A Danger to Himself
"Shlit shlit shlit!"
Laes' eyes snapped open when he heard a loud clang.
"You need to calm down..."
Whose voices were those? He sat up and a jolt of pain shot through his head. He cringed and clutched his aching head, whimpering a little as the pain intensified.
"Laes?"
He knew that voice... he cracked open an eye and tried to focus.
The person standing beside his cot leaned in closer and reached for his shoulder.
"Lard Nar?" Laes mumbled.
Then the memories from the Invader's vessel came back all at once, in one big wave. His heart started beating fast inside his chest. He could hardly breathe.
Tears blurred his vision. He covered his face and doubled over.
What was going on...? What was happening to him right now?
"Deep breaths Laes..." Lard Nar told him.
The weight on his shoulder was comforting. He managed to slow his breathing a little, but there was no chance he'd be able to slow his heart rate.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Lard Nar asked.
He whimpered and gripped his head tightly again. Why was it hurting so much?
"My head..." he let out a small gasp as he fell over and curled up on his side.
It hurt to move. It hurt to sit. It hurt to do anything.
"I'm sorry Laes," that was Bann's voice. "Shlit! I should have known those blastards weren't done playing their flerking mind tricks with us!"
"W-what happened...?" Laes stammered, and he managed to open his eyes briefly. The light was making it worse, so he squeezed them shut again.
"Don't worry about it," Bann responded before Lard Nar could say anything different. "I'm taking care of it."
"The medical staff will be here soon," Lard Nar said as he withdrew his hand. "They'll give you something for the pain."
"Yes... ok..." Laes muttered through clenched teeth.
He heard Bann opening his PAK, and the Irken swore again. "Can you stay with him Lard Nar? I need to take this."
"I'll stay," Lard Nar assured the former guard.
"Is there a specific reason you blew up the Massive's control room?" the Tallest questioned, sounding more amused than angry. He brushed his antennae back and narrowed an eye. "I know you aren't loyal to me anymore, but I didn't think you'd try to kill me so brazenly like that..." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm actually really disappointed in you right now... really really disappointed."
"That was my mistake..." Bandeval admitted.
He didn't realize the extent of the Invaders' power of manipulation... they were much craftier than he'd given them credit for... he didn't think Laes' memory loss would be a distraction from the real damage they caused.
"I'll be more careful in the future," he promised.
"More careful? Right! You really need to work on your timing if you want me dead!" The Tallest suddenly frowned and crossed his arms. "... jokes aside. What happened exactly?"
"The injured, and soon to be very dead, Invader here was making a fuss... so instead of finishing my assignment, I chose to offer the Vortians some assistance..." He rubbed his cheek. "In my absence the explosion occurred... the Invader's ship's security was activated. It ended up detonating. "
"Oh, is that all," the Tallest let out a small laugh as he leaned back in his chair. "I seriously thought you were trying to kill me you know? Since you're not, could you maybe try a bit harder not to blow up anything else unless it belongs to the Invaders? That would be great."
Bann's antennae fell back. Quite a few soldiers had perished on his end... had more of them survived on the Tallest's side of things?
"... the soldiers?" he questioned.
"What about them?" Irk's leader asked in an almost bored fashion.
"How many of them made it?"
"I told Sevai to keep track of that." The Tallest leaned off screen. "How many soldiers survived the explosion?"
"All of the technicians, communication officers, and pilots were killed..." Sevai responded.
That parasite didn't sound concerned at all... it was obvious which side that guy was rooting for.
Why was he still alive? That disgusting creature should be dead... the Tallest should have killed that thing a long time ago.
Bann clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists.
At least he would be able to kill the other one.
"As for the soldiers... I believe most of them had already moved to the lower decks... so I'm estimating only four or five were lost," Sevai continued. "If you'd like, I can count them and inform you of the exact number of soldiers that made it here..." his voice peetered out. He was quiet for a short while before asking: "Is it alright if I ask what exactly happened with the security system...?"
"Go choke on Glorbitz bone you flurking piece of parasitic waste!" Bann snapped.
He clenched his hands into tighter fists and ground his teeth.
"You don't have to tell me everything that happened," The Tallest remarked, flicking an antennae up then back down. "I just expect it not to happen again, understood?"
"Yes, I understand."
"I also want you to figure out how many soldiers are left on your end."
"There's ten of them, but four are mortally wounded and will likely die in the next day or two."
"So there's six then."
"May I ask... are you seriously considering your threat against Diu?" Sevai spoke up from somewhere off screen.
The dlarn Invader didn't know when to keep his mouth shut.
"You need to train your pets better Tallest..." Bandeval nearly snapped again, though he managed to keep himself mostly under control this time.
The Tallest's eyes narrowed at him. "He's my adviser actually, so he technically has a higher rank than you do."
