May 20, 2006
Disclaimer: This humble author owns nothing but her own thoughts, and she doesn't get paid for them, so she might as well live up to being a blond.
---
I sometimes wonder why life is the way it is. Why we are alive, why we hate, scheme, pillage, and rape. Why we're still alive if there's a god that cares for us. I think I've come to grips with the fact that any god who might have created the world has long since gone away and left us all for dead, but the thought still stings.
"Substitute Captain Evans?" Liera said over the intercom. "Please report to sickbay."
"Negative," I said clearly. "Override policy, code," I typed my code into the nearest panel, "effective for maximum twelve hours." Which meant that Liera was forbidden from bugging me about taking antidepressants for twelve hours.
"Override code incorrect. Please report to sickbay," Liera said, and I would have sworn that she sounded smug about something.
"I'm ignoring you," I growled. I turned to my screens and found them blank. Of course. If my code was incorrect, I was to be presumed a hacker or other such unsavory character. "Liera, return power to my screens."
"I'm ignoring you," replied my voice. "Presumed interloper, please report to sickbay."
"I'm changing the AI once we get back to the fleet," I muttered. "What do I need to report to sickbay for?"
"Brainwave scans show unhealthy levels of activity."
"So, I'm depressed, and yet my brain's going super fast?" I asked. "Fine, if it's just that. Liera, beam me to sickbay."
"Aye, Captain," she said, and I think she may have chuckled. Damnable AI. I was beamed away quickly, so I wouldn't have a chance to change my mind, I think, and directly into a bed.
But not a sickbay bed.
---
When I woke, my sight was blurred badly. I couldn't bring up my hands to check the state of my face for all the silky cord and delicate chains that bound me. Now, I've seen and done a lot of unpleasant things in my relatively short life, and most of that hasn't scared me, but the idea that someone, an amorous someone, had been touching me when I wasn't conscious to either enjoy it or fight them off, that revolted me.
I heard humming. Distinctly female humming, and familiar as well, the song and the voice. It was a song called "Lullaby" and I listened to it a lot when I was a child, and the voice went farther back than that.
But that had to be impossible. For the woman that sang that when I was young had been changed, and she had died in painful bitterness, too cruel to sing.
The woman I spoke of was Elizabeth Warner, the former love of my life, who transformed into a callous Wraith when she came into space. The woman who I kissed and thought of marrying and hoped to spend the rest of my life with, until she had kissed Santino Diablo, one of the commanders of the fleet. After that, she denounced me and later took her own life. Or we all assumed that she had taken her own life. After all, not many can survive leaping into an engine, and it being radioactive to boot.
"Liz?" I asked as softly as I could, so as not to surprise her.
I was awarded with a sound slap to my already pained face. "Don't try to see!" she screamed at me. Oh, yes indeed, it was my beautiful Liz, hormonal insecurities and all.
"I can't see. What'd you do to me, Liz?" I asked, keeping my voice calm, though I wanted to leap up and hug her.
"Drops," she answered softly. "They mess up the focus on your eyes for a while, and then they wear off with no damage. I'm good, aren't I?"
My sweet, vain, beautiful Liz. "I don't know, Liz. Are you good, or are you going to get gap sick again and try to kill me?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't help it. I've tried everything, and -"
"You haven't tried everything. If you had tried everything, you would have found a way to contact me or K'ata and we would have come and helped you." Which is true. K'ata and Liz had the whole Female Conspiracy thing going for them. "We could have used nanytes, or a zone implant, or reverse conditioning, or -"
"What makes you think that I want your help!" she screamed at me again and grabbed me by the hair. Sometimes I think it might be better to just shave my head, but I don't have a smooth, pretty head; I was one of those strange, knobby-headed babies, which is why my mother let me keep my hair long. "I don't need you."
"Then why'd you kidnap me?" I asked smugly.
"I… None of your business!" She released me. "I just wanted to see you."
I was silent. That was surprisingly sweet for Liz's new character. "Did it ever occur to you that I might want to see you? That I might miss you? That I still love you even though I've found another?"
