inky blackness covering the sky until the next morning, when it would be washed away without a trace.
She retired to her chambers, her mind at peace. None of the other six factions had communicated with her in several years, the air of temporary and delicate peace hung around her people like a veil. Fragile and easily disrupted, she didn't dare contact any of them herself for fear of being the unfortunate soul to collapse the balance. She smiled as she waved her officers and assistants goodnight, she didn't need to call any of the other leaders anyways, none of them were fit candidates to be in the same room with, much less talk to on most occasions. They all loved to play politics and fight over absolute nonsense, their prejudices never ceased to amaze her.
She felt sick whenever she thought about the extent of damage that they were inflicting upon their home, but didn't dare risk war and the amount of destruction it would take to end the brutality. That was not the way of her, or her faction.
Deirdre bit back anger and bitterness as her thoughts landed on Zakharov, their once unbreakable friendship had dissipated into something akin to acknowledgement. He, being of a rather introverted and studious mind, had shrugged off her communications for the past three years that they had been on Planet, always saying that he would call back later, that he was busy, and in the middle of something far too important to give her any of his time, even in the early mornings and the late evenings when most would be otherwise unoccupied. She had stopped communicating with him after a few months, no longer caring to pursue a friendship that he obviously felt was not worth the time needed to make it work.
Shaking the unsightly thoughts of the others, she settled into bed, and fell into another night of fitful sleep.
Academician Prokhor Zakharov sat as his desk, reworking his formulas for his latest experiment. They hadn't come out quite right yet, and Zakharov never gave up or settled for anything less than the best when it came to his own work. For that matter, the previous philosophy applied to every single one of his scientists, he would never let a single faction project contain anything less than complete precision and accuracy. He ran his hands through his shoulder length, white hair. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, he hadn't slept in days, yet he still couldn't quite give up on the problems lying before him.
He looked up at his blank, sterile walls for the millionth time that night, the complete hollowness of his room reminded Zakharov that he was very alone in this not-so-new world that he had been relocated to. None of the other faction leaders even seemed to act like human beings. Sister Miriam was so caught up in God, that she had basically lost her sense of humanity. Her preaching ways at many a Planetary Council had nearly driven him up the wall. The Planetary Councils for the past few years had been canceled, seeing as how no one faction was interacting with major conflict, and no new matters had really come up. It was a time of temporary stability, he mused. Morgan was money driven, so much in fact, that Zakharov wouldn't be surprised at all if the man sold his soul for a good bundle of energy credits one of these days. Peacekeeper Lal was never always the pushover, the burdens of the planetary council rested on his shoulders, and whenever the slightest argument came up between factions, he was the one who had to deal with it. Many times, his leadership meant that many a faction leader would try to sway him to their side of an argument, which often led to exchanges of critically classified information and projects that no one wanted to share in the first place, simply because Lal ordered it to keep the peace on Planet. While he could be a good intellectual partner, Lal was generally just too much of a wishy-washy pawn to be of any value as a friend. Santiago, Zakharov shuddered at the name, there was nothing that woman wouldn't kill. She and Morgan got along well, it seemed, they shared the profits of any and all conquests that they fought together, and she did what she loved best, being bloodthirsty. Combined, they had enemies in half the Planet. Chairman Yang gave Zakharov the creeps whenever they had to make contact. He knew that anyone who could repress people as much as that man did had to have a heart of ice. While the scientist knew he wasn't anywhere near compassionate, his stomach lurched when he thought of the atrocities that went on among Yang's hives of followers.
He smiled as he thought of Deirdre, the one faction leader who was actually in the least bit sane. Although she came off as a tree-hugging, hippie child, she was actually more intellectual than most would imagine. Back on the early days of Planet, they enjoyed each others company, and their camaraderie was second to none. They stayed up into long hours of the night discussing scientific advances and new technologies, and often collaborated on the discoveries of technologies that pleased them both. Whatever war one would fight, the other would send reinforcements for in the bat of an eyelash if they deemed the cause worthy enough. He understood her hesitation at times, she was a peace-lover by all means, and he knew how ill she felt as she imagined the horrors of war. Luckily, however, the two of them had managed to keep themselves relatively isolated. He felt privileged that she had deemed him worthy enough to shed a layer of her introverted shield, had shared bits of her life with him, and had once called him friend. As he thought longer, he realized that he had truly missed the blue-eyed, bright-smiled woman that he had lost touch with so many years ago. He missed her laugh, the way her eyes crinkled at the sides when she smiled to the fullest. He missed the casual lunches that they used to share without any other reason than their own want to spend more time with each other. He just missed her, and the fact that he had let three years pass by without any contact with her made his heart heavy with shame.
He shook himself from his reminiscing and rubbed his burning, bloodshot eyes; it dawned on him that having very little meaningful human contact for three years was a very unhealthy trend. Sighing, he picked up his pencil once more, and decided that he would contact Deirdre in the morning. The time he had let fly by without seeing her had been far too long, and he hoped that she would forgive him for three of years of disappearance.