Title: Rescue Run

Author: Lady Rheena

Genres: Alternate Universe, Action/Adventure, Romance

Rating: R

Disclaimer: If you recognise it from a fandom, I probably don't own it. That includes the world of The Matrix, all its characters and the concepts it entails. The idea of the Fleet and the Planetary Coalition are technically my own, but you'll probably recognise bits and pieces from various sci-fi media.

Chapter notes: POV switch for plot purposes. I mean, all Dena's doing is flying about right now so let's take a look at another angle.

Part 24­- Getting There

Zee was nervous. More nervous than she at all cared to admit. She would have felt better if she'd been sitting with Cas and the kids but everyone was under orders to remain in their own quarters until their call to the dock for their lift. What was more frustrating was that there was no way of telling how much longer she had to wait- she had been sitting at the table for four hours now. Before that she'd slept herself out for ten hours, a rare luxury. All her spare clothes, along with the pendant that had belonged to her mother, was now sealed in a vacuum-wrapped cargo rack, possibly already in orbit without her. And the worst of it was that she had no idea where Link was or what he was currently doing.

She was about to rise and get something to eat- not because she was hungry, but because it was something to do and might do something to calm the butterflies in her stomach. That thought made her pause and she wondered if soon she might actually be able to see butterflies and figure out why that saying existed. But before she could dwell on it there was a loud bang on her door, then another, then a third. That was the signal, yet she had to take several deep breaths before going out. Then she followed the crowds along and found Cas waiting by the end of the walkway with a child firmly attached to each arm.

'We're going, Zee, we're going!' Lorrie squealed, all but bouncing up and down.

'Stop wriggling,' Cas said to her, half-laughing.

'But we're gonna fly, ma!' Isaac protested. Their enthusiasm made Zee smile and she extended a hand.

'Here, Isaac, you come here before your ma's arm drops off.' When he obeyed Cas smiled.

'Thanks, Zee. C'mon, we'd better get up to the dock. Don't want to miss our lift!'

Up in the dock was a mess of people but Zee had lived in Zion all her life and guessed that behind the myriad of officers running about and shouting, everything was in fact perfectly organized. Following the motions of the directing crews, the ungainly quartet found themselves clustered around the central operations building along with about sixty other people from their own level.

'Look, Aunty Zee!' Isaac pointed at a pad, where a ship at least twice as big as the Mjolnir, the largest of the hoverships that Zee knew of, was parked. Its rear hatch stood open and a small group of twenty people were filing inside to sit down. Some others in uniforms like the one Dena Reese wore- Fleet uniforms- were helping them strap in. Then everyone was inside and the hatch closed, the long podlike structures held tightly to either side of the hull near the back suddenly glowing blue as the ship lifted from the ground.

'There's another one,' Cas said, also pointing to indicate.

'They got guns!' Isaac seemed to find this wonderful.

'They must travel in pairs to protect each other,' Zee suggested. Cas nodded.

'Let's hope there's not much to protect each other from.'

'Another one- and another one!' The children were by now both bouncing up and down, free hands waving about to indicate. Zee had a hard time keeping a grip on Isaac but didn't dare let him go in case he got lost.

'Which one do we get to go on, mama?' Lorri asked, ceasing her bouncing for a moment to stare up at Cas and tug on her hand.

'I don't know, honey,' Cas replied, smiling. Just then one of the crews came past.

'Four for lift!'

Without thinking, Zee caught Cas' arm and pulled her and Lorri forwards.

'We're a four. Level six.'

'Ready to go? Right, you're at bay three. Better run or you'll miss her!' The man waved a hand in the appropriate direction and then was off.

'You heard him, kids!' Cas said, obviously catching the edge of the children's excitement as much as Zee was, judging by the outright grin now on her face. Lorri and Isaac were certainly more than agreeable enough to jogging across to bay three, which was currently empty. At the gap in the railings that served as a gateway to the bay they were halted sharply by a slim woman with a shaved head, whose arm plugs visible due to her rolled-up sleeves marked her as pod-born.

'How many?' she asked.

'Four,' Cas replied. 'We were told to come over here.'

'About damn time.' The woman smiled to soften the cuss. 'C'mon, your ride's almost here.' She led them across to the huddle of people at the far end of the bay. 'Now you stay to the right, okay? You're on the Churchill. I've been asked to tell everyone not to throw up so don't.'

