Why was this chapter late? You can blame work. Well, that and a smashed finger making it painful to type. For THAT, I make no apologies. Guys, fanfiction is a hobby of mine and its a real honor and joy to me that so many of you email and review and good god, create FANART... I'd never put ANY one of you down. Putting something you've created in the limelight for the scrutiny of others is bearing a portion of your soul, for ridicule or praise. That takes GUTS. I'm not an anonymous fanfiction author, my email address is right there, my name is on my profile, that's ME. If you happen to wander into NAF Atsugi Japan, you can look me up and say hi or cuss me out. We can hang out, whatever.
However, that being said, my first priority is the Navy. Pure and simple. This is my job. I've spent the last 8 years doing it. While my plan is to get out next year and move to Florida to be near family, I'm not going to leave the Navy on a low note. My job is very time consuming in a way that most civilian jobs aren't. I don't have a whole lot of rights to my time, I signed those away when I volunteered to serve my country. If they want to call me in at night, my cell phone is right there and they HAVE done it before. I've worked 12 to 18 hour shifts on occasion, worked through weekends, that's the way navy life IS. Hell, that's the way military life is. Just be glad I'm not at a checkpoint eyeing every local with nervous anticipation of being blown the fuck up by an IED out in the desert somewhere. God bless you soldiers, man... you're braver than I am. The most dangerous thing I have to deal with is a Senior Chief suffering from severe caffeine withdrawl.
But I digress.
After work, I don't always WANT to sit down and write... I have a life outside of fanfiction... shocking as that may be. Ok, so it's not MUCH of a life, (hmm... lets see... it's been about... three and a half years since my last girlfriend... I'm pretty sure I remember what a naked female form looks like, but I have to try REALLY hard to remember it. My apologies to those female readers out there, for that brutally honest and entirely uncalled for moment of truth.) but it IS a life. So sometimes it's going to be weeks or months between updates, and that's just the way its gotta be. I'm sorry if that upsets you, believe me, it makes me feel bad.
Do NOT take this as a threat, and please don't think I'm angry or irritated when you email me eagerly asking for an update. I appreciate the support, it keeps me writing.
Oh and I can definately be bribed. When someone sends me craploads of fanart with a request for an update, I take that at face value. Ninkira, this chapter is entirely for you, and the reason it has come out NOW instead of next week or so can be directly attributed to you. I know I promised an update last week, but I wasn't expecting someone to close a damn forklift door on my middle and ring finger. That being said, as soon as the swelling went down, I was at the keyboard. You should all thank her for her hard work.
I thought I'd mention something else. My story was recently visited by someone who I deeply respect, a webcomic author and artist by the name of JoeEngland, who does a webcomic called Zebragirl. Awesome, awesome webcomic. Check his shit out, seriously. The fact that this guy enjoys my fanfic is very humbling, because I, I think actually we all, have a tendancy to put any good writer or artist up on a pedestal. It's hard, I know, to see me or any other author on here as a real person, with a life of their own. That Joe reads fanfiction is something I guess I was kinda intellectually aware of, but the reality of it didn't hit me until his review appeared in my stat box. That I entertained someone who entertained me makes me feel really good.
Same with all of you folks out there who did up fanart. I try to thank each of you personally, but sometimes I get sidetracked. If I missed you out there, I deeply apologize.
With that out of the way, thank you all for your support, and don't worry so much. There are a billion fanfics out there, and well over half of them are as good or better than mine. I may be slow to update, but I DO update, and I don't have any plans or inclinations towards quiting.
Besides, not to toot my own horn or anything, but as Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride, ya rush a miracle man, ya get rotten miracles.
Rush the fanfic author, you get crapfics.
I should warn you... this is a very intellectual chapter. Not a whole lot of action going on. Sorry if you don't like that, but the narrative style, and my own crazy thought processes demand that, occasionally.
Hopefully it isn't too boring.
Enough self-serving authorial babble. On with Going On. And on... and on... and on...
