Author Topic: Salem's Story  (Read 20030 times)

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Salem's Story
« on: June 07, 2013, 09:15:47 AM »
Alright, I figure if I don't post this now, I never will. This is the story of Salem, my character in the Galaxy's Edge Space Bar. The finished story will likely be quite long.

Hopefully someone enjoys this. Constructive feedback is always appreciated :)

This is the prologue. Just to be clear here, this is most definitely not the Animorphs universe. That's for later ;)

[spoiler=Prologue]
Aaron

Tobias's blood pounded in his ears. His hands gripped the rail as if his life depended on it. His breathing was deliberately slow, but each time he exhaled, his tension could be heard in the way the sound shook.

He stared out the window at the receding blue orb that had been their home. Already, he'd be able to cover it with a hand held at arm's length. From this distance, the devastation caused by the Mohemians was hardly evident.

“Wave bye-bye to Earth, Aaron!” said Hannah. Out of the corner of his eye, Tobias saw her raise the boy's hand and wave it at the planet.

“Bye-bye!” exclaimed the toddler in her lap, taking over the waving enthusiastically. Hannah laughed, enjoying his energy. Tobias couldn't understand how she could still be this at-ease after the last few hours.

“Jaron,” he said tersely, frowning over at her. “His name is Jaron now, Hannah.”

Hannah made a face, “I’m never going to get used to that.” She struggled to hold on to Jaron as the boy struggled to climb down to the floor, where his toys were.

“You don’t have a choice,” snapped Tobias. “We have to be discreet.”

Hannah smirked and let the squirming toddler down, and watched for a moment as he ran over to his toys- animated, seemingly almost-living, stuffed versions of ancient Earth dinosaurs. Jaron picked up a stegosaurus and a tyrannosaurus, then shouted “Rawrawrawr!” as he threw both of them across the room. In spite of himself, Tobias managed a short laugh.

Hannah stood and walked over to him. She took his hands gently off the rail, smiling warmly now.  “There’s my Michael. Since when are you the serious one of this bunch anyway?”

“I’m Tobias now,” Tobias said automatically. He’d corrected her so many times in the last few weeks that when he said it now, it hardly registered for either of them. He glanced out the window, scanning the empty space for perhaps the hundredth time, then returned his gaze to her, concern in his eyes.

Hannah sighed and, with a movement that was almost too quick to see, darted in and kissed him on the lips. She was back and laughing at the bewildered look on his face before he’d had a chance to move. “You’ll always be Michael to me.”

Tobias grinned. She was trying to get him to stop worrying, and it was almost working.

Almost.

He stepped over, took her into his arms, and kissed her- a real, proper kiss this time. “And you’ll always be Gina to me, but we have to learn to be Tobias and Hannah now.” He let her go and turned back to the window, his hands returning to their now-familiar positions on the handrail, holding on as though his life depended on it. After a moment, he said, quietly, slyly, “Besides, Hannah’s every bit as clever and beautiful as Gina ever was.”

She smiled and turned to look outside. She always downplayed how much she loved it when he flattered her like that, but he could tell by the way she became just a little bit shyer, and a little bit redder.

As she stood looking out the window, he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. He closed his eyes, trying, for just a moment, to slow his pounding heart. He realized he was probably holding her just a little too tightly, but she didn’t seem to mind.

A moment later, their ship activated its main engines. There was a very slight sensation of acceleration as their velocity kicked up to the multiple-c range, but overall the ride was quite smooth for a ship this old. The Earth quickly disappeared, and even the sun that had illuminated their home for the last few years was receding to nothing more than another point of light before their eyes.

“Finally,” muttered Hannah, echoing his own thoughts. She’d been hiding her own tension well, but Tobias could feel her relief in her posture and hear it in her voice. If the captain felt secure enough to activate their main engines, he must think they’d be able to get out of the system undetected.

“Thank goodness for stealthy ships, eh?” he asked, giving her a squeeze. He slowly let out a breath, trying to let go of the fear that had hung over him for the last few hours. They were going to make it.

She turned and looked into his eyes- the light green eyes that, as far as he could tell, were the only thing he’d given to Jaron. For the most part, the boy had gotten her features- the gorgeous, dark, shiny hair; the adorable nose; even the baby-toothed version of her dazzling smile- but those eyes had clearly come from his father. With a contented sigh she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder.

For a few moments they simply stood, holding each other and staring out the window, as their son continued making dinosaur noises from the floor. Tobias closed his eyes contentedly. Now that they were actually moving to the station, there was a possibility that they could actually open their little restaurant. They had the savings tucked away, and there’d never be a better time. They’d talked about it so many times, he could practically taste the food. Even with all the planning they’d done, though, he still didn’t feel anywhere near ready. The thing that had been holding them up recently was the name. He wanted to call it “Bonjour La Terre!” but she seemed to think that using the language of a little backwater world like Earth would be a turn-off to interplanetary travelers. He was going to win this one, though. They’d be serving a lot of French cuisine, and they’d be using it as a place to introduce...

He jumped, startled out of his daydream by the sound of a alarm blaring from the PA system.  His heart leapt into his throat. They’d been spotted.

Jaron had dropped his toys and started crying at the sound of the alarm. Hannah walked over and pressed the button on the wall to silence the PA system. She picked up her son and began bouncing him up and down, trying to calm him.

A moment later, the doorbell for their room rang shrilly. It rang again twice more before Tobias had even had a chance to reach the door. He opened it, letting the sound of the alarm into the room again from the hallway. At least out there it was kept at a more manageable volume.

“What is it?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended.

If the shrieking alarm and the urgent ringing of the doorbell hadn’t been enough to set him on edge, the frightened look on the face of the Vondanod outside the door certainly would have done the trick. Its two compound eyes that were facing Tobias about as wide as he’d ever seen Vondanod eyes, and blinking rapidly. The Vondanod tended to straighten their necks and raise their heads in tense situations- this one’s neck looked to be about at the breaking point.

“I’m told one of you is a pilot,” the Vondanod said urgently, speaking so quickly that its dual, mouthless voices almost blended into one.

Behind the Vondanod, Tobias could see people running through the corridor. This was a small transport, and the few families aboard- mostly Radon, of course- were rushing to find each other. Aside from that, crew and non-family passengers were rushing to see what could be done.

Tobias opened his mouth to answer, but Hannah cut him off, calling over Jaron’s cries, “I am. What’s wrong?”

The Vondanod seemed slightly surprised at being answered so quickly. “You are Gina Zhang?”

“Saunders,” Tobias responded automatically, glowering a little. Then he blinked and corrected himself, “Her name is Hannah Dawn.”

With a glance at Tobias, the Vondanod lowered its voice, “We’ve run across a cruiser. We’re jamming its communications, but we can’t outrun it or outfight it.”

Hannah groaned and hugged Jaron to her chest, “Iron class?”

“Reverence.”

Hannah paused for only a second, the barest hint of worry crossing her face, but then it was gone, and she was confident once again. She shrugged, “Give me a moment.” Jaron already seemed to be calming down, oblivious to the danger they were now in. She set him down. He immediately wiped his nose on his sleeve, toddled back to his toys, and held up a triceratops, saying “revence!” excitedly a few times.

The Vondanod looked at the boy, then nodded at Hannah- a habit some Vondanod had picked up from humans. It stepped out and allowed the door to swing shut. For the moment, the sound of the alarm through the door seemed distant.

Tobias stared at her for a moment, then spoke, his voice shaking, “You can’t...”

She put her finger gently to his lips, “I have to, or everyone here dies or ends up in prison.” She stepped to his nightstand and grabbed his communicator- an archaic device he still used only because of the meaning it held for him. She stepped back and pressed it into his hands. “Call me if you’re nervous.”

Tobias shook his head, holding her hand to his chest with both of his. This was happening too quickly. This was his wife... but there was something else there, too. Someone he didn’t know. She’d always been confident, but now she seemed... sharp. Calculating. Ready.

He knew she’d been a pilot during the war, of course. He’d heard the stories. Everyone had heard those stories, but to him it always seemed like someone else. A legend. Not the woman he knew. He’d never thought he’d actually have to watch her... do what? Go into battle? Fight for their freedom? Maybe their lives? The days of fighting were supposed to be over.

He felt his heart sinking. He knew that she would go. That she had to go. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Hannah, you’re going to take a crappy fighter stolen from a junk heap out there against a cutting-edge IPA war ship?” he said, his voice rising now. He sounded angry, “You expect me to just let you...”

She cut him off again, “Michael, there are two of us from Cess’s squadron aboard this ship. If we can’t stop one little cruiser, we’re not worthy of her name.” She put her free finger to his lips once more as he tried to speak again and flashed that smile of hers, “Come on, this is me you’re talking to. I’ll be fine.”

She seemed so at ease, so strong, but he knew her too well. He could feel her tension, and see the fear in those beautiful dark eyes. He didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to tell her to stay, here, with him.

Instead he took her hand from his lips and said, “Be safe.”

She grinned and gave him a quick hug. “Always!” she chirped, and was out the door without another word, leaving Tobias cradling his communicator.

