June 7, 2006
Disclaimer: I wonder when the makers of Power Rangers will get over their chauvinism and make a girl the Red Ranger. Sigh. Like I don't own anything else, I won't own that.
---
My dog hates me. My full name is Morrick Lawrence Evans. Got that? Okay, so I, in a burst of overwhelming, megalomaniacal egotism, named my enormous, white, shaggy wolf-dog Lawrence. Now, he didn't mind that until K'ata came to live with me and her telepathy rubbed off on him. Most animals regard humanity with utter contempt, but my dog… My dog loathes me.
They say familiarity breeds contempt. They lie. Familiarity breeds saran wrap covering my entire apartment. Kou'al sent me a depiction of the grievous plastic damage before we returned. And how a creature with no opposable thumbs managed this vile act, I have no idea.
When the fleet came to help us get into the enemy Yautja's planet, Heart-Light did something very unusual for a relatively small cruiser: she docked. Miranna told us that the ship was evicting us, as she had to do some "diagnostics". Sometimes I think dragons are like Popes: they say they're in contact with important people, but really, they're just winging it.
So, since we really had nothing better to do, we all returned to Dark Glory to do our paperwork and file our reports and, in mine, Ammik, and Rachel's cases, report directly to Kou'al. That's the punishment you get for having the nerve to say you wanted to command.
Now we all sat in Kou'al's office, Ammik biting his nails, Rachel staring off into space - literally; there was a window - and me mulling over the various punishments I could inflict upon my dog to get him back for the various sundry tricks he's played on me, and yet not be apprehended by the Animal Cruelty Prevention Agency. Maybe I could dye him pink again.
"Morrick?" Kou'al asked.
"Huh -" I stopped myself. "Err, yes, sir?"
"'Huh' would have worked too, you know. I'm not a stodgy old coot yet." He chittered, annoyed. "So, Micosucci has memories of K'ata."
"Yes," I established. "We place the memory sometime a few months ago. They were discussing an Earth television show called Name That Fruit. I believe K'ata was informing Micosucci of the highly confusing similarities between grapes and plums."
"Shut up, Morrick." Kou'al had leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. "One, I don't care about what they were discussing. All that matters is the fact that she knew something of K'ata. Two, Doctor Galintha has figured out a way to reactivate Micosucci's mind. She will tell us the secrets of this planet-ship."
"I vote we -" Turi began, but was rudely cut off by Kou'al.
"We are not going to blow it up," he growled.
"I wasn't going to say that!" she shouted at him. "Men! You always think you know what everyone else is thinking."
"That's because I DO! And it's a pain, I assure you," he said with a pointed twitch of his mandibles towards me.
"Well, Your Majesty, you'll find that you're mistaken. You don't know what I'm thinking any more than I know what you're thinking, so just quit with the whole 'Turi's ideas are crap so we're not even going to let her tell 'em' a'ight?" She glared at him for a moment and then glared at me and Ammik. "If you two end up like him, I'll kill you both."
"Yes, Mother Superior," I almost said, but then thought better of it, as I really didn't want to be a eunuch. A nod was all Ammik and I deemed necessary.
"So, I vote we infiltrate the bubble and confront the enemy. Kou'al's other self, I mean."
"I'm the only one that can confront him, dummy. I'm the only one that can see him." Kou'al began tapping his fingers on the desk.
"Hey, I saw him," I interjected helpfully, not thinking that since Kou'al and Turi meant "fight" when they said "confront", I might have to "confront" Dark Kou'al. "No, wait! No, I didn't see him. I was just joking. These things Eddie are making me do for my nerves, ha ha."
"Thank you for volunteering, Morrick," Turi said, cheerier now. "I'm glad you're not too bright. Tell me, have you ever sparred with Kou'al?"
"No, and I don't want to," I said, shuddering. "He fights dirtier than me."
"Do not!" he denied, looking away. "'Sides, it'd be below even my honor to fight someone as weak as you."
"Why you -! That's it, you and me, right here, right now!" I said, leaping out of my chair and up onto the desk. Or that's what I tried to do. Rachel and Ammik each grabbed one of my arms and held me back. "Let me at him!"
"Look, I know you've got a death wish, but we've got real things to attend to," Rachel told me bluntly. I struggled valiantly, but the two of them together were too much for me. "Don't make me use the Poke of Doom."