"A desperate situation. Forced to retaliation. The task ahead, a burden. Men will suffer, that's for certain. We'll charge into the fire. The cause, we must inspire. We raise our fist to tyranny. A high price, Freedom is not free. The odds are stacked against us. But with our resolve relentless. And arrogance their Weakness. Our cause is just, we won't be beaten. Upon this declaration. Will come a brand new nation. Where men are seen as equal. Governed by and for the people. So we make our stand and pray. On this declaration day. For independence I will fight. With liberty I will defy. So we make our stand and pray. On this declaration day. Give me liberty or give me death. I'll fight 'till my last breath." -Iced Earth, Declaration Day
So at this point, I know what you're all thinking. What evil thing has the demented tormentuous Irken AI done to our intrepid tragic hero? What unpleasant and unexpected twists and turns have occurred?
When is our hero going to stop his shlocky pulp comic exposition and get to the fucking point?
Right.
Well the truth is, and please restrain yourself from busting a gut when you read this, that no horrible plot had been laid in motion. No trap of devious and dastardly devising has developed for our dandy young Dib. No-
Ok. The truth is, I fainted.
Yeah that's right. I fainted. I passed the fuck out. One minute I'm holding up pretty good. I can't feel anything, so the fact that I have been sliced, burned, battered, spindled, and mutilated hasn't quite sunk in yet. The next, that psycho Irken program winks at me, and it's like my brain said, "Game Over man, put her in charge."
By her I mean Vic of course, god bless her. On second thought, no, I wouldn't wish that insensative asshole's blessing on anyone I care about. Look what it's done for me.
Wow... how vitrolic... perhaps there IS a bit of resentment there. I can just hear the psychologists now. Perhaps you vould care to be explorink vhy zis vould boszer you, Dib? Perhaps it iz somesink to do vith your mothzer?
Please. To be honest, I don't know why I passed out. I've never just... fainted like that. There was always a root cause for my sudden bouts of unconsciousness, you know, like searing, unimaginable pain from a half cooked arm, or what have you. This time... it was like the straw that broke the camels back.
Why, you ask?
Well it's like this, see. I don't think you quite understand just how much I was DREADING confronting that damn program. I'd been captured before (obviously) threatened with terrible genetic experiments, been turned inside out, (which was unpleasant, and forced me to explain to a doctor later on how, exactly, I got a nickel lodged in between my third and forth rib) used as a catalyst to prevent the world's slowest catalysmic explosion, so on, so forth... the list just goes on. Frankly, after my world was dehumanified right before my eyes at the push of a button, and I was jettisoned right onto my own personal hell, I thought I could pretty much take everything the universe could throw at me.
I was wrong.
See the key to all of this is that I had some choice in the matter. I had SOME say in what occurred. I'm a pretty clever guy, and even though I have a history of bad decision making, I usually manage to pull through. If something bad happened, it was usually because I took a risk, I KNEW what might happen, but I did it anyway. I'm not the sort of guy to whine about something turning out differently from the way I wanted it to. If there is anything I've learned in this life, it's that things very seldom if ever turn out the way you want them to. If everything turned out the way you wanted it to, then I would suggest you look around for inconsistencies because you are either in a really bad fanfic, or else you're in a Irken virtual system and those little green bastards are trying to get at your brain.
Since we all know that my life isn't fanfiction, since as far as I know, the only thing my peers enjoyed about my life was how easy it was to ridicule, I would suggest looking for the projector.
In any case, the point I was trying to make was pretty simple. This time, my choices were taken away from me. All I could do was take it.
They have a word for that. An ugly word, for an extremely ugly concept.
They call it rape. That fucking computer program raped me.
It doesn't fucking matter that it wasn't about sexual pleasure. Rape isn't about sexual pleasure; it doesn't have to be about sex at all. It's about power. It's about forcing someone to submit to your will, crushing their resistance and taking what little dignity and hope they have from them.
She didn't even have the fucking decency to enjoy it. To take pleasure from it.
How do you hate someone when they rape you, because that's what they were BUILT to do?
