May 23, 2006

Disclaimer: This pretty polyester kitty can't even tie her shoes, so why are you people always accusing her of owning something?

---

I spun around in my chair. I don't know why, but spinning makes me feel better. Maybe my mother did it when she was carrying me.

"Morrick, I don't like this," Ammik whined. He was referring to both the situation and his suit. "It's uncool and heavy and it feels a lot like wool."

I stared at him.

"Alright, let me rephrase that. The situation is uncool and wooly, while this suit is heavy. Happy now?" he asked testily. I continued to stare at him.

"Morrick, you're scaring the noobie," my girlfriend and second in command, Rachel Houston, chastised me. "He can't be expected to know the rules of telepathy yet."

"Alright," I said finally. "Here are the rules. One, no one uses telepathy while working. Two, no one uses telepathy anywhere else. Three, if you do use it, I'll stun you and have you put in a life pod for the duration of the mission. Clear?"

I received a lot of "Yes, Captains" and "Si, Commodores" and "You got thats" from the various crewmembers present. Ammik gulped and nodded.

"So," I said a little more gently, "You have to be clear with what you say."

"I still don't like it." He spun around in his chair.

---

The reason people were being afraid of me and calling me captain was that we were on a mission. And that mission was a result of Turi and Kou'al's decision regarding K'ata's missing state, Liz's instability, and Micosucci's mental absence.

"We need you to find her kidnappers," Kou'al said. "We have the coordinates, since we did it."

"I don't understand!" I shouted at him. "How can you have done it? The Yautja I saw wasn't you or anyone I know."

"Exactly. He's Kou'al, only from Kou'al's mind, and it's not one of the pleasant parts of his mind, either." Turi looked at Ammik, who was green again. "Why are you green?"

"I have no idea," he said. "Improved blood circulation?" Turi gave him a dubious look. "What? Really, I don't know!"

"Alright," she said, still not believing him. "Morrick, I want you to take Ammik, the girls, and a skeleton crew to the coordinates and work on breaking the firewalls and wards and whatever else they might have waiting for you. Do not seek confrontation, do not seek conversation. If they hail you, do not respond. If they fire on you, which is unlikely, get the hell out of there."

So I did what they told me. And here we were, with Ammik whining about the uniforms I'd assigned, Rachel admonishing me, and the crew being yes-men. It was going to be a lovely mission.

---

I lay in my bed, looking out the little, round window. We were going through one of those enormous, nebulous clouds. This one was composed of myriad shades of blue, my favorite color. Just looking at it cheered me greatly.

Rachel's presence beside me cheered me also. We had been close since my first day aboard Dark Glory, when Rachel had stood beside me as we watched Liz and Commander Diablo get down and funky with it. Now, we contented ourselves by living together.

My influence on our quarters was an abundance of crocheted doilies. Hers was an abundance of large and mildly frightening weaponry sitting on the doilies. Absurd, yes, but my life has been filled with absurdity since my eleventh summer.

Speaking of absurd, I could grow to hate her obsession with filmy nightgowns. The age of consent in the fleet was sixteen. Rachel had only just turned fifteen. So, I had two choices: surrender and be blackmailed, or persevere and be miserable. Since a captain cannot risk being blackmailed, and a captain is what I hope to be, I had to be miserable.

"I'm getting you flannel for the next holiday," I growled.

"The next holiday is three weeks away," she reminded me archly. "I've got pajamas a lot more translucent than this."

"Do it and die," I said through clenched teeth. "Why do you always have to play the jailbait?"

"'Cause it's fun," she said, laughing. "Come on, you're not that badly affected."

"Depends on what you call affected."

"Oh," she said, mildly shocked. "Flannel it is, then."

"Thank you," I said, relieved, but knowing that I'd have to go through this same thing the next time I sought my bed. Rachel had found that she could fake amnesia and get away with it, if only she managed to stick to her story.

A few moments later, she stepped lightly back into the room and turned around a few times. "Less affecting?" she asked.