He turned towards the bank of windows that made up one wall of the room and started. Where before there’d been only stars, there was now the sinister approaching form of a new IPA cruiser. The design was an indicator of just how much had changed within the IPA. The alliance had once designed ships to appear friendly and inviting. This one was similar in shape to some of the more intimidating Mohemian craft, bristling with forward spikes and visible weapons, with the main command center flanked by four giant, mantis-like claws. The coloring was still the IPA’s diplomatic silver and white, emblazoned with the IPA’s blue-and-yellow insignia, but nearly everything else seemed remarkably alien.

The IPA ship... he could just make out the name “Skywolf” on the side... had flown to within visual range of their transport; it certainly must not feel threatened, even with its communications jammed. And it had no reason to. This transport was only lightly armed. If the cruiser opened fire, they wouldn’t last a minute. The transport would be disabled, and boarded, and Tobias and Hannah would spend their lives in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

Tobias imagined the captain, up in his cramped control room, negotiating with the IPA cruiser. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, they could talk their way out of this. Then Hannah could come back the room and they could be on their way.

That hope was dashed when the world outside flickered- the transport’s force field being activated. Seconds later, a beam of green light lanced forth from one of the “mantis claws” on the front of the distant cruiser, impacting the transport. The floor under Tobias rocked, but only a little. Jaron rolled onto his back, still holding his dinosaurs, and seemed entirely undaunted. He was still at the stage, just learning to walk, where taking little falls was part of everyday life.

Tobias’s breath caught in his throat; he could feel a slight shudder through the deck as a fighter launched. Three more followed, in quick succession, and in a moment, he could see a mismatched wing of four small ships rocketing towards the sinister shape of the Skywolf. Not one of the four spacecraft looked like it could survive a fight with an angry drunk, let alone the perched, state-of-the-art cruiser bearing down on them.

It would be easy to keep track of which one was which, he saw; each ship had a distinct exhaust color. One was bright blue, one was white-orange, one was white trailing dull sparks, and one was tinted slightly red. He wished he could tell which one was hers.

It seemed almost lazy, the way the cruiser twisted slightly and fired a beam into the group of approaching ships. Three of the craft dodged away, but the one trailing sparks was too slow- half of the craft was shorn away, leaving what was left of the engines to sputter out. The edge that remained where most of the ship had been vaporized glowed red.

“No!” gasped Tobias. His knuckles were white from gripping the rail, his face now nearly touching the glass, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The cruiser fired twice more, missing the nimble smaller ships each time. As if deciding it had had enough, it unleashed what seemed like an impossible cloud of small objects, glowing the same light blue as the engines of the cruiser itself... missiles, Tobias realized. Hundreds of tiny guided missiles, headed right for the three ships flying its way. “Why aren’t you shooting?” he wondered aloud through gritted teeth. The tiny ships had been in range since they launched from the bay, but had yet to fire a shot.

As if in reply, the ship trailing the faintly orange glow launched a missile into space, visible only from the glow of its own booster. The missile easily made it through the approaching projectile swarm, but hadn’t even made it halfway to the cruiser when a stab of green light struck from the larger ship. The glow died instantly.

As they approached the swarm of missiles, Tobias could see the other two ships move closer together together. As if they were one, they began to spiral around each other, and even from here he could sense an almost imperceptible wobble in the swarm as it struggled to keep a bead on them... bunching tighter, closer together, he realized.

Then, they were in the swarm- it seemed to close in around them, consuming them. There was a bright flash, then another, and another, until a wave of light seemed to erupt slowly across the closing swarm. Tobias shielded his eyes, and when he looked back, he could see a fireball where once there had been a ship.

“No!” he whispered, now actually pressing his nose against the glass. But there... two glows could still be seen against the darkness. The blue one and the whitish-red one. One of those had to be her, right? He was so focused on them that he didn’t notice the beams from the cruiser until it was too late.

The world tore itself from under his feet. What few possessions they’d unpacked tumbled across the room. Tobias found himself lying on the floor halfway to the door, but he scrambled back up, hardly noticing the pain in his arm where it had struck the dresser. The room was filled with a panicked cacophony. A new alarm was blaring from the PA- this one signalling a hull breach and partial decompression- and Jaron was bawling. Tobias glanced at the boy- he seemed to have fallen into a pile of clothes. Scared rather than hurt, Tobias surmised. He knew he should comfort him, but at the moment all he could think about was what was happening outside.

He could see, finally, beams of light from the two fighters. They were tiny, almost pinpricks next to the massive shafts of light that had come from the cruiser itself, but they must have been doing something, because now the Skywolf was turning away from the transport, trying to bring its weapons to bear on the two tiny ships.

They probed for a few moments before one of them seemed to find purchase- an explosion ripped the tip of one of the giant ‘mantis claws’ clean off the cruiser, which couldn’t turn fast enough to target the two ships intent on staying in its blind spot. Six silver, triangular shapes drifted into space, released by the cruiser, and then lit their own engines, these glowing brilliant white.

Tobias’s heart leapt again. He recognized those. They were the new generation of IPA fighter that his wife had been affectionately referring to as “peckers.” Damned if he couldn’t remember the real name... what he could remember was her practically drooling while describing their capabilities. Most of it had been technical nonsense to him, but even he understood enough to know that just one should be more than a match for this transport and all four fighters it had launched. The fact that the cruiser had seen fit to launch all six it carried was a compliment in itself.

It took less than thirty seconds. What happened couldn’t even be called a dogfight so much as a massacre. The two tiny, secondhand ships, working together, managed to make the six agile, state-of-the-art starfighters look like a herd of lumbering cows, all without ever coming within view of the slowly-turning cruiser’s deadly front side. They both fired, again and again, and one by one, the IPA fighters exploded or disintegrated or simply died out and drifted away. The few shots that they did manage to fire at the two smaller ships seemed absurdly off-the-mark by comparison.

Within a few moments, it was over, and the two ships returned to methodically blowing up the cruiser’s weapons and engines and communications array as if nothing had happened. After the whirlwind of destruction he’d just seen, this part looked almost routine. It would probably only take a few minutes for the terrifying warship to be reduced to a useless shell. Though Tobias couldn’t see them from this distance, he imagined the crew inside standing at the windows and shaking their fists in rage. They’d be left to drift there until they could work out a way to call for help- hopefully long after the transport was out of range.

The communicator, still clutched tightly in his hand, crackled to life. “And you thought you should be worried!” Hannah’s voice said. She sounded like she was out of breath, and almost laughing. Tobias felt a wave of relief wash over him. He let out a breath, feeling faint. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it in. With one hand he reached over and silenced the shrieking alarm.

“Don’t do that to me! You could have been killed!” he shouted into the microphone over the sound of Jaron’s cries.

“Is that Aaron crying? Michael, tell your son that story he likes. The one with the boats and stuff. And we should decide what we want for dinner. For some weird reason I’m craving duck.”

“Tobias,” he corrected automatically. “I’ll see if the kitchen thought to stock some duck.” He sighed, allowing himself a small smile. He was shaking, he realized. He bent down and picked up Jaron, who was still sobbing on the floor, though far less violently now that the blaring of the alarm had been stopped. For a moment he simply held the boy, bouncing him up and down and whispering that “everything’s alright now, buddy. Shh-shh-shh. It’s alright.”

“...wanted the best ships. Like flying a junker in civilian clothes would be the same as flying a trainer in a flight suit. I told those two idiots not to come,” Gina’s voice continued over the communicator, ranting now about the two pilots from their transport that had been lost. She sounded angry. “They insisted that Special Forces training qualified them for this. Useless, incompetent bunch of sorry-ass...” she kept on.

Tobias rolled his eyes and smiled. She was definitely still herself after all that. Out of everyone he’d ever met, she was the only one who would even dream of calling IPA Special Forces incompetent.

“Gina, I love you,” he said, cutting her off.

He could practically hear her smile, “I love you too, Tobias.”

The two tiny spacecraft had finished their work and were now moving back towards the transport. The remnants of the once-intimidating cruiser drifted behind them. One instant, it looked dead, and the next, it was vaporized in a blinding flash. The shockwave expanded outwards in an instant, engulfing the two fighters.

There was less than a second before the shockwave hit the transport, rocking it and throwing him to the ground once again. As he fell, he held Aaron’s head protectively, turning so that he fell onto his back. Even so, the impact of the ground jarred the toddler, who began crying again. This was not helped by the reintroduction of the screeching alarm from the PA system.

Michael scrambled to his feet, still holding his bawling son protectively. “I didn’t just see that,” he whispered. “Please tell me I didn’t just see that.”

He looked around- the communicator was lying on the floor near the bed. He gently set Jaron down on the floor, where the toddler continued to cry, and picked up the device.

“Hannah?” he asked tentatively into the device. After a moment he tried again, his voice shaking “Hannah, you okay?”

He could feel his throat tightening. The world seemed to roll under his feet. Why wasn’t she answering? “Gina? You alright?” She was probably distracted, flying her little ship into the docking bay. “Gina, you need to answer me.” Maybe she was having a problem with her communicator. “Gina, please, I need you to answer me.” He peered out into space, searching for the two glowing engines... for the shapes of the small fighters... anything...

He felt his eyes beginning to tear up. He had to hold it together. Had to keep from freaking out. She’d be back and laughing at him any minute. He took a breath, trying to steady himself, and wiped his eyes. He managed to keep from breaking down until the alarm stopped, and he felt the transport begin to move away.

