Halo
A/N: Just a quick note. In light of any possible romance, it will happen slowly, as with real relationships. Development is one of the most important aspects of any tale, and this is no exception. On the same hand, oh lookie, a plot begins to rear its ridiculously complicated head.
Now, this story will be taking a brief hiatus, as I'll be leaving on a vacation shortly, to return December 7th, upon which time it will resume. Again, I'd like to thank all those that have taken the time to read and to review--it's greatly appreciated.
And, as always, criticism is the highest praise.
-
He couldn't remember what it had been like to live without the pain. With every beat of his heart, caged as it was in his lamentably fragile body, his head pulsed with a new wave of agony. He thought he might have screamed once, or twice, but beyond that, his memory afforded him nothing but the soft, dull ivory of oblivion.
Had it...had it been a trap?
No. He didn't think so. But there was a part of him, coldly rational, that told him that he should consider the possibility. It still didn't scan--he couldn't make any sense of what little he could remember, and as for the present...
"Hey, kid. You know how to fire a gun?"
He wanted to tell the man that he didn't belong here. The words came out strange, garbled. An agreement? Maybe. He couldn't understand himself any more than he could comprehend the reason for his being here. But where was 'here' to begin with?
"Good. Here." And a pistol--an ancient model of the pulse-stunner, had been shoved into his hands. "Anyone comes through that door--" The man, an old, grizzled creature that wouldn't have looked out of place in a museum display, pointed towards the exit. Beyond it, there was only light. He thought that maybe if he could get to it, he'd be free, but-- "You shoot it. Three times. These bastards don't go down easily."
He wasn't supposed to be here. That much, he knew. I have to get back...everyone--everyone else, I have to warn them...
"Good luck, kid."
The old man didn't even know his name, and he was leaving him alone to die.
-
"So, Cliff..." Nel began as he waved a small hand-held healing device over her Albel-inflicted injury. Mirage had done an admirable job in the thirty-someodd seconds they'd had to treat it, but the fact remained that Cliff had insisted on utilizing the Eagle's higher tech medical facilities. She'd cast a cure spell on herself, which had stopped the bleeding, but he was still growling over the fact that the marks would probably scar.
"Eh?" He sat back on one of the two chairs gracing the room and tossed the little device down onto a tray. However, instead of waiting for her to speak again, he ploughed forwards. "You know? I'm beginning to think it was a bad idea to bring the girlyman along for the ride."
"I hadn't noticed," she said tersely, touching a hand to the healing sutures. She could already feel the edges closing, though the skin was rough and uneven to her combat-calloused fingers.
"Oh? Good. Then you won't protest when I toss him out an airlock?"
"Likely not. But I doubt he'd go quietly."
"Bah. So I'll truss him up first. Does hog-tying work on asses?" He returned his attention to the tray, laden as it was with haphazardly scattered medical supplies. "Here. Vitamin E based compound, lessens scar-tissue, apply regularly, yadda, yadda..." He held out a small tube to her, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. "So...anyways. How've things been? You hear from Fayt at all?"
Nel accepted the ointment and tilted her head. "No...I would have thought you would have been the likely one he'd contact."
Cliff blinked. "Naw...I haven't heard from him in two...three months? Last time I heard, he was back on Earth with that girl Sophia." He shrugged one shoulder and fiddled with an instrument that looked like a scalpel, just for something to do.
"Hmm..." Nel considered this a moment. Fayt wasn't the sort to abandon his friends, and she knew that the boy had counted them all as such things before Luther's fall. She had to respect his willingness to trust, if nothing else. But the abruptness with which he'd severed contact...? She knew she hadn't misjudged him, so...
"Is there anything to eat?"
The Klausian looked lost in thought, completely oblivious to her entreaty. She nudged him with a booted foot and he looked up at her. "Eh?"
"Food, Cliff."
"Oh. Right. Any requests?"
She shook her head in exasperation as the man got to his feet, stretched, and went to the far wall, where there was a small, mysterious device that she had yet to decipher the use of. He pushed a few buttons in rapid succession and the machine groaned. Nel may not have been good with technological devices, but she knew that this couldn't possibly be healthy for it.
He shot her a sheepish glance over his shoulder. "Uh...it does this sometimes. Just gotta...adjust it a bit."
Cliff kicked the hell out of the machine.
The end result, she thought later, wasn't half-bad. It was a dish he'd identified as being old Earth-Asian--chow mein or something of that nature. Upon request, he'd also supplied her with a glass of water and left her to her own contrivances as he went to 'man the ship'. She suspected he just wanted time to think, although to what end, she wasn't quite sure. Unfortunately, this also left her with time enough of her own. A brooding Nel, Clair had once told her teasingly, wasn't a happy Nel.