That depended. Rachel was attractive no matter what she wore. With her dark brown hair cut short and allowed to curl wildly, her light, creamy skin, huge, dramatic, blue eyes, and soft, pink, smiling mouth, with her graceful movements and just the right amount of meat on bones - I detest overly thin women - she was my idea of perfection. Add that to the fact that she was witty, sweet, a genius, and a dog person, and you have my soul mate.

Of course, I'm not going to tell her this until she's safely beyond her sixteenth birthday, as she would be insufferable if I told her earlier.

"You may reenter the nap-zone," I said sleepily. She bounced on the bed a few times and then settled back into my arms.

"Sleep well, Morrick," she whispered. And if a whisper can be knowing, I'd swear hers was.

---

I sat in my captain's chair, an enormous contraption at the center on the bridge, surrounded by my crew, which consisted of four of the best scan, traj, pilot, and data configuration officers at Kou'al's disposal. If we needed weapons or communication, I'd step into one of those, and if under some strange circumstance we might need both, the pilot was well trained enough to live without traj. They worked in eight hour shifts, with Rachel as the late shift commander and Ammik as the graveyard shift commander.

Now, we just have to hope nothing happens in the graveyard shift. Or the late shift. See, I'm a good captain.

"Data, what's the matter?" I asked, seeing the dark woman at that post shift uncomfortably.

"Not used to this kind of mission, captain," she replied.

"Well, Anjour, let me tell you something," I said coolly. "The reason you aren't used to this kind of mission is because Kou'al keeps us all safe. And, he keeps me and mine in deep space, so you aren't used to being commanded by a kid. However, am I dead yet?"

"No, captain," she responded.

"Am I dead yet?" I asked the other crew members. They all responded negatively. "Well, I think I'm doing a good job, then." I settled back into my chair. I hated being a young captain. I wanted to be like Captain Picard, only with hair, and without the French accent and Borg ex.

Why is it that I'm always made to feel like the lady captain from Voyager, then? I growled discontentedly to myself.

When the chronometer finished with my eight hours, I headed to the galley, on this ship consisting of tables, chairs, and a computer equipped with a matter-energy converter… thing. It, like most everything else in space, is powered by the dragon in the engine room.

What, you thought I was joking when I told Ammik about the dragons? Please. Dragons are a source of infallible energy, and, wings having long since become inoperative or crippled in battles, they are completely willing to be toted around through the universe. Or, in our case, multiverse, since we have a particularly gifted dragon on Dark Glory who supplies the entire fleet with power.

Back to the question of foodstuffs. I like pies. Unfortunately, the computer doesn't, and this leads to a lively debate most days. However, I was tired, so I settled for a high protein, high carbohydrate… thingy. Oh, sure, it looked like food, but still. In no part of the multiverse should leafy greens taste like chicken.

I piddled around in the galley for about half an hour, looking at the vast multitude of soup selections for no real reason that I knew of, and then grew incredibly bored. I felt a distinct need to go visit Ammik.

---

You thought I was going to go visit Ammik, didn't you? Wrong, ha ha! I went to visit Liz.

She sat in a recliner, edgy as ever, and occasionally tossing dirty looks at the two guards at her door-thing. There wasn't really a door in sight: it was the brig. You don't leave naughty people with doors! Of course, Liz had been quite decent, but given the fact that not only had she not been scanned, but also that she was now a Wraith, a nasty species even on a good day, and she knew this and her human side won through anyway. My Liz.

I had decided to keep her lightly sedated, which calmed her down enough as to not be maniacal. Whenever we burned the engines, which messed with the gravity, or changed course, which was done by a mix of internal spin and thrusters and therefore screwed up the gravity for a moment, or just messed with the gravity for the fun of it, Liz got gap sick, but not as badly so as most. Currently, we weren't messing with it, so she was relatively calm, but a large, teal bruise dominated the right side of her face, from a previous maneuver.

She had changed clothes, since leather never really was her style and that's what Wraiths wore most of the time. Now she wore a soft-looking white gown. It gave her an austere, authoritative presence, which she belied by sticking her tongue out at me when I asked the guards to lower the force field on her archway.