"That's an urban legend, stupid," Ammik told her. "Naw, I think we need to sedate him and go on without him." I gaped at him, astonished. This, from the guy that wants to be me? But then I saw him wink at Rachel, so I knew he was joking.
"Both of you, let him go," Kou'al said. "I've been challenged. He'll have to fight me now." He didn't look happy about it. Rachel and Ammik released me and Rachel hugged me.
"At your funeral, do you want goats or sheep?" Ammik asked, oblivious to the gravity of the moment.
---
The Ring of Death. An imposing figure, possessed of many pointy things. Oh, and demons. It's really a demon trapped in a -
Woops. Wrong thing that wants to eat me. Sorry. I'll try again.
The Ring of Death. A large battle arena, from which few return unscathed. I stood in awe of the sheer enormousness of the circle painted on the floor, the stains within it, the lurid gleam of the firelight. And that's just the concession stand!
No. Not really. There's no concession stand. Just the really huge, scary circle with all the swirly things painted on and around it. Kou'al was in his "leisure" outfit: Bermuda shorts, sleeveless shirt, and bare feet. He stood over on one side of the circle, examining the ceiling. I looked up too and saw something like a matter cannon; used like a water hose in a dog fight?
We weren't allowed weapons. As the Challenged, Kou'al got to decide that. I guess he knew I'd choose my light saber. I ran different strategies through my mind; Kou'al is much bigger than me, being about eight feet tall and built really well. He's probably fast, too, or at least he's got good reflexes. I, on the other hand, rely on sneakiness.
My outfit consisted of gym shorts, a t-shirt, and, like Kou'al, no shoes. It's better if you can feel the floor when you prepare to attack. We pretended aloofness, but that soon fell through. Aloofness was for show, and an audience of Turi, Rachel, and Ammik doesn't make a show.
Turi approached the center of the circle with a white handkerchief in her hand. "Ready?" she asked us both. He nodded, and I did the same, though I wanted to turn tail and run. "Good." She dropped the hanky and sprang up, to man the cannon, I suppose.
Kou'al didn't move. Neither did I. I watched him carefully, as he did me. I had a slight advantage in the fact that my clothes were a little baggy: slight muscle twitches that could give away my movements were hidden. Then, he took a step forward. A feint, I knew, so I did nothing. Then he leaped. The expectation would be for me to duck, but I did the smart thing and leaped higher.
Coming back down, I tried for a hold around Kou'al's neck. Bad idea: he expected it. He grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the ground, knocking the wind from me for a moment before I bounced back up and feinted tripping him. He jumped back, falling for it, so I snap-kicked him in the neck: I brought up my left knee for a little more height, in this case about four feet, and kicked with my right leg, snapping up my foot at the last moment and knocking his head back. Hence, snap-kick. I knew from experience that it hurt quite badly.
As he fell back he grabbed my ankle and swung me back, slamming me face-first into the floor. I felt blood stream from my nose, and sparks of light covered my sight.
"First Blood goes to Kou'al," Turi announced. Traditionally, one could choose to end a fight at various different bloodings: First, Third, Seventh, etc. It was perfectly legal. However, any dark side of Kou'al's wouldn't stop for bloodings, and both of us knew it. My limits had to be tested if I was going to fight. And really, I was the best choice for that, since Kou'al's mind doesn't always do what he tells it to. And, Ammik had seen Dark Kou'al, so he could be there to back me up. Kou'al rose and I did the same, not wishing to be pummeled.
I feinted again, this time for a blow to the midsection and instead made an attempt to cold-cock the nice commander as he lowered his guard. He staggered back, and blood came away from one of the blows.
"Second Blood goes to Morrick," Turi said, shocked. I think I was doing pretty well for myself, just by lasting this long. The fact that I had actually gotten blood was unprecedented, however.
Kou'al seemed shocked too. He recovered quickly and grabbed me by the arm and flung me up this time. I quickly decided on a drive kick, which could snap even Yautja bones if I aimed it right. Kou'al didn't let me go, though.
"Third Blood, Kou'al," Turi announced. He'd thrown me down. My arm was rather badly skinned, so he got the Blood. I rolled and jumped back up in recovery. I watched him warily, wondering what I might do to catch him off guard.