But hate isn't rational is it? Hate isn't something you can intellectually explain away, tuck it down in a nice safe box and forget about it. Hate is something you feel, and feelings have nothing to do with intellect.
If feelings had something to do with intellect, I wouldn't be falling in love with an Irken.
And so, we come the crux of the matter. Things were spinning out of control, rapidly and it just got so disorienting and scary that I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I was also probably exhausted, as anyone can tell you unconsciousness does NOT equate with rest. You have to understand something, all of these monumental changes had occured in the space of a day, maybe two. One minute I'm celebrating turning on this damn scrap heap of a ship, the next Vic collapses and I'm being raped by a goddamn facsimile of an Irken tyrant. I don't know how long that lasted, but I doubt I was in there for more than twenty four hours.
So yeah. Alot happened, and I just... faded away.
There comes a time when a man takes a long hard look at himself and asks himself just what it is he thinks he's doing. Usually this perceptive self review comes too late in life to allow change, and merely leads to regret and heartache.
I took a look inside and realized, that if things continued as they had, I was going to die here. I became intimately familiar with the concept of my own mortality.
I realized that the idea of me dying was no longer as attractive as I had once perceived it to be. I didn't want to die. I had something to live for.
Someone, certainly... but ALSO something.
Hope. For the first time since landing on this fucking planet, I had hope. Look at what we had accomplished. Just the two of us had taken a completely defunct and deactivated Irken Dreadnought and repaired it enough that its AI construct could fuck with my head. This wasn't the end... this was the beginning.
All I had to do was get over my completely justified terror of an Irken construct, who at this point probably thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, or whatever the Irken race slices and puts on either side of a slab of meat and veggies slathered in condiments. The ramifications of Vic's logic hacking were not lost upon me. The problem is the sight of that thing made me want to simultaneously run screaming, and smash its head in with a blunt instrument.
I digress.
All of this would have been impossible without Vic. God, I don't think she realizes just how much I rely on her. Her perceptions of reality are so grounded, so focused, that the world could turn completely upside down and she'd take it in stride. Timidly, perhaps, a little shaky, but she'd take it. She's alot stronger than she gives herself credit for. And she's CHANGING. She's taking charge, becoming confident.
It's a strange mixed sense of pride and shame that fills me. Pride, because I know she's made it this far with my help, and that she looks up to me, in her fashion. Shame, because I have to lean on her so much... this tired, broken, pathetically mangled human. My world is such a tangle of... of impossiblities that I frantically struggle to maintain some sense of identity and purpose within it. Everything from which I derived my very identity had been stripped from me over time.
Paranormal investigator? Things would have to be somewhat normal in order for me to point out anything paranormal. Normal died along with several billion people with the push of a button. Brother? Gaz is dead. It has taken me a long time to accept that fact, but I have come to realize that I will never see my little sister in the flesh again. Human...
Well you can't exactly be called a species if there's only one of you. Humanity implies being a part of the human condition, an encompassing state the comprises all of the human race...
Individuality is the term we use to encompass the state of being seperate from others. So in a way, I am humanity, and at the same time, no longer human.
I am an individual.
Humanity is a deadend. In every sense of the word. Both dead and ended.
The alternative? Redefine myself.
I am Dib, and that's all I'll ever be. There is a sort of... freedom, in releasing my deathgrip upon the concept of normalcy. Normalcy... fitting in... ignoring anything that couldn't be rationalized and properly explained led humanity like lambs to the slaughter.
I will not be slaughtered.
I can't help but feel lonely, and loneliness makes me reach out. I need her.
I have come to the realization that she needs me as well. Perhaps it could even be said that she... well I should reflect on that shouldn't I? I've fallen down this path before. Remember, she's NOT HUMAN. I don't REALLY know what's going on behind those jewel-like eyes... her reactions to date have not always been consistant with human behavior. They don't have a word in their language for compassion, or caring, or love. If they ever did, it has been covered over by the machine that resides in each and every one of them, and that is a part, an INSEPERABLE part, of her.