I stepped into the room and the guard threw the field back up. I ignored this and focused on Liz. Her eyes, icy blue when she had been human, hadn't changed. She smiled weakly at me and gestured to a chair close by. I seated myself and asked about her bruise.

"Ah, well," she said, wincing. "No gravity, so I floated up, and then, suddenly, gravity returned." She glared at me.

"I told you to wear mag-lock boots or shoes or something." I rose and went over to the wall console.

"I think that thing's broke," she said dubiously. "And I don't like footwear anymore. I have pretty feet now." She held up a foot for me to inspect. They were kind of pretty, I have to admit.

"I'm getting something for that bruise. Makes me hurt just looking at you." I typed in my code and ordered one of the odd chemical salves Doctor Galintha insisted upon when needles helped nothing. The one I ordered just happened to be pink.

"You are an evil manling," she told me through clenched teeth.

"Don't I know it," I chuckled. "Hold still, this stuff tingles really badly." I knew from experience. Liz was very still, and as the stuff was absorbed into the bruise, its color improved remarkably. Now it was slightly green.

"So, are we there yet?" she asked. "I'm really bored."

"Well, we could always play strip knitting, like they did on Red Dwarf," I suggested cheerfully.

"I never saw that one!" she protested.

"I know, it didn't happen. They knitted, but they didn't strip. The other I got from that episode of Friends where they're at the beach and Joey's the sand mermaid and he… I trust by that evil laugh you remember the one I'm talking about."

"Oh, that one," she said, chortling. "Pervert." She sighed. "I miss poker."

"Want me to go get Ammik and whoever else who's cool with us and play a bit?" I asked sweetly.

"There's poker in space?" she asked disbelievingly. "It isn't kitten poker, is it?"

"No!" I said, laughing. "Oh, gods, I'd nearly forgotten about that. Remember, you liked Spike and I liked Dru, or you liked Xander and I liked Anya, one of those, anyway. They cancelled Buffy," I added as a sad after note.

"Dude, they cancelled that before we left Earth. Never mind about the poker," she said. "The gravity's going all wonky again."

Needless to say, I departed hastily.

---

Then I went to bug Ammik.

He was reading a tablet by his porthole. He set it aside and looked at me warily. "Morrick."

"Ammik," I said cordially. "Old chum, do they have liquor where you come from?"

"No, and no, I'm not coming with you for a night of carousing." He looked me up and down. "You've been to see Liz, haven't you?"

"Why?" I asked. "Did she graffiti me?"

"No," he said, adapting a far-away look, "I smell her on you. Along with bruise-salve."

"I bet you can't guess what I had for din-din, though?" I mocked gently.

"Chicken."

"You think so too? 'Twas leafy greens, though! And yes, I visited Liz. Not too keen on the brig at the moment. I think we need to establish a ship-wide poker night."

"And she already told you no," Ammik said, face as bland as it could be. "Morrick, I feel strange."

"Had the leafies too, didn't you?" I asked knowingly.

"Shut up about the leafy greens!" he practically screamed at me. "I'm in love with your female!"

"Rachel?" I asked. "You've barely been in the same room with her half an hour, and you're in love with her?"

"Not her," Ammik whined miserably. "Elizabeth." He gave me such a doleful look that I had to laugh.

"My woman? My woman? Oh," I managed through laughing tears, "you clever, clever thing you!" I slapped my knees as I fought for oxygen, since all the laughing wasn't letting me breathe. "You are an idiot!"

"Morrick, I'm serious! I love her!" he said, raising his green hands to cover his greener face.

"Dude, do what you want," I said as I wiped away my tears. "Court her, play for her attentions, ravish her in a dimly lit hallway, I don't give a damn. We've broken up, remember?" I picked up his tablet and examined the writing on it. "'The starry blue of her eyes burns like a fire in my heart/My sparkle of life will fall if we must part'?"

He snatched it away from me. "None of your business," he snapped.

"It is my business if you start writing morbid poetry and listening to Wagner on a sub-audible level," I retorted.

