Maelstrom Chapter 7.5
Marooned: Part C
Author's note: This story is part of a LONG series called Maelstrom. It is strictly Gen. 1 - sorry, but that was all that was out when I started writing back in the late 1980's. It began as a fan-publication so the first chapters are in the form of a comic book! If you have not read the nine original Maelstrom Comics and the preceding text stories, I strongly suggest you do. This is a complex universe. They can be found at http/ illmatar. deviantart. com (I have put double spaces between the URL here or FF . Net eats the link.) The comics and art which accompanies this series are there...and believe me I am a better artist than writer.
This chapter takes place between the comic issues #7 and #8.
Most chapters of this series contain strong language and violence. Rated M for adult themes! Really! Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Critiques adored! This scene contains strong language, violence, trauma, and sex. Rated M for adult themes!
Transformers characters belong to Hasbro. Story and OC characters are mine. Critiques adored!
Continued from Marooned Part B
When they ran into their first pack of predators, he just stood there making it easy for them. Fortunately her lances were faster than they were. She killed two of the six with loud blasts and the rest ran off. They were good sized beasts, still roughly lizard-like, but about the size of a wild boar and similar tusks to boot. They looked like a warped cross between a gila monster and a warthog.
"Oh look! LOTS of meat for my handy sub-space pack," Lancer jeered. "And we can finally work on ending your days as a nudist! Won't that be grand?"
He just stood there, staring vaguely in the same direction they'd been going, just as he had when the pack had rushed them from around a dune. She snorted and started butchering her kills, doing her best to keep the tough skin in one piece.
" I'm slicing this poor beast up for your benefit," she tried meanly.
His cloudy eyes finally turned to her, which she regarded as a victory, until he answered her.
"You might as well stop that Lancer. I know you're just being nasty to keep me moving because you think it will help me survive. I want you to stop. Go on without me. I'm not going to fall for that anymore."
Her heart sank, but she didn't let on. "Oh trust me, I can get under your skin dear. I have skills."
He shook his head ever so slightly. Obviously someone had plans to test her skills. She decided to camp and process the meat right where they were. Meat was spread out in strips on large, heated rocks to cook and dehydrate. She carved a cooking bowl out of a fairly large stone and set the organs to boil. Tendons were carefully cleaned too. She wasn't entirely sure it was possible cure the leather with nothing but her powers, but she was able to use them to clean and dry the skin to the point she was reasonably sure they wouldn't start to stink.
" I also have skills at laser hair removal – haven't needed to tweeze my eyebrow since my powers kicked in!"
"Those aren't hairs," Rodimus pointed out flatly.
Lancer gave Rodimus a sour expression. "Do you know what these critters are?"
"No."
"Then you don't know what these spiky things are either. Therefore they are hairs because I say so and because they stink when I burn them," Lancer instructed primly.
"Everything smells when you burn it," Rodimus noted.
" Including you. I know. I've done it. Until you start contributing more to my life than murder attempts and criticism you don't get to name things. Naming privileges and the right to be a whiny bastard come with being useful."
Rodimus' eyes flashed for a second and she thought maybe she had him, but he shook his head an sat down on a rock. It wasn't long before she could tell he was no where on this world with her. As usual she debated with herself. Should she try to bring him around? Was this part of the healing process? Going over and over her possession was certainly one of her major hobbies. Indeed, it had been her only hobby for weeks until Silva convinced her learning to kill people was another engaging way to occupy her time. Lancer just wasn't sure that even if perpetual flashbacks were a normal part of this process, that they were a useful/healthy part of it.
In the mean time, she flipped her stinky meat, kept the rocks glowing, the water boiling, and an eye on Rodimus. She pulled out her music player and unplugged the headphones. It wasn't a surround sound system, and the volume wasn't much, but the music played clearly. She put it next to Mr. Personality and went to see about making him something to wear. She found her hides to be drying well, but very stiff. Relying on half remembered lessons from pioneer days in elementary school, she got a couple of rocks and started pounding those bitches into submission. If nothing else, she hoped to be too tried to pound Rodimus into submission the next time he said something pissy. At least in his immobile state, she was able to get fairly descent measurements of his body without touching him, although she did have to take her own armor off to get a better idea of how the pieces should fit together. Funny how you put on clothes daily and never paid any attention to the actual odd shapes they were made from.
Hmm...Nowhere near enough dead critter for a full suit, but some shorts were doable, and maybe sort of a partial vest. She could save the scraps for later.
Shorts first. Priorities.