“No. Come on, Gina, don’t do this,” he said into the communicator. Real tears were beginning to run down his face. No... no, he had to keep it together. But it had been Gina who’d made him strong, hadn’t it? Before her... had he ever been able to keep himself together?

She’d been coming back. It had been finished. She’d been coming back to the ship and they were going to eat cornmeal and pretend it was duck and they were going to escape to the Coalition and open a restaurant. There was no way she was gone.

“No, Gina, don’t do this,” he pleaded out the window, towards the sparkling remains of the cruiser. “Gina, answer me,” he said, his voice rising shrilly. “No, Gina, answer me!” He was shouting now. “Gina, No!” He pounded the glass, his communicator dropping unnoticed to the floor. “Gina! No!” He pounded the glass again, harder, sobbed once, then began pounding, again and again and again, crying openly and shouting “No! Gina! No! No! Gina!” over and over again.

Jaron may have been upset by being thrown around, and the blaring alarms might have been frightening, but the to see an adult crying and pounding on the window- and his daddy, no less, not just any adult- that was downright terrifying. The boy cried now, harder than ever, tears and snot running down his face.

Being as young as he was, Jaron didn’t yet associate “Gina” with “mommy,” but he did know that mommy would make everything better. Mommy always made everything better. As he cried, he called out for mommy, hoping for some comfort, someone to put the world back the way it should be.

Tobias eventually collapsed, sobbing, against the wall, oblivious to Jaron’s cries. Jaron crawled, still crying, into the corner of the room, as far from his weeping father as possible, and picked up his tyrannosaurus. He held it, the way his mommy held him when he was scared, and whispered, “Shh. Shh. Aw right. Shh.”

Tobias continued to cry for a few more minutes, but eventually he stopped, and sat, staring at the floor, hearing only the ringing in his ears.

Finally, he turned and looked at his son, who was in the corner, cradling his dinosaur, telling it that everything was alright. The boy was no longer crying, but his face was a mess. Tobias pushed himself off the floor, walked over, and gathered the boy into his arms. He wiped Jaron’s face gently with his own sleeve. He looked so much like her. Tobias carried his son to the crib, where he laid him down. Weakly, he echoed the toddler’s own words, “That’s right, buddy. Everything is alright.” He felt a pang in his stomach. Her words. Those were her words to him.

Jaron stood up at the edge of the crib and watched as his father walked, silent and numb, out into the corridor.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Table of Contents]Chapter 1: Tobias
Chapter 2: Salem
Chapter 3: Jaron
Chapter 4: Salem
Chapter 5: Pallas
Chapter 6: Salem
Chapter 7: Pallas
Chapter 8: Winston
Chapter 9: Salem
Chapter 10: Pallas
Chapter 11: Winston
Chapter 12: Jaron
Chapter 13: Salem
Chapter 14: Winston
Chapter 15: Pallas
Chapter 16: Salem
Chapter 17: Keural
Chapter 18: Winston
Chapter 19: Pallas
Chapter 20: Jaron
Chapter 21: Winston
Chapter 22: Keural
Chapter 23: Domino
Chapter 24: Salem
Chapter 25: Tobias
Chapter 26: Jaron
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: February 21, 2014, 02:51:45 PM by Aluminator (Kit) »

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Salem's Story

Offline theyoungphoenix

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2013, 03:07:20 AM »
Awww... You were making me tear up at the end Lumy. Great writing. Cant wait for chapter one.
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Offline Aluminator (Kit)

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2013, 03:00:27 PM »
Hehe. Thanks, Abby ^_^ A little bit of tearing up is what I was going for.

I'm going to possibly continue to edit these chapters in the future, and if I get far enough, will eventually put out a coherent final version of the entire story, but for now, here's Chapter 1. I'm also going to go ahead and stick a table of contents with links in the first post.

[spoiler=Chapter 1]Tobias

He paced through the little clearing, first to one side, then, after a moment, back again. In his head, he pictured, over and over again, how this conversation was going to go. He’d have to ask for supplies, at least, but it was the other thing that he kept debating with himself on.

He’d met Princes before, of course. He imagined a War-Prince would simply come across as a more stuck-up version... although after their conversation he wasn’t so sure. He was ready to deal with either self-righteous arrogance or something friendlier. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the questions that would be asked, though. He hadn’t quite worked out the details of who he was supposed to be now.

With a sigh, he laced his hands together behind his head and looked up at the red-gold sky. The light of the twin suns filtered through the trees in leaping shafts, just burning off the last of the morning mist. This really was a pretty little world. Even if the colors seemed a bit less vibrant than he remembered.

Taking in a deep breath of the fresh air, he reflected on just how nice it was to be outdoors for once. At least here there was actually some room to walk around.

He leaned back against the nearest tree and tried to still the butterflies in his stomach. This wasn’t at all like him. He shouldn’t be on edge about meeting some arrogant alien. Nerphid knew there’d been plenty of those. Even some self-important War-Prince wasn’t anything to get him worried.

No, he thought. No, the thing that had him nervous was what he wanted to ask for. It wasn’t so much that he loved these grass-eaters; he was just so unbelievably tired of living in such a cramped space. Unbelievably sick of always, always searching, scrounging, figuring, theorizing, fighting, running.

And it was so nice to feel sunlight playing off of his face for once. So nice to look out and see the flowering bushes, the alien grasses, the strange trees. So nice to breathe something other than recycled air.

He’d have to ask. It couldn’t hurt to try, right?

But if that was true, why did the thought make him so nervous?

Through the thicket of weird, asparagus-like trees across the clearing from him, he could make out the shimmering silvers of civilization. What had the War-Prince called them? Academy out-scoops? That would be the direction to watch. He blinked, trying to get used to the way things looked now. So difficult to pick out details.

And his hearing... he could hear the breeze blowing through the trees, and the sound of the stream nearby, and the distant kree-caw of something living in the forest, but it all seemed so distant, somehow. Muffled, like sounds coming through a closed door. He wondered if he’d even recognize the sounds of a cloven quadruped headed this way.

At least his sense of touch didn’t seem too much worse off, he thought, enjoying the light tickle of the breeze playing across his skin.

His skin. Now that was something. He was still getting used to the lighter shade and the freckles. He ran a hand through his hair. That was new, too. Curly, and a brownish-red, so different than his own straight black. Strange to reach up and feel someone else’s hair.

Almost as strange as the sensation that he was just... entirely too tall. His arms and legs felt so much longer than he was used to. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to break his legs every time he stepped. The unenhanced skeleton that he supposed was his now just felt so... fragile.

Without the healing nanites now swimming through his system, he wondered how he was supposed to survive. This body was kind of a hodge-podge of evolutionary trial and error. How was he to be expected to use this stupid thing on a daily basis?

His thought-process was interrupted by a creaking sound in the branches above him. Looking up, he saw a creature, probably about half his size, stepping deftly out onto one of the larger branches. It was so easy to see its shaggy, dark-brown fur against the smooth yellow bark- it must not realize he was there, to be in the open like this.

As he watched, it stretched straight up on its six legs and grasped one of the vine-like blue leaves in its mouth. It pulled down with its head, and the bough bent down until the leaf snapped off, sending the bough whinging back and setting the entire tree shaking. Each individual leaf vibrated like a guitar string.

He smiled, amused at the scene- the vibrating tendril-like leaves made the tree look like a giant jiggling puff-ball, and here was this creature, sitting contentedly in the middle of it, slurping down leaves like spaghetti.

With a glance back at the compound, he made up his mind. There’d be no better time to try out his new limbs, and if he could acquire this whatever-it-was, he could practice the morphing thing on his own time.

He reached up for the largest branch over his head and tried to pull himself silently off the ground. The smooth bark offered no footholds, but there were several large... knots, he guessed, placed seemingly at random across the surface of the tree. He braced his foot against one of these to steady himself as he pulled himself up, slowly, until his chest was level with the branch. This body may be unimproved, but it made up for that by being so very young and fit. He hadn’t been able to move this freely in years. He could get used to this.

The creature pulled down another leaf- it still hadn’t noticed him. He sucked a deep breath and pushed off the protrusion on which his foot rested, but it seemed to suddenly squash under his foot so that his hold slipped, leaving him scrabbling against the smooth trunk. With a loud grunt, he managed to pull himself up and sit on the branch, his heart pounding. So much for stealth.

He glanced down at the tree trunk, and saw a thick sap dripping slowly down the trunk from what he’d thought was a knot, but now looked to have been more of a blister. The bright blue of the liquid stood out in stark contrast to the dull, canary yellow of the trunk of the tree. Above it his feet had left a series of white scratches.

After a few seconds, he saw the creature in his peripheral vision and turned to look. It seemed entirely unsurprised by his sudden presence in its tree, and sat, chewing complacently and looking right at him with wide green eyes. As he watched, it swallowed, then reached out with its long tongue and grabbed another leaf, which it slurped quickly into its mouth and began chewing, never taking those unblinking eyes off his own smaller blue ones. Slightly unnerving, that.

He reached out an arm tentatively towards the creature. It was still out of reach, and when it caught sight of his hand raising towards it, it started and skittered onto a higher branch, making a high-pitched chirping noise.