Ergo, logic dictated that she wasn't, in fact, a very happy Nel at all.
She'd been willing, just for a little while, to trust he whom she'd once considered her mortal enemy. He'd proven himself unworthy of that trust, and she was rather annoyed at herself for giving him the chance. She'd thought that maybe, their journey had changed him.
She'd been wrong.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time she'd been forcibly contradicted on her opinions regarding other people. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
She'd never been the type to sit and stew about things. She was brash and confrontational and she'd never had a problem with that. So. Resolutely, she put the day's happenings out of her mind and contented herself with a hot meal and the promise of good companionship. Companionship that excluded one Albel the Wicked.
She couldn't blame him, she supposed. He'd lived up to his name, which was all anyone could ever hope for.
-
Six hours after 'the incident', Albel knew what it was to rediscover the supremacy of annoyance.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
His homicidal urges were nothing new, but the fact remained that he was quite wishing he could take them out on something--or, alternately, someone, right about now.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Cli--
"Stop that."
Mirage blinked and looked up, the push-pen that was the source of his current irritation paused mid-click against her cheek. "Sorry," she said mildly. "Was I bothering you?" Why the woman insisted on writing things on paper with an archaic pen with their level of technology was beyond him, but he wasn't about to ask. Let the foolish blonde do what she wanted, so long as it didn't involve bothering him.
"I can't sleep with all this damnable noise, fool," he informed her with what he thought was admirable courtesy. Courtesy in this case was the fact that he hadn't served his words at the edge of a blade.
"Ah," she murmured, sounding entirely unrepentant.
Silence reigned for a pitiably short period of time before she started again. Click. Click. Clickclick. Click. That was it. She was trying to drive him mad.
Albel, with the knowledge that he wasn't going to get any decent rest at all now, or perhaps ever, swung down from the upper bunk, gave Mirage one of his most vicious glares and then stalked to the door. The kitten, still in her care, mewled after him questionably, but he ignored it. Traitorous beast.
"If you're leaving, can you send Cliff in?" the woman asked from behind him. "I have some things to discuss with him."
Now. Albel the Wicked was not an unintelligent man in the slightest. It just wasn't his prerogative to be dumb like a bag of rocks, unlike some he could mention. So it was with thinly veiled contempt that he pushed the door panel and stepped out into the narrow corridor that these fools had designated as a 'hallway.'
So. She was trying to speed up this 'apology' process, was she?
The truth was--he didn't want to apologize. And considering what Nel had said earlier, he assumed she didn't want to hear it. Which, of course, suited his purposes admirably. Despite the months they'd spent in each other's company, his opinion of the Aquarian woman hadn't much changed. She was competent, she was intelligent, but that was all. She was still his enemy.
But he hadn't killed her yet. That was something of an enigma to him. He'd had the opportunity--she'd nearly handed it to him on a silver platter, and yet...
"Hey Mirage, that you?" Cliff was sitting in the pilot's chair and hadn't bothered to turn around. Albel didn't--read: Did Not-- want to speak with him at this moment, and so he ducked into another room. By the time the Klausian had turned around, noted that no one was there and turned back around with a 'Huh', something else had caught his attention.
A hail?
"About time," he muttered as he pulled up the message. It had been recorded and sent via tight-beam--an unusual method of sending something as simple as--hello...
"Um...hello, guys. It's Sophia. I--I'm here on Venedos, and...I can sense you through--um...I shouldn't mention it here. This is about Fayt. We came here two months ago to do some research--Blair had contacted me and said that there was something off about this section of the Eternal Sphere. She wasn't able to be more specific than that. But Fayt disappeared a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get transportation off the planet to contact anyone and I don't think they'd let me leave even if I could, and...and... --I'm scared. Cliff, Mirage, I need your help. Please." Sophia had certainly sounded frightened enough when she'd recorded the message. The emotion was almost palpable.
But it seemed that matters had just gotten complicated. More so than they'd been before. "Yo, Mirage!" He hollered, assuming that his partner in crime would hear him. She usually did, unless she was trying to ignore him, which, as she appeared beside him, apparently wasn't the case.
"Did you see Al--?"
"Nevermind that," he waved a dismissive hand and pointed to the co-pilot's chair. "Have a seat and listen to this." With that, he re-played Sophia's message. Mirage listened intently, a thoughtful half-frown on her face as she did so, and when it was over, she cast him a sideways glance that he recognized all too well.
