Cordelia smiled as she looked around the studio, covering the shaking terror that being digitized had left inside of her. She felt cold, and wobbly, and a bit disoriented. Fortunately, she wasn't alone; Jason, Alex, Gwen and Angel stood near her. People were staring at them, with wide eyes and startled murmurs. "I guess next time we should knock?"
A gangly man with gray hair was making strange gestures, as if demanding answers, and moved towards them. "Where have you been? We're trying to finish the episode, and half of my cast just vanishes into thin air! How am I supposed to make a television show with things like that going on?"
"Marty, calm down," Jason insisted, smiling at the worried man. "We're back now, and we can finish filming things, and life will be back the way it was a couple weeks back."
She heard a strange humming behind her, and there was a rippling feeling to the air. Glancing back, Cordelia was relieved to see that Willow, Alex, Fred and Laliari were now standing with them. It seemed like everybody was back on the set.
"Princess, go to wardrobe and get yourself changed into the white dress. Alex, your cap looks horrible." Marty was looking over them with worry that almost drowned out his professional panic. "What's the next scene?"
"Ah, yes, another scene. I was hoping for a bit of a reprieve," Alex muttered.
Cordelia smothered a giggle as she moved towards the wardrobe room. She assumed that she was walking, though she couldn't quite feel her feet yet. "Note to self, travel by digitalization is to be avoided when possible."
It didn't take long for her to reach the wardrobe room, or to change into a long ivory gown. A pair of make-up artists fussed with her hair, applying the extensive amounts of make-up required to look almost entirely natural under the stage lights, draping her with the sparkling pseudo-jewels of a princess, and arranging her hair. It seemed so entirely mundane and normal that it felt unreal, especially after the last couple days. After all, she'd been grabbed into space by a ship full of aliens who had shaped their military after a sci-fi series, believed to be a princess, had several mind-crushing visions, and let an alien doctor perform brain-surgery on her – and now, she was going to be in a scene for a television episode, as if everything were perfectly normal?
"My life is so strange, " Cordelia mumbled.
"What was that?" one of the make-up ladies murmured. "Never mind, open your mouth a little and don't speak, I need to paint your lips."
That slightly distanced feeling of unreality persisted as they filmed the scene, where Princess Mirabanna and Commander Taggert argued over some ancient ritual where a suitor could challenge for her hand. If the Princess had no other challengers or defenders, she would be forced to accept the suitor for a year. She thought the whole idea sounded rather silly and bizarre, but that was how the script read.
Naturally, the dashing Commander Taggert ended up challenging the unwelcome suitor. Since Taggert was the main character and the other guy was merely a random bit part, Taggert defeated Duke Omachiva, thus denying a quick, tradition-demanded year-husband for the Princess. Now, both suitors were supposed to spend the next year trying to impress the Princess to show what good husbands they'd be. It was almost funny, and the guy cast as the Duke was sort of handsome, and entirely awed by the chance to be on the show.
After a few more hours on he set, with several takes of her scenes, Cordelia was feeling much better. This was a simple matter of good lighting, proper wardrobe, and remembering her lines. This was what she wanted to do with her life.
But Jason wasn't really talking to her. It wasn't anything as blatant as a direct snub, but he wasn't really talking, not like they'd done before getting taken to the Protector. He was coping badly.
Cordelia had the sinking feeling that this meant they wouldn't be dating much in the future, if at all. If he couldn't even think about the whole mess with vampires and demons, dating her would only keep reminding him. She straightened her shoulders, determined not to let her emotions show. Not only did frowns cause wrinkles, tears would mess up her make-up, and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much this hurt.
Finally, Marty declared the day over, and waved towards the door. "All of you can go home now, or go out and eat dinner, go dancing, whatever. We'll start rehearsing the next episode tomorrow, for those of you who missed the announcement yesterday."
Cordelia meandered back to the wardrobe, and sighed. "Are my keys still here?"
"I think so, give me a few moments to check," the lady replied.
Cordelia leaned against the table, trying to be patient. She wanted to go home and have a long shower before going to sleep in her own bed, on her own planet. Things probably wouldn't really change that much, except that now she'd know there were more people out there than she'd known before. There would still be vampires and demons to fight, prophecies to sort out and foil, and apocalyptic plans to thwart. Aliens wouldn't change too much in her life, except that now she knew that she had some fans that were really out of this world.
It was too bad that once again, the weirdness in her life had cost her a relationship.
End part 56.
As soon as Marty declared the day's filming to be finished, Alex pulled the skullcap from his head. He let it fall on the command panel prop, and scratched at his head, relieved to finally have that thing off. Normally, it wasn't that bad, but he'd been wearing it for so long that it was starting to feel like some weird torture device. "Thank God for small mercies…"
Once more existing only as himself, Alex Dane, actor, he headed towards the parking lot, eager to go home. Jason was there, grumbling to himself. He could only catch a few words, but one of those words was 'vampires'.
Alex looked at his co-worker, and with an arched brow simply asked, "Finding a few things hard to swallow, Jason?"
"How would you like it if you discovered that your girlfriend's been hiding things from you, big, scary, evil things?" Jason frowned, and stomped towards the door. "I'd like to think the whole mess is just some delusion that she should find help for."
"You know better than that," Alex managed not to growl. He'd been a bit shocked when Willow had told him about magic and monsters, but he didn't recall stomping and whining around like this. "Do stop acting like a spoiled child."
"Yeah, I know the whole mess is real. That makes it worse!" Jason complained. "How am I supposed to deal with this? Vampires, demons, visions of the future… It's all too weird."