With a sigh, he sat back against the tree trunk. He wasn’t going to catch it this way, but it was quite nice up here. It was a large tree, and the dome-like area enclosed underneath the upper canopy was hung with hundreds of the vine-like leaves. It was cozy up here, and he wished he’d thought to bring his book.

He closed his eyes for a moment and smirked to himself. He shouldn’t even have been on this planet. Andalites were a notoriously xenophobic species. It was usually like pulling teeth to get them to even talk to outsiders. Being invited to their homeworld was unheard of. And now, what he was going to ask for... He must be an idiot.

It was sheer luck that he’d even managed to contact the Andalite High Command. He’d called using the name “Tobias,” hoping against hope that it might garner some attention. It had, and the series of events that followed had been... unexpected.

A big, gruff-looking Warrior had taken the transmission, introducing himself as a representative of the High Command. It was unusual for High Command to pick up an external communiqué directly; they must have been having a slow day.

To say that the Warrior had been skeptical about speaking with a Human-- and with his current genetics he had to be Human this time, he'd realized-- would be an understatement. The Warrior had seemed about to cut the transmission. It wasn’t until he’d dropped the name “Emelen” that the War-Prince had overheard.

The War-Prince had muscled the Warrior off to the side, in such a relaxed, good-natured manner that he would have mistaken the older Andalite for a civilian had he not known that face from the feeds. They’d conversed briefly, and the War Prince had invited him to meet in person. After what amounted to being a bus ride with only four other passengers and sixteen curious, glaring eyes, he’d ended up here.

He looked up again at the creature. It had gone back to happily slurping leaves from the tree, one by one. Its back was turned to him.

Slowly, so slowly, he reached out a hand and pulled himself towards the nearest branch. Now that he was up here, the branches were closer together, and he should be able to move more quietly. He stood up into a crouch, moving carefully, silently, stepping from one branch to the next, trying to get a feel for the length and weakness of his gangly limbs.

A sudden squish from beneath his feet made him jump. He’d stepped right on one of the ‘blisters,’ popping it and sending the blue sap dripping down to the forest floor. Though his sense of smell felt like it had been turned down almost to nonexistence, he could still tell the odor the sap gave off was pleasant, not unlike chocolate or coffee.

He looked up at the creature. It had paused when it heard the blister pop, and was swiveling its long pointed ears. He held his breath.

After a moment, the creature simply went back to eating. He carefully pulled his foot free of the sap and continued making his way closer to it, careful to avoid any more of the goo-filled protrusions. The sticky substance on his boot actually provided a little bit of extra traction on the smooth surface of the tree, which made climbing just a little bit easier.

From time to time the tree would creak and the creature would pause, swiveling its ears. He would freeze in place until it went back to eating, then he’d inch forward, brushing leaves aside, stretching from one branch to the next. Finally he managed to inch close enough that he might be able to place a hand on the creature’s back.

He reached out for it, but was startled by a loud CRASH! from the the clearing. He jerked his head to look, catching only the briefest glimpse of blue fur through the leaves, and when he looked back, he found his face inches from a pair of wide, startled green eyes.

The creature chirped fearfully and turned to flee, but he was too quick for it. He leapt forward and wrapped his arms around its warm, furry body. His feet found purchase- barely- side-by-side on a branch, and he hugged the creature to himself, wincing as it continued shrieking loudly.

He tried to concentrate, to begin the acquiring process, but it was difficult to do while holding a screaming, muscled mass of six flailing limbs. One of the creature’s legs pushed, hard, against another branch, upsetting his already-precarious balance. Instinctively, he threw out his arms. The freed creature darted off into the canopy, chirping, terrified, and he stepped, windmilling, backwards into thin air.

He let out a yelp and twisted as he fell, grabbing wildly for a branch. Unfortunately, he misjudged the length of his own arm, and wound up smacking his wrist directly into one of the blisters, which sprayed thick sap up into the canopy.

For a few moments he was falling, clutching desperately at the dangling blue leaves. He grabbed a bundle of them in his hand, which flipped him around , facing up into the tree, before they snapped off in his hand.

He free-fell the last two meters or so to the ground, landing on his back with a loud “Oof!” as the air left his lungs.

For a moment, he simply lay, dazed, blue leaves streaming down around him. He stared into the canopy above... was it his imagination, or was that a pair of big green eyes up there staring down at him?

He coughed once, then found himself unable to stop, descending into a coughing fit during which he never once moved from his spread-eagle position on his back. He noticed that he’d fallen into something soft- probably a patch of grass- and was thankful for that. He was sure this rib cage would have simply shattered like glass otherwise. His wrist throbbed, but he didn’t think it was broken.

After a moment, he realized that he’d been staring, unseeing, up into the face of an older Andalite wearing an expression that fell somewhere between concern and amusement. The Andalite’s stalk eyes swiveling to survey the tree and the sap and leaves now raining out of it.

The War-Prince’s thought-speak voice sounded in his head, <Are you alright?>



TSSEEEEEEWWWWWWW! The unmistakable sound of a Dracon Beam discharging. It broke into his consciousness, and he frowned. It had come from the small, dark back hallway.

He’d just seen the woman head back there, hadn’t he? The woman with the hazel eyes and the black jumpsuit? What had she called herself?


Turelek. Not her name. What she did. What she was. It was the reason she’d been watching the pretty young woman with the long blonde hair who scowled too often. It was the reason she’d followed her, gotten her alone.

There was another woman... another with the same long blonde hair... young, but not that much younger than he was now. She looked just like the first. They could have been twins, he thought with a smirk. This one sat, staring intently into the dark.
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 09:34:04 AM by Arch Aluminator »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2013, 08:46:38 AM »
Here's chapter 2. I'm still introducing story threads here, but we'll go back and start getting to know them better before too long, I promise ^_^

[spoiler=Chapter 2]Salem

Their screams continued only briefly, then simultaneously stopped short when both of them realized that the space in front of them was now clear.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. There was too much to process. Too much to take in. And too much of it was far too painful.

Finally, Al spoke up, “How long does that stupid thing take to work, anyway? We could have died! We should start calling it the ‘hope it works this time’ drive.”

“I’ll kill Jamil!” He exploded, ignoring Al’s lame attempt at banter. “I’m going to find my way back there and I’m going to track him down and I’m going to strangle him with my bare freaking hands!”

He glared at Al, daring him to answer, hoping his companion might have some kind of snarky response to take the edge off the situation, but Al simply swallowed and looked away. He took some small satisfaction from the fact that Al was nearly as shaken as he was.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took some breaths, trying to quell his rage. Now that his adrenaline was wearing off, he was feeling less aggressive and more... just drained. Weak. He looked around, taking note of the unfamiliar stars, and groaned. What had just happened was beginning to hit him.

“We jumped,” he moaned. “Why the hell did we jump?”

Al glanced at him with a halfhearted imitation of his usual smirk, “Because we were gonna die. Pretty standard procedure for us.”

He buried his face in his hands, squeezing, trying to block out... everything. “I think I’d rather be dead than go through this crap again.”

Again his words were met with silence.

He blinked and looked around. No need to think about everything now. Every surface of the ship’s interior displayed a holographic representation of the space around them, but it was crossed with a series of faded red streaks, some brighter than others. Things had gotten nasty, but the Malleon should be able to handle it.

With a thought, he turned off the red marks, leaving just the view of the stars outside. It was almost like floating free in the vacuum, surrounded only by his companion and his stainless steel shelving units stuffed with the leftover junk of a hundred civilizations. So maybe not exactly like floating free. But if he were to just open the hatch...

“What’s that?” Al asked, pointing at a semi-spherical shape drifting across the ceiling.

With a sequence of thought-spoken commands, he altered the view to zoom in on the object and display it at the front of the room. A number of different filters and overlays flickered across the display in a matter of seconds, and the ship flagged a number of perceived points of interest complete with readings and annotations.

His interest perked up. It was apparently an inhabited planetoid. There was only one small wooden building on the surface, and surrounding that, a number of what were presumably spacecraft, though there looked to be no consistent signature, at least as far as he could determine.

And there... the ship was flashing another series of messages at him as it examined the area. The one that caught his interest most seemed to indicate what was probably a large interstellar vessel at the edge of the system.

So they’d been dumped into an inhabited sector. Inhabited by someone fairly advanced. He should check this out. As long as he kept moving, he didn’t have to think about what had happened, what had been said. He didn’t have to think about what would happen to his home. To Geris and Amiya. He didn’t have to think about... any of it.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and pushed down the anger that once again threatened to overwhelm him. He ignored the feeling of helplessness, the desire to simply lie down on the spot and never move again.

Without a word, he turned the ship towards the planetoid and accelerated forward. Though there was no seam between the floor and his chair, it swiveled freely, allowing him to get a better look at the world outside. After a moment, the arms of his chair seemed to simply grow a pair of flight control sticks, which he took hold of. He moved them back and forth, taking satisfaction in the way the ship rocked when he did, and frowning a bit at the slightest shudder he felt.

