There weren't any life signs aboard the Planet Express Ship

There weren't any life signs aboard the Planet Express Ship. Fry ran the scan three times.

"I've got to go over there." Shielding his eyes against the glare of the nearby star with one hand, he tried to peer into the other vessel's darkened bridge. All he could make out were the vague silhouettes of some of the equipment. Nothing moved.

Chelsea was already hauling spacesuits out of the storage locker at the rear of the cockpit. She tossed one in his direction and then grabbed one of the fishbowl helmets for herself. The garments were surprisingly flexible and easy to get into, not at all like the old, bulky suits he'd used at Planet Express. Fry reached past Chelsea and picked up a helmet. When the helmet's rim touched the ring seal at his suit's neck there was a hiss of suction. Fry's nose immediately caught that unique metallic smell of canned air.

When they'd both finished putting on the suits, Fry nudged their ship against the derelict Planet Express Ship. Their vessel shuddered slightly when the airlocks mated. Fry double-checked each of Chelsea's seals, and the two humans squeezed into the tiny airlock.

A buzzer sounded back in the cockpit. Grumbling, Fry awkwardly extricated himself from the airlock and strode the few paces to the pilot's seat. The ship's computer was trying to warn him about a ship that was bearing down at them.

"A ship just showed up." He called back to Chelsea. "They're hailing us." He started to work the controls on the console in front of him. "Could you answer them? I'm going to start getting the weapons ready, just in case."

Chelsea slid back into the copilot seat and looked around her. She couldn't find anything that was obviously a radio amongst the knobs and dials that were spread before her. You're in the future, she reminded herself. Think Star Trek. "Uhh, on screen?" She was only half surprised when the video screen came alive with a hiss of static.

A squat, leathery creature dressed in a grey uniform glared at her from the screen. "You are in restricted space." The creature growled. "Power down your engines and open your outer hatch. Prepare to be boarded." The image disappeared.

"Did you hear that?" Chelsea asked.

Fry looked up from his console and nodded. Of course he'd heard it; he just wasn't particularly surprised. That kind of dialogue was typical bad guy stuff. You got used to it after working in space for awhile. "Yeah, I heard. He fiddled with a knob and an image of a spaceship filled the screen. For a minute he just stared at the stocky white alien vessel. It practically bristled with weapons. Alright, Phil. He told himself. What now? He didn't know enough about spaceships to know whether they could outrun them, or even what affect his ship's defensive laser would have on the other vessel's armor plated hide. But if he surrendered, he might very well suffer whatever fate had befallen Leela, Bender, and Amy. It suddenly seemed incredibly foolish to have gotten himself into this situation. What the hell was I thinking coming out here? I'm just a dumb kid from the stupid ages!

"I- I don't know what to do now." He admitted.

Chelsea looked at him as if he had spoken in Greek. "What do you mean?" She asked. "Now we fight."

He shook his head. "But I've never flown a ship during a battle before. All I ever did when I was working for Planet Express was fire the laser, and I don't know anything about tactics or stuff. I'll just end up getting us killed."

Chelsea put a hand on his shoulder. "If we surrender, they'll do to us whatever they did to the others. We don't have a choice; we have to fight."

"But-"

"You just worry about making sure we don't crash into anything." Chelsea said, cutting him off. "I'll take care of the rest. Just tell me how to make this thing shoot lasers."

Fry regarded her for a long moment. His brain told him that fighting wasn't the answer. He just didn't think there was anyway they could win, not with an inferior ship. But Chelsea seemed confident, as though she had access to some knowledge that was hidden from him.

"Right." She said.

Fry blinked. "What? I didn't say anyth-"

"No, I mean right. Move the ship to the right!"

"Well, it's actually called starboard when you're on a ship…"

"I don't care what it's called. Move the fucking ship. Now!" Chelsea grabbed the wheel and gave it a hard twist. An alarm blared as the seal between their vessel and the Planet Express Ship was broken. The little red ship rolled right and over the PE Ship's hull. The torpedo that had been meant for them sailed under their bow and detonated astern, sending a massive concussion reverberating through the ship.

"Ow!" Fry yelped as his head smacked against the wheel. He sat up and winced. "I guess they got tired of waiting for us to make up our minds." He looked over at Chelsea to make sure she was ok. She was rubbing an elbow that she'd banged against the hull, but seemed otherwise unhurt. Also angry.

"You alright?" He asked.

"Just tell me how to run the laser." The fire in her eyes made it clear that there would be no argument.