Rodimus drifted from one state to the next all day that day. Mostly he went over and over his time with the Jabez. He was never really sure what would pull him back to the cold, crude campsite once in a while, but he didn't really let it show when something did. Between episodes of the horror movie in his mind he got flashes of the stubborn woman he was stuck with. Tending the rancid meat he would be expected to eat soon. Doing odd, revolting things with sinew and skin. For a while she had her own clothing laid out on the ground next to the skins. Lots of muscle for a human woman. Lots of scars too. The long, reddish ones on her legs made him vaguely curious for a few minutes, if only because he knew from personal experience how hard it was to get the upper hand on her. There were so many...and they seemed to overlap each other. Whatever had done it had done so more than once. There were some over her shoulders too. And her arms. Then she happened to stand with her hands at her sides while she studied her armor. Her own hands lined up nicely with the scars on her legs.. Like the ones on her palms. Funny how she had never once cut him with those nasty nails of hers, but had clearly cut herself to ribbons more than once. It didn't take much for him to picture it...and then he spent a bit more time with the Jabez.
The next time he came around he was pretty sure it was because a song he used to like was playing next to him. Not that the song had changed, or even that his perception of it had changed. There was just nothing left in him to like things with. Lancer was cutting pieces of skin with a finely controlled laser, although she did have to stomp on a couple of small fires she started in the process. She gnawed laboriously on a strip of meat while she worked and the face she made told him she found it just as disgusting as he did.
All this labor for an ungrateful person. Why didn't she just let him go?
She held up her cut leather and he realized numbly that she was making him a pair of pants. When she brought it over to hold in front of him he made sure not to blink or turn his gaze. She compared his body to the skin she was holding. She looked into his eyes and frowned.
She chewed on her lip.
She waved her hand in front of his face.
She paced a bit in front of him, never looking away while she did.
She growled slightly to herself and bit her lip bloody with emerging fangs. The look on her face - shock, dismay, then anger. Not used to that. Frightened of it. Angry in her fear. She stomped away from him, holding her lip and swearing. The tail manifested, the horns grew...slowly...as if she was fighting it. He watched her feet split in half.
He stared, unblinking, and noted every detail. Like he had when they were pulling Goldbug's eye from it's socket...and his femur from his leg. No emotion in this state, just pure observation. He observed that this transformation was anything but natural and painless.
She threw her head back and roared at the sky. The tail lashed. The talons cut fresh lines into her thighs...into her shoulders. A lance blew from her palm and obliterated the west face of their campsite. Power crawled up and down her legs. Apparently not satisfied with the destruction she'd already inflicted on the landscape, she blasted the same area again and again. The noise reminded him of home...artillery fire, bombs, the music of war.
As suddenly as it began, the violence stopped. She stood, head cocked, in front of the smoldering ruin, as if curious where it came from. The marks of the demon withdrew back into her body as if absorbed and she curled up on the sand. She sat there, on her toes, knees, curled up, arms wrapped around knees, and staring into space for a while.
Same as him.
So they sat, each in their private hells, while the shadows changed angles and the cooking stones grew cold.
It was close to sundown when Rodimus came back to reality again. He found Lancer trying uselessly to patch up her own shoulder with the tube of skin glue. The wounds on her legs were already closed with ten long, erratic lines of stitches. He felt nothing, but he got up and walked over to her. The instant he moved her head whipped around and her hands came up in defense.
He ignored that and took the tube out of her hand.
"What do I do?"
She stared at him suspiciously.
"Just run a thin line down the cut and then pinch it together until it holds," she instructed slowly, watching him through narrow eyes.
" Is there going to be enough to do all of this?" he asked dubiously, waving the nearly flattened tube.
"Probably not," Lancer sighed. "And we're out of sutures, so no more deep wounds for either of us OK?"
" I'll start with the worst ones," he said. Easier said than done though. Looking at them to evaluate where to begin sent him flashing. He tried to fight it by pushing towards the cold, evaluating state he'd been in earlier, hoping to keep any emotion down and just see. Lancer knew why it took him so long to start and just waited, although she half expected One to turn up and attack her from behind.
She felt almost resigned to letting him, and then felt guilty. She had no more right to use him as a suicide device than he had to use her. Was there any more concentrated patch of fuckedupedness anywhere in the universe? She doubted it. Terror and despair gripped her though. This couldn't keep happening, but she had no clue how to stop it.
Finally his hands moved and it wasn't to strangle her. The tube scrapped along, the glue burned, and then he used the sides of both hands to compress the cut together. Lather, rinse, repeat. He got through the seven worst of them, and half way through the eighth. The cuts from her pinkie fingers were just going to have to heal on their own. He told her so.