“Still responsive, even after all that,” he whispered to the ship, running a hand gently along the arm of his chair. “Is your output off? Or is a sensor misaligned? We’ll get you fixed soon, I promise.” He glanced over at Al, expecting to be made fun of for talking to the ship again, but the android was skimming through the deluge of information the ship continued to gather from the surrounding area. If Al’d noticed, there was no outward indication. The only sound was the comforting thrum thrum thrum of the power system at work.

The momentary quiet was broken by the faint-yet-shrill single burst of a proximity alarm, and the ship’s display automatically changed, zooming in on the area behind them. A horseshoe-shaped battleship had appeared, painted in black and trimmed in crimson. A fireball was erupting from one side of the vessel where a Bug Fighter had been too slow to pull up, but the massive ship would barely notice.

He sat for a moment, stunned, before Al finally vocalized his thoughts for him. “What the hell!?”

He shook his head. No time to sit here staring. This was happening, now they had to deal with it. “Al, you fly,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before they make sense of things.”

Al opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the proximity alarm sounding twice more in quick succession. The ship displayed magnified, annotated representations of two smaller craft that now sat between them and the planetoid. One was tiny, shaped like an oblong oval with two triangular wings, and looked friendly, almost adorable. It was colored the black-and-red of the Light, matching the battleship behind them. The other could pass for the nightmare version of a hedgehog, every inch of it covered in giant, nasty-looking spikes. As if that weren’t absurd enough, it looked to be made almost entirely of wood.

Ikakek and Thienal.

“Oh, hell no,” he muttered. “Al?”

“I see ‘em!” Al exclaimed. A hole seemed to melt out of the floor, revealing a silver compartment lined with the alloy lattice framework of the ship underneath. Its size and shape never failed to remind him of a grave.

Of course, that might also have to do with how it was used. As soon as it opened, Al jumped in and lay back, arms crossed and eyes closed.

The floor re-formed, liquid-like, over the hole and Al within, and he heard Al’s voice resonate from the walls of the craft, “Catch us if you can, dirtbags!”

It took the two hunters positioned ahead of them a shorter time to adjust to their new situation than it did the Yeerks, so that they all started moving at about the same time. The ship displayed a quick count- two hunters fore, seven Bugs, also painted black-and-crimson, aft. Unlike standard Bug Fighters, the glow of the engines of these ones was bright white, matching the glow of the battleship. Hey, maybe the hunters and the Yeerks would fight each other if he was lucky.

Not that he was counting on that. He activated the ship’s defensive systems while Al accelerated their ship towards the little planet. The quantum- and temporal-predictive data feeding directly into his brain left him gasping; even after all this time it was still a shock to suddenly be gifted with a new sense. A three-dimensional representation of the area and a graphical-and-text readout flicked on in the air in front of him.

He felt where a Dracon Beam from behind would impact the hull, and felt the shields adjust to compensate, and he felt Al dip out of the way a split second before the Yeerk had even fired. The beam lit up the space beside them- close. Very close. They could dodge a lot of what would be heading their way, but even so, he didn’t expect to be able to out-fight more than two or three of the Bug Fighters.

And then there were the hunters. Ikakek’s tiny, winged ship rocketed towards them, looking, it seemed, to use its superior speed to herd them around. He closed his eyes and streaked his hands through the display in the air before him. His own ship fired, white light lancing forth from the surface of the pitch-black hull. The other craft hardly seemed to notice, rolling out of the path of the beam in such a lazy manner that it was almost insulting.

“I’m heading for the little shack on the planet down there!” he heard Al’s voice say from the walls.

“And hope they don’t just glass the surface with that battleship,” he muttered. “Alright, do it!” The building would be their best bet, he saw- it sat in a heavily wooded area, surrounded by ships. It looked as though the building itself had some sort of basement or cellar. He ought to be able to find a place to hide somewhere down there.

Al kicked up the speed and turned, trying to avoid getting too close to the little fighter with the triangular wings that was now screaming towards them. The tiny craft unleashed a hail of machine-gun fire as it approached them, leading them expertly, forcing Al into a tight turn to avoid it. In a second the ship had blown by and begun swinging around for another pass.

“****.” The maneuver had bled off a lot of their speed, and the Bugs now gained quickly. He fired into the formation- the first shot pegged the leader, which bucked wildly, and the formation broke up, the Bugs attempting to swarm him. Behind them, he could see the Battleship turning laboriously towards them.

His next shot went wide- off-target as Al rocked the ship left, then right, then left again in rapid succession, narrowly dodging three of the spines that Thienal’s ridiculous wooden hedgehog had fired at them. The third dodge took them directly into the path of two of the Dracons from the Bugs, which raked across the hull, leaving dull reddish streaks in the shape of an X on the interior display. The streaks displayed for only a moment before the display blinked them out so that they didn’t obstruct the view of the outside.

Another burst of the proximity alarm brought with it the image of another ship emerging from behind the battleship. It resembled an engorged version of one of the Bug Fighters, perhaps five times the length, with a bulbous rear section resembling an egg that someone had tried to squash into a vaguely-rectangular shape. Unlike the battleship and the bugs, this ship was tan, with carefully-lettered black Yeerkish writing on the side. It accelerated towards them, approaching at a rate only a little slower than that of the Bugs.

“****! Al, we need to get to the planet before that gets here!”

“Easier said than done!” came Al’s voice, beginning to sound a little panicked. He could see that they were making progress, but slowly; forced into a wobbly, zig-zagging path as they dodged the repeated bursts of Dracon and machine-gun fire.

He fired steadily at the tiny winged craft as it blew by a second time, but the line he traced through space with the beam only briefly intersected the path of the barrel-rolling fighter, causing what looked like a ripple to spread across the surface. He aimed again, but was quickly distracted by the passing forms of two Bugs crossing close to the ship.

Finally, one of his shots found its mark, and a portion of the Bug’s hull was disintegrated into a vapor, which ignited in the continued heat of his own white beam, exploding and throwing the Bug, spinning, away from them. Before he could fire at it again to kill the engines, their own ship was thrown sideways by the direct, forceful ramming of the wooden craft against their hull. There was no sensation of acceleration from within, but the splotchy bright-red mark that appeared briefly on the wall to his left indicated severe external damage. They couldn’t survive this.

But the planetoid had grown, gradually, and now filled a significant portion of their view. They were entering the upper atmosphere.

“Al, I’m going to use a couple of plasma warheads!” he yelled, simultaneously punching commands into the display in front of him and yelling at the ship in thought-speak.

“Dude, you know those aren’t going to hurt them!”

He grinned manically, firing repeatedly, “I don’t have to hurt them. Just stun them for a minute. Straight down, full speed. We can take a hit or two!”

“Aw, jeeze...” he heard Al mutter. His companion turned the ship and punched the throttle towards the planet, full speed. A couple of Dracon Beams connected with their aft section as they blew past, but most missed, surprised by the sudden lack of dodging. The bulbous shape of the gunship was almost here...

He fired three glowing plasma warheads from the tube on the underside of the ship, back into the now-bunched mass of pursuing Bugs. They exploded ahead of the opposing craft in quick succession, dispersing plasma in an instant, each sending a brilliant flash of light through the sky. The flashes would have been blinding had the ship’s display not toned them down.

Unfortunately, the ships now pursuing him didn’t have the advantage of a virtual display- two of the Bugs plowed blind through the plasma cloud, miniature bolts of lightning striking from all sides, their lights and engines flickering out. To his satisfaction, he saw that the wooden ship wasn’t far behind. They’d all regain control of their ships in a few seconds- but a few seconds without shields or thrusters at that speed would be enough heat the outer hulls to a glow, and if they were able to regain control, they still may not be able to avoid slamming into the planet below them. The rest of the Bugs pulled up in time to avoid the cloud. They’d be on them again in a moment, once it had dispersed.

Ikakek’s tiny winged monstrosity stopped short and hovered above the plasma cloud, seeming to contemplate for a moment before dropping a swarm of glowing red missiles right through it. Al jerked the ship into a tight horizontal barrel roll and the missiles flew harmlessly past. Below them, the three craft that had flown through the plasma cloud were hurtling like burning meteors towards the surface, plowing into the planetoid with magnificent explosions.

He heard Al let out a prolonged yell that fell somewhere between “yahoo” and “oh ****” in tone and banked the ship. He looked at the display behind them; the missiles were circling around to try again. They weren’t going to escape like this. They needed somewhere to hide. He frantically searched the display around him.

“There!” he yelled, pointing. “It’s a lake! Land us in the lake! Now!”

Al’s ongoing yell transformed itself into a series of shrieks as they powered towards the lake, missiles impacting their aft section one-by-one, each impact sending a shudder through the hull.

He fired multiple times, turning the last few missiles into little balls of flame- just enough, it seemed, judging by the flashing red spot displaying on the aft wall. Al decelerated quickly, bringing the ship nearly to a halt above the lake. This ship couldn’t take much more, and those Yeerks would only be interested in him for now. He yelled, “I’m out!” and thought-spoke a quick command.

“You crazy!” he heard Al yell back as a hole opened above him, seeming to melt right out of the ceiling and into the air outside. He barely had time to tuck his arms in before he was propelled out through the roof, a maelstrom of cold air whipping around him.

Something tugged at his hip... Al’s stupid party cloak flapping in the wind, he realized. It had caught on the grip of his grav-pistol. He quickly grabbed it and gathered it into his arms.