"For the obedience of the Control Brains Tallest..." Bandeval let out a sigh and rubbed his temples. "Are you being serious?" He began motioning with his hands as he spoke. "This isn't some game! This is a matter of life and death, so why are you allowing one of our enemies to run around on board your ship!?"
He watched his former leader's antennae flatten.
"If you're smart, you won't question me like that ever again," the Tallest nearly growled. Then Irk's leader managed a smile. "Like you said before: I'm programmed to lead, so everything I do has a purpose whether you like it or not." He shrugged. "Besides that, the explosion came from your end, not mine, so you can stop pointing your finger at me."
"You'll run into trouble if your goals and my goals are different..." Bandeval warned him.
"Right now I don't want you to kill that guy," Irk's leader glanced off screen again... towards where Sevai was likely standing. "Diu or whatever. There's no point in killing him right now."
Was it possible the Tallest was also being manipulated...?
"Then I'll torture him until he begs me for death," Bandeval concluded.
He hadn't enjoyed torturing Diu before, but he was definitely going to enjoy it now.
"Diu is young and inexperienced...he's never been off of our home world before..." Sevai interjected. His eyes were wide and his voice rose in concern. "If he offended you, I assure you it wasn't intentional."
Bandeval glared daggers at the screen. "Did you have any involvement in this?"
"I suspect something has happened to Laes..." Sevai admitted. "This is the only reason for you to become this angry..."
It was pointless talking to the Tallest as he was now, and Sevai wouldn't offer him anything either.
He moved to end the transmission.
"Wait, Bandeval," Sevai spoke as he stepped into view.
The Invader was wearing Irken clothing... a long purple adviser's robe with stripes at the bottom and striped sleeves. Instead of a PAK in the middle of his chest, there was a large light purple circle shape with the Irken 'A' symbol.
"I'll go there... you can hurt me or kill me instead... so please don't harm Diu..."
"You're the Tallest's problem now, not mine," Bandeval stated before switching off his communicator.
The shock and realization of what likely happened was overwhelming... Laes kept staring at the ceiling as the medical professionals preformed scan after scan. Nothing was showing up. According to all of the reports his brain was working just fine... but it wasn't.
There were tears gathering in his eyes. He was going to cry.
His hand had been on the controls. He's the one that started the laser fire... he was the reason dozens of Irkens just died.
He killed people. It didn't matter he was pretty much unconscious when it happened. He was still the one who did it... these weren't far away sabotage deaths either... they died right in front of him.
"He hasn't moved at all in the last three hours..." Lard Nar spoke.
Laes could hear everyone around him, but he didn't want to talk. He didn't really want to listen either but he didn't have much of a choice.
"My guess is nothing will show up on any of our scans until he's in that state again..." one of the medical professionals said. "He's in shock right now... give him some time. I'm sure he'll come out of it soon."
"I heard what happened."
Wasn't that Veena's voice? Laes blinked, but he still didn't feel like moving. He didn't want to sleep or eat... he wished he could stop thinking too.
"There's no abnormal activity right now is there?"
"No... there's nothing like that at all," one of the medics answered.
"It sounds similar to a device that's been given malicious coding... the Invaders hid something in his brain that caused some form of corruption... it probably only reacts to something specific or a series of specifics," she became quiet for a few moments. "I'd like to try fixing it."
"Can you fix it?" Lard Nar quickly interjected. "Brains aren't exactly like computers Veena..."
"I know, but they aren't dissimilar either."
"If there's a chance it can be fixed, then I want to try," Laes decided to speak. "If you have any ideas, I'll try them..."
He would try all of them if there was a chance he could be cured from this.
"That settles it," Veena immediately leapt at the chance without giving it another thought. "I'll rework my programs and the cables along side some bio-mechanical engineers to better suit an organic brain. This might take me a couple Vort cycles, but once it's finished we can run a few tests of our own."
Lard Nar was frowning at her, and she took notice.
"Under the supervision and recommendations of the medical personal," she added as an obvious afterthought.
"Yeah, ok," Laes agreed. He'd definitely feel more comfortable under the supervision of the medical professionals right now anyway... he really didn't want to lose his mind and kill someone else... he really didn't..
They should at least be restraining him right now. Why weren't they?
How could anyone trust him to be fully mobile after what he just did?
There was no telling when he'd go crazy and lose control of himself again...
"Would you like some water Laes?" Lard Nar asked him.
"Yes, please," he responded.
He wasn't feeling very thirsty, but having some water might calm him down a little bit.
As soon as Lard Nar left the room, Veena drew a little closer.
"I want to try something, but I want you to stand up," she told him.
"Oh, um, sure," he responded as he slid off the table.
He felt is feet touch the floor, but his mind was too overwhelmed by all of the worried thoughts he was having to pay too much attention to anything else.
Something was placed on his head.
He saw Veena moving closer.
Their eyes met.
Her face was right there... and suddenly all of his rushing thoughts stopped.