"We getting involved?" he asked with a cheerfulness that he almost didn't feel. What business did Fayt have going missing? What a half-assed thing to do, going to a strange planet without his bodyguard? Pfft.
"Apparently," she agreed, getting back to her feet. "We should tell Nel and Albel, don't you think?"
"Nel, sure." Was he scowling? It felt like he was scowling. If it seemed like a scowl and felt like a scowl--must be--yup. A scowl. Either way, it couldn't go amiss. Mirage folded her arms across her chest.
"And Albel?" she prompted again.
"Argh, fine." It wasn't his intention to keep the Glyphian soldier in the dark--it was more his style to beat the crap out of him and then leave him there. Okay, that was kindasortamaybe just a little itty bit unfair. Albel was an ass, sure, but he'd known lots of them. Something about this one, however, just managed to rub him the wrong way most of the time. Even when Albel was trying to be nice, he was still an ass. Not that Cliff had ever actually seen him be anything beyond tolerable...
"And then what?" Mirage continued as though talking to herself. "We haven't received permission to dock, yet. They may not be the most advanced planet in the Federation, but they still know what they're doing. A Klausian ship in their airspace without invitation could cause...trouble."
"Bah." Cliff grinned at her and gave a thumbs-up. "Trouble? You know that's my middle name, right?"
"Actually," she deadpanned. "I thought it was Abig--"
"Argh! Mirage!"
"--gail," she finished with a smile.
He glared at her and she reached out to pat him on the shoulder. "Medical records," she said easily. "Are treacherous items, when it comes to certain caches of knowledge."
He batted playfully at her hand and she took a step back to avoid him. "Hey, it's not my fault my mother--...er...anyways..."
Mirage held up a hand, at which his words ground to a halt. "I'll go get Nel and Albel. We need to contact the government and inform them that we're not a threat. And we need to make them believe it."
"They'll probably take our weapons away."
Mimicking but not mocking him, Mirage returned the thumbs-up of earlier. "And that's stopped us before...when?"
He grinned. "Good point, Mirage."
-
Well. This was...awkward. If Albel had known that the door that he was going to duck into to avoid having to listen to that oaf's ceaseless prattling was going to bring him face to face with Nel Zelpher, he might have thrown himself on the proverbial grenade and taken Cliff instead. Nel had looked up upon his entry, and was eyeing him with chill tolerance.
"That's going to scar," he said with clinical observation, pointing his clawed gauntlet in the general direction of her healing wounds. A fine opening line, to be sure.
"Yes," she said in agreement, her eyes narrowed at him as he stood beside the door, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
"You should have kept your distance, fool." Abjection 101 was obviously a class that Albel Nox had failed to attend. He simply wasn't the type to experience remorse, at least where his enemies...allies...enemies, damnit--were concerned.
"I'll keep that in mind for next time," Nel said dryly.
Silence.
"Why are you still here?"
...More silence.
"Because."
"Oh, good answer," the Aquarian woman snapped irritably. "Now if--"
"Be silent, maggot." He didn't want to meet her eyes. Now, it wasn't out of any half-baked fear or, even less likely, remorse, but the simple fact that there were far more interesting things in the room to study. Like...the walls. "I came to offer--" Not an apology, so what, then? "An opportunity for you to..." Now. Albel had never been good with words. But there was no reason--none, that this should be so difficult. "Return the...favor." There. He'd said it. No matter what the woman Mirage had said, he wasn't about to apologize. Albel Nox did not apologize. For anything. Ever.
She blinked, and to his annoyance, looked almost--amused? "You mean...?" she tapped a finger against the vivid red marks he'd deigned grace her with, at which he forced a nod.
"Without retaliation," he added as an afterthought.
She stood rather abruptly and paused a moment with her hands on her hips. "Hmm," she murmured almost to herself as she paced across the room to stand in front of him. Instinctively, he tensed, and the knuckles of his right hand went white as he gripped his sword.
She hit him before he could so much as move. The first punch landed on his jaw, rocking his head back with the strength applied. Surely it was far greater than what he'd expected of the slender slip of a woman. The second, applied with even greater force, was delivered to his stomach. He doubled over with a strangled cough. Something of his pride prevented him from gasping, though the acquisition of oxygen had become exponentially difficult.
Nel stepped back and dusted her hands off as though she'd had a part in something particularly foul. "Don't ever do that again," she said calmly. "Because if you do, I'll do worse to far more sensitive areas."
"Idiot," he snarled when he'd regained enough wind. "If you think..."
"Are you two quite done?" Mirage's cool voice interrupted him and inwardly, Albel kicked himself. Not only was there one woman witness to this obviously shameful show, there were two! Well...he could always kill them...the dead tell no tales, after all...
