Guy smiled at his men, both the ones who had remained on the ship and the ones who had gone to the surface as the landing party. "Well done, men! You were ready for the enemy, and they didn't catch you off-guard with any of their tricks."
"If we had been caught unaware, would that have resulted in painless unconsciousness instead of just getting hit in the gut and then on the head?" one of the men asked, fingers touching his swollen jaw.
"Most likely, the bad guys would have either forced you to help them with their plan," Guy paused, and decided to clarify something. "They're the bad guys, it would probably be an evil plan. Terror, violence, attacks against innocent people… that sort of thing. If they didn't think they could make you cooperate, they would have killed you."
"Their fighters in the tunnels were quite eager to attempt to kill us," Commented one of the landing party, his arm bandaged. "They shot at us with blasters, and attempted to break our bodies. Jannakia was even bitten by one of their sharp-toothed ground troops."
"Stop dwelling on that, focus on the fact that we didn't let them take our ship, you didn't let yourselves get ambushed in the tunnels, and most importantly, none of you died." Guy insisted, and then smiled at them. "I'm proud of you guys. You did good, and I can only say that while I'd like to take the credit for that, a lot of it probably belongs to the other people who helped you learn everything that you brought onto this ship with you."
"We could not have prevailed without you and your advice!" countered the Thermian with the bruised chin. "Without your caution, I would not have suspected the apparently wounded men in the shuttle."
"Okay, let's just say good job all around," Guy decided. "I hope you're all ready the next time something happens."
Alex Dane walked through the corridors of the Protector, searching for Willow. He wanted to find her and reassure himself that she was safe. He wanted to go home so he could get this infuriating head-cap off and scratch at every tiny itch that had grown up from being unable to touch his scalp. He wanted to be back in California, where nobody's life could end up dependant on his lack of medical knowledge.
Finally, he found her, curled up in a corner lounge with a cup of tea, several empty cups, and one of the hand held units that served some sort of purpose for the Thermians. She looked rather pale, and kept frowning at the device, but he was still delighted to see her. "Willow!"
"Oh, Alex," She murmured, hugging him. "I'm glad that you're okay."
"As Jason pointed out to me, I remained on the ship, out of direct danger unless they managed to take it over." His arms remained around her, and he sighed. "You look worn."
"I was trying to give them a little protection," Willow blushed, and mumbled, "It was a bit more than I really should have tried."
"What are you doing now?" Alex settled onto the couch, pulling her to sit next to him.
"I think that maybe some of the Thermians might be able to learn magic. Or at least, there's no reason I'm aware of why they couldn't, so I'm trying to make a basic magical how-to guide. One of the people in Communications gave me that, h promised that it would take my words and write them in Thermian." Willow sighed, and leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder.
"Are you sure you're strong enough for that?" Alex murmured, his hand rubbing at her shoulder.
"It's just talking to a metal box," she protested. "I can dictate a few basic things, and then hopefully there's some sort of mystical tradition or legends or something for them to follow to give them more advanced instructions."
"I don't recall ever hearing anything like that about the Thermians…" Alex mused, and then took another look at the stack of empty cups. "How much tea have you been drinking?"
"Umm… the first one was coffee, or at least, I asked for coffee. I don't think the stuff that it gave me was really coffee, it tasted… umm… distinctly un-coffee-like," Willow tried to evade answering. "I just felt really wiped out, even after I woke up."
Hearing footsteps echoing in the hallway, Alex spoke in a clear voice. "As a doctor, I suggest you not over extend yourself."
Willow giggled, and whispered in a voice barely loud enough for him to hear, "I thought you just played one on television?"
"Shhh…" He put a finger over her lips. "Now, what sort of things are you putting in this instruction guide?"
"Well, I figured that I'd start with the basics, how to tell if someone's got it. Then a few simple exercises to develop control… The sort of stuff that I would have loved to have had when I was learning." Willow sighed, and rubbed at her temple. "Cordelia went looking for Jason."
"Is it related to his reactions about Angel? Or was there something else?" Alex murmured, less worried about Jason's relationship problems than the chance that Willow would be upset on her friend's behalf.
"Yeah. She thinks this could be the end of them as a them, and she wants to go talk to him. At the least, he's going to have questions, and she's probably got a few about this," one hand waved about, indicating the Protector, the Thermians, and space.
"Is she heartbroken?" Alex tried to picture Cordelia in that situation, but couldn't quite. Maybe he just didn't know her well enough.
"I think annoyed would be closer," Willow admitted. "And she said something about surgery?"
"It was a small procedure, something that Dr. Teirell and his staff believe will help her with the visions. If it works as expected, the pain will be reduced, and there will be no long term effects of the vision." Alex remembered her concern as they'd explained the procedure, and elaborated. "They were leaving an imbalance of the neurotransmitters, which caused the pain. Unfortunately, it wasn't correcting itself before her next vision, and the increasing imbalance would have had severe effects, possibly fatal ones."
"Yikes. But this will help her, right?" Willow asked.
"We hope so. That's all the more we can do right now."
End part 52.