"You've found someone else?" she asked, her voice hurt. "Really faithful, aren't you?"
"Well, you went crazy and started loving up on Diablo, and then you tried to kill me, and then you leapt into an engine, so I didn't think you'd care." Which is true.
"I couldn't help it! It was the mutation, and the gap sickness!" She was crying. I still remembered the way her voice sounded when she had tears rolling down her face. "I love you, Morrick!"
"And I love you, but I can't 'love you' love you anymore." I tried to free myself from my bonds. "Liz, I need to get back to the ship. K'ata is gone, and my brain is doing funny things, and not 'ha ha' funny, either."
"What do you mean, 'gone'? Is she…?" Liz asked, fear in her voice. She really did like K'ata, and I had guessed this, but I hadn't known with certainty.
"She's been kidnapped by other Yautja who want to return her to her order. She's not dead, as far as I know. Me and another guy who the Yautja were using and his comatose fiancée are heading back to the fleet now to check on things, report this, and get our heads checked. So, Liz, if you would?"
"Morrick, I'm sorry," she said. She leaned over me and began messing with the knots and chains, loosening them, freeing me. "But, before I let you go, I want you to agree to a couple of things."
"I can't promise I'll agree, but go on."
"First, I want you to agree not to take revenge on me." I nodded. "Second, I want you to agree not to get another to take revenge on me." Again, I nodded. I had never really cared for revenge. "And third, I want you to take me with you."
"What?"
"Take. Me. With you." I was silent. "Morrick, I'll accept whatever you want to do to fix my -" She choked on the words. "My problems, but if I have to be back with people. I'm going crazy, and that's saying something."
"Liz, I can't love -"
"I know that!" she snapped as she freed my left wrist. "I'm not asking you to love me. I really don't care what new trollop you've got, either. I just want to be back."
"She's not a trollop. And I can't do anything for you now, without Doctor Galintha or Doctor Edemar." In other words, my doctors, who specialized in my unusual brain. "I'd have to keep you sedated."
"I don't mind," she said. "I told you, I'll accept."
"Well… Alright. You can come back with me." And it was no shock when she threw her thin, cold arms around me.
---
It took a while for my sight to refocus, but it was alright. Liz reassured me that there would be no lasting harm, but I still had sickbay run tests on my ocular efficiency.
Ammik was shocked to see Liz. She still looked like a particularly fearsome Wraith, and to him, an almost human-looking Wraith, this was quite terrifying. So, I quickly sedated her and tucked her away in another life pod.
"You know," Ammik told me as I locked the pod, "if the USPC were to run a check on us, they'd charge us with slave trading."
"Why?" I asked. The thought hadn't occurred to me yet.
"Well, we've got the two females locked in life pods, which is kind of like suspended animation, and we fit the profile." He shrugged. "Guess we have to hope we don't run into any USPC."
"The United Space Policing Companies won't be able to scan this ship. We're illegals, remember? We take precautions." I smiled. "Plus, I can outfly them easily."
"Or you could let me fly, if you want all the evidence destroyed," he added ruefully.
"Hey, don't talk like that. We've already got one gap sicker aboard." I looked at the time. "Come on, we'll be in range of the fleet soon."
---
It took a little longer that I had expected. Four hours longer.
"Okay, so, if you had to choose between fighting K'ata or fighting me, who would you choose?" Ammik asked.
"To win, or for a challenge?" I asked. "You're kind of scrawny, you know."
He smiled one of those infuriating secret smiles. "Oh, you'd be surprised at what I can do. I might look scrawny, but looks are deceiving."
"Uh huh," I said, "yeah, um, you know, I still don't think you could beat me in combat, hand-to-hand or otherwise."
"Is that a challenge?" Ammik asked innocuously. "I mean, we've got time."
"Now in fleet radio range," Liera said, ever the dues ex machina. I hit the play button, which sent off the message that I had recorded earlier, giving rudimentary information and codes only. After a moment, I received a reply.
"Junior Commander Morrick Evans, permission to dock denied. Alien presence found. Please ignite air ducts."