Fry pressed a button that was mounted on the ceiling and a blank panel on Chelsea's console slid away. A black joystick and a small video screen rose out of the console. A field of stars was displayed on the screen, with a large set of red crosshairs painted at the center. Chelsea grabbed the stick and gave it an experimental flick to the left. The stars flew across the screen from left to right, and the laser turret hummed as it rotated overhead on its track. In a matter of seconds she had the enemy ship centered in the crosshairs. She nodded at Fry.

Fry took a deep breath and threw the throttle forward. The enemy ship responded immediately, letting loose a barrage of violet plasma fire. Most of it passed overhead, but a stray shot glanced off the shields. Their own weapon responded with a staccato burst of green light. The first few volleys were nowhere near their target, but Chelsea soon had the hang of the controls.

When the first rounds splashed against the enemy's shields Chelsea let out a whoop. "Take that, jackass!"

Fry hazarded a glance in her direction as he made a sloppy series of barrel rolls. To his utter amazement, Chelsea seemed to actually be enjoying herself.

A loud thump shook the ship. "They're behind us!" Chelsea yelled, and then let off another barrage of laser fire. Fry tried to lose them, but he proved no match for the trained enemy pilot.

"I can't shake them!" Fry yelled in desperation as a wave of plasma washed over the shields.

"Pull back on the stick, then cut the engines!" It was an order. Fry obeyed, and the enemy ship rocketed by underneath them. Fry throttled up the engines and slid in behind them. Chelsea didn't fire. She was looking at something at the top of the joystick. She gave it a flick with her fingernail and a plastic covering fell away, exposing a little cavity. In the cavity was a big red button.

"Huh." Chelsea pressed it.

The engines died without so much as a cough. Systems throughout the ship turned themselves off. "What-?" Fry said as the artificial gravity quit. It was suddenly dark and eerily quiet. Not even the throbbing of the ship's life support systems could be heard. "What did you do?!"

"Well that's just great." Chelsea was saying. "Who the hell puts a surrender button on a weapons system anyway? The French?"

Fry was about to say something when he felt the slightest vibration in the armrest he'd grabbed as the closest available anchor for his freefalling body. Chelsea felt it too.

"Uhh, what is that?" She asked as it started to build. A high-pitched whine began to fill the ship.

Fry's first thought was that it was some kind of suck ray, which Leela had told him was the technical term for what he'd always called a tractor beam, but the enemy ship, which he could still see through the front viewport, was too far away to be using one on them. In fact, they weren't doing much of anything, just sitting idle. Maybe they're as confused about what's going on as we are. He thought.

The whine increased in intensity until it was at a level that was barely tolerable and the vibration increased to the point that it became difficult to hold onto the armrest. Then both abruptly stopped, and all was still.

"Okaaay-" Chelsea began. Something tore through Fry's body like a million shards of hot glass. He had the crazy idea that his body was flying apart in all directions. He and Chelsea both started to scream, but the sensation was already gone.

As Fry tried in vain to slow his heart rate he could hear Chelsea in the background swearing up a storm. When he finally had calmed himself to the point that he could meet her gaze he found her grinning like a maniac.

"A goddamned quintessence bomb." She laughed. "I don't even believe it."

She must have seen that he was looking at her as if she'd just sprouted an extra head, because she visibly made an effort to get herself back under control. "Sorry." She said. "I guess I'm a little high on adrenaline." Another laugh. "A quintessence bomb." She shook her head. "Who would ever have thought?"

When all she got as a response was a blank stare, she tried to explain. "The rental agency guy said that the ship was powered by a quintessence engine. I didn't think about it then, but that's a fancy word for dark energy. Do you know what that is?"

Fry shook his head.

"Dark energy is the stuff that causes the universe to expand. I guess you could say that it makes space bigger. I didn't even think it was possible, but I guess in the future scientists know how to use the stuff to expand and contract different parts of the universe. That's how the ship gets from one place to another, by shrinking the space in front of it and expanding the space behind. I think that, when I pressed that button I told the ship to take all the energy it had available and use it to lob a chunk of dark energy at that other ship."

Fry, suddenly remembering that they were in the middle of a battle, searched frantically for the enemy ship in the viewport.

"Don't bother trying to find it." Chelsea said, waving casually in the general direction of the ship's last position. They're probably stuck behind their own event horizon by now. I wonder what it feels like to have your body disassembled piece by piece right down to the subatomic particles?"