Gwen DeMarco had never expected that her life would be spectacular. She'd attended a community college, and her grades had been decent, though not exceptional. She'd gone into acting instead of 'a nice, sensible career like accounting or teaching,' taking bit parts, doing commercials, and even a couple magazine photos. Gwen had hoped to make enough money at her chosen career to support herself, and maybe get a solid fan base. Awards like Oscars or Emmys, while a sweet dream, were beyond her expectations.
The same had gone for aliens, once upon a time.
While her career was on stronger footing than it had been in years, that new success went hand in tentacle with the Thermians, not that they'd intended it. With that new success and Laliari's continued presence, it was impossible for her to forget. Impossible for her to explain away some of the strangeness the way she'd explained away her bizarre cousin when she was younger, or several of her disastrous ex-boyfriends.
Aliens had been enough of a complication, but now things had gotten stranger, ever since they'd met Cordelia and her friends. Ever since she'd met Angel. Vampires were real, and she was dating one. Demons were real, and some of them watched the series. Magic was real, and she'd seen it on the set. All of it was enough to make her understand the sentiment 'ignorance is bliss', though she didn't want to return to that state. Ignorance could also be fatal.
She listened to the communications officers discussing things. There had been communications from one of the other ships of the Thermian fleet, and they were also tracking a shuttle that had left Earth, heading away at an angle. The shuttle was believed to contain some of the pirates who had caused this whole mess, and someone needed to figure out where it was going.
Part of her just wanted to go home. To lounge barefoot on the couch with chocolate ice cream, listening to music on the radio and traffic outside the window. Another part knew that when they finally got back to earth, if they still had jobs, they would need to finish filming that episode. Filming an episode seemed like such a simple thing now, in comparison.
Standing up, she tried to conceal her reaction to the way the communications officers looked at her. It was as if she was some great hero, when the truth was that's he was just an actress, practiced at pretending to cope. "I need to check on some of the injured people. Doctors Teirell and Lazarus will be able to answer my questions. One more thing… if that shuttle that we're tracking has a limited range, won't they be looking for somewhere to land? Another ship, or a station?"
"Very logical, Lt. Madison," One of them murmured, his eyes bright as he smiled at her. "Do you have any ideas where this rendezvous might take place?"
"If they don't want us to see them, they might be keeping something between us and them, one of the other planets or a moon. If they're brave or foolish, they might try to hope the asteroid field would hide them, but that would take solid shields or a good pilot, more likely both." She paused, thinking hard on her scant knowledge of tactics. "More useful, if we can't see them from here, the shuttle can't, and they'll need to contact them before docking. Listen and be ready to trace any other signals that are detected."
"Of course, if they must signal their allies, then we can discover them!" breathed one of the young Thermians. "Then we can capture their allies as well as the criminals."
"That all depends on how strong their allies are," Gwen cautioned as she walked towards the door. "You guys watch for that, I need to check on a few people."
She'd only gone a short distance towards the medlabs before she stopped, only inches from running into Angel's chest. "Ohh, You're looking much better now."
Angel nodded, with a half smile, "I feel much better now. Less battered, and it's easier to talk."
"What about everybody else?" Gwen asked, noticing the way that he'd turned, ready to accompany her, and held out one arm to her. "I'd thought it might be good to check up on everyone else, including Jason. He's not put together like a Thermian, after all."
"He's out walking around somewhere, unless Cordelia caught him. Apparently, she wants to have a few words with him," Angel snickered, apparently thinking those words might not be entirely happy.
"He did seem rather unhappy to learn about… well, everything." Gwen murmured, glancing at Angel. The bruises were almost gone, nothing more than faint greenish mottling around his throat, and his hair looked softer, less gelled and styled. She wanted to reach up and run her hands through his hair.
"How are you handling things?" Angel asked, his fingers tracing over the back of her hand.
"Sometimes, it feels like things can't get much stranger, and I think I can handle it, and sometimes it feels like if one more strangeness pops up, I'm going to scream," she admitted. "On one hand, the whole mess explains some things, and on the other…"
"On the other hand, knowing that the monsters are real frightens you," Angel finished. "It took a while for me to adjust, when I learned that there were more things than I'd thought were real. I hadn't expected Darla's world, what had become my world, to be so different and dangerous."
"You didn't know until you'd been turned into a vampire?" Gwen asked, thinking that was how his words sounded.
"No. I'd heard stories; everyone heard the stories back then. But I thought that they were nothing more than tales to keep us from misbehaving." Angel shook his head, looking up again. "They weren't just stories, and the stories didn't cover everything."
"It must have been terrible," Gwen whispered, leaning closer to him as they walked. She wasn't even sure where they were going, maybe one of the little lounges?
Somehow, they ended up in one of the viewing lounges, looking out at a brilliant expanse of stars. Angel stopped by the window, looking out, "They're beautiful."
"You're not so bad yourself," Gwen commented, placing one hand on his cheek. "How do you make me feel like everything will be okay?"
Angel kissed her, tasting like copper and temptation. "Because we both want things to turn out that way."
Her arms slid up around him, and she let herself melt against him. Kissing Angel again, Gwen decided that this was nice, and it would be good to take her mind off alien pirates and would be conquerors, and her potential job problems. There would be time to worry about everything later.
End part 53.