And isn't that the killer... because even machines can love... or approximate it, at least, if that AI is any indicator. I wonder if that long ago Irken programmer would have called that a bug, or an undocumented feature? Christ... I don't even want to think about the implications of a bug-fuck crazy AI thinking that I'm her long lost, long dead object of obsession.
One step at a time, Dib.
Vic...
I think...
No, I KNOW there is something going on in that head about me. I know she cares, in her way. What that way is, I don't know, but I'm tired of fighting it because I'm afraid of getting hurt, or afraid of hurting her... I'm tired of second guessing. Down that path lies trembling, anxiety-ridden indecision. I believe that being indecisive could cause more hurt in the long run than acting and being rejected...
Oh... but what we have is stable, it makes sense. Change it and you open yourself up for so much...
GODDAMN IT! CHANGE! FUCK SECOND GUESSING AND RUNNING IN CIRCLES!
To do otherwise is to court Madness.
Well, more than I already have anyway.
So I'll let it be, let it... ride, and see what happens.
Bridges are made for crossing. I'll save the burning for later.
Besides, remember what I said about rationality and feelings. I can rationalize why its unwise to feel the way I do about Vic, but frankly, we are all fools when it comes to love.
Kinda like a bunch of half blind retarded infants running around with straight razors. We flash around our shiny feelings admiring them and admiring the shiny feelings of others. Rushing around without knowing the pain we can unleash until innocence is lost and blood stains the carpet.
Then some asshole points out how stupid we are, and we feel foolish.
"Well of course if you run around with a straight razor swinging it around you're gonna hurt somebody!"
I didn't know.
Pain like that has to be experienced to understand. Some people die from it.
That's life, I guess.
So it comes to this. Time to deal with reality, before certain parties decide something extremely unpleasant has happened to me and begins a bit of exploratory surgery.
I open my eyes.
And damn near give myself a concussion.
Which is about par for the course.
There is something utterly fascinating about the human state of sleep.
You must understand the fundamental difference between the Irken state of rest and the human state of sleep. Our Paks clear fatigue toxins and process information from our organic parts, storing it for later processing. We do not dream, we have no need for such a state. In fact, the only reason that I am aware of such a state is because it is referenced so heavily in human language. Dib tried explaining it to me, but the concept seemed so whimsical and illogical and downright strange that I half think he's making it up. Certainly the Irken method of prioritizing information is vastly more efficient. Good luck convincing Dib of that, however. he finds the concept of what he calls a "Harddrive of Notre Dame" disturbing and largely repellent.
I get the feeling that I am the butt of some obscure human joke, but as of yet I have not managed to get a straight answer from him.
We cannot "forget" exactly, every memory we have is accessable, but often the sheer amount of data is so immense that sorting through it for a bit of unused data can take some time.
Irkens are not known for their patience, and arrogance generally leads us to dismiss that which only be recalled with difficulty as unimportant.
A statement that would have had me out the nearest airlock in a previous life, but there is no fear for me in blasphemy now.
Irkens only achieve a true state of unconsciousness as a result of illness or injury, in which case the body shuts down and the Pak initiates a retrieval attempt. It attempts to assess the damage to the organic memory tissue, and if it is still viable, records the retrievable information, then erases and recodes the organic memory using the information backup.
If it is no longer viable, the Pak shuts down all organic processes, erases all personality data and resets itself to initialization mode.
Paks are too valuable a resource to throw away.
In sleep, the hard lines and tension of Dib's face ease. He looks... the human word to describe it is peaceful, but there is no proper translation of the term in Irken.
It has taken some time for me to understand the concept of peace.
While he is aware that I do not dream, he has not made the connection that I do not sleep. I rest, conserving energy and processing the days events carefully, in the time he is asleep. Sometimes I explore what limited bits of information I can garner from his language.
Most of the time, I just watch him sleep. His eyes move behind his lids as though he sees something, his lips move in murmured, meaningless conversation. He shifts, sometimes.