'There it is, there it is!' Isaac shouted as two ships came through the open gate. Zee noted the rather bored faces on the men in the APUs and realized that whatever measures Fleet had put in the tunnel route, they were obviously very effective at keeping the sentinels occupied. However once the ship landed she switched her attention entirely to getting herself and Isaac on board. There were four rows of seats, two and two facing each other, with rather heavy-looking shoulder bars fixed above them. Zee lifted Isaac into one seat and took the one to the right of it. Cas put Lorri next to her brother and then took the chair at the end of the row. Two Fleet officers came in and began pulling down the metal bars, which seemed to be attached to flexible levers of some sort since they came down far enough to secure even little Lorri firmly in her seat. Then it came to Zee's turn and she found herself looking at Dena Reese.

'Hey, Zee, well how's that for a coincidence?' Dena gave a firm downwards yank on the bar. As others had done, Zee lifted her arms away from her sides to allow it to lower, and found that once it locked in place with a heavy clank she was still able to breathe but her only possible movement was to turn her head from side to side. Before she could say anything, however, Dena was at the end of her row and then had disappeared towards the front of the ship. The position of the bar on the stocky man next to her didn't allow Zee to look past him, however she craned her neck, so she glanced back at Isaac instead. He seemed quite delighted about the whole thing and was kicking his legs excitedly; luckily the aisle between their facing row was wide enough to avoid bruises on the shins of the person opposite him.

'You okay?' she asked.

'Yeah.' He grinned at her. 'Dena's gonna fly us! How cool is that?'

'There aren't any windows!' Lorri sounded disappointed. 'I thought we were gonna see the sky!'

'We will, honey. A little later,' Cas assured her. Zee wished she felt as confident as the older woman sounded, but didn't have time to dwell on it as a loud thrum filled the cabin and there was a sense of sudden acceleration. From what little she could see of the cockpit window, Zee could discern a blur of motion as the familiar interior of the dock was replaced by a seemingly endless haze of tunnels.

'Goodbye Zion,' she whispered, feeling her eyes grow damp. When she sneaked a glance at Cas she found that there were tears pouring unabashedly down her friend's dark cheeks. Squeezing her eyes shut, Zee forced herself to think of what was coming, rather than what was left behind.

Grass…trees…butterflies…blue sky…stars…

'We're here!' Isaac shouted. Zee's eyes snapped open again in shock.

'Already?' she heard herself say.

'Yeah, Dena said her ship was fast and she was right!' Isaac was somehow managing to bounce up and down despite the restraints. Before Zee could reprimand him, however, the ship settled to the ground with a light thump and the bars popped open, drifting up to lock again in their released positions. At the same time the hatch opened, filling the cabin with air that stank of the ozone-laden discharge of high electricity.

'Everybody out! Let's move it!'

'Go on, Isaac, go-' Zee got to her feet and somehow kept the overexcited little boy in sight until she could grab his hand again. Cas already had Lorri and was following everyone else, from the other little ship as well as their own. Zee saw then that the shuttles were just that- little- especially when compared to the gargantuan ovoid hulk that was parked on the plain before them.

'Wow!' was of course Isaac's verdict.

'They're going!' Lorri said, pointing, and Zee glanced back just in time to see the two shuttles lift off again and accelerate away back towards Zion once more. How many times had they made the journey already? she wondered. How many more times would they need to? But she pushed her thoughts aside to pay attention to the round-faced Fleet man who was currently addressing all forty of them.

'All right, you're the last load for the Paris so you don't have to sit around and wait for twenty minutes like everyone else has had to. Count yourselves lucky there, eh?' The man bent down slightly to address Lorri. 'You looking forward to going orbital, young lady?' When he received a shy nod and a small smile he laughed. 'That's good, because you're just about to. All right, everybody this way!'

They all followed him obediently across the rocky ground to the underside of the enormous vessel, where he directed them up a wide ramp. They passed down a corridor and into a segment of the ship taken up entirely by two facing rows of chairs with the same heavy bar restraints. Zee and Cas sat down with the children between them- Lorri again complaining about the lack of a window. Another officer, this time a woman, moved down the much longer row pulling down restraints and locking them into position. Then she walked up to a chair at the end and belted herself in, pressing a button set in the wall.

'Block twenty-five, all set.'

There was no response except a sudden sensation of a distant vibration from deep within the massive vessel. Zee lifted her hands up to close her fingers around the shoulder bar. Grass…trees…butterflies…

'All right folks, we're lifting now,' the woman announced from her seat. 'I'm senior crewman Julia Garis, but you civvies can call me Jules. You're in block twenty-five aboard the Carrier Launch Ship Paris- last load aboard, as it happens. All of you who came up on the Churchill's last run're in here, along with five from the Bristol, right?'