"Do you blame her for those things existing? Or are you just angry that you know about them now?" Alex strode towards his car, uncertain if he really cared what Jason's answer was. Honestly, the man was old enough now to be able to handle his own problems.
"I…" Jason faltered, and looked uncertain. "I don't know. But I don't think I can deal with any of this right now. Not with her crazy life."
"If you're wanting to break things of with Cordelia, then you should tell her, not me." Alex turned away from Jason, trying hard not to call him a shallow, self-centered twit. It was hardly Cordelia's fault that monsters were real, or that she knew about them. It certainly wasn't her fault that Jason couldn't handle the facts of her life.
"Good point," Jason called, turning towards his own car. "Now, I've got to call her and figure out what to say…"
Alex settled into his car, reaching into the glove box for his cell phone. He took a few moments to call Willow, passing on the warning that he was fairly certain that Jason and Cordelia would no longer be dating because Jason didn't think he could handle the strangeness. When Jason finally told Cordelia, she would probably be unhappy, and quite justifiably so, in his opinion.
As he checked his messages, finding only a few of importance, he considered what he'd learned. He definitely wouldn't be inviting any strangers into his home after dark, and it might be a good idea not to say the words to people that he did know. It would be a harmless enough change to make… at least he didn't have anything on his doormat, though he wasn't certain if that would actually be enough to let a vampire in or not. Some things, it was probably safer not to experiment with.
His messages were the usual mixed batch, a few calls from reporters, a couple calls thanking him for an audition but refusing the part, another that wanted him to come in for a second audition for a small part in a movie, someone trying to contact 'Becky-with-the-blond-hair,' an attempted survey, and two wrong numbers. "Ah, it's so good to be back in contact with the rest of humanity."
End part 57.
Malthesar felt inexplicably lighter as he received the report that everyone had been returned to the planet below. The artificial gravity generators were functioning properly, so it wasn't a physical lightness, but it was still there. The Commander was out of the way, and it had been accomplished in such a way that nobody had been gravely injured, nobody had been tortured, and the soothing delusions of the majority of the crew had been preserved. All further actions would proceed using logic and procedure.
It disturbed him to ponder the Princess and the Handmaiden very much. While the dark haired woman, whose name was either Cordelia or Mirabanna, he wasn't quite certain which, was not a true princess with a domain of ruler-ship, she did receive visions of the future. She did know how to move with grace and dignity, and she did know how to project calm assurance, all of which were good qualities for a leader. Her Handmaiden Willow truly possessed strange powers. Both of them were outside of what he was used to dealing with.
If Willow was correct in her belief that Thermians could learn to use this magic that she practiced, though he preferred to consider them quantum manipulations, things would get even stranger. She had promised to write up a guidebook for those abilities, and he was at once curious and nervous of what it would contain. Some sort of instruction manual for the development and training of such abilities…
No, it would be best not to dwell on such things. There were still pirates and would-be galactic conquerors to deal with. Tapping a button, he sent a message to the communications room. "I want to know the expected locations of all ships that might have any reason to be within four quadrants of our current location. A shuttle carrying two of the conspirators departed from the planet, and they are likely intending to rendezvous with another ship."
For a while, Malthesar let himself become completely immersed in the multitude of forms and records that a ship this size created. Logs to update, medical procedures and the expenditures of supplies to be signed off and authorized, injuries in the line of duty to note in files, both for the chance of awards and recognition as well as the possibility of medically dictated leaves from duty. Complaints to be sorted through, as well as the decisions of what actions, if any, should be taken.
:Sir? You gave the order that all authorized and charted ships be identified. Does that include the trade ships and their planned routes and the independent merchants: The voice was hesitant, as if he feared reprimand for the question.
"Yes, we need to know about trade vessels and the smaller merchant ships as well. While those traditionally lack the same measure of weaponry as a military vessel, they would easily enable the escaped criminals to travel further. It is possible that the criminals might send a distress signal, board a private vessel, kill or incapacitate the legitimate owners, and go on their way, to plan another attempt at conquest from a new base." Wincing, Malthesar admitted to himself that he probably wouldn't have suspected such a ploy before encountering the humans.
:As you command, sir. This could take a while.: The voice sounded less nervous now.
Again, Malthesar focused on his administrative duties. Another four complaints about the flavor of the coffee beverage, one of which held an accompanying request to make a comparative study of the brew resulting from the beans remaining from Tech Sergeant Chen's private supply. He swiftly gave approval to that one, remembering the way the brew that they had been drinking had smelled much more appealing that the replicator's beverage. Injury reports from the security guards who had captured the conspirators from the shuttle that had landed on the Protector. A request for a formal decision of what to do with the conspirators from that shuttle.
Frowning, Malthesar opened the drawer of his desk, removing a bottle of his preferred headache remedy.
:Sir, our sensors have detected a distress call from a shuttle.: This was a different voice, calmer, patterned more closely after Lt. Madison. :The name being used does not match any shuttle or spacecraft in out databases, but the frequency and source equipment appears to be an exact match for the shuttle that docked in our bays from the Coou'Eeeilo. I believe that there is a very strong probability that this is the second shuttle.:
"Has there been any response to the distress call?" Malthesar sat straighter, pushing the comuni-pad with his forms away. This was more important than sorting through complaints and injury reports.
:Not yet… wait, I'm picking up a signal. A merchanter ship named Teivennil is asking for details of their distress. I'm attempting to triangulate and find their locations based on the signals.:
"Excellent. As soon as you have a location, contact navigation. We must intercept the pirates before they can escape again." Malthesar could feel something inside of him tensing, not quite fear. Perhaps this was the anticipation of a good challenge? Or maybe that so-called coffee was having a worse effect on him than he'd thought…
Soon, it would be over.
end part 58.