Entertainment is at a premium here, but that is not the only reason I watch him.
I need him to be here. I need him to define me. An Irken without purpose is without worth.
He makes me worth something. When I told him, in that unguarded moment, that the searing pain of a scalded arm was preferable to losing him, I was telling the truth. The Irken race does not speak of its origin. In truth, Irken smeets are... encouraged not to think too deeply on the matter. Still, stories persist... and are retained as bits and pieces of scattered data, a scrap here and there in the resident memory of the Control Brains, or the recycled Paks.
The digital voices of long dead Irkens trying to prove they existed, I suppose. I had never really thought about the concept too deeply until now.
They speak of a time when the Irken race was not so mighty, not so superior. They speak of a small, weak race of barely sentient humanoids, and the descent of a dark presence personified only as cold, hard, black metal, insectile legs, and immense, incomprehensible cruelty.
They speak of slavery, bondage. They speak of an upheaval, of the beginnings of the Tallest, and the great descending line who's personalities were fed into the Control Brains as they passed.
Jhoque... Zander... Yuratha... Rellek... Neiss... Iseijin... Caessa... Miyuki...
Only the Tallest are truely immortal.
Bits and pieces of disassociated information put together into a disturbing picture. The Tallest would have us believe that the Irken Empire is eternal, that it always has been, and always will be. If that is true, why is it that all of our technology can find its origins with some captured, supposedly inferior race? Why is the Irken race so bent on subjegating all other races to its will?
I do not have the answers yet, but the meaning is clear... we are being deceived. Something vastly important, something so powerful and so fundamentally anathema to the Tallest' design that they would suppress it for countless centuries.
Humanity is the key. I think they were destroyed so that the truth might be buried once more. I think THAT, is why the Tallest suddenly and without warning changed the Armada's direction, swung thousands of parsecs out of their way to destroy a single, primitive species.
I lay a cool, black gloved hand on Dib's forehead. Powerful... emotions swell in me as I do so. I examine them carefully. Possessiveness is easy to understand. It is a fundamental Irken drive to control and exert ownership over things we desire. I have associated with him long enough that despite my... formerly... low status as a Medical Drone, I feel that he is mine.
I never thought that feelings of violence and bitter enmity could be engendered in me until I saw that unstable SIMA wink at him. Those programmers did their work too well... in that instant I saw another Irken's sly manueverings upon something that is MINE, and I wanted to reduce her...
Sigh.
IT...
...to its component atoms.
Fortunately, the medical area has no projector, nor a functioning camera. We are alone here.
Aside from possessiveness there is also fear... I fear the unknown... I fear surrendering control to something so alien...
And yet...
There is warmth. I cannot describe it. A welling up of lightness, pleasant... a desire to be near him...
I impulsively remove the black glove from my hand. I carefully run my fingertips across his lips, across his cheek to his forehead, marveling at the softness of human skin. A warmth courses through my hand. Transfixed, I brush back his wayward hair, then let my hand slip from his forehead. I purse my lips, narrowing my eyes and wincing slightly as a droplet of the liquid his body exudes to cool him down drips across the sensative flesh of my thumb. While not as unbearably agonizing as pure water is, this sweat is still very uncomfortable... I wipe it away with a bit of cloth.
Why does my body tell me to touch him, why this inexplicable urge to lay my flesh against his, if we are so horribly incompatable? What instinct calls out for such self destruction?
Perhaps the Irken species was not MEANT to tresspass upon such strange frontiers.
It frightens me, but not as much as it once did.
What truely frightens me now is that LACK of fear. How long before this unknown attraction draws me to act?
I step back impulsively, shivering despite myself. To calm my nerves, I swing the diagnostic arm over him again and check his vital signs.
My scans are as conclusive as they can be when dealing with a largely undocumented species. Comparatively speaking, the human race defies every scientific assumption the Irken race has made since it began documenting Slave race anatomy. Still, while the architecture and elements involved are vastly dissimiliar to 70 of the known universe, there are certain things that they... well I suppose I should just say he... share with every other species. Pain, and the nervous system which transmit the signals to the brain.