Glancing about at her fellow passengers, Zee realized this was indeed the case. There were two rows facing each other of thirteen each; twenty six in all, with the final seat taken up by Garis- Jules, rather.

'Alas and alack for the lack 'o windows,' Jules said with a grin at the child who was sitting next to her. 'But you'll see the stars when we reach the Gormenghast.' She consulted the display set into the wall near her seat. 'Right, now listen up and listen good. You're last on, first off. Once the Paris is settled down I'll unlock your bars but don't all jump up at once, they got to get the hatch down first. I'll lead you out, and everybody stick together. Hold hands if you like, I don't care. Remember you're block twenty five. Then when call goes out for that block, you know it means you.'

A few minutes passed. Zee didn't know how long it took- maybe five, maybe twenty- but then suddenly there was a much heavier version of the thump that the shuttle had made when landing. Jules unfastened her straps and stood, grinning with a fondness that was almost maternal at her passengers.

'Welcome to the HSS Gormenghast, block twenty-five.' She hit a control that sent the bars back into their unlocked position, whereupon Zee and Cas both automatically laid a hand on Isaac and Lorri's shoulder respectively to prevent them leaping up. There was a pause until a voice filtered through on an intercom.

'Clear for unloading. By the blocks.'

'That's us, folks.' Jules led them back along the length of corridor and down the hatch into what was probably the single largest room Zee had ever seen in her entire life. She felt herself gasp just as everyone else did but didn't care in the least. It was massive, at least twice as big as the Temple; so big that even the Paris seemed dwarfed. Every surface was metal or some kind of metallic plastic, gleaming silver or bright matt white.

'Is this the planet, mama?' Lorri asked Cas.

'I don't think so, honey,' Cas replied, although she sounded uncertain and glanced at Zee in wonder. 'At least I'm pretty sure it isn't.'

'This must be the Gormenghast,' Zee told her, still drinking in the enormous room. 'I guess that's why they call it a supership, huh?'

Both women's heads snapped around at a shout for 'block twenty five over here.' Then, in unspoken agreement, they firmly grabbed a child each and marched in the appropriate direction. Luckily 'over here' wasn't more than a hundred metres from the Paris' hatchway, or it might have been quite a hike. Zee could see the other twenty-four blocks forming up in lines of their own. Every so often the queues would move along one and a few people would head towards the dozen or so elevator shafts just beyond. It took a good few minutes, but eventually Zee found herself standing with Isaac at the front of their line, before a uniformed man carrying what looked like some sort of scanning device with a display screen attached to it.

'Right shoulder please,' he said pleasantly. She turned to present it to him, remembering that was where they'd put the chip in, and he ran the scanner over it in a businesslike manner.

'Name Zee?'

She gave a small nod, still a little too bewildered to speak.

'Okay, I've got you-' he stopped and frowned at Isaac. 'No listed dependents.'

'It's all right, he's mine,' Cas said quickly, motioning for Isaac to step back with her.

'Oh, right. Fine. Well, Zee, I've got you listed under an association with one Link. That right?'

She nodded again, for the hundredth time wondering where Link was and what he was doing. But to her surprise, the man's next line was

'I'm afraid he's still on the surface at the moment. We've got him for military personnel under operations.'

'He's a ship operator. On the Nebuchadnezzar.' Zee felt obliged to say something.

'Then I imagine he'll be up shortly, although the scheduling is a little haywire at the moment. Just put your thumb on there, please?' When she did so he nodded at her. 'You're B-144. The door'll open with your thumbprint. Welcome aboard, ma'am.'

'Thanks,' she managed to mumble, stepping out of the way as Cas went through a similar procedure before being allocated B-145.

'Well it looks like we'll be next door neighbours,' she said with a warm smile. 'Let's go check out those fancy elevators, shall we?'

More grateful than ever for her confident friend, Zee nodded agreement. The lifts were quite small, but just accommodated the four of them once the door closed. Cas consulted the touchpad in front of her.

'Input destination,' she read, lifting a finger. 'All right…B, one, four, four. Well, it says input accepted so I assume that'll get us somewhere.'

'We're moving, mama,' Isaac said. Zee supposed this was correct, although she couldn't feel the motion at all- the only thing that so much as hinted at it were the dim flashes on the walls. Abruptly they ceased and the doors opened to reveal a corridor that seemed to stretch out endlessly in both directions.

'Woah!' Isaac and Lorri exclaimed in one voice.