"OK. Thanks," she said. She turned to look up at him. "You aren't going to ask what happened?"
" I saw," he said.
"You did?"
"Yes, but I couldn't...move...just then," he confessed.
"You couldn't have stopped me anyway, Rodimus. You have your moments. I have mine," she said.
"Yes," Rodimus agreed. "Why?" He sat down on a rock across from her.
"Why what?"
"Why do you have your moments?" he asked.
"Why do you care?" Lancer challenged.
" I don't," he started. Then he re-evaluated. " I don't...know."
"Well, I suppose that's progress," Lancer sighed. " I don't know if I can explain it very well. The words we use...they aren't...adequate."
Rodimus, considering what words he would need to use to try to describe what had happened to Goldbug, nodded. Words were useless.
"Ok...well. I'm sensitive to energy right?" Lancer started awkwardly.
"Um. Yeah. Got that," Rodimus said. Lancer noted a ghost of sarcasm there.
"Well, apparently that includes telepathic frequencies. I'm no telepath, but I'm sort of...open...to them. So, apparently there's a whole class of non-corporal entities that feed off of mental energies, and one of them found mine particularly tasty. It liked fear. So it crawled into my mind and took over. It...possessed me. It...owned me. I gave it the idea to shape my body into a demon's because that's what I took it for. It liked the fear the image gave me and liked the idea of terrifying my friends too. So it...pleasured itself...gorged itself on my pain while it used me to hurt them. It planned to kill them one by one, but it wanted to toy with them first to extend our suffering. That's the only reason they aren't all dead already. I was forced to watch. Forced to feel it's pleasure and their pain. It mutated my body, but what it did inside me was...there are no words for it." Her voice was cold, steady.
Rodimus just stared at her, expressionless, so she went on.
" It killed parts of my soul, Rodimus...and it made me see...: she trailed off, her eyes seeing nothing.
Rodimus caught himself wanting to wave his hand in front of her vacant eyes. Instead he prompted, "Made you see what?"
She turned her gaze to him, and he saw horror there, and unshed tears. "How much I resembled it. How guilty I was for letting it in...how...evil...I am."
"You don't like hurting things Lancer," Rodimus said, thinking of all the trouble she went to to spare him pain.
She laughed. "You're wrong Rodimus. I do. I like killing. I like it. Maybe not all the time, but you put a bunch of slave-running assholes in my way and I will kill them with joy. Knowing how wrong it is doesn't change the fact that hurting them makes me happy. So. I am...cursed. There's no redeeming that. It's thinking about how many of the Slavers, and the Sponsors, and the damned Jabez that are going unhurt right now that makes me unhappy!"
Rodimus' eyes narrowed to emerald slits. "Well...I guess that makes two of us that are un-redeemable."
She leaned forward and got right in his face. "Bullshit. You don't want to hurt them. You want to die remember?"
He just curled his lip at her in a hateful snarl.
"Suicide," she prodded. "Yeah they'll never get over it if you let yourself starve or fall into a pit. Or were you hoping they'd laugh themselves to death?"
He surged to his feet and stood over her, fists clenched and glowering.
She got up and walked across the camp to her cold cook stones. "OO...some signs of a warrior in there after all! Well Mr. Prime Sir, if you want revenge you're gonna have to work on it. Here," she crooned, whipping a piece of lizard-jerky at him. "Have some dinner."
He caught the meat, glared at it, glared at her, and ate it.
That day marked a turning point.
The dreams he had that night were the usual parade of nightmares, but there was one dream...one he remembered...of making some of the bleeding stop.
The next morning he helped Lancer pack up camp. To her amazement he even watched where he was walking.
It wasn't that Rodimus didn't suffer relapses into flashbacks and hallucinations – there were plenty of those for the rest of his life. There were even times when despairing Two took over and Lancer found it hard to get him moving. Hard...but not impossible. Part of his mind was simply snapped, but he had motivation to work around it, and an enthusiastic teacher leading the way.
After all, learning to kill things better had given her something to work towards.
Each morning she gave him a new skill to learn. The first took him two days to master. The fourth only a day. The sixth he had by noon and she gleefully showed him something new after lunch. He still found the food disgusting but he ate it or she wouldn't teach him. Mostly he just didn't argue with her because she held the next lesson in front of him like a carrot. Mostly. He didn't care for the stiff, unpleasant patchwork of hides she added to his attire daily.
"This...thing...you made me is rubbing my skin raw," he complained after one whole day of wearing it. The stylish pants Lancer had been planning hadn't come together quite like she'd hoped. The tendons she tried were too stiff to do more than a few rough ties with. She had big plans to try intestines next time, but that required more water than she could spare at the moment. In the mean time, Rodimus sported something that looked like a prop from a Tarzan movie.