Due to the differences between us, I believe the pain chamber caused harm to him where none was intended. There are two possiblities. Either his nervous system was so overloaded that it temporarily got used to vastly unbalanced amounts of stimuli, and will eventually even itself out, or the nerves have been permanantly damaged and he will remain numb unless drastic surgery is attempted.
I am... capable of such surgery, and the nervous grafts required. I have performed such an operation on Irken soldiers many times.
On a human being? With something so important?
The very thought makes me sick to my stomach, and makes my squiggledy spooge throb with anxiety.
The vital monitor beeps wildly, distracting me from my reverie. I look up, startled, as he sits up suddenly and bangs his forehead against the monitor. He irritably shoves the monitor aside, blinking in sudden confusion at his surroundings.
He raise my hand to my mouth and wince in sympathy at the three inch long gash he has opened up on his forehead. He sees my reaction and raises an eyebrow.
"What is it?" He asks.
"Dib... you... you're..." I point shakily.
He blinks, not understanding. The rivulet of blood takes a strange course down his eye ridge, trailing down his cheek. He notices the droplets of blood as they fall onto his shirt. He scowls, raising a hand to his forehead and smearing it a bit before bringing it back down and wincing when he sees the copious amount of blood.
"Damn..." He mutters. "I didn't even feel anything."
I remove some bandages from my Pak and step closer, dabbing up the blood with a slight sigh. "You have to be careful with yourself right now, Dib. You can't-"
"I know." He snaps. A look of regret passes across his face but I shake my head. "Geez Vic... I'm-"
"It is alright. You have had an... unpleasant time of it lately."
"You can say that again." He muses.
I should mention something at this point. Not being able to learn about humanity culturally, sometimes he says things that, to me, make no sense. The above is a good example of this. I'm not entirely sure he actually WANTS me to say he is having an unpleasant time again, since by his expression he undoubtedly heard me the first time, but how else am I supposed to interprete this? When I ask him about such occurances, he gives me a strange look like I should already know exactly what he is talking about, then realization dawns on his face and for a moment he looks very sad and distant.
I have stopped asking such questions. I think they only serve to remind him of our differences.
"That is going to need sealing." I whisper musingly. "It would be best to do it as soon as possible. Lay back."
He nods quietly and lays back, folding his hands together in the pit of his stomach. I remove various tools from my Pak and get to work.
His eyes follow mine.
It is distracting.
I say something to break the uncomfortable silence.
"I have disabled the camera inputs to Medical, so the SIMA cannot enter here, nor perceive what we do."
His gaze turns distant, he appears deep in thought.
"Do not furrow your brow, Dib... unless you want a permanent expression of surprise when I am done."
He smooths his brow and grins. "Think I'll get a cool scar outta this?"
A grin threatens to break through my professional detachment. "Do you want one?"
He chuckles. "Not particularly."
"Than hold still."
"Yes, my Tallest."
I stop for a moment, frowning.
"I told you not to call me that."
He blinks. "Well... I was only kidding, Vic... but while we're on the subject, you're gonna have to get used to that sort of thing."
"It is ridiculous." I snap.
"What's so ridiculous about it?" He muses.
"Dib, I am a Medical Drone. You can't get much lower than that. All we are good for is maintenance and body repair."
He frowns. "I meant to ask you about that, actually. You mean to tell me the Irken Empire looks down on the people who keep them alive when they get injured and maintain all of their equipment? That doesn't make sense to me... I mean, you hold their lives in your hands."
I glance sideways. "The Irken race does not put as much... emphasis on the value of life as you do, Dib."
He sighs, looking away. "I don't know... I think that's part of it, but something tells me it's deeper than that."
"I will be the first to admit that the Irken race has secrets, but I do not think there is any deeper mean involved here. I you simply lack the perspective to understand why life is considered so secondary."
He frowns. "How so?"