'Woah indeed,' Cas agreed. Once all four of them stepped out the lift door closed again, so Zee walked across to read the number imprinted on the nearest other door, which was a soft grey shade rather than the polished white of the elevator.

'It says B-100,' she said.

'Well the one this side is B-99,' Cas replied, motioning to the right. 'So I guess we go that way. All right kids? We're looking for B-144 and B-145. Keep your eyes open.'

Unfortunately once they started walking, of course, the children read out the number on every single portal they passed, so in the end Zee was quite grateful when they reached what was apparently hers. After a moment's hesitation she placed her thumb on the small black square beside the door, which slid open with a soft whoosh.

'Very nice,' Cas said, leaning around her younger friend to peer inside. The room was a modest size, though in Zee's estimation could occupy a family of four comfortably by Zion standards, and the walls a light peach colour which was less intimidating than the grey and white of everywhere else. It was also completely bare except for what she took to be a large wardrobe in one corner, a half-metre square hatchway set into the wall directly opposite the door and a similar-sized screen set into the side of the wardrobe not housing the door.

'Nice colour,' she said with a small shrug at Cas, who laughed.

'Right kids, let's see if ours is as nice. Be back in a second, Zee.'

Once she'd gone the door remained open. After a short search Zee located another black square on the inside which closed the door by another application of her thumb. The wardrobe opened in a similar way to reveal that it was not a wardrobe but some sort of hygiene unit. As she turned to go out, she accidentally brushed her hand against what she'd taken for a wall panel, and then jumped back with a small squeal when it shot out from the wall, revealing itself to be a miniature sink. A trifle warily, she gave the edge a poke, whereupon it retreated back into the bulkhead and a smile crept onto her face as a chime went off. She went back out into the main room, wondering where it had come from, and in puzzlement opened the door to find Cas standing there.

'Ours is the same. Bare as a babe.' She shook her head in disapproval. 'What do they expect us to do, just curl up on the floor like savages?'

'No- Cas, I think everything's in the walls.'

'In the walls?'

'Yes.' Zee took her into the little room and demonstrated with the sink. 'And there are little panels like that everywhere- I think that's where the furniture stays until you need it.'

'Mama!' came Lorri's sudden shout. The two women rushed back out to find the kids bouncing up and down on a spacious bed that had apparently unfolded itself out of the wall.

'We poked one of the bar things and it slid out,' Isaac said.

After 'poking' the bed back into its hiding place, judicious investigation revealed two bunks in the opposite wall, a surface that could become a table and a small lamp presumably for evening use when the larger glowtubes in the ceiling dimmed. The children thought furniture that jumped out when it was poked was a marvellous thing, and Zee had to admit she wasn't much less enchanted by it.

'Well,' Cas said, planting her hands on her hips. 'Isn't this nice?' She looked about to add more when a loud thud made them all jump. It turned out to be a vacuum-wrapped package that had suddenly arrived in the black hatchway, and on closer inspection Zee laughed.

'It's just my clothes and things I brought with me.'

'You think our things are in our room, mama?' Lorri asked eagerly.

'I don't doubt it, honey,' Cas said, by now obviously impressed. 'These people certainly seem to have everything figured out, don't they?' She turned slightly and absently prodded the table, which slid obediently back into the bulkhead behind it. 'Dozer would have loved this, don't you think?'

That surprised Zee. It was the first time she'd heard Cas speak of her dead husband without descending immediately into melancholy. Although it saddened her to think that her two brothers would never see the wonders that were apparently just over the horizon, she had to smile at Cas' whimsical remark.

'Yeah, he would have.'

Cas sighed and then became brisk, turning to the children.

'Right. Well let's go and find our own beds, shall we? And see if our things have, ah, arrived.' She gave Zee one last smile. 'If you want company, we're right next door.'

'I know. Thanks.'

Once they were gone Zee went to the blank screen, which had drawn her interest. A trifle uncertainly, she gave it a light poke although what else could come shooting out of the wall she wasn't sure. But it didn't shoot out; instead, astonishingly, it lit up with a view of inky blackness studded with tiny glimmering points of light and part of a sooty grey sphere beneath. On one side of the screen a series of coloured buttons appeared but it was the view that drew her once she abruptly realised that she was looking at the stars and the Earth below. Then the picture became so incredibly beautiful that she didn't know if she'd ever be able to tear her eyes away from it.

'Link,' she whispered, feeling tears begin to trickle inexorably down her cheeks. 'My god, Link…you have to hurry up here and see this…'