Fry thought about that for awhile. "So, we won?" He asked cautiously.

Chelsea grinned at him. "Oh yeah. We won. We totally kicked their ass-" Something hit the ship. Fry and Chelsea were thrown roughly back into their seats.

Fry tried to read his instruments, but they were all still dead. There was another series of loud bangs, followed by the sound that space travels dread above all else, the peculiar whistle of rushing air.

"They're shooting at us again!" Fry yelled.

"No shit!" Then: "We're leaking oxygen!"

Silently Fry thanked whatever supreme being that happened to be listening in that they were both still wearing their spacesuits. The emergency hatch closed inches behind Fry's head. The hiss of escaping air died immediately, but now he and Chelsea were locked on the bridge of a nonresponsive spaceship under fire. We have to get out of here. Fry realized. A green form in the viewport caught his eye.

Chelsea saw it too. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Of course! The Planet Express Ship!

The enemy ship fired again. The rounds impacted in the stern. Strangely, there was no explosion this time. When Fry hit the emergency hatch release it immediately became apparent why. The whole rear half of the ship had been sheered away. Bits of rapidly cooling metal and miscellaneous detritus were floating out of the slowly retreating aft section like blood seeping from a wound. The senseless destruction was, Fry had to admit, incredibly cool. But there wasn't time for that now.

The redhead grabbed Chelsea around the waist and fired a burst from the thruster pack mounted on his suit. The ruins of the ship began to recede. Fry fired again, and the Planet Express Ship swung into view, as did the enemy vessel. It wasn't the same ship that had attacked them the first time. This one was bigger, and had a large 'M' emblazoned on the underside of its hull. At no point in his life had Fry felt so vulnerable as he did at that moment, hanging as he was in the middle of space with nothing to protect him from a well placed plasma round than a tenth of an inch of glass and fabric. He just hoped the enemy gunner wasn't a good shot.

As it turned out, he needn't have worried. The enemy vessel didn't shoot.

Fry and Chelsea made it to the Planet Express Ship's airlock. He just prayed Hermes hadn't gotten on the crew to change the access code every month like they were supposed to. The airlock light turned green. Yes!

Inside, the ship seemed physically undamaged, although life support and artificial gravity were apparently offline. When Fry and Chelsea stepped out of the airlock, the ship's lights turned on automatically. Fry began propelling himself down the hallway in the direction of the bridge.

As soon as they entered the compartment they felt the tug of gravity pull at their bodies. Fry's ear caught the whir of a ventilation fan. The bridge's emergency power generator was still operational, then. He removed his helmet and tossed it aside. Chelsea waited to make sure he could breathe before following suit. "So this is the famous Planet Express Ship, huh?" Her eyes took in the sleek bridge. "Impressive."

Fry didn't respond, but instead took his old place at tactical. He tried not to think about the gruesome scene he'd been half-expecting to find on the bridge. The console came alive when he sat before it. A complex wave of emotions washed over him as he was confronted with the memories that accompanied that chair- that ship. He forced himself to suppress them. The console was advising him that there was a ship coming alongside. Fry's eyes went wide and he bolted from the seat.

"What?! What's going on?!" Chelsea demanded as Fry bolted across the bridge. The redhead dove into the Captain's seat and twisted the key that was still in the ignition.

The ship shook. Chelsea almost lost her balance, but grabbed the monitor that hung from the ceiling to steady herself.

An alarm sounded somewhere belowdecks. One of the first things Leela had done after being appointed Captain of the Planet Express Ship was to force Fry to memorize the sound of every alarm that the ship possessed. It had proven a daunting task. There were a lot of things that could go wrong in space, and each of them had its own alarm. This one was a low wail, almost solemn in its timbre. It quickly crescendoed to a climax and then slowly faded to silence before repeating. That meant-

"We're being boarded!" Fry exclaimed

Chelsea swore under her breath. "What about weapons? Do we have laser guns onboard or something?"

Fry shook his head. "No. Leela was afraid that Bender would try and hijack the ship if she kept guns around. She probably had one hidden onboard somewhere in case of an emergency, but I dunno where."

"Well, it probably doesn't matter anyway." Chelsea replied in resignation.

"Huh? Why?" Chelsea nodded toward the rear of the bridge. Three spacesuited figures floated through the hatchway and landed lightly on their feet as the artificial gravity caught them. Each of them had nasty looking laser rifles clutched in their ungloved hands.

