Voyage: Part II, Chapter II
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, only the plot.
When Kira woke up, she was very disoriented, she couldn't remember what had happened, and what she did remember didn't make any sense at all. When she managed to focus, she found herself lying on a hard bed in one of the medical cabins. After a minute of trying to remember, nothing was growing any clearer. Images began to appear in her mind: fire, spiders, and most importantly, Conner. And in that instant, it all came back to her.
She had been on the way back to the bridge, when she had been ambushed. The odds had been against her, but she had managed to take out the two spiders. Then the brunette haired woman came forward. In the beginning she thought that she might be able to beat her, but it quickly became apparent that Kira was no match for this woman. The way she fought looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't tell if she knew the woman, because she was wearing a mask. The only chance that Kira had was to morph. Just as she was drawing breath for her ptera-scream, the woman kicked her in the stomach, taking away her chance to morph. Then she felt the claws of the two spiders holding her. She vainly insulted the woman who seemed to ignore most of it. The insults weren't working, so she spit on her. Although the slap had been expected, she hadn't anticipated the strength behind it. She couldn't make out what the woman had said, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a red blur and felt herself getting pushed to the side, and she knew that Conner had saved her. But when she looked up, all she saw was a flash of red light. Then fire consumed everything.
It took a while for it to hit her, but now Conner was gone. Before she could go any farther with the thought, the door quietly slid open to reveal a very looking Hayley and Tommy. "How are you feeling?" asked Hayley. Kira gave her a smile and said, "I'm okay." Hayley studied Kira for a second then said, "well, you look okay, but if Billy hadn't teleported you out of that inferno, there might have only been a pile of ashes left." 'Well,' Kira thought, 'at least that solves that mystery.'
"That's good," Kira said, "But what happened?" Hayley and Tommy exchanged a glance, then Tommy spoke up. "We think that the woman who kidnapped Conner, blew up the engines. There's nothing left of them. Right now we're on emergency power, which will only last another week before there's nothing left."
As Tommy's grim description of the situation ended, Kira felt herself growing pale. Suddenly Kira brightened. "Why don't we have Billy teleport us somewhere?" From the look that Tommy and Hayley shared, she already knew the answer…it wouldn't work. "Billy already tried it. Something about this area seems to keep us from teleporting." Hayley said. "So we're just drifting in space?" Kira asked. Hayley nodded, "that's pretty much the size of the situation."
Kira started to get up, but Tommy gently held her down. "You shouldn't get up yet," he said. "I feel fine," Kira insisted, "and besides, my being here is wasting energy that could be used elsewhere." Tommy reluctantly let Kira up, and helped her to her feet. Kira balanced unsteadily for a moment, then with fresh determination began to walk out of the small medical cabin. With each step, Kira grew steadier, until she was walking without a problem.
With Tommy and Hayley navigating, she found everyone sitting in the conference room, apparently attempting to decipher their next course of action. Everyone acknowledges Kira's entrance, then continued their discussion.
"It doesn't make any sense though," Andros was saying, "if the engines were destroyed, then how come there's no sign of external damage?" "The blast was probably designed to take out only the engines," Cam said. "No matter how focused the blast was, there would have to be some sign of damage on the hull." Andros argued.
Kira scratched her head thoughtfully. "Are we sure that there's nothing left of the engines?" she asked. "Yes," Andros said, "the pictures we're getting are showing that there's nothing there anymore." "Can I have a look?" she asked. "DECA," Andros said to the red eye hanging on the roof of the conference room, "show me the engine room again." Immediately the hologram of the engine room appeared in the middle of the table. Kira studied the hologram intently. Although she wasn't much of a mechanic, even she could see that the twisted lumps of metal wouldn't power anything. There was something odd about the holographed room, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
As the hologram disappeared, everyone sat in silence, trying to think of ways to resolve the situation. After a while, Tommy cleared his throat. "We're really not accomplishing anything right now," he said, "I think we're too tired and wound up to think clearly. So let's take a break for a couple of hours, then we'll come back and try to tackle this problem again." Everyone nodded in agreement and started to leave the conference room for their own quarters aboard ship.
As soon as Kira reached her own room she quickly laid down. She knew that at most it was a futile effort, having just woken up only an hour ago. It took her ten minutes to realize that despite her exhausted state, she would be getting no sleep. Finally she got out of bed, grabbed her guitar, and left the room.