"Aw...mighty Autobot has sensitive skin. So very sorry. Actually, I'm relieved to no longer be traveling with a nudist," Lancer grinned.
"Ah. So this is more about making you feel comfortable?" Rodimus asked. Sarcasm. No doubt about it. Lancer was delighted.
"Of course it is, although I'm amazed your complaining. It's not like the sand getting into everything was doing you any good. I'm amazed you aren't thrilled to have something keeping that thing out of the breeze. Seriously Mr. Robot, didn't it bother you to have a random piece of meat flopping around all day?"
"From where I stand I've just traded one kind of chafing for another, but I was hoping we could actually do something about the...clothes. And no, the penis doesn't bother me any more than the rest of me being meat. The anatomy isn't THAT different...it's just softer, more painful, and impossible to put away," Rodimus snarled in exasperation.
Lancer stopped and stared at him.
"What...what do you use them for?" she asked finally.
"Same as you. You didn't know that?" Rodimus asked.
"That Transformers are hung?" she laughed. "Nope. My elementary school focused on the other kinds of guns you guys pack...oh...and running away. There was lots about running away." She grinned and muttered, "Maybe they were afraid if they told us, some of us would forget to run away."
This thought apparently led to others she didn't share with him. She was too busy laughing herself sick. Rodimus just stood there and watched her. He didn't smile exactly, but it was...surprising... to see this bossy, grim, mean, implacable bitch of an assassin doubled over with tears running down her cheeks.
"Bang, bang, bang!" she gasped. "The NOISE! No, nonono!" Really, the laughter was enough to tear her in two.
It took him a minute to place what she was thinking. "Yeah, no. It's just a circuit lock. There's no bouncing around like you guys do."
Lancer straightened a little and seemed to breathe a bit better, "Ah. That takes some of the fun out of it, but OK." She wiped her eyes, looked at his somewhat annoyed expression and fell completely apart again.
"At least we can control our own damned bodies. We don't act like animals in heat and the equipment isn't all out and in the way unless we need it!" Rodimus felt a bit defensive all of a sudden.
Lancer straightened up and hid her face behind both hands. She inhaled and exhaled very deliberately a few times before speaking. "That takes some of the fun out of it too," she managed finally. "So who's missing your equipment while your stuck here Rodimus?"
He just blinked at her blankly.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" she tried again. More blinking. "Boyfriend?"
"No...no one like that," he said finally.
"Really? With your status I figured you'd be Prime goods...pun definitely intended," she was still grinning a bit madly.
"Yeah. But before that I was nobody and the crush I had on Arcee was never happening. She and Springer are life mates, even if they won't admit it. There were a few Paradronian girls who...um...asked...but they were all..." He paused.
"All what?" Lancer prompted.
"Stupid," Rodimus frowned. "Stupid...or just looking for some kind of prestige because I was Prime. I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't want to be used like that either. I think it's easier for us. We want love...we want pleasure...but we can wait. Time isn't a factor. There's no biological clock. There's no huge drive to breed because we don't breed."
"Right," Lancer said. " I get that I guess, but in that case, why do you have that at all. It makes no sense to me. You are a completely alien species from humans, you come from a different world, and you're even made from a completely different substance. Why in the hell would you all just happen to have all of the same bits and pieces filling roughly the same rolls, in all the same locations as a bunch of upstart monkeys that clawed their way from the ooze on Earth? Especially since you don't breed!"
" I...I have no idea," Rodimus admitted. He was a bit stunned by the obviousness of this question. Why had none of them ever asked? That question wanted to spawn a whole fleet of others but he was suddenly distracted. "Does all this mean we aren't going to do something about the chafing?"
Lancer laughed some more. "We'll work on it this evening," she smiled.
In the days following, Lancer tried a few more times to talk about the similarities between humans and Transformers. She finally gave up. He would get the same shocked look on his face every time she brought it up, but moments later something would distract him. He was starting to complain of headaches too. She wondered if it was something to do with his trauma that he couldn't seem to focus on it for more than a few minutes, and decided it wasn't worth setting him back.
It was odd though, because sometimes when he focused on something he locked on like a crocodile and didn't let go. Other times he seemed to just have mental blocks over dumb stuff. Certainly he was chewing through her assassination techniques with gusto. He mastered new moves nearly as fast as she could throw them at him. He was fast, accurate, and deadly serious about learning them. At the same time, he had some unlearning to do. Stealth was not part of his mindset. Neither was dodging attacks. Reliance on his former armor was really a problem. He didn't even seem to have the basic reflexes that made most people flinch away from a coming hit. There was also a horrendous tendency to pull his blows early she found frustrating. Not killing things was so deeply ingrained in his mindset and training she wanted to scream sometimes. So she did.