"'Tisn't Wagner. It's the Bloodhound Gang," he said argumentatively.

"Whatever. You don't need to be listening to anything that has final lyrics consisting of 'Put the you-know-what in the you-know where', and that's my opinion as captain."

"But it's funny!" he whined.

"So's PANIC! At the Disco, matey, and you don't catch me white-noising them, do you?" I asked cannily. White noise is a sub-audible "brrr" sound that addicts like to play when they can't get drugs. It's soothing plain, and when a song or message is played with it, the listener will find themselves subliminally affected.

"Ya reckon there are rednecks in space?" he asked suddenly.

"Stop with the white noise, dude." I was promptly ignored as he resumed his writing. "Liera, put current track on an audible level."

"'Jeff Gordon is gay… Jeff Gordon is gay…" hummed the speakers.

I merely laughed. "Imbecile. It's your own fault if you go crazy," I said, shaking my head.

---

I then went to mine and Rachel's rooms. I had two choices: sleep, which I wasn't really ready for yet, or clean the suite, which I really didn't want to do.

I cleaned. Honestly, how is it possible for two people to mess up a bathroom to the point of near uselessness? The floor was covered entirely with bath salts. Not mine, I assure you, since they were strawberry-scented, and I use only vanilla or sage oils. Oh well. I'd find some way to get Rachel.

Cleaning is very tiring, I found. When the entire suite was spotless, clothing put away and ornamental things polished, I went off and collapsed in the bed and had the following dream.

"Morrick?" K'ata asked me.

Huh? I thought to myself. This is freaky

"Morrick, I need you to listen very carefully." Her tone was urgent. "There are mines hidden in your path. If you don't change direction right now, you're going to die."

What's new? I thought glumly. I'm going to die of boredom without you around to make me go on missions

"Morrick, wake up and alter course!"

And so I did. To follow orders from one's superiors is, in space, an instinct deeper rooted than even the will to live.

---

"I don't get it," Rachel muttered. "I know you hairy lot are telepaths and all, but dream communication? Seems a bit far-fetched to me, Morrick."

"I'm telling you, it's true. Stop the ship and send a probe if you don't believe me, which you should anyway, since I'm the captain for this mission and I'm only being nice and not pulling rank on you because I like you." I emulated a chicken ruffling its feathers.

"Better safe that sorry," Rachel's scan, a short, plucky redhead named Kevin, said brightly. "Shall I?" he asked, finger hovering over the button that would deploy a highly sensitive probe into my "minefield".

Rachel sighed and shook her head. "Mutinous, hairy lot, you are. Fire the probe, Mr. Larse." And so he did. About five kilometers away from us, it blew up.

I blinked several times. Finally, after much deliberation, I turned to Rachel and said, "Told ya so." She slapped me and told me to shut up. "Now who's the mutinous, hairy one?" I asked gloatingly as I rubbed the pain from my arm.

"Fine, you were right about the mines. Any chance K'ata told you how to get past them?" she snapped waspishly.

"Yeah. Alter course," I said simply.

"But to where, idiot?" she asked, exasperated. I gave her a cold look. "Okay, fine, captain. Happy now?"

"No. Who besides Vinny from the Atlantis movies would be happy beside a minefield?" I asked logically. "And no, she just told me to alter course or we'd die."

"Great!" Rachel said sarcastically. "Larse, deploy more probes. Find us a clear space and we'll go from there."

"Hey, at least we aren't dead," I said optimistically. I was awarded with a good slap upside the head. "Oww."

---

About an hour later, when Rachel and her crew were supposed to be off and Ammik and his group were supposed to be on, everyone came to the bridge. The entire crew. Even the little dragonet from the engines watched over her own little screen, since she couldn't leave. Bet you're wondering what everyone was watching, aren't you? I'll give you a hint, it didn't involve me and Rachel mud wrestling in front of the captain's chair.

Got it yet? No. Oh, alright, a moment more. I twiddle my thumbs at your slowness. Ready for it?