Then it hit me. He probably was susceptible to the old "look behind you" trick. I looked beyond him and made my "surprised and mildly frightened" face. It worked! He swiveled to look and I leapt upon him.
With my arms tight under his chin and my knees constricting -- or trying to -- his ribcage, I held fast and hoped that he didn't figure out the only way to dislodge me: fall backwards onto the floor and crush me. There were no walls to run into backwards, and, being humanoid, he couldn't grab me, as his arms wouldn't bend that way.
He flailed uselessly for a moment and realized what I just explained, minus the falling part, or else I wouldn't be here now telling you this story. I tightened my chokehold as a message; he pried at my grip for a moment, tearing skin on my arms with his claws -- accidentally: it's dishonorable to use one's claws to remove an opponent -- but it was futile. I held on.
"I yield," he said thickly.
"Morrick is the victor," Turi said, looking faint.
I released Kou'al and dropped gracefully. Then I ran away and hid behind Rachel. She and Ammik hugged me, and Ammik brought out a kit and saw to my wounds.
"I don't know how you can do that," Rachel said as she dabbed at the gashes on my right arm.
"Do what?" I asked through clenched teeth. It hurt; did you expect me to be laughing? Well, I might do that if something, such as glass or teeth, gets stuck, but that's hysteria -- it doesn't count.
"Fight with your commander," she clarified.
"Oh, that's nothing," I dismissed her notion with a wave. "K'ata and I used to fight all the time on Earth. I was throttled regularly, you know."
"Was there a way out of that, Morrick?" Kou'al asked, rubbing the side of his neck my arm had squeezed hardest.
"Yeah," I said reluctantly. "Jump up and fall back, crushing me. I'm glad you didn't figure it out," I said earnestly. To my surprise, he roared with laughter.
"I, too, Morrick. That's a good one. I think I'll adopt it, if you don't mind." He became serious. "However, you won't beat my other self with something that simple. And honor means nothing to him. Therefore, you don't need to be honorable either. Get me?"
"I got ya. So, Ammik and I could attack at the same time?" I asked brightly. Devious thoughts sported in my head.
"Hey, who said anything about me attacking anyone?" he said nervously. "I don't want to take on anyone, okay? I just want to, like, hide or something." He held my head while Rachel spread salve over my face to keep it from bruising.
"Oww," I whined as it took effect. It was cold, dammit! "You can see him too, Ammik. Even Liera didn't register him until my memory confirmed it. And with Kou'al as unstable as he is -"
"I'm not unstable." He chittered and then gave a rolling growl to underscore the statement. "I'm just a little distractible."
"It falls to us," I finished. "And I bet you don't have the same style as me, do you?"
"Hell no," he said, laughing. "Whoa, that's freaky." He was watching Kou'al's cuts heal visibly.
"That's not freaky. That's nanytes." Kou'al grinned, top mandibles unfolded. "I'm surprised you haven't caught any yet."
"Ha," he said, "as if the mutagens would allow that."
"I want cake!" I shouted suddenly. I strutted off to the galley, attempting to decide: chocolate or butter?
---
Having had my fill of cake and obsequious conversation, I decided to retire and sleep off the leftover adrenaline.
I didn't notice the saran wrap until I tried to open my wardrobe. It covered everything, and when I tried to rip it off, it adhered to me. I looked at my feet and found sticky paper glued to them. That revealed the culprit to me, the doer of the dastardly deed.
"Lawrence!" I screamed. I can scream really loud. Rachel can too, but she sugarcoats it and calls it "singing".
The dog slunk guiltily into the room. "Woof?" he asked.
"Don't play coy with me, you mutt!" I snarled. "Why'd you do this?"
"Woof," he replied coolly. He could talk, but he's often difficult.
"Fine," I said, schlepping over to the computer and delicately peeling off the plastic. "Doctor Carlisle?"
"Yes?" answered the mild-mannered veterinarian's secretary, Mellojn. "Morrick, what can I do for you today?"
"I need to make an appointment for Lawrence." I smiled evilly. "I think it's time we had him neutered."
"I thought it would be funny!" he howled. "Nooo, Morrick, don't do it, I've got a great chance with that tasty Springer Spaniel down the ha-aaah-all!"