He watched beneath him as the hole in the roof melted shut again, and the impossibly black ovular shape of his ship dropped into the choppy water with a deep splash.



Time seemed to pass differently here. He’d watch someone, something, try to keep track of events unfolding, of conversations held by those around him, then he’d look away, only for a moment, and when he looked back, everything was something else entirely.

He didn’t know why the
Temser hadn’t come back for him yet. Surely they should have caught him by now. Had he been here for hours or days or weeks? It didn’t seem to matter.

He’d changed his clothes. When had he changed clothes? A purple Sparkle-Be-Good suit. Impossibly expensive, made from the woven rays of light itself. Its translucent illusion of depth made it appear that one was staring into an abyss.

There’d been something... something large... he remembered it breaking the surface of the water... rising... it had been black... blacker, even, than the back hallway towards which everyone now seemed to be rushing...
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 01:00:59 PM by Kitluminator »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2013, 11:19:57 AM »
Great chapter. I like how long they are. :D And now I see how this relates to the Animorphs. ^_^
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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2013, 09:54:30 AM »
Thanks, Abby ^_^

Here's Chapter 3.

[spoiler=Chapter 3]Jaron

Shannon wasn’t scheduled to meet with the education director for several hours yet, so she’d decided to take her own self-guided tour of the station. She’d never been great with directions, so the sooner she could start learning her way around, the better.

Besides, it was a great place for people watching. The population here was a great cross-section of the Radon Coalition as a whole. There were over a thousand intelligent species represented on this station. Being in orbit in the Radonian home system, though, almost half the population was Radon.

The Radon were a familiar sight; humanoid in shape, but usually pale blue in color and crossed with “tiger” stripes in a dull reddish-brown. There was supposedly a direct genetic link between the Radon and Humans that had baffled scientists for decades, but aside from the general shape, Shannon wasn’t sure she bought it. The Radon were smaller, and broader in the shoulder than Humans, and they had six webbed fingers in place of the standard Human five. Their heads were swept back, resembling an aerodynamic helmet, and though their eyes did resemble Human eyes in patterns and coloring, Radonian eyes were far larger and placed farther apart. They had only breathing slits in place of the Human nose, which they could close at will.

She followed the paths that seemed less traveled, making her way farther and farther from the bustle of the main port. She soon found herself in a quiet side corridor where children of all species ran and played between housing units. From there, it was a short walk into a carefully-tended park, overgrown with the gorgeous purple and black fauna of the Calrin world, nestled into an open area that would almost have fit inside of her old house.

The light here, she realized, was a little different than the IPA standard that had been used on her own station. It was still the bright, multi-spectral light designed to allow the greatest number of species the greatest amount of visibility, but here it seemed slightly less blue and more white than she was used to. And while it was still ambient lighting diffused through the air itself, the general direction was definitely a greater angle than that of the light back home; maybe fifteen or eighteen degrees off of vertical, as opposed to the IPA’s eleven. She liked that, though- it gave objects more shade, more depth, and visually seemed a bit closer to a sunny day than the artificial lighting aboard her own station had.

And while the light was the easiest difference to notice, there were other variations here from the IPA. The air smelled slightly sweeter, in a way that reminded her of honey, and she suspected that the mixture of gasses, so carefully balanced to keep the greatest number of species breathing comfortably, was different. The gravity, too, seemed just a hair stronger than the 0.88 G’s she was used to.

The only reason she could see for the changes would be if the balance of species in the Coalition was different than that of the IPA.

Of course, she realized, it would be ridiculous to assume that it wasn’t. The IPA had always encouraged emigration and the homogenization of the population, but each species did tend to gravitate more strongly towards certain areas. When the old IPA had been split up, so too had those concentrations of species.

When she’d asked one of the Radon she’d met about more park-like areas, he’d smiled slyly and shown her to a back corridor. It really wasn’t anything more than a maintenance tunnel, but as he’d promised, it emerged into a large garden, grown so dense with Calrin trees that one would almost believe that they were walking in an actual forest, rather than an artificially cultivated habitat. The flowers here were in full bloom, in a dazzling array of blues and pinks and whites, swaying in the breeze and shining brilliantly when they caught the light. The trees dripped with moisture, and nearby she could hear the telltale sounds of a small stream, though she couldn’t see it through the undergrowth.

There were a few people out walking here, and she was struck by how friendly they seemed- a few smiled at her, and a young Radonian couple walking hand-in-hand even stopped to chat, and, once they found out that she was new to the station, give her their own welcome.

From there, she found made her way into a steaming corridor wherein the glowing, humming panels that controlled the nearby systems had long-since been overgrown with various vines and flowers. The ambient artificial light seemed weaker here- perhaps, she thought, the plants had obstructed some of the emitters. The lower light combined with the artificial glows of display screens and the faint bioluminescence of the plants in here to give the whole corridor the feel of a mysterious cave.

The corridor eventually ended, in a wall of hanging vines, at a neighborhood that seemed more business-oriented than the sleepy little area she’d been in earlier. There was more activity here, and she followed what felt like the main flow of traffic- both pedestrian and vehicle- through a series of turns. The traffic continued to increase as corridors joined each other. Eventually she found herself at an opening into one of the primary concourses leading to the station Center, a huge shaft that extended outwards as far as the eye could see.

The gravity in here was no longer the slightly-unsettling unidirectional variety of the smaller tunnels. Here, it pressed down evenly along all sides of the tunnel, and though the concourse was mostly rectangular, the corners were rounded to allow one to comfortably walk from the plane that formed her current ‘floor’ to the planes that formed the ‘walls’ and the one that formed her ‘ceiling.’ The people walking along the far wall and the ceiling looked ants- the shaft was huge.

Here, the energy and bustle could really be felt. Trade was the main purpose of this station, after all, and in spite of the fact that it was in a polar orbit on the outer reaches of the system, it still drew enough of a crowd to make her head swim.

The people here were in far more of a hurry than the others she’d seen. This was a world of business. The atmosphere was one of grudging courtesy, but even so, she was nearly run down by a surly-looking Vondanod in a hovercar on his way to be somewhere. She thought she preferred the smaller, quieter back neighborhoods to this constant flurry of activity and noise, but that could just be because it was so much closer to what she was used to.

A number of permanent shops stood in vague rows along the concourse. Beyond, out in the open area of the station Center, she could see a few actual structures standing or floating within the open space.

The vast majority of the traders here, however, would never end up settling in. Most would simply trade their wares and move on; the population of a place like this was constantly in flux. The shops of these traveling traders were less permanent, ranging from simple blankets arrayed with items laid out on the ground to canvas-covered booths with folding tables arrayed with objects to multi-story field-enclosed airy-looking semistructures that seemed as though they would come tumbling down had they not been built in this variable-gravity environment.

In fact, as Shannon walked into the vast, wide-open trading Center, stretching several kilometers in every direction, she almost couldn’t make out the clear upper dome, looking out into the space beyond. It was obscured by thousands of structures and vehicles standing and floating in the air. Far above, nestled comfortably right at the top of the dome, she could just see the floating diamond sphere that would house the halls of the Elite Traders’ Guild. A ways off, she could make out where the ground simply ended, dropping off into nothingness.

The ground here was covered in flowers and plants and grasses from a thousand worlds, though the vast majority of them were the chlorophyll-green color usually associated with Radon. Far away, on the other side of the Center, the ground started again. The structures that filled the space between seemed indifferent to the lack of ground- where they weren’t anchored to the deck, they were floating freely.

The din here should be deafening, but the combination of expert acoustic design and intelligent field deadeners had an interesting effect, in that all the sounds were sharp, yet quiet, except for whatever you happened to be listening for. Often the deadeners knew what you wanted before you did- Shannon found herself walking towards a pad marked for one of the floating restaurants based on nothing more than the distinctive noises of an Earth kitchen. It had been a long time since she’d had properly prepared Earth cuisine, and her stomach grumbled at the thought.

She continued to take in the overwhelming rush of sensation as she floated up towards the restaurant, her bright flower-patterned dress fluttering slightly in the pleasant breeze. Gradually the restaurant itself drew her attention. It was a cube, for the most part, inlaid with a number of windows that suggested that the ambient lighting was not continued inside, but was allowed to filter through the glass. It was a common technique used to give the impression of being indoors.

The building was most-likely constructed of the same composite polymers or intelligent metals as everything else on this station, but they’d been altered so that they very closely resembled wooden logs. The overall effect was that, from any angle, it looked an awful lot like a log cabin.

The restaurant had two wooden decks ringing the outside- the lower one, she saw as she floated up past it, would be for dining, as would the rear section of the upper one, with the front of the upper deck set aside to receive new arrivals. Above the front door hung a large wooden sign in the galactic standard language spelling out the name of the restaurant, “Gina’s.” This front patio was ringed by a wooden railing which separated it from the dining area on two sides, and from a dizzying drop on the other two. There were several wooden benches set facing into the deck with the railing as a backrest.

It was here that she set down out of the antigravity field, stepping gently to the host’s desk, nestled under a purple awning just to the side of the front door. There were a number of people already milling around here- parties waiting for tables, she surmised. She waited patiently while the Zong maître d' in front of her discussed something with the bored-looking, sharply dressed Radon behind the desk. Through the open door she could see that the restaurant was, indeed, kept relatively dark; the only light in the small room visible from the door was provided by hanging crystal chandeliers.