We found K'ata's planet! It had been there the whole time, cloaked. Well, really it wasn't a planet but a ship with a bio-bubble around it, full of verdant life, atmospheric air and stuff, bodies of water, etc., all the things you'd find on a planet.

Kevin Larse, Rachel, a girl named Lanna and another named Mehkt, and a boy with a long, furry, twitching tail worked diligently to knock down the various firewalls and wards around the planet-ship. (Before you go wondering where the older people are, I may as well warn you not to. There are enough ways to enhance either youth or knowledge that everyone in space seems to be in their late teens or early twenties, except the Yoda-esque, omniscient people.)

"Who are you?" I asked the one with the tail.

He glanced at me with bright yellow eyes. "A monkey," he said as he typed. I noticed that the backs of his hands and fingers were slightly furry. I figured he was the result of one of those rare mammal to mammal splices. "I go by Tucker," he added.

"Tucker," I said in confirmation. He nodded absently. If I remembered correctly, he was the traj man on Ammik's shift. Oh well. It's space. You're bound to find some weird stuff.

"You know," said Mehkt in her strangely accented voice, "we don't need an audience."

"Yeah," Rachel agreed. "Go visit Miranna. The dragon?" she said through clenched teeth when no one complied.

"Everyone, to the dragon!" I said, not intending to follow. I snagged Ammik as he reluctantly followed the rest. "You're not everyone," I told him. "You're technically a commander. As a commander myself, I'll address you personally, remember." I seated myself in the captain's chair and pointed Ammik to the second in command chair to the right of mine. He sat and gave it an experimental spin. I grinned and joined him.

"Idiots," Rachel muttered.

I ignored her and asked him how the you-know-what you-know-where song was going for him. He turned green and mumbled something along the lines of "I did what you said" and started spinning faster.

"Ooh la la, ooh la la," I crooned. "Foxtrot -"

"Quit it!" he said, clearly disturbed. "Don't make me quote Shakespeare!"

"Do it," I taunted. "Bet you can't, thou smelliest son of a peasant dog's meal."

"Whatever that means," Rachel interrupted testily. "Shut up."

"'Thy mother was a hamster and thy father smalls of elderberries,'" Ammik quoted.

I gave him a confused look. "That's Monty Python, dumbass."

"Eat me," he said sourly. "No one on board knows Shakespeare."

"I said shut up!" she shouted. "We're trying to work here. Do something useful, like contact Dark Glory and tell them we've found the planet."

"Chilly woman," I said, pretending to shiver and going brrr. "C'mon, Ammik, it's like Antarctica in here."

"What's an Antarctica?" he asked, perplexed.

---

Having sent a message to Dark Glory on a wide bandwidth, coded, of course, as a telemarketing scheme involving cheese, Ammik and I repaired to the galley where I showed him the leafy greens that tasted of chicken.

"That's just wrong!" he said, munching contentedly on a large, fresh leaf. "It defies nature!"

"Doesn't it though?" I asked cheerfully. "I wonder if you can get other flavors into the leaves."

"Think of how happy the vegetarians will be," Ammik said dreamily. "Meat-tasting rabbit food."

"Uh oh," I said stiffly. "I think I know what's going on."

"What?" Ammik asked, sudden rapt attention transforming his pale face.

"Someone on board is training rodent-like creatures to be…" I paused for dramatic effect.

"What, what?" Ammik pestered me.

"Carnivorous!" I announced loudly.

"Not really," a soft, female voice said close to my ear. I jumped and found a hovering spy robot. It's screen showed Miranna's avatar, a delicate red dragon face surrounded by pink jewels. "I fancied a salad one day and liked the texture but not the taste. Thus, the new thing. I figured I'd unleash it on you people to see if you'd find it palatable, too."

"Oh," Ammik and I said at the same time. "That's creepy," we said at one another in unison.

"Yes, it is," Miranna agreed with one of her growling chuckles. "Do stop it, though," she added on a serious note. "People will think you two are as wacky as the Devil Chair."