The lead figure gestured with his pistol for Fry and Chelsea to place their hands over their heads. When they had complied he reached for the seals around his neck and his helmet detached with a click. The creature was of the same species as the aliens that first challenged them. Its head was small and wide with two small horns at the top. Two slits high up in the center of the face served as a nose. Two large eyes sat at either end of the face, bulging outward in such a way that Fry thought they might fall out of the alien's skull. The skin was brown and leathery, giving the impression of having been out in the sun for too long. Overall, the alien didn't appear all that threatening, except for the laser, of course.

"Move away from the controls." The alien ordered in a low, gravelly voice. "Make any sudden movements and I will shoot you."

Fry and Chelsea had no choice but to comply. "Who the hell are you?" Chelsea demanded.

"And what did you do to Leela and the others?" Fry added. Chelsea shot a glance in his direction, surprised at the tension in the redhead's voice.

The alien frowned at the insolence of the weird-looking creature that stood before him. "My name is Lox. This is Kali and Erenor." He gestured to his two companions, who still had their weapons pointed squarely at the humans' faces. "But that isn't important." Lox continued. "What matters is that we're a private security contractor hired by Momcorp to patrol the Cardena System. You two are trespassing-"

"Wait, hold on a minute!" Chelsea interrupted. "You work for Momcorp? I'm a Momcorp employee! I work security at corporate headquarters in New New York."

"Did you have official business here?"

"Well n-" Fry stared at her, and she caught herself. "I mean yeah. Definitely. We were, uhh, testing out a new guidance system that-"

"That's enough!" Lox sneered. "Don't take me for an idiot. There weren't any authorized missions to this system logged for today. You think I'd tell my own men to shoot at people who had a legitimate reason to be here?"

"But we were only trying to find our friends!" Fry protested. "They work for a delivery company and were hired to bring a package here. But something happened to them. They never came back!"

Lox's eyes went wide. "You mean those morons that owned this ship?"

"Yeah, them." Fry's hands involuntarily balled themselves into fists at the insult. "What happened to them? Where are they?"

The alien laughed. "I have no idea. They cost Momcorp more income in five minutes than most planets make in a century. Whatever Mom's sons did to them, I probably don't want to know about it. Serves them right though. What a fool their captain must have been, actually ordering a robot to-"

"You take that back!" Without even having made the conscious decision to do it, Fry found himself lunging at Lox with every intent to rip the sneer right off of the wrinkly alien's face. He made it about halfway before the helmeted alien on the right reacted. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the barrel of the laser rifle tracked in his direction. The other suited alien moved to put himself in between his commander and the ball of redheaded fury. Erenor, the alien with the weapon aimed at Fry's forehead, squeezed the trigger, and Fry waited for the concentrated beam of photons to sear its way into his skull. He closed his eyes.

His momentum changed sharply. Chelsea grabbed ahold of Fry's ankle and pulled hard. Fry toppled over and crashed into a bulkhead. The laser buried itself harmlessly in the hull, passing right through the spot that Fry's face had been a second earlier. Chelsea rolled and pushed off the floor. She hit Erenor squarely in the chest. The alien went limp as his pistol flew from his hand. Her momentum carried them both through the hatch and into freefall. Chelsea spun around. She kicked off the deck and plowed into Lox from behind. She easily managed to pull the laser from the alien's grasp. That only left- Searing pain ripped through Chelsea's shoulder. She screamed and convulsed. Her body collided hit the deck with sickening force.

Erenor's pistol slid across the deck and came to a rest by Fry's right hand. He had just enough time to see Kali begin to squeeze the trigger. The redhead had spent many a night after a particularly epic laser battle lying in his cot on the Planet Express Ship wondering if, when the time finally came, whether he'd actually be able to willingly shoot someone; whether he was capable of making the conscious decision to kill. As it turned out, seeing your friend get shot was a powerful motivator.

Fry's pistol fired almost of its own accord, burying several petajoules of energy in the alien's side. Kali's own shot went wide, burning a long gash in Chelsea's left shoulder. Kali herself was not so fortunate. As her body fell into the corridor outside the bridge, it began to spin lazily. A stream of red globules flowed from the corpse, hovering in the air nearby like a cloud of satellites. Fry stared at the body, horrified. His hand began to shake, and he looked down at the weapon in his hand almost in disbelief. Then he lost his stomach contents all over the bridge.