The maître d' finished her conversation and headed back inside, and Shannon stepped forward to speak to the host. He informed her that a table for one would be about a fifteen-minute wait, and she thanked him and walked over to one of the benches. She knelt in the bench, facing backwards, and rested her head in her arms on the railing, looking out over the station Center.

From this vantage point, it was easier to see how the station was laid out. The Center was nearly spherical, with a different layer of ‘ground’ placed vertically every few hundred meters, in ‘shelves’ ringing the interior. Near the equator, the shelves were nearly a half a kilometer wide, tapering to no more than a hundred meters near the top and bottom of the sphere. The shelf in the very center was ringed by nineteen large openings- the main concourses that led outward, from the Center all the way to the station’s distant rim.

The top half of the spherical Center was made of a transparent material that looked out into space, while the bottom half was mostly silver walls and well-cultivated grass and parkland. At the very bottom was set an arena to be used for public events.

As with the main concourse through which she’d walked, the gravity here was, for the most part, kept ‘outward.’ One would be able to walk from one of the grounded ‘shelves’ to the wall that formed the edge of the ‘sphere’ and up to the underside of the next ‘shelf’ and then around the edge to the top again. In a station like this, she knew, the clear dome looking into space would generally be accepted as ‘up’ for establishments that chose to stick to unidirectonal gravity, such as this restaurant.

One massive, lazy river flowed slowly through the Center, starting beside the arena below and snaking its way up the perimeter of the sphere and around the shelves of land for many kilometers. It ran wide and thin across the smooth panglass of the dome above, causing the stars behind it to dance and shudder, until it finally flowed directly behind the Elite Traders’ Guild. From there it flowed back down, winding its way along until it had completed its loop and could begin running upwards again. A large number of smaller streams flowed to and from the main river all throughout the Center, some of them quite large. She could see, in the distance, a number of yellow rafts making their way through a particularly turbulent network of these streams, most of which were allowed simply to flow off the end of one of the shelves and dissipate in the area of the Center’s interior. The fine mist they left behind shimmered beautifully, and through some trick of the light, the whole display was ringed by a faint double rainbow.

The vast interior area between the ‘shelves,’ the area that made up most of the sphere, was filled with a mind-boggling number of floating objects. Most of them were vehicles, many of those mobile trade stations complete with their own display windows and loudspeakers, but a lot of the floating objects were permanent structures like this one, some connected by taut metal cables or swaying wooden bridges or grav-shafts. In fact, when she looked again, she could see a half-dozen of the shimmering shafts of air, ready to transport people from this very deck to neighboring facilities at high speed. Literally millions of people could move comfortably within this space.

And indeed, it was the people that drew her attention most. A number of the species in the IPA had been gifted with flight, wings or jets or flaps or balloon-like organs, and they moved freely and easily from one building to another. The rest of the species could also float easily from one to the next, but were limited to the gravity lanes set aside for the transit of people. In these lanes, crossing the space in every imaginable direction, were thousands upon thousands of people from a thousand different worlds, all speeding past each other. Some of them looked excited and thrilled by this spectacle, some looked awed and humbled, some simply looked bored. As she looked out, it began to dawn on her just how many people were truly in here.

Seeing this, it was hard to believe that the IPA had been devastated by a war and torn apart by subsequent power struggles. She’d only been a little girl in the days before the Mohemian invasion, and even then she’d only ever lived in a small town on Hemtei, so she had no real basis for comparison, but this station was considered a relatively small, out-of-the-way part of what remained of the IPA. It made her head swim to think of the kind of wealth that the Alliance must have controlled at the height of its power.

She was struck by what sounded like the laughter of a Human child, and turned to look, glad for the distraction from the spectacle before her. To call this place overwhelming wouldn’t be scratching the surface.

There was, indeed, a little Human boy laughing. He was rolling around on the deck, wrestling with a young Syler who looked to be about the same age. She glanced around for their parents- if they weren’t careful, that Syler would be capable of severely hurting the Human boy.

After a few moments, she spotted an adult Syler standing on the other side of the deck. He was speaking with a trio of Radon dressed in fancy attire, but when she saw him watching the two boys protectively, she breathed a bit of a sigh of relief. At least someone was keeping an eye on them.

Growing up, she’d had a pit bull named Alan- sweetheart of a dog, he’d been- and the Syler always reminded her of him. Their heads were similar to a pit bull’s in shape, and their legs even bent opposite of Human legs, the way Alan’s would have if he’d walked upright. In place of the dog’s paws, though, the Syler had four hands with opposable thumbs and sharp claws. It was rare to see one over a meter and a half in height, but their strength and stamina never seemed to match their stature- they had a reputation for being remarkably strong.

The Syler across the deck was mostly white, with a black-and-tan pattern that ran down his back and left arm. Much of his fur was greying- he must be getting fairly old, she realized.

She turned back and watched the boys play, a smile finding its way to her lips. It wasn’t unusual to see Humans and Syler becoming close friends. In fact, it was a pretty common pairing in IPA schools, thanks to the fact that the two species matured at about the same rate. The Human boy looked to be mostly of Asian descent, judging by his dark hair and his facial features, but he had wide, bright green eyes. The Syler boy’s eyes were a darker shade of green, and his soft fur, mostly white-and-silver, still retained some of its fine blue baby fluff in tufts atop his head and at his ankles.

The older Syler must have seen her staring, because when the host called for his companions to head inside, he turned and strode directly for her. She self-consciously straightened her hair and her dress, and he sat down beside her, offering a hand, which she shook.

“I’m Aspic,” he said amiably.

“Shannon,” she offered in a way that was both friendly and wary. She wasn’t sure why he was speaking to her, but it was in her nature to be warm towards strangers.

“That’s Raicca, my grandson,” said Aspic, indicating the young Syler, who was now quite handily pinned by the shouting Human boy. “A Human runs this restaurant. The other boy is his son, Jaron.”

She nodded, “They seem like a handful.”

Aspic barked out a quick laugh, “Oh, that they are. You must be the new teacher, right?”

She blinked, then laughed, “That’s why you came over. Yes, I am.”

Aspic watched as Raicca flipped Jaron onto his stomach and trapped his arm behind his back, then looked back at Shannon, “It should be good for Jaron, having a Human teacher. He and his father are the only Humans on the station.”

She nodded- she’d checked on that before arriving. What Aspic was saying wasn’t strictly true- at the moment three Human men were here as part of a Zong Coalition trading party- but it was true that a boy and his father were listed as the only permanent Human residents. For some reason, actually seeing the boy made her a little sad.

“It’s not unusual for a family to be the only one of its species in the... the Coalition,” she said quietly, thinking aloud, “but Humans tend to group together.”

“You didn’t,” Aspic observed wryly.

She laughed, “I had my reasons. It’s the nice thing about living where we do; we can go anywhere in the IPA.” She paused, looking embarrassed, “I mean... the Coalition.”

Aspic just laughed at her. A yelp of pain came from Jaron, and Aspic shouted “Raicca, don’t hurt him!” in an exasperated tone at the two boys, then looked back at her, “It’s been years since the Radon Coalition declared its independence, and pretty much everyone around here still refers to it as the IPA. Old habits die hard.”

She nodded, swallowing. This seemed like the kind of talk that would inevitably led to discussions of politics and the corruption and fall of empires. The kind of talk that never failed to make her uncomfortable. Aspic seemed to sense this.

“So when did you arrive?” he asked her, changing the subject.

“A couple of hours ago. I thought I’d take a walk,” she said.

Aspic nodded, “What do you think of our little station so far?”

She laughed and tilted her head to indicate the endless flurry of activity behind her, “I can’t believe this qualifies as little.”

He grinned, “Ever been to the Vondanod cluster? This is nothing next to anything you’d find there.”

She shrugged, “I’m just a country girl. Closest I’ve ever seen to this is the annual Washban craft fair.”

Aspic smiled wistfully, “Now there’s something I still hope to make it to. They say the festival at the end is really something.”

She nodded, “I look forward to it all year.”

Aspic mimicked her nod, then caught sight of a clock set into a nearby floating structure. “Well,” he said, rising and stretching, “It’s about time I took Raicca to his music lesson.” He smiled at her with the Syler sharp-toothed grin, “it’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

She smiled, “You as well. I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

Aspic led Raicca away, and she watched Jaron watch them leave and then wander over to the host at the desk. The host said something she couldn’t hear, then handed Jaron a large coloring book and a box of crayons. Jaron carried them over to one of the benches, where he laid out flat and flipped to a page that, from the look of it, he’d already put a fair amount of work into.

She stood up and walked over to him, standing nearby. The boy seemed very intent on his coloring book- he didn’t see her, and she noticed that his effort seemed to be directed as much towards drawing new parts for the pictures as it did with coloring them in the first place. The messy, occasionally-in-the-lines coloring of various points of interest around the station was crossed by further spires and shapes and eyes and balloons and an eclectic assortment of childishly-drawn objects.

“Jaron?” she asked tentatively after a moment.

Jaron looked at her, curious.