"Where!" I shrieked, leaping into Ammik's arms. I might have succeeded, had he not done the exact same thing as I did. So the new situation was Ammik and me on the floor with the bot hovering over the both of us. "Oww," I said, rubbing my elbow. "You know, I don't see the point of jumping into someone's arms. Why do I do it?"

"You've watched too many cartoons," Ammik informed me dryly. He was nursing his thin, bony wrist. "Subconsciously, you want to be Scooby, which would make me a hippie."

"Hippie!" I said gleefully, missing my sister Claudia for the first time in over a year. I always tormented her by calling her "hippie" whenever I spoke to her, back before I left Earth. "Why do you do it, then?"

"I'm emulating you," he said simply, raising one eyebrow in the same fashion I usually did. I shrank away, mildly terrified. Mildly.

"Uh, why?" I asked, perturbed.

"Dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time." He grinned at me. "I'm creeping you out, aren't I?"

"A bit," I lied aloofly. "Miranna, what do you do for fun?"

"Umm…" she thought for a moment. "Melt things?"

"And?"

"Poke said melted things?"

"And?"

"Throw said melted things around the engine room until I get bored or tired?" she tried dubiously.

"Okay," Ammik said, getting the picture as I smacked myself repeatedly on the forehead with the heel of my hand. "What do you do for fun that we could and would do too?"

"Umm…" she thought. And thought. And thought. And finally said, "Mess with that Micosucci person's crystal?" Seeing Ammik's face fall, she amended, "Look at it, I mean. It's locked, so I can't change anything, but I can look all I want. Real piece of work, that girl."

I poked the spy bot. "That's his fiancée you're talking about going through." I looked earnestly into the camera.

"Your face is like a llama's face," Miranna said truthfully. "There's some interesting stuff in there though. It's fun!" The bot moved a meter or two away and turned to us. "Come on, if you're bored."

---

We were bored and we're both pathological weaklings. And nosy; Ammik insists on the nosy bit. We went off to the engine room, mincing our way through the gold, sliver, copper, and jewels strewn about the room. Even a ship dragon likes to hoard shiny stuff. Eventually we found the hub: not the engines, as a noobie would think, but instead a nest with wires rigged to it for collecting the energy Miranna exuded every moment of her existence.

Dragons, large and small, ooze pure, raw energy. Some many years ago this was realized and then acknowledged as the cause for all the raging and maiden eating: all the power drove them crazy. Some trained themselves, but they were still at risk. Most agreed to some form of siphoning or another, and now they're used in most ships, along with the traditional power plants and museum guards. (In the museum they guard physically as well as throwing up large, dome-like, glittering shields. They're very pretty from a distance, but if one gets too close, one's hair may start to sizzle.) All dragons are treated with respect, since everyone knows they don't mind human flesh as a change of pace, and then there's the whole "ability to electrocute with a thought" thing. Of course, dragons are usually logical and interesting to speak to, so people are very rarely rude to them.

I bowed to Miranna as I approached her nest. Ammik followed my example. "Sillies," she said, chuckling cheerfully. "And thank you for sending the crew down. Rachel's usually the only one who visits me." I could see why. Heart-Light wasn't an oft-used ship, but Miranna preferred it to any other place in the fleet.

"Oh, yeah. You're welcome." I'd forgotten about that bit, but I wasn't about to admit it. "So, let's go through Ammik's fiancée's mind."

"Mmkay. Oh, but first, I thought I'd like to let you know about this." With her dainty paw she manipulated the projection to show…

K'ata, talking to Micosucci.

My jaw dropped open and Miranna flashed me one of those strange dragon smiles. "Thought you'd like that, Captain Morrick."

---

A/N: He he. I'm good, ain't I? A note on the songs: I don't own any of them, I was listening to them and others as I wrote, and I can neither confirm nor deny the fact that Jeff Gordon is or is not gay, as Cletus T. Judd supposes he is. (I just think he's a bit poofish. But then, I think a lot of things.)

Again, please review. Reviewing will -! Never mind what reviewing will do. The power shut off right when I was fixing to write that. Just review.

And also, I have a beta-reader: Thank you, Nanny Robin! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

June 7, 2006