Damn. Well, I know that there were aliens onboard, but not an "alien presence" in the ducts. K'ata and I had burned the ducts after we'd gotten through saving the pacifists, so that only left three places for something to invade: space, which was doubtful, Micosucci's planet, or through the transporter system.
"Ammik, bring up a schematic of the internal ducts," I said and spun around in my chair a few times.
"Here," he said. The ship appeared on screen, and immediately, I saw the problem.
Not only were the ducts infected with Reaper booby traps, but the side of the hull was being corroded.
"Ammik, don't say anything," I ordered him. "Dark Glory, this is Noon Star, come in please."
"Noon Star, what's the problem?" Kou'al's voice came in, perplexed. "We told you to burn the ducts."
"Yes, Kou'al, but if you look at the side of the damned ship, you'll see why I can't." I was in a 'situation': I could be as testy as I wanted.
Silence. "Morrick, we're beaming everyone off the ship. Send the state of the population." Which means, tell him how many people are on and where they are.
So, I did. He was not pleased.
---
"My orders stated that you were to return Micosucci to the Renox embassy. Why didn't you?" Kou'al asked, showing a good deal more restraint than I would have in his place.
"We believe that a conspiracy is in effect," I stated simply.
"And he's involved in it?" Kou'al asked, indicating Ammik.
"He was, as in, he isn't anymore." Ammik was standing beside me, with his hands clasped behind him. It helped sweeten the fact that he'd been handcuffed. "He wasn't willing to work with the other Yautja anyway."
"So he says," Kou'al replied. "The only way to be certain is to use a scalpnet."
"Which is what I told you anyway," I said triumphantly. "And you're going to need to do me, too."
"Well, if that's that then, I'll just get your report from Doctor Galintha. I know she won't add any heroic embellishments."
"Err, I was hoping for Doctor Edemar," I said apprehensively. "'Cause, you know, Doctor Galintha is a little, err, fond of needles."
"I know," he said. "Go." I took Ammik by the elbow and drew him away with me.
---
"Morrick!" Areyole Galintha said cheerfully. "So good to see you again!"
"And you," I told the tiny blond woman reluctantly. "Allow me to introduce Ammik… du Michelov?" He hadn't given me a surname, and since Wraiths don't have names, I figured that he had made his up.
He considered for a moment, and then he nodded. "Yeah, and Morrick? Could we maybe take these cuffs off?"
I looked over at Doctor Galintha. "We're in her care. Ask her."
"I don't care," she said. "Liera, release the prisoner from his bonds." The cuffs fell from his wrists, and he nodded at the doctor.
"Thank you."
"Now, Doctor, I'm fully vaccinated, so you shouldn't need to use any -"
"Oh, yes, that's what I've forgotten! The blood samples," she said, and then the words I loathed most, "Morrick, your clothes?"
"I hate you," I muttered as I went off into my room. "I really, really hate you."
"Ammik, you can just wait in here," she said sweetly. He had a horrified look on his face. It was surprisingly similar to my own first expression at hearing Doctor Galintha's manner of dealing with her patients. "Go, go on, into the nice little room."
Yep. He was going to hate her.
---
"So, Morrick, how are you feeling today?" Doctor Edemar, the mustachioed brain-specialist extraordinaire, asked me casually.
"You can't prove a thing," I replied heatedly.
"Ah, still been practicing, I see." He was referring to my innate anti-subversive self-defense mechanism. Whatever that meant. He had told me to be more vehement and had given me some ideas to work with. Well, he deserves what he gets, then.
"You can't prove it! Maniacal laughter," I said cheerfully.
"You're supposed to actually laugh, not just say 'maniacal laughter', idiot boy," he told me.
"I believe that you calling me an idiot is supremely unjust and misapplied. Everyone knows I'm a -"
"Idiot girl?" he asked.
"No. I am merely silly."
"Aha. That explains a lot. Now, if you could please repeat that last statement into the microphone…" He twiddled with his moustache. "Morrick, I saw you not three months ago. Why ever are you back early?"
"Because I can't bloody well do much if I've been conditioned, now can I?" I asked peevishly. I began pacing.