"No wonder your wars have gone on for fucking eons! Push THROUGH your target! Aim PAST their body and don't stop until you've hit the other side!"
Even though she could see the frothing desire for bloody vengeance swirling in his eyes, his attacks stopped short over and over.
" I'm TRYING," he'd insist.
"You're trying to drive me crazy," she snarled. "Which is stupid because I was crazy before you met me. Give it up and fucking hit me! Leave your stupid chivalry or whatever this is behind. I can take whatever you dish out and I've handled you in a fit often enough to prove it."
" I know that. It's not that," Rodimus vowed.
"Well what then?" Lancer growled.
" I...don't know." His eyes glazed over in that way she hated. " I'll do better."
But he didn't, and she got frustrated and went after him a bit harder than usual. This sparked off an attack from One, and for once Lancer didn't try to immediately subdue him. She fought him and evaluated him while she did. He used exactly none of the things she'd been teaching him – being completely immersed in a time before he knew her. The hate on his face was as complete and genuine as any she'd ever seen.
He still pulled his punches.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A few days later:
"What's this all about?" Lancer hissed, stomping around like an angry toddler.
Rodimus rolled his eyes.
"Are you trying to punish this world for your problems Sir? I assure you, it is not the ground's fault you're a red-headed idiot. Although I do finally agree with Silva on how you got Chosen. You'll call attention to us for every predator within miles."
This earned her two raised eyebrows.
"Yeah, she took one look at you the day the news broke and proclaimed that you were chosen to blind the enemy and distract them from other targets," Lancer informed him truthfully.
"Silva was your teacher...so she taught you how to be mean too did she?" Rodimus said.
"Nope. The demon did that. Now, explain to me why I can't get you to follow through on a single hit unless it happens to be your feet aiming at the ground as you walk. Maybe I should try laying down the next time we spar to see if you'll put your weight into it then," Lancer mused.
"Oh yes, let's do that," Rodimus snarled softly back at her. He had a headache and felt particularly close to flashing. On the one hand, he was fully invested in this "learn to kill better and get revenge" thing. On the other, her complete dominance over him when they trained and her constant criticism of all of his former training were getting old. He was beginning to associate her questions about such things with migraines.
"Well, stop it! Control your footfalls for pity's sake! You complain about how out of control your body is, but I have to remind you to pee when most people would be having accidents. You have more control over your body than most of us who are born this way do."
" I don't see what you're worried about. You like it when we get attacked because you don't have to go looking for things to hunt," Rodimus reasoned.
"So you think that makes it OK to call attention to us?" Lancer smiled.
He knew by now that smile meant pain was coming.
" I didn't say that," he tried.
She fluttered her eyelashes at him flirtatiously, "Oh please, Kind Sir, do explain what you meant to little old me."
He sighed, and decided to just keep walking, alert for whatever she might do.
It didn't matter. She flew soundlessly into the air behind him and landed on his shoulders in a handstand before he knew she was in motion. The hands on his shoulders clamped and her momentum as she landed in front of him pulled him down and over her body in a sort of dual somersault. The end resulted with him looking up at the sky...and her glowering face as she stood over him. Breathing was suddenly very painful too.
"New policy. Since you think being noisy is fine and getting us attacked is no big deal, I am going to get you to appreciate the dangers of being a target. I know your former paint job made that a way of life for you and all. Every time you act like a target, I am going to oblige you by targeting you. Deal? Lay there and wheeze if that's a deal...oh good!" She smiled that fangy grin again. "Maybe we can get you to dodge once in a while we're at it. Of course there's no danger to me because you won't hit a girl...or a human...or anyone really."
Rodimus knew to take her at her word.
He got better at walking quietly by the end of the first day.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Their lives grew into a kind of strange routine.
She'd check his wounds. He'd (awkwardly) check hers.
They'd walk.
She'd hunt while they walked. Anything that called attention to itself was fair game, which mostly meant Rodimus got decked a lot. Every once in a while he'd get a shot or two in on her, which earned her a bruise, and him praise. Mostly though she left him wondering how anyone on either side of the Transformers war bothered to call themselves a fighter. He knew he was faster and stronger than she, but she rarely made herself available for striking.
He realized he was very used to enemies that didn't dodge or follow through any better than he did. Thinking about it too much always made his head hurt though, so mostly he focused on doing better.