"Dib, the Irken Armada isn't an armada because we like moving around all of the time. It is because we lack the planetary resources, despite how vast the Empire is, to support the entire Irken race. The average Irken life expectancy is in excess of five hundred of your years. Even with the loss of life from war and accidents, we still have a positive population growth of several million new smeets a year."
He blinks.
"The Irken race, when I last had reason to check, numbered approximately 87 billion. That information is years out of date by now."
He closes his eyes, trying to comprehend the scale of that number.
His eyes snap open. "500 year life expectancy, huh?" He narrows his eyes at me. Grinning slightly.
I blink. "What?"
"How old are you exactly, Vic?"
I blink. Age is not a very important topic to the Irken species. Our Paks maintain us until at last our organic parts can no longer support life, then we shut down. The only benefit of age is experience, and even that is largely just a matter of a few points up the scale in efficiency.
"77 standard years old..." I pause. "That is approximately 60 earth years."
He blinks. Then he grins. "So for you guys that makes you almost a kid, huh?"
I frown. "Full adulthood for an Irken is reached in 3 standard years."
He blinks. "Damn... it takes almost 20 earth years for a human to reach maturity."
It is my turn to blink. "Then... you were a child when you first came here?"
"Yeah."
I frown. "Dib... how long does-"
"80 years." He says shortly. "Give or take a decade or so, depending on quality of life or medical care."
I freeze. 80... years?
"That can't be right." I say numbly.
He smiles gently. "We can't all be as superior as the Irken race, Vic."
I step back, looking down, and hug my arms to myself, suddenly chilled. So short... so...
"I'm done." I say numbly. I bump into the wall and slid down, in shock.
I cannot imagine... what it must be like to know that you will be gone in an eyeblink. A sudden unwelcome sense of mortality strikes me.
He swings his legs around and steps over, sitting next to me.
"It's ok, Vic. I'm... relatively healthy..."
"It is NOT ok." I snap. He's dying by inches and I never KNEW. How can he be so calm about it!
He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Vic..."
He frowns.
"This really upsets you doesn't it?" He asks gently.
"Of course it does! Why doesn't it upset YOU!"
He thinks about it for a moment. I can tell he's trying to comprehend what it must be like from my perspective. Frustration flitters across his face for a moment, then he looks away.
"Why does this upset so badly?" He asks.
I close my eyes.
"Vic?"
"It may seem like a long time to you, Dib... but it's not a long time to me. You're going to leave, and then I'll be alone. For a very long time. I don't think I can..."
"Yes you can." He says gently.
I frown.
"You're stronger than you think. I don't want to leave, but there are things we don't have control over... and I know apologizing for that won't make it hurt any less. The only thing I can say is..."
He pauses, swallowing convulsively. Then he continues, resolute.
"That I'm here now... and that... that death is the only thing that will make me leave you."
I open my eyes. "Why...?"
He sighs, closing his eyes. "I don't know how to explain it..."
"Try." I watch his face closely. There is something there... something familiar... I have seen this before...
"I think I love you." He blurts out, reddening.
I blink.
"I don't know what that means." I say slowly.
He sighs, smiling wistfully. "I know."
"I want to understand..."
"I don't know if you can... but it doesn't change how I feel about you."
He looks down, musing over something. I watch him, feeling slightly confused, and sad, but also inexplicably light... something flutters inside me, something that is urging me to act, but I don't know what to do.
He seems to come to a decision.
A hand touches my cheek. "You're wrong about one thing, Vic."
I open my eyes. "What?"
"You won't be alone. I've been thinking... weighing the possiblities in my head, and I think... I think I may have come up with a plan to get us out of here."
I blink at the sudden change of topic.
"Huh?"
He looks resolutely at me. "We NEED to get OFF this planet. It's going to kill one of us eventually."
He takes a deep breath. "I think we should try to fix the Dreadnought."
I shake my head. "Dib, just because we have managed to power this Dreadnought, it doesn't change the fact that we are stuck here." I sigh, not wanting to disappoint him, but also knowing that unless I stop this right now, he will be hurt worse in the future.