"Mellojn, I'll call you back," I said suavely. I even winked at her. Cheeky bastard, aren't I? "Larry, what's the deal? Sticky paper, plastic, and where are the weenies?"
"I thought it would be funny and me and the crew were playing 'Reenactment' and we chose that time with Kou'al and the Glue-Gobblers." He made the puppy dog eyes at me. "Really, it's funny. What happened to you?" he asked, eying my various injuries that were healing, just rather slowly.
"Kou'al and I had a fight. I won." Absently, I looked around the room. "Who played me?"
"Gary. The Australian Shepherd from deck fourteen? Yeah, he was you, and I was Alvin." Lawrence looked at me mournfully. "Don't be angry at me," he pleaded. "I'll clean up, promise."
I sighed. Alright, maybe my dog doesn't hate me as much as I think sometimes. I knelt in front of him and rubbed his ears. "I'm not mad. Just tired and aggravated. Didn't touch my messages, did you?"
"Nope. What, like I would after you took away all my toys when I erased that date invite from Rachel?" He sneezed. "Say, could you scratch under my chin? My claws catch and tear there every time I try… Ahh… Thankies."
"At least get the sticky paper up before Rachel gets back," I suggested. I was thinking of Alvin. When Turi and Kou'al took K'ata in, she brought me, Liz, and Alvin Rivers up with her. Whereas Liz was space intolerant, Alvin thrived. Right now he's in the service of Red Dawn, Santino Diablo's ship, learning the tricks of being a pirate. We've a plan, when I become captain, with Rachel as my wife and science officer, to partner up with our own ship.
As Lawrence worked on the paper, I went through my messages. Telemarketers, mostly, but I ran everything through the sub-signal decoder, on the off chance that K'ata might have made contact. The ones addressed as people I knew, I read. There were three. The first one was an irate thank you note from Gary's owner for the stench of weenies being all over his apartment. The second was my gym partner, trying to make a schedule for us. I didn't like the guy, but he made sure I didn't skip anything.
The third was from Our Good Friend, Angus Thermopyle. (Pronounced Ther-mah-puh-lee. Just so you don't mess up and make him shoot you. He hates it pronounced phonetically.) Evidently, he had pirated an ore freighter, cashed in the goods, gone to a resort planet and gotten himself in trouble he couldn't bail himself out of. (Or bust himself out of, since he's a cyborg, fully equipped with lasers.) And since K'ata is his "business partner", and K'ata hasn't responded to his emails, I'm next on the list.
I quickly wired the funds needed to release him and then sent him a message explaining K'ata's missing state. He had been known to enjoy revenge, so it was best not to take chances.
That done, I helped Lawrence get the plastic off the furniture.
---
Supplementary Documentary I: Glue-Gobblers and Kou'al's Capture Of--
The Glue-Gobblers, as they were known, were an experiment gone wrong. They were small, spherical, and acid green, with a taste for proteins and fats. The Amnion, whom you will soon find to be behind almost everything in some form or another, created them to be a type of amniotic fluid moo-cow. They escaped from their containment pods while being transported and hijacked the ship, sending it crashing down onto an unsuspecting planet: not Earth.
The denizens of not Earth were basically not entirely unlike Germans, in the facts that they had a fascist leader - probably me from somewhere in the future - enjoyed beer in vast amounts - if it were me it'd be vodka - and survived on mainly processed, compressed meat in small plastic tubes - what we know now as bratwurst.
The Glue-Gobblers, for some inane reason, saw fit to regulate the wursts. In less that forty-eight hours, they had consumed the entire wurst population. After that, they went into a short hibernation, where they reconfigured themselves to their new task and left the planet starving.
That was when the people called in Kou'al of Ra'Kesh. He was renowned throughout the universe for his skill as a bounty hunter and mercenary, possibly because he was one of the few true psionic male Yautja. (In Yautja culture, the male Yautja are relatively powerless telepathically. They prefer to spend their lives in training, mating, and battling things. The females are the ones blessed with massive amounts of psychic energy. However, on the rare occasion that a male is vastly powerful, he is exiled with honor, unlike the idiots that have little enough to hide and then use their cunning and trickery in battle. Kou'al was one of the honored ones.) And, of course, when you're dealing with something the Amnion created, it's best to have as many upper hands as you can, especially if that means getting a champion that can hide himself utterly from the enemy using über-powerful psycho-kinetic… stuff.