"Pacing is bad for the nerves," he said.
"Who cares?" I asked blithely.
"I do, as I was referring to my own nerves. Now stop it and sit down. What makes you think you've been conditioned?"
"The fact that someone else remembers things that I should and yet don't. That usually means that someone's been conditioned." I looked around the room. "You really should get a different interior decorator. Who could do this to a room? I mean, really, goats?"
"One, my wife, and two, I like goats. Morrick, I think I know your problem."
"Which one?" I asked. "I have a lot of them."
"You have ADHD, Morrick," Doctor Edemar said gravely.
"You mean Attention Deficit Hyperactivity - Ooh, look at the cute wittow goatie-woatie!" I said in my best 'adorable yuppie' voice.
"See, Morrick! You can't concentrate on anything. You haven't been conditioned, you're just ill!"
"Or, they're using this as a distracter to keep you from getting to my actual purpose." I continued to look at the goat-themed statuaries. They were absolutely adorable and hideous at the same time. Remind me to ask Mrs. Edemar where she got them.
"Or that," he said. "And she got them off intergalactic eBay."
"Oh, cheers," I said.
"You know, I think we might need to have you checked out," Edemar said unhappily. "Well, there goes Battleship with those nurses from Red Dawn," and then he sighed, like I was responsible for getting myself brainwashed.
---
The Devil Chair. A striking figure, possessed of many pointy things. Oh, and demons. It's really a demon trapped in a chair, which means it does its job, but it complains a lot and frequently asks people to kill chickens on it. It also chases me sometimes, but Doctor Galintha had it bolted to the floor, so it has to put a lot of effort into chasing me, and as everyone knows, demons hate expending a lot of effort.
But that doesn't mean I have to enjoy sitting on it.
"Feed mah!" the chair said loudly as I entered the room. "Feed mah da ooman!"
"No!" I shrieked as I tried to climb into Doctor Edemar's arms. It really wouldn't work, as all the doctors aboard the fleet seem to be petite and Edemar is no exception, and I am as I mentioned earlier quite large and muscular. "Anything but this, anything! Start amputating stuff, use lasers, even more needles, but not this!"
"Morrick, your irrational fear of the Devil Chair is quite futile and expends far too much of your psychic energy," Doctor Edemar said, disentangling himself from me. "Perhaps we should have a conference about this fear. Have you ever considered how the Devil Chair feels about your fear of him?"
"I'm be a it, and me likee da fear!" the Devil Chair replied. "Feed mah!"
"See?" I asked. "It wants to eat me."
"Have you ever considered that the Devil Chair has no ingesting orifices?" Doctor Edemar asked me curiously.
"No, it doesn't, but it has lots of sharp things with which to stab me and spill my blood across it," I replied primly. "And I'd thank you not to ever say the word 'orifices' to me in that tone ever again."
He threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Fine!" he practically screamed at me. "We'll use another chair!"
I smiled serenely as the Devil Chair moaned.
---
"So, you got out of having to do the Devil Chair thing, eh?" Ammik asked me, still shaking from his encounter with the thrice-cursed machina inferna.
"Yeah, you'll get the hang of it eventually. You just have to get the right balance of logic and expertise with tantrum-throwing." I sipped a blue, fizzy drink. "So, how bad was it?"
"Awful. He said -"
"The Devil Chair is an it," I reminded him.
"I'm talking about the doctor, Eddie or whoever he is. The one with the freaky moustache. He said that I wasn't going to be able to know the results until after the dude with the name that sounds like an Australian bear gets through reading them and yours and makes a decision."
"His name's Kou'al. So, we should be hearing from him in a little while. Hey, how do you know what an Australian bear is?" I asked suspiciously.
"I feed off of psychic emissions," he said. "It's either this or the hand-sucky thing, until I figure something else out."
"Yeah, go with the emissions," I said uncomfortably. "If you go back to the hand thing, I won't be able to hang out with you any more. Pride and self-preservation thing, if you get what I'm saying."
"I got ya," he said. "So, how many times have you been conditioned?" he asked lowly.
"Eighty-seven and a half," I said morosely.