They'd camp near sunset.
She'd cook if she'd found something, or they'd eat dried meat if not. The local plant life was still sparse and still more work to chew than they'd be worth nutritionally. Every kill added to his wardrobe too and the skins were making their own kind of camo-patchwork of different shades of tough, scratchy, tannish hides.
If she had something to work on like food or his clothing she took care of that first. He'd spar with phantoms while she critiqued from some rock or another making jerky or adding another section of dead animal for him to chafe against the next day. While she sewed and cursed she told him about their enemies. The Slavers, the Sponsors, the Jabez at the heart of it all. It shocked him...over and over. That so many systems were involved. That this was an integral part of the fabric of commerce and politics throughout every known system...including Earth! Including Cybertron! Cybertron...HIS territory. His home! To hear the Slavers had been using it as a truck stop for centuries – right under his nose. Of course it was easy enough to believe HE could have screwed up that badly, but what about Optimus? Magnus? Kup? Even Shockwave who had been Cybertron's guardian since before the Ark crashed...HE wouldn't have allowed lowly organics to lay over on Cybertron either, especially since they pirated precious energon and resources when there were none to spare.
How could ALL of them have missed something so...so...fundamental?
Rodimus learned to train with a near constant migraine. It worried Lancer, but it didn't stop her from beating the crap out of him. She practically glowed (OK...sometimes she literally glowed) with pride every time he managed to hit her. At least she seemed to take teaching him more seriously than defeating him.
Over the course of several days (and numerous flashbacks) she told him about her friends, and what they were trying to do.
She told him how Claudia had followed an intense source of fear with her empathy while traveling with Jordan. He had suffered from a rare form of cancer, and lost his empathy as a result – effectively rendering him a deaf/mute to most of his species means of communication. Claudia had hoped to show him how the rest of the universe functioned without it...or at least to distract him from his depression. Their "pleasant adventure" had gone horribly wrong.
They were on Monacus, enjoying the lights and the gambling. Jordan had gone to grab dinner for them the moment Claudia felt the terror...a child's. She'd followed it to its source - really expecting nothing more than a lost youngling. Instead she'd stumbled onto a slaving operation. The child she'd sensed was the only victim the slave runners hadn't Converted...because somehow raping a CV was less satisfying than raping a terrified little kid. She'd sensed the evil the slavers were projecting early enough, but she didn't know about emotionless CVs. She was already within the ring of their security when she realized what was happening and tried to fly for help. A telekenetic sentry CV simply immobilized her the instant she'd tried to take off.
Her punishment for spying was to join the child in the gang rape. Her non-human body was in no way suited for what they did to her. Her wings were crushed by their weight, her hollow bones broke all over her body, her pelvic area split in two, and the concussions she suffered damaged the control centers in her brain that allowed her to turn her empathic sensitivity up or down.
In a way this saved her. The entire region, including the slavers, was suddenly assaulted with her terror and pain. There was mass hysteria within a 3 mile radius, and the local authorities had found her in their attempts to quell the panicking citizens. None of the slavers even resisted arrest – they were all found in fetal positions, mostly covered in their own urine.
It was too late for the child she had tried to save. He died on the way to the hospital. Claudia eventually healed physically, but her wings needed to be amputated and her empathic controls were damaged beyond repair. It made their nameless home-world lost to them. An out-of-control empath would be deafened by the constant, wordless exchanges of their species. They were exiles.
While Claudia recuperated, Jordan battled with the local bureaucracy. Yes, the perpetrators were all well and truly punished by being hit by their own victim's pain. Yes, none of them would likely ever recover, but what about all the other victims? The dead-minded people? What were these men up to with all of them? Who were they?
It hadn't taken him long to realize that the local authorities knew exactly what these answers were and planned to do nothing about it. He also realized that meant he and Claudia were liabilities.
No warrior, knowing no one, and with nothing but their travel bags, Jordan had precious few options..except money.
So he recklessly walked into the most dangerous looking bar he could find and announced he needed to hire some muscle. He could have easily been mugged, swindled, or wasted his money on incompetent mercenaries. Instead what he hired (more with his desperation and earnestness than with his cash) was Silva. The metallic assassin was WAY out of his price range, but she didn't tell him that until later. She was currently unemployed, bored, and a sucker for challenge and intrigue. The minute she stood up everyone else in the bar who might have seen an easy mark sat right back down.
Jordan frantically told her everything on the way to the hospital where Claudia still rested in serious condition. The more he talked, the more intrigued...and angry Silva got. She believed in clean kills...clean warfare. Honor and necessity. Money being a necessity of course, but still...nothing in Claudia's abuse was clean.