"So, what are we gonna do with them?" Fry asked. He'd never taken prisoners before. In fact, he was pretty sure that only badguys took prisoners. The captives had been moved to the vicinity of the airlock while Fry and Chelsea decided their fates. Kali's body, having been too much for Fry to deal with, had been placed out of sight in the engine room.

Lox and Erenor were floating miserably against the bare patch of the hull. The redhead was floating upside down with respect to the ship's normal orientation. He had one hand firmly planted on the rim of metal that protruded from the airlock to keep himself steady. Chelsea was nearby, and had one of the laser rifles trained at the captives. She seemed to have to think over her response. "Well." She said eventually. "We can't let them go. They'll have us arrested for murder when we get home."

Fry's face went pale. Murder?! "But it was in self defense! They were going to kill us!"

"No we weren't." Lox protested. "Not until you attacked us. If we'd wanted to kill you we would have fried you the moment you pulled that stunt to get away from the ship we crippled."

"Shut up, you!" Chelsea snapped. "Fry, think about it. Who are the courts going to believe? Two regular people who were snooping around somewhere that they weren't supposed to be, or a licensed security force backed by the biggest industrial machine in the galaxy?"

He had to admit that she had a point. "But what are we gonna do then? We can't just kill them. Then we really would be murderers!"

"Fry." She said, and waited for him to look directly at her. "We don't have a choice. Either we kill them, or we'll be hanged for a crime we didn't commit. They took their own lives into their hands the moment they started shooting at us." Suddenly there was something hard and cold in the back of Chelsea's eyes that sent a shiver running down his spine. He got an unsettling feeling that the person he was seeing now was not the woman that he'd met in at Applied Cryogenics.

"I- you can't kill them! For god's sakes Chelsea, they're unarmed! You can't shoot someone if they're unarmed! Haven't you ever watched Star Trek?!"

Chelsea nodded. "I thought you'd object. I envy you, really, for standing up for your sense of morality like this. But you're wrong, and I'm not going to let either of our lives be destroyed because these creatures were stupid enough to get in our way." She smiled at him, and Fry could see that there was genuine affection in it. Before he could object again, Chelsea pushed off from the bulkhead and floated toward Lox. She casually grabbed a pipe that jutted from the ceiling and came to a stop mere inches from the alien. She thrust her weapon into his face. Lox flinched away from her hand, and Chelsea snorted in disgust.

"Please don't do this." Lox pleaded. "If you let us go, we'll forget that you were ever even here. You have my word."

"Your word doesn't mean anything to me." Chelsea replied, and casually cocked the weapon.

Lox panicked. "No, wait! Stop!" He grabbed her arm. "I'm begging you!"

Chelsea froze. She looked at the alien's face, then down at the leathery hand that was planted at her wrist. When she spoke her voice was cold as ice. "No subhuman touches Chelsea Lynn Xiao."

What happened next was a blur. Chelsea grabbed Lox by the neck and threw him across the small compartment. The alien's skull collided with a control panel. The snap of bone cut his screams short. At the same time, Erenor pushed off from the deck and bolted for the hatch, knocking Fry out of the way. The Asian woman spun and let out a yell that made Fry's blood run cold. Chelsea kicked off the wall and shot through the hatch after the fleeing captive. She caught her quarry right in the corridor beyond the alien ship's airlock. Chelsea cocked her arm and let loose a left hook that dented the alien's armored spacesuit. The sheer force of the blow knocked the wind out of him. Erenor's eyes began to roll back in his head, but Chelsea wasn't done. Fry, who'd raced after them in the hopes of intervening, turned away right before she fired her laser rifle into the alien's face at point blank range. The whole compartment filled with the smell of scorched flesh.

Fry forced himself to look. Erenor's entire head was gone. Chelsea floated over the alien's ruined form, an anger like nothing Fry had ever seen before causing her whole body to tremble. The whole front of her was covered with the blood of her vanquished opponent. When she looked at him there was nothing human to be seen in her eyes. Instinctively Fry tried to back away, though it was impossible in freefall. Chelsea, seeing the terror in his face, tried to go to him.

"Fry, I-"

Fry leveled his own weapon at her. "Who are you?" He asked with a squeak.

Chelsea hesitated. "What do you mean? Fry, put down the gun"

But Fry shook his head. "Nuh-uh." The image of Erenor's dented spacesuit stuck in his mind. "You're not human." It wasn't a question. "Who are you? What are you?"

"Fry, it's me! Put down the gun. You're not thinking straight. You hit your head, remember?"