"Oh," he said. He then edged away from me almost imperceptibly. Almost.
"Oh, what's that for?" I asked, hurt.
"'Cause, Everin always said that crazy was contagious."
"Well, you want to go look at Everin's hand and see where his ideas got him?" I asked scathingly. Really, I'm normally not this hormonal. It's the conditioning.
"Sure. Why not?" he said, casually flipping his hair back, damn him. I wish my hair would straighten decently. Stupid, sucky, gorgeous, curly hair. Wah. "I'd been meaning to ask you about that anyway."
"Well let's go on then. Kou'al will probably find us there, in any event."
And go we did. Straight to Kou'al and Turi Shepherd's trophy room. Now, the first thing you have to know about Kou'al and Turi is that they're as different as fire and… not water, but maybe earth. Turi was from the town that was southwest of my own dear Raydenville, a small yet modern village by the Amityville lake. Kou'al, when hunting Everin Michelov, was injured, and Turi helped him. Later that night, when he had finally bagged the scientist, Kou'al found Turi, killed her abusive foster brother, and brought her to space with him. Later, rather than accept the credit from Michelov's bounty, he demanded that the other scientists splice Turi with a new genetic makeup. He chose the traits he believed would allow her to survive the longest, and despite the fact that she was mad at him for a while for giving her a tail, things worked out pretty well. Now they're pirates. And possibly lovers, but I'm not going to try to find that out. I don't want to be blinded.
As I told Ammik all of this, his eyes became huge and his jaw hung open for a moment until I told him that baby dragons might mistake all his sharp teeth for spires and decide to nest in his mouth. He looked at me oddly. "But dragons don't exist," he said suspiciously.
"Fine. We'll go to the engine room and you can meet Dhralar, Dark Glory's energy dragon. He's quite nice, actually." I looked at Ammik again. "What'd I just tell you about the baby dragons?"
"You're crazy," he finally said. "And Master was right, crazy is contagious, 'cause I actually believe you."
"Yay!" I said and did a little happy dance, right there in the hall.
"Wow," he said when we got to the trophy room. "It's very…"
"Don't bother trying to put an adjective with it. I've tried. All it'll take is that one, itty-bitty adverb: very." I went ahead and strode jauntily in, mindful not to step on any of the various bones that had been thrown on the floor.
"Why's it so messy?" he asked.
"Their son, Mart'am," I said simply. "They adopted him, which means killed his parents and stole him from his clan's Elders. Now, since the both of them are too young to know anything about discipline, he runs wild."
"Ah. Will I ever meet him?" Ammik asked.
"I hope not. He's on another ship at the moment, terrorizing them instead of us." I looked at the various Crayon sketches of battles, desperate moments, and packs of weenies being thrown at Kou'al. (I was there when that happened; it'll come up later, don't worry.) Soon, I found the one made like manga, with lots of small divisions and everything drawn anime-style: Turi's work, surely. Kou'al and Turi separate, then together with Turi helping him with his injury, and then with Kou'al battling Michelov and triumphing, and then with Turi thrown over Kou'al's shoulder and him dragging Michelov as they all headed back to his ship. Below it, in an airtight case, was an ugly, bony, oily-looking, black hand with startling white claws a foot long with Kou'al's bright green blood still glowing on them.
"This is it," I said cheerfully.
Ammik came and stood beside me. "Oh," he said softly. "It -" He swallowed hard. "It's really a hand."
"Naw, it's an ear!" I said, laughing. I patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, don't feel bad just because he got his hand cut off. He had it coming, from what little information I'm able to pry out of our leaders when they're drunk. Which isn't often."
"It isn't that," he said. He was turning green again. He was making a face similar to the one I make when someone hits me and it hurts but I'm not mad at them at the moment, I'm just worried about whether I'm going to have to have anything realigned. "It's just… He'd have had to go through so many splices, so many reconfigurations, so many -"
"And all those scrambled his brain, and he ended up not paying any attention to what he turned himself into, and he ended up like that," I gestured to the cartoon, "and Kou'al was sent to hunt him down." Again, I patted him on the shoulder. "If you don't cheer up, I will be forced to hug you," I said solemnly.