"Yes," Nel said rather abruptly. "Quite."
"Good," Mirage announced as Albel sneered at her. "We have a situation. Nel?"
The redheaded woman walked past the swordsman without so much as a backwards glance, and the moment she had disappeared into the hallway, Mirage cocked her head to one side. "Come to the cockpit when you've...recovered."
"Shut up, worm," he ground out between clenched teeth. The blonde merely smiled at him and followed Nel out the door, which hissed shut behind her. He would have bet fol to maggots that they would flitter off and discuss him if he didn't follow immediately, but first...
"...Sorry," he muttered under his breath as he drew himself upright. Such words were only safely spoken alone. He couldn't say whether or not he meant it, though. Maybe. Probably not. Hm. With that tiny admission of humanity, he strode out the door and hated himself all the more.
-
"So what's our itinerary?" Nel asked immediately after Cliff had explained their situation. The big man spread his hands beseechingly and shook his head.
"Nooooo clue."
"We sent our own hail," Mirage told her with a mild shrug. "We wait until they respond to it. We are a neutral party, after all. We aren't truly affiliated with the Klausian sectors."
Albel, standing a ways away from all the others, folded his arms and snorted. Cliff had given him a mockingly amused look the moment that he'd entered the room and, touching a hand to his cheek, he thought he knew why. It wasn't that Albel bruised easily, it was that the annoying Aquarian hit hard.
His mother had always told him that women, more than anything, wanted to be treated as equals, which was probably why he had no issue with alternately hitting or dispatching of them. There were, of course, men and women that were beneath his notice entirely, but they were little more than maggots anyways. But Nel...she'd proven difficultly resilient on more than one occasion. He supposed it was possible that he respected her, in some awkward little way. She'd never hear it from him, but the echo of truth in his thoughts betrayed him to himself.
Hmph. So what if he respected her. He'd granted his respect to a great many people, the total of which was...
...probably less than three.
"Albel? Do you have any opinions?"
Yes, he thought irritably, but saying them aloud would cause most everyone present a great deal of mental trauma. Which, while he wasn't exactly against...he wasn't going to go out of his way to cause, either. So instead he retained his silence and glared at her.
Mirage pursed her lips at his lack of response, and then shrugged. Together, she, Cliff and Nel resumed talking amongst themselves. Albel paid little attention to them. There was really no point. They'd decide something without him, and that suited him just fine.
However, the circumstances preceding them were certainly mysterious. That idiot boy had gone and gotten himself lost, and the vapid girl that followed him around like a lost puppy was scared. Well, that was nothing new. She'd certainly announced the fact often enough in the midst of battle. Even so. Of all their little 'group', he'd tolerated that Fayt the most. It wasn't that he liked him, per se--but that he...well, could tolerate him. And at least he didn't try to stir up trouble.
Except like what he was doing now.
Idiot, Albel affirmed. And of course, he felt the need to endanger himself to the point where we have to come rescue him.
"Hey, guys," Cliff announced suddenly, interrupting Albel's inner contemplations of what exactly he would do to the ignorant boy-child when they found him. Albel had never been the sort to scold with words, but one quick punch would probably prove his point better than verbose dialect ever could.
"Hm? What is it?" Nel leaned forwards in her chair as Mirage tapped absently at the Eagle's readout.
"Looks like they've replied," she said neutrally. "Well, let's hear what we have to say, shall we?"
She pulled up the message and leaned back in her chair, tapping her gloved fingers absently together in a steeple.
"Greetings," the short holographic man announced. "Please, allow me to, ah, 'cut to the chase', I believe is the adage.
"There are those among us that have little reason to tolerate those of Klausian blood on our soil, as well as those who believe it's in our best interests to bury the past. You will be permitted here, thanks due to our courtesy," and if that intonation of that word wasn't a thinly veiled threat, then Albel didn't know what was. "And you will be treated fairly, so long as you do not in any way threaten our way of life. However, we must ask that you leave any and all weapons, as well as your ship, in our custody or the custody of our spacing guild, where they will undergo a thorough examination for any...ah..." the little hologram waved an apologetic hand. "Potential subterfuge. It would also be advisable that one of your number remain in our care at all times, though who we will leave to you."
"Great," Cliff snorted. "So they think we're here to rekindle a war? Just the two of us? Gee, Mirage. I don't mean to sound modest, but isn't that overkill? Heh. Wonderful show of faith, boys."
"They mean to take one of us into captivity?" Albel sneered at the mere thought. "What a ludicrous idea. The only thing they're going to be 'taking captive' is my sword through their gut."