Kou'al accepted the job and was promised a handsome reward for it. (His name was Chuck.) He was also paid quite well.
The Glue-Gobblers had processed the wursts into regular, pink, fingerlike cylinders: weenies. When Kou'al and a highly specialized team, which he drafted on the way to the departure bay from the galley, burst into their Grand Hall of Lying About in a Stupor, shooting things as a warning with that shoulder cannon the Yautja as a species seem to prefer, they quickly converted their reprocessing-selves into pink-projectile-throwing-selves. (This explains the picture in the trophy room of weenies being thrown at Kou'al.) He had been given permission to destroy whatever he needed to, so he took a liberty and vaporized them all, save one, which he skinned on the premises and saved, an ugly green trophy to show and joke about.
The denizens of not Earth thanked them profusely. They developed a temporary taste for weenies until they could restart the wurst factories, and to my knowledge they're none the worse for the entire experience.
Not going to tell you what happened to Chuck, though. That's just too grisly to recount. Maybe some other day.
---
The next morning, Ammik and Rachel woke me with the tantalizing smell of old country cooking. It was a really sophisticated aerosol, though, so I merely cursed at them and covered my head with pillows.
"Wake up, wake up, sleepyhead! Get your ass up, out of bed!" Ammik chanted. Rachel must have taught him that.
"I can hunt deer!" I said in mockery of Orlando Bloom. I'd been dreaming of that movie, Troy.
"Mmkay. I suppose you don't want to know about what's inside the ship planet, then, do you?" He flounced away, taking the aerosol can with him.
"Bacon?" I asked. "Err, I mean, K'ata's capturers?"
"Right." He paused in the doorway. "And Kou'al says were supposed to learn to fight together, so meet him in the same place as yesterday at fourteen hundred."
"'Kay." I yawned and stretched, oblivious. "Whatcha gonna do today?"
"Decide whether I'm in love with Micosucci or Liz. Rachel told me I can't have both." He looked glum. Poor Ammik. He trudged away, sighing gravely.
"Lawrence?" I called. "Oh, Larry, my wittow schnucky-boo, where is you?"
My dog padded over to me and glared. "I am neither little or cute. What do you want?"
"Peace, love, and a mighty big spear to mess it all up," I replied jovially. "Want to come help me rescue K'ata?"
"No." He sneezed. I sometimes wonder if my dog might be allergic to people. "I'll lick her face when you all get back, though."
"That's… Disgusting and sweet at the same time. Thanks." I felt for my laptop above my head and found it. "So, reckon Ammik's as good as he thinks he is?"
"Oh yeah," my dog replied. "You should have seen him with Rachel the other day. He favors an aerial attack, with a lot of spinning. Puts more force behind the blows, and he needs that, since he's so slight."
"Hmm. Makes sense," I said.
"Rachel still beat him."
"Oh. That explains the funny walk," I said sympathetically.
"It does?" My dog was shocked. "I thought it was because you tried to do something stupid, like the time I tried to lay claim to a porcupine."
I laughed. "That explains the funny walk too."
"'Twas not a funny walk. 'Twas a painful walk."
---
Ammik sat on the floor in front of Kayla Micosucci's life pod, pondering. I'll not mention the fact that I'd been spying on him with a little hovering robot like Miranna uses.
With his knees pulled up to his chest, he sat there, rocking, staring blankly at the white tube that contained his fiancée. I felt really sorry for him. I'd gone through much the same thing when Liz had her psycho moment, so I knew what it was like. But I also knew that until someone figured out a way to reload Micosucci's mind into her body, nothing could be done, no decisions made, no conclusions reached.
I was about to make my presence known to him and tell him that when the pod shuddered. Cries of panic were heard from within, interspersed with loud thumping and scraping. Ammik had shot back in alarm, but then he was at the control panel, typing in the codes that would release Micosucci.
I disconnected myself from the spybot and decided that I didn't want to see Ammik and his fiancée reunite. I'd go visit later, with a bottle of disinfectant.
---
"Morrick!" Micosucci greeted me warmly.
"Eh, hello," I said, uncertainly. "I take it Ammik told you of me?"