He forced a smile onto his face, which was scary, as there were a lot of teeth. In fact, I don't really think it was a smile. I removed my hand from his shoulder and stepped away a few paces.
Liera's voice came over the intercom, breaking our smile-induced awkward silence. "Would Junior Commander Morrick Evans and Guest Ammik du Michelov please report to Captain Kou'al du Ra'Kesh's quarters?"
"We're up," I said uneasily. "Look, if it's bad, I can make sure we get exiled somewhere nice."
"We won't be exiled," he said slowly. "I think we'll be executed."
I gasped. "Oh, man, can you tell? Is it that psychic emissions thing? Does that even work over the intercom, because I've read about psychic vampires being able to do their thing over the phone, but I'm not sure it would work unless Liera was somehow sending Kou'al's intent over the waves too, and that's kind of freaky since she's just an AI," and I would have gone on, but Ammik laughed, so I wanted to know why he would laugh at possibly being executed.
"Dude, I was messing with you!" he said, still chuckling.
I thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, but can you tell…?"
"No, dammit!" he said. "Come on, let's go."
And we went.
---
"Morrick, I loathe and detest having to read about any fantasy that begins with, 'I am alone, with my sheep. But my sheep are not alone with me'," Kou'al said, clacking irritably. His little mouth-claw thingies were moving, never a good sign. "And you!" he shouted at Ammik. "What kind of idiot would think Elizabeth Warner is attractive?"
I made to raise my hand and then thought better of it, since my feelings have since changed. I gave Ammik a thumbs up, though, and a nod.
"Well, would you rather have me thinking you're attractive?" he asked, boldly timid.
"And would you have my fantasies start out with, "I am alone with Kou'al. But Kou'al isn't alone with me'," I asked, wiggling my eyebrows in what I'm sure is a suggestive manner.
In response, Kou'al aimed a laser at the both of us. It was a big laser. I became scared. So did Ammik, I think, since I don't think under any normal circumstances he would leap into my arms. "Enough silliness," Kou'al said. "The bad news is, you've both been conditioned quite badly."
"Badly style-wise or thoroughness-wise?" Ammik asked.
"Both," Kou'al said. "The good news is -"
"He just saved a bunch of credit on the fleet's insurance," Turi said, turning around in her chair so we could see her, all six foot seven of her, long black hair, white skin, green eyes, red lips, long, xenomorphic tail and all.
"Turn around and don't talk," Kou'al commanded her.
She did turn, but she also said, "One day I'm gonna go Lady Godiva on your ass, you know that?"
"I know, and that's one of the many reasons I love you, but shut up for now, please. Now, the good news is that once we found out about it, your conditioning dissipated. And, we also got a lot of good information about K'ata's kidnappers from Ammik's memories. And, we know how to cure Micosucci and Liz."
Ammik and I leapt up and down whilst hugging one another. Then, as we realized that both Turi and Kou'al were watching us, we parted uncomfortably, me pink and him green. "So, why don't we have K'ata back and Liz and Micosucci roaming about?" I asked.
"Well, that's the problem. The kidnappers have the weird-twins' cure, and we don't yet know where the kidnappers are," Turi said. "But we do know who they are."
"Who!" Ammik and I asked in unison.
"Us," Kou'al said, grieved.
---
A/N: Can I leave a cliffhanger, or what? Yes, I know, I'm awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And the weenie story will come soon enough. And no jokes about it already being here, as this is not the weenie story and there are no weenies in this story. Wait, let me rephrase that…
So, what do you think? Do you like it? Is it funny, profound, interesting, what? Review, okay? Reviewing is good for the soul. Reviewing will make your hair grow back. Reviewing will help you get a tan. Reviewing is fat-free. Reviewing is high in antioxidants. Reviewing is CFC-free and every time you review, you help save the rain forest. Pregnant women should review, as fetuses have shown a higher mental ability rate when their mothers reviewed than when they didn't. And, most importantly, reviewing will make you stop smoking. Cheers!
May 23, 2006