Silva was angry before they got to Claudia's room, which only gave the throat strike she gave to the hit man standing over the bed when they got there a bit of extra force. Sirens were wailing before they even alerted the nurses. Not a good sign the police were coming to aid them. Jordan grabbed a chair and smashed the window out. Then he grabbed Claudia, bed sheets, I.V.s and all, and flew her down to the street.
Silva had no wings...so she simply jumped out of the fourth story window and landed next to Jordan on the street. Her legs sunk nearly a foot into the pavement which bothered her. Punching through the surface that way got her dirty and all.
She whispered an address and a password into Jordan's ear and covered his escape with smoke bombs and hand to hand mayhem which left about a dozen local police dead or in a conveniently located hospital. Meeting up with Jordan about an hour later, she found him in her local safe-house, getting his first on-the-spot medical training as he struggled with Claudia.
It wasn't until after a few weeks of teamwork, where Jordan researched online and in local libraries, and Silva shook down snitches and local heavies, that Jordan thought to ask Silva when his first payment would run out. That was when she told him it had run out before he paid her, but that she wouldn't be collecting.
Their search for answers led them to several other worlds and along the way they ran into Talon, who was making himself a problem for them by beating up the guys Silva wanted to talk to before she could beat them up. Robert was supplying and piloting the ship the boys were using to get away from places where Talon "asked nicely." The two of them were wanted on several planets already for a string of bombings in warehouses and shuttle ports. Their first encounter with Silva ended with a stalemate where Silva had Talon's throat between her steely hands, and Talon had his finger on the kill switch of a live grenade.
It might have ended quite badly then and there had Claudia not stumbled, shrieking with pain and fear, off Silva's shuttle to vouch for Talon. Working together seemed like a no-brainer since the more they found out, the more they all realized how...huge...this network of evil was.
They kept Silva's shuttle, sold Robert's, and made a name for themselves causing mayhem. On paper they were all wanted criminals. Most of the local governments were on the take, if not outright run by high quality CVs. They survived by being fast and secretive...clean, as Silva liked it. She was the nominal leader because she had the most training, although Talon must have had some too. Where he got it or what it was he never shared, but his way with explosives made it pretty clear it was Terran military of some sort.
Keeping their identities secret, even from each other, was another no-brainer. When your enemies could read everything you knew if they Converted you, you didn't talk a lot about the loved ones you left behind. If the original team ever knew each others' real names back in the beginning, they never shared them with Lancer. All of the non-Terrans on the Maelstrom chose Terran words for names. Pagan liked to joke that it was so Robert wouldn't embarrass himself trying to pronounce something in their own languages.
Nevertheless, as clean as they were, none of them could do anything about having their minds read. The day came when they were all resting in one of Silva's Super Secret Safehouses when Kain let himself in and announced he was hiring them to rescue his sister from a Jabez research installation.
They had, in fact, rescued Pagan...and lifted the newly minted Maelstrom in the process. The Jabez that had been holding her had studied her teleportation powers to build them into the ship. It was the only non-Drazi that could fold space along gravitational lines like she did.
"When did you join in?" Rodimus asked.
"Years after the core team got started," Lancer shrugged. "Malice and I were part of a shipment of mutant slaves...fresh from Earth. We were lucky...if you can call it that. Low ranking captives usually get the chip shortly after capture, but she and I were "quality" catches. They were saving us for auction. They slapped inhibitor collars on us and left us in lock-up." Lancer sneered. "Yeah, they didn't rape us or anything because bruises might have cost them a few bucks. They saved that for one of my high school classmates who was pretty, but not a mutant. We got to watch though. Malice and I didn't know each other, but you sort of bond when you are seventeen and have no one else to cling to while a bunch of assholes lobotomize a bunch of kids in front of you and rape a girl to death. They had us a few days before the Maelstrom caught up with them."
Lancer grinned that demonic grin. "Rob and the ship pinned their ship down with the tractor. Talon blew a hole in the hull and two of the jerks got sucked into the void before the decompression shields kicked in. Pagan teleported Silva and Jordan in, and the three of them just started slaughtering. Silva made Jordan a long, double ended spear years ago. His people aren't warriors, but with his empathy down, and everything he's seen happen to Claudia...yeah. He whirls that thing while he flies and heads and limbs just go every which way. Oh and Silva. Man, Rodimus. I wish you could have met her. She was such a good teacher...she would have done right by you...and when she fought. Those silver legs would start her across a room and by the time she reached the other side all the bad guys were dead or dying. I was just a terrified little girl that day, but watching those horrible men go down at her shiny hands was just about the prettiest thing I ever saw. I should have been terrified of them. All these weird aliens. Pagan just comes in and uses those scaly hands to smash and slash. She hits men with her tail and they're done. Talon came down a few minutes after the rest and started mopping up with a good old laser blaster. Merciless. I didn't care. I was so very happy to see someone taking those assholes out."