"No. We've known one another for years, silly. You haven't figured it out yet?" Micosucci laughed, which was annoying, since I knew she was laughing at me.
"Who are you?" I asked, realizing that this wasn't Kayla Micosucci, the Renox scientist. Might be her body, but not her mind.
"K'ata of Pran'rel to you, maid-boy." She tried to do the clicking thing that Yautja do to emphasize things, but she failed, miserably.
I stared. A Panic! at the Disco song started playing in my head and I felt faint. K'ata was held captive on and alien planet-ship, K'ata was standing in front of me. Micosucci was comatose, then she's laughing and saying she's my commanding officer.
I started giggling uncertainly. And then hyperventilating. K'ata/ Micosucci had an odd look on their face as I fainted.
---
Supplementary Documentary II: Mind Swapping and Confusion Of--
I'll use Earth's own space program as an example. Don't you think that if the astronauts of the Columbia incident might have been able to save themselves had they been intimately connected with their ship? If their minds were linked to the very machinery they worked with? At least they would have known what was wrong.
In space, we're very, very advanced. We can load our minds into crystals and use those crystals to pilot ships, control mechanized systems, even make missions of mass destruction. We can copy our minds, make millions, and load them into android life forms. We can edit out the parts we dislike, add new bits, fabricate entire new personalities.
And yet. The essential structure of the mind remains untouched. It's as though the mind is the mythical impervious data core of old. Any damage done to a mind can be reversed, given the right equipment and a strong enough telepath.
However, two minds contained inside one brain is impossible. And a brain is used to its own mind, not any other. There would be fundamental difficulties, not technical ones. But perhaps… A theory was once presented. It stated that telepathy is a gift of the mind, not the body, and that were a telepath's mind removed and placed into another medium, such as an android, ship, or even another blank body, the mind would be intact. It would keep itself from being destroyed by the deep-seated, underlying flaws in the vessel, its native telepathy repairing and filling them in.
It would be possible, and K'ata of Pran'rel proved that it was.
---
"Wake up, Morrick," Ammik said softly as he slapped me. "Come on, I can tell you're awake."
"Can not. Mumble mumble snore," I said clearly.
"You have to actually do the things, not say them. Now, up. Kou'al wants to see us all."
Ah, an order from Kou'al. Well, I didn't want to annoy the guy. He's better at revenge than me.
I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Yep, same as when I fainted, only minus K'ata. Micosucci, I corrected myself. Then I grew confused again. There was the open, empty life pod, and there was Ammik, but where was…? I then realized that I must have been unconscious for longer than I had thought, since the wall chronometer was almost thirty minutes past what I'd seen it on last time.
I sighed. "Lead on, I guess. She's really…?"
"Yep," he answered, locking the door. Evidence, I suppose. "K'ata has projected her mind into Micosucci's body. She also knows that the receptor crystal in Micosucci's head has been destroyed, so we have to find some other way to fix her."
"That sucks," I replied honestly.
"Don't it though?" he commented. "But at least K'ata has a plan on how we can get rid of Dark Kou'al and free all the other telepaths he's captured. And retrieve her body, of course."
I thought about this for a moment. "So, what's the plan?"
"Kill Dark Kou'al. We just have to let our Kou'al ride along with us in our minds. What?" he asked, noticing that I had stopped, stiff and stock-still.
"Well, you might be alright with someone else present in your head, but I'm not. 'Sides, it won't work. Two minds can't occupy one head."
"Wanna bet?" Kou'al's voice, or a good approximation thereof, sounded from Ammik's throat. "Two entire minds. It says nothing about a strand of thought, O wizened skeptic. Now hurry up."
"Doesn't that hurt?" I asked Ammik when I was certain Kou'al was gone.
"Nah. It's just a different modulation of vocal cords. Does sound freaky though, doesn't it?"
"Immensely freaky. Think this'll work?" I asked, running a hand through my hair.
He shrugged. "It sounds like a good plan, Morrick."
"Yeah. Key word, 'sounds'."
---
A/N: No dogs were hurt in the making of this chapter. Some Morricks were, though. The Supplementary Documentaries come whenever there's something I don't think can be explained in context and still uphold the already doubtful integrity of the story. The fight scene was odd-feeling to write, possibly because I don't like to think of Morrick as being aggressive.
June 20, 2006