It was true. There was a nasty bruise on his forehead from when Chelsea had grabbed his ankle and slammed him into the wall to save his life. But, even so, his gut was confirming what his head already knew. "You called yourself Chelsea Xiao. Why?"

"What? Oh, that. It was my father's name. My mother divorced him and I went with her, so my name changed to Porter. I guess I just used my father's name because I was angry." Her voice acquired a pleading tone. "Fry, please. It's me. I wouldn't ever hurt you. You- you're the only person in the whole future that I care about. You must know that. Please, just put the gun away."

Fry felt his composure falter. What am I doing? He asked himself. He lowered the gun slightly. Chelsea made no move to advance on him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but something stopped him. For some reason, the girl from the rental agency appeared in his mind. Something told him that she was very important. He tried to concentrate. Where do I know her from? An image of a bar sprang into his head. Bright lights, futuristic music. Alcoholic drinks and covert glances at Leela, who was sitting at a booth with Amy and a man that he'd never seen before. Puppets. Puppets were important somehow. Saucy puppet show. I told Bender to go see a saucy puppet show so that I could have the apartment to myself. That girl from the rental agency, I took her home that night. She was from the 21st century. But why is that important? When the answer came it, hit him like a thunderclap. Cyborgs.

Fry raised the pistol again. "That girl from the rental agency. She was from the 21st century. She lived through the War of 2012. And she recognized you."

Chelsea froze. Her face went completely white.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Fry asked in amazement. "You're the leader of the cyborgs, the daughter of the scientist that created them. You froze yourself to escape when you realized you were losing."

A part of him waited for her to laugh at him, to tell him how ridiculous that sounded and explain just how impossible all of it was. That part of him died when he read the confirmation in Chelsea's face. She reached out toward him, placating him. He could see that there was real pain in her eyes. "Fry, please, don't hate me. You're the only friend I have." Fry retreated from her grasp.

"You called Lox a subhuman, and then killed him when he was unarmed. You looked down on Hermes just because he has an alien working for him. You lied to me." Chelsea moved toward him, and Fry retreated into the Planet Express Ship. The laser rifle trembled in his hands. When Chelsea began to follow him through the airlock he slapped the hatch's emergency seal button, and six inches of metal swung into place between them. For a moment, the two of them watched each other through the small porthole in the hatch. Tears began to form in the corners of Chelsea's eyes, and Fry turned away before he could betray his own pain. Chelsea, suddenly furious, pounded at the hatch. A series of dings appeared in the hatch's alloy surface, but even Chelsea's superhuman strength was unable to do any significant damage.

Fry hesitated. He reached behind himself and swatted the button marked 'intercom' that was mounted on a control panel next to the hatch. "I'm leaving." He said. Chelsea started to respond, but Fry cut the connection. He ran to the bridge before Chelsea realized she might be able to burn through the hatch with her laser.

The Planet Express Ship's controls felt strange in his hands. It was almost surreal to be sitting in Leela's chair. He tried to banish the latent guilt that was still left from the last time he'd flown the ship, and let out a deep breath to calm himself. He pressed a button. There was a clang as the ship detached itself from the other vessel.

A few bursts from the maneuvering thrusters rotated the ship to face the white alien vessel. Fry could just barely make out a lone figure standing, arms crossed, on the vessel's bridge. Silently he mouthed the words 'I'm sorry", but he knew Chelsea was probably too far away to have seen. A low clunk from underfoot signaled that the automated distress beacon he had ordered launched was away. After pausing to make sure it was squawking on all frequencies he pushed the throttle forward, and the stars rushed around him.

Interlude

Night became day and then faded to night again in an endless progression of misery. Her body stalked the echoing corridors, eyes blank, a laser rifle resting against its shoulder. Imprisoned in her own head, She had long ago ceased railing at her body's betrayal. When Walt passed, she no longer tried to force her limbs to follow her orders, or her finger to depress the trigger on the weapon that was maddeningly in her grasp, but utterly beyond her control. Even those dark moments in which she'd tried in vain to turn the rifle on herself had passed. Now all that was left her was a simmering, brooding hatred, which she carefully nursed. She would bide her time; gather her strength. When Walt passed by one morning, he looked her square in the eye and laughed at her, secure in his total victory. She let it pass. The moment wasn't right, the control he had over her too complete. Walt must have caught something- a tiny change in her posture perhaps- because his smile wavered for a split second. Her body continued walking as it mechanically completing its assigned instructions. This isn't over. She said silently to Walt's back. You're time will come.