I tick off the reasons on my fingers.
"This ship is decrepit and no longer spaceworthy... holed in a million places with who knows what sort of unknown structural damage. It was never designed to take off from a planet... it was constructed in space and landing parties were sent by shuttlecraft. Even in the best of conditions, the engines would be incapable of freeing us from this planet's gravity well. The ship systems are largely automated, but the SIMA is flawed and damaged, not to mention mentally unstable... Dib... it might not be capable of running the ship."
"Even if we somehow managed to repair the ship, and devised a way to escape the planet's gravity well... we still lack one resource that we cannot possibly do without."
He grins slightly. "Personnel."
"Pers-" I pause. "Yes." I narrow my eyes. "You've thought of this?"
He nods.
"And you still have a plan that you think will work?"
He nods again.
"How?"
"Well... as far as repairing the damage and dealing with the gravity well... and the SIMA... well, I haven't thought that far."
I raise a brow at this.
"But where personnel is concerned..." He takes a deep breath and stands up, holding out a hand.
I take it and stand. He leads me a short way away, down several twisting corridors to a secure set of doors that I immediately recognize.
"Dib... you can't possibly mean..."
The doors open as he approaches (which shouldn't be possible, but I suppose he's done this before.) and I stare inside.
He nods at my look of shock.
"I never told you about this because... well... I wasn't sure how you would react. At first I didn't trust you... then it sort of slipped my mind, because it wouldn't have mattered if you knew anyway."
I look at him.
He continues to stare at the rows and rows of viable smeets.
"No... that's not true exactly..."
He sighs. "I guess I was kind of scared you'd prefer them over me... that you'd know some way to bring them around even without power..."
I start. "Dib..."
He continues. "The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bad idea... I mean, basically I'd be damning these guys to being stuck here as well... I wouldn't wish that on anybody."
He pauses, looking at me.
"I'm sorry."
It's my turn to look at the rows and rows of smeets. "I forgive you. I wouldn't have understood at first... now..."
I sigh. "Now I think I do." I look back at him. "What changed?"
He looks down. "Well... with power online, we should be able to get this guys moving... and that solves the personnel problem. Then it became a matter of making a hard decision. How badly do I want off this world?"
A hard look flickers across his face. "I want off this world pretty bad. I'm the last human being alive, Vic. I want that to mean something. If there is no home left to me, if Earth is gone, then I have to face it, but more importantly, I HAVE to MAKE a new home."
"A while back, Vic... actually, about when I met you, I realized I didn't hate the Irken race. For the most part, you guys are pretty clueless... selfish and arrogant maybe, but that's because that's all you know, and all the Tallest will let you be."
"My people had a saying, Vic."
"It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."
"A man named Benjamin Disraeli said that, but what he didn't say is that the opposite is true as well. When all you know is servitude and slavery, when generations are born knowing nothing else, you have no option but to live in bondage...
He trails off... musing. "If there is no freedom, it has to be taught..."
"You taught me something, Vic... that Irkens can learn independance... that you CAN be FREE. Do you LIKE what you are now?"
He looks at me feverishly. I nod, unable to speak, to break his momentum.
"The need for freedom is universal between us. As long as the Tallest control the Irken Empire, you are doomed to repeat this sad cycle of destruction and slavery until someone bigger than you shows up."
"I want to be remembered, Vic. I want to SAVE a race... not doom it through inaction. Not..."
His eyes turn distant... pained. "Not again."
I am transfixed by the passion and conviction in his voice. I see what I have always seen in him, the beginning of something that I have always known he was capable of, but never had words to describe. This... this concept is part of why the Tallest saw humanity as so dangerous. Even though I know it is impossible, I find myself believing... hoping... that we can do what he desires to do.
He looks down. "Will you help me?"
Once again the verge of something immense, unable to see it clearly or comprehend how big it is, afraid, facing the unknown... I do the only rational thing I can do.
I put my trust in him, as always.