Rodimus didn't answer her right away. His eyes clouded over and she was pretty sure he was remembering the kids he saw "get the chip" while bound and helpless too.
Finally he saw her again. "What happened to Silva?"
Lancer swallowed and looked away. "She...she was our teacher you know? Especially for me and Malice. We were so young and stupid. Well...Malice. Malice is a bad code-name for Malice. Her powers are awesome, but she never...had the heart for it. She wants the husband/kids life even though we all know a Class One Telekinetic is always going to be a target. So when some guy comes along and promises her that...normalcy...she just jumped for it. Seriously I don't know if Kendall started off as genuine or if he was a ringer from the start. They met when we were taking a shore leave between runs and got all lovey dovey. It was sorta sweet, I guess. Next thing we know they've gone and gotten married over the course of a weekend...and she gets pregnant right off too."
Lancer rolled her eyes. "So Malice tells us she quits and moves in with the guy...and the rest of us pointing out she's got no background on this guy and no security andandand...and it just rolled right off her. She was happy and she was done. Silva was fit to be tied. We couldn't stop her though, so we left one of Robert's Com-eyes behind with her and tried to keep tabs on them. It was all good for like a year. Evan Ryan was born...he was healthy, and the lovely dovey got even lovelier. Silva and I checked on them like five times a day at first, but we relaxed a bit..."
Lancer sighed, sewed, and looked sad. "Like I said, we don't know if Kendall was always shady or if something got to him. He wasn't converted, but a high grade empath or telepath can make things happen too. We were still checking on them, but only once a day at that point. We looked one evening and everything is all rosy and the next afternoon the house is pretty much exploded from the inside out. That's one of Malice's signature moves by the way. Turns out someone was paying top dollar for Evan...we don't know if it was for his genetics or as ransom for Malice. Class One telekinetics are about the rarest, most sought after CVs you can buy. Evan had the potential. Either way, his own father was the delivery man.
We caught up with Malice and helped her take back her kid from this auction house. They were ready for us...or at least ready enough for trouble. It was a long, long fight. About 12 hours. Lots of muscle came at us. Lots of high ranked CVs too. Somewhere in there Kendall died...not sure how or who. Personally, I think it was Silva. She had it in for him from the start. Evan Ryan suffered massive radiation damage which has mangled his DNA to the point he'll never have kids or grow up mentally. It was injected into him by the bad guys before we could rescue him. I guess it was an 'if we can't have him no one can' kind of thing. He'll never be normal and Malice will certainly never be the same. It was...not one of our shining moments. We were all injured one way or another, everyone was freaked out over what happened to Malice's baby...we were all focused on him and her. Even Claudia didn't notice right away that Silva died during the fight. Too much emotional overload for Claudia to notice one heart was silent. We brought Silva's Convert back to the Maelstrom with us. Robert noticed when he caught her trying to tamper with Sigma Beta."
Rodimus' eyes narrowed. "What's...what's Sigma Beta?"
"One of the two main crystal computers on the Maelstrom," Lancer mumbled. She had a piece on sinew between her teeth while she tried to tie another patch of skin to his uneven sleeve. "They look like a pair of humongous disco balls. You need sun-glasses to be in the room with them. They pretty much run the whole ship, which is great because none of us know what the fuck to do with it."
Rodimus' eyes got really, really green – a fact Lancer was a bit surprised by. He handled the whole story with Silva's conversion pretty well. This was upsetting him? She pulled out her music player and pulled out the battery/memory crystal.
"See? They look like this little thing...only they're each like the size of a car and they float," she said, showing him the crystal. It looked precisely like the Matrix...only smaller.
This time, when One attacked her, he used one of the knife-hand strikes she was teaching him...and he followed through. Lancer had mixed feelings about this. The strike he used was designed to break into someone's body. Fortunately, she had her armor on. He hit her so hard he cracked her ribs, knocked the wind out of her, and she had to zap him to bring him down. He was going to be challenging to manage if this kept up. On the other hand, it meant his training was finally becoming instinctive.
Later, as he bound her ribs with strips of dead animal, she heaped praise on him between curses of pain.
"You're as crazy as I am...you know that right?" he snapped.
"You're just now figuring that out?" she asked.
Continued in Marooned: Part D