Mirage shrugged and his words for the most part were largely ignored. "I'll go. They won't harm me, and it leaves you three free to--"
"Now, Mirage," Cliff swept a hand broadly, indicative perhaps of their current situation. "I appreciate the gesture of valor and all that, but nobody is going anywhere. I'll pull out my diplomatic status, if I have to, but--" he grimaced at the mere thought of resuscitating that particular aspect of his past. "Eh. Let's just say they won't give us any grief after I've talked to them personally."
Mirage quirked an eyebrow and remained silent, and to Albel this was more a show of faith than anything he'd ever seen. Trusting in this fool to keep them safe wasn't something that was high on his to-do list, thank you.
Nel, changing the subject, tried something else. "So. How will we contact Sophia once we're down there?"
"We won't," Cliff said nonchalantly. "I have a feeling that she'll get in contact with us."
"A hunch?" the Klausian woman asked dryly.
Cliff grinned. "Somethin' like that, yeah."
Great, Albel thought contemptuously. Just great.
Another of Cliff's 'hunches' was not what he wanted to rely on. Look where the first one had gotten them.
-
They'd been left in what, under different circumstances, Mirage might have called a lobby. If it weren't for the two armed guards standing nearby, anyways. They were doing an admirable job of looking like furniture, perhaps it was a required course before they could qualify for the duty? Hm...
The two Elicoorians were acting as a sharp contrast to one another. Albel looked...indifferent, whereas Nel appeared to be more...well, not nervous, but not entirely at ease, either. But these were the sort of happenings that Mirage, as a member of Quark, had long gotten used to. Cliff had marched right off to talk to 'whoever the hell's in charge on this rock,' and had hinted to her with surprising subtlety that she should remain here and keep an eye on things.
And so she was.
She'd been paying close attention to the security measures involved in their arrival. They'd been escorted to an orbital station by way of a mini armada and it had been obliquely hinted that were they to try anything, they would be shot out of the sky. Such a suspicious race they'd ended up in the midst of.
So, as they'd been 'escorted' to this lobby, she'd marked off any possible exits and potential dead-ends, made a brief inventory of the weaponry she saw and a list of any personnel that happened across her path. The Venedosians were a rigidly militaristic caste, which hadn't come as a surprise. Unfortunately, they were also extremely tight-lipped, and even her casual attempts to engage them in conversation had fallen flat. They had remarkable restraint for warm-blooded males.
They'd been frisked, of course, and both Cliff and herself had been relieved of a miniature armory. Nel had fared little better and had lost both her swords and an array of knives that she'd had concealed in various spots. Albel hadn't, understandably, wanted to part with either sword or gauntlet but it had been...forcibly insisted. He'd given the guards a glare that could have shattered glass and assented, though he'd insisted on keeping a cloak from his bags, which he'd draped haphazardly over his left shoulder. Mirage didn't bother wondering at this-- although she thought that maybe he was just insecure without his weapons. She hoped he had at least decent hand-to-hand combat training.
Nel, occupying a chair nearby, frowned suddenly and stood. "This is taking too long," she announced in irritation, and without further ado she marched to the nearest guard. "Where's our companion?"
The guard didn't so much as blink. Instead, he pointed back to her chair. She glowered at him. Mirage mulled over the fact that she hadn't actually seen Nel Zelpher in anything approaching a rage as of yet. Perhaps now would prove to be an apropos time?
"I don't think you understand me," the redhead said firmly, twisting out of the guard's grasp as he tried to take her arm and steer her back to her seat. "I asked you a ques--"
"Hey guys." Cliff's voice was quite obviously cheerful, and as he strode towards them he began to whistle off-key. "We've got free reign now. You--" he eyed the guard that had made a half-hearted attempt at accosting Nel. "You mind?"
Blandly, the guard released her.
"Perfect timing," Mirage murmured as she stood. "But how--"
"Quite a story, that," he said with a grin. "Apparently, my grandfather was highly respected on this planet, too. You know, he actually tried to end the war? Huh. Learn somethin' new every day, I guess." Cliff rubbed absently at the back of his neck. "Anyways. They've nixed that little jinx-thingamajigger that they tried to toss at us, but I had to agree to report in with their government every twenty-eight hours." He flashed his omnipresent compact communicator. "No biggie. Let's go find somewhere to kick back for a while until Sophia gets a hold of us."
"Roger."
This, Mirage reasoned, was shaping up to be a lovely experience. If by 'lovely', one meant 'exceedingly tedious.' Which, of course, she did.
-