After a few minutes of wandering around, she found herself on the observation deck. She took a seat and started to strum her guitar. With the image of Trent firmly embedded in her memory, she set about trying to write a song. At times like these, with relative peace and quiet, coupled with the inspiration of Trent's face, music would seem to write itself. But no matter how much she tried, nothing was coming out. But no matter how much she tried, nothing was coming out.
After a while she gave up and started to absentmindedly pluck the strings of her guitar as she let her mind wander. Without any conscious effort, the face of Trent slowly began to fade from her mind. It took her a while, but she finally realized the face that she was seeing was the face of Conner McKnight. Oddly enough, a song started to come to her, and fingers began to play a familiar tune, but she couldn't put her finger on the words or the title.
After a while she gave up and set her guitar down and began to massage her eyes. It was no use; she was trying to hard to forget the words that Conner had spoken earlier. "I constantly have to keep my guard up because I'm afraid that if I don't, I could ruin my relationship with the one person I care for most," he had said.
Suddenly Kira felt a tingle run down her spine, she was being watched. Cautiously, Kira looked around, then relaxed as she spotted the red eye of DECA observing her. Then she furrowed her brow and appeared on the verge of a revelation, but gave up and tried to shrug it off.
Another presence made itself known as Tori cleared her throat. Gasping in surprise, Kira had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn't heard Tori's entrance. "Sorry," Tori said, "I didn't mean to bother you." Kira assured Tori with a smile then said, "it's alright, I just couldn't get to sleep." Tori nodded in understanding as she took a seat next to Kira. "I'm having some trouble myself," she said. "This mission is turning into far more than I bargained for."
Tori began a deep breath as she continued on to the focus of the conversation. "Kira?" she asked tentatively, "Do you want to talk about what happened with Conner?" Kira winced and saw immediately that she wasn't just talking about his kidnapping. 'Am I that obvious?' she asked herself. "How did you know?" she asked Tori. She regarded Kira carefully before responding, "I can tell by the look in your eyes. Because I once saw the same look before." Kira furrowed her brow and then asked, "what do you mean?"
Tori sighed, then looked around, as if checking for anyone that might be listening, then leaned closer to Kira and said in a low voice, "Blake and I broke up." "What?!" Kira exclaimed. As the shout continued to echo across space, Tori threw her a glance that made her smile sheepishly. "Sorry," she said quietly, "what happened?"
Tori considered whether or not to tell her younger friend, the circumstances of her break-up with Blake. After a while she decided to tell Kira. 'Who knows,' she thought, 'it might help her decipher her feeling for Conner.' A smile grace Tori's face as she began to remember the circumstances of their break-up. "About three months ago, Blake met a girl during one of his races. Melissa raced for Factory Blue Women's Division. At first Blake resisted the several passes that she had made. Then they began spending time together after races or big events, just talking. One day Blake came to Ninja Ops with the same look in his eyes. Immediately he told me of Melissa, and I could tell that he was feeling guilty about even having any kind of thoughts about anyone else but me."
Tori's smile began to fade as she continued her narrative. "At first, I have to admit, I felt kind of upset at the idea of him liking anyone else. Then I looked closely into his eyes, and I saw how this was tearing him apart. I stood there for quite a while, feeling that I was losing my best friend." Her smile returned as she saw Kira leaning closely, obviously enthralled by her story. "Then it hit me," she continued, "I was more afraid of losing my best friend, then my boyfriend. As I had been mulling this over, Blake had been stuttering and rambling until I stopped him. 'Blake,' I said, 'we've been together for a long time, but people change. I guess we're not as compatible as I thought. I guess it's time for us to break up.'"
Kira sat for a moment, absorbing the story. "Wow, that must've been tough." Tori nodded in agreement. "Yeah," she said somberly, "it was." Then Tori began to giggle. "How do we get the bad luck in love?" Unable to keep herself from joining in, Kira said, "I mean, what is it about women that are associated with rangers?" Tori nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean, probably the most successful relationship is the friendship between Andros and DECA." Suddenly Kira stopped laughing. There it was, the thing that had been bothering her, DECA. Then the light clicked on. Leaning closely to Tori, Kira whispered. "Get everyone together, I know what's going on, and I think we've spent enough time drifting through space."