“Jaron, my name is Shannon,” she said, kneeling down next to his bench. “I’m your new teacher.”

“Hi!” said the little boy brightly. He thought for a moment, then seemed to decide on the most important question to ask. “Want to color?”
She smiled and picked up a light blue crayon, “Sure.”



The acrid, uncomfortably familiar smell of burning flesh now touched his nostrils. Awful thing, that, and he gagged on the stench. If it was this bad here, it must be worse back there, in the cramped, dark space that was quickly becoming crowded with people...
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 26, 2013, 11:44:43 AM by Arch Kit »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2013, 12:23:13 PM »
Language warning for this one. Enjoy ^_^

[spoiler=Chapter 4]Salem

Thienal floated gently to the ground, assisted by his antigravity boots. He looked around, getting a feel for his new situation. He found himself in a thick forest, overgrown with leafy green trees. Above, he could see the blue sky fading to black, but on every side he could see nothing but trees. Here, the red light of the alien sunset was barely able to reach him. In this forest, the sun had set hours ago.

In this forest, it may as well already be night.

Seen from a distance, Thienal could almost pass for Human, perhaps a boy in his middle-teens, but for the fact his skin was greyish-brown, and almost scaly in appearance. Taken with the muted brown-and-green jumpsuit he was wearing, he could probably stand still among the trees and be mistaken for one of them.

He had no ears, and three fingers and a thumb on each hand, each ending in a long, sharp claw. His arms and legs were both just a touch too long... or maybe his torso was just a touch too short, since, at his height, the average Human male would tower over him by nearly a head. His hair was jet-black. His wide eyes lacked whites; they were green, so dark a green that they almost looked black, save for the yellow slit of a pupil that bisected them.

Slung diagonally across his back was a large, wicked-looking blade, nearly as long as he was tall. Curved, serrated and spiked, it looked like the monster that might haunt the nightmares of a sword. The dual-grip hilt extended above his left shoulder, putting it in easy reach.

Over the top of the blade, strapped diagonally in the opposite direction, was a projectile weapon nearly as long. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a ‘rifle.’ No, this multi-function weapon was so much more than that. The complex array of inner components was covered in a smooth, dark metallic sheath, into which were embedded the grip and trigger. The result was an awkward shiny black weapon that looked too big to wield. There was a handle extending from the back end. This stuck up and over his right shoulder, which would allow him to draw it easily.

He was not happy. He’d just watched his ship, his beloved ship, plow into the ground at several times the speed of sound. If he wasn’t going to kill the Human before, he most definitely would now. It seemed this Human had no shortage of ways to rip his life apart.

Not far off, he could see the smoking crater left by the impact. More distantly, two other smoke trails led to the ground, left by the burning Bug Fighters as they fell. The trails would lead to two more smoking craters.

The three impacts had been spectacular to watch, especially from high above as he fell through the air. Debris and molten metal had exploded upwards and outwards, into the forest beyond. The two Bug Fighters had sent up even more debris than his own wooden ship. Thienal doubted the Yeerk pilots had survived. Whatever else you could say about the species, they certainly didn’t know how to fly.

He looked around- there, visible through the trees, was a run-down wooden building. Across the clearing on the other side of the building, he could make out a larger craft with what might be bodies strewn out front. Between the building and himself was a figure, a tall humanoid covered from head to toe in black armor thick enough that the shoulders sat nearly as high as the top of the head. It walked with a weapon drawn, making its way in the direction of the crater left by his ship.

Thienal snorted. So this little rock was inhabited after all. Inhabited by a violent species, from the look of things. He might have to pick a fight.

A series of sonic booms drew his attention to the sky- a black, elongated oval twisted through the atmosphere far above, making a wide S-turn. It disappeared momentarily behind a cloud bank and then reappeared seconds later when it punched through the bottom. A vapor trail formed behind the object, but its surface was too dark for him to make out any actual features, too black to discern detail or even depth. Looking at it was like looking at a hole in reality.

It was trailed by dozens of glowing red objects. As the red objects caught up to the black one, each exploded in a burst of flame and a flash of light, but the trajectory of the black object seemed unaffected. It quickly disappeared from view behind the trees.

Thienal grinned with his razor-sharp teeth. He’d seen a trail erupt from the top of the object, characteristic of the pilot’s ejection, as it had dropped out of sight.

“End of the line.”

Stealthily, he made his way through the woods in the direction the ship had been. He’d dart, quickly and silently, from one tree to the next, and then he’d stop, and watch, and listen. Best not to be seen coming where this awful Human was involved. Best to see him before he saw Thienal.

Eventually he spotted something- nothing more than a flash of movement, really. It came from far away to his right, and seemed to be headed in the direction of the building. Moving that stealthily, it had to be the man he was looking for. Already that far ahead of him.

He growled in frustration, then looked up at the sound of a distant spacecraft engine. From the clouds descended two of the Yeerks’ distinctive Bug Fighters, the small craft that had been a mainstay of the Empire for ages. Each resembled a beetle, flying with its shell closed. It was this insect-like shape that gave the craft its name. From either side of the main fuselage protruded a long, wicked-looking spike- the ship’s main Dracon Beams. Though the Bugs were common in the Yeerk Empire, the black-and-red color scheme of these was unique to the Light, this little fringe group that somehow managed to straddle the line between outcast and agent of the Council.

Behind the two Bugs, dropping slowly through the cloud bank, came the ship they were escorting. The large, semirectangular shape of the Yeerk gunship descended slowly, carefully, watching for traps like the one the Human had set for them on the way down. The long engine pods that ran along the length of the craft glowed white intermittently as it struggled to stabilize itself in this gravity and atmosphere. He knew that the Yeerkish writing on the side said, roughly translated, “The Light in the Darkness,” but from this distance even his eyes couldn’t make it out.

“I have him. The building,” he said aloud, transmitting the words to the ship above. As much as he loathed the idea of sharing this kill, he’d be willing to beat the Human while Vanress held him down. These Yeerks had been good allies. The fact that they’d all been thrown into this mess together... it was like fate. He wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip. He darted through the woods as quickly as he could while still remaining unseen, keeping his eyes open for any more movement.

He stopped near the edge of the clearing that contained the building and looked up at the sound of something fast flying around the area. There was Ikakek’s little fighter, a streamlined, elongated oval with large, triangular delta wings. Underneath each wing, alongside the fuselage, was a stubby engine pod, glowing the same white at the end as those of the Bugs. Unlike most spacecraft, Ikakek’s would actually be more comfortable in the atmosphere. At some point since Thienal had last seen him, Ikakek had painted the ship the black-and-crimson of the Light. It cruised around the area, trailing sonic booms. If anyone could catch this Human’s craft, it would be Ikakek.

Which didn’t matter one bit when you let the Human get to the ground. That fool was going to cost him his chance.

His lip curled in disgust. Of everyone he could choose to be stuck in this situation with, that godawful Zong was near the bottom of the list. It was true that Ikakek was a reasonably talented hunter, but no other creature had ever managed to make killing seem so... boring. To Ikakek, this was just a job- and from the sound of things, one that he’d tried to get away from once or twice. Thienal didn’t understand that. He’d always loved his work. Why would anyone stick to something they didn’t love? It was what Thienal was good at, and something that was easy enough to pick up each time the Human ripped him from his home and flung him into a new universe.

Not that he wanted to have to start over ever again. Just for once, it would be nice to live somewhere without spending every moment worrying about this Human destroying his life. Once the man was dead, and that ship of his destroyed, Thienal felt he could live out the rest of his days in relative peace.

He was distracted by a buzzer going off from within his jumpsuit- the proximity alert for his ship. Now that was surprising. It meant that not only was his ship still at least partly intact, but also that someone was trying to break into what was left. He was impressed- apparently the Kindler wood lived up to its reputation. Nothing else could have survived that crash.

He was torn, though- he’d lost sight of the Human, who he so desperately wanted to find and gut like a fish. Now the gunship was touching down, and he knew he should go greet the Commander. He didn’t want to do either one if his baby was in danger.

He sighed. If nothing else, his ship should be too damaged to go anywhere, and as much as he hated to admit it, he could probably use the Light’s help in flushing out the fugitive Human.

He strode confidently into the open field near the little building to meet the big tan Yeerk gunship, not seeing any more point in trying to stay hidden. If the Human didn’t already know they were here, then he was blind. As he walked, he made note of a number of spacecraft parked haphazardly in the open area. A lot of them looked Yeerk- he counted at least two Bug Fighters in the field. That was good. Maybe they hadn’t actually gone somewhere different this time. Though it did mean that he’d have to be careful about who got caught in the crossfire. The Empire tended to frown on the disintegration of its own people.

Although... were these the Empire’s people? He caught a glimpse of something silver and metallic standing in the doorway of the little run-down wooden structure. A robot, from the look of it. Robots like that were not something he’d ever seen among the Yeerks.

He looked away. Plenty of time for that later.

The gunship’s ramp was open and troops were on their way out before it had even fully settled to the ground, fanning out with military precision. While some of them were Human, dressed in black uniforms trimmed with red, most of them were Hork-Bajir with only black-and-red armbands to distinguish them as members of the Light.

The Hork-Bajir were always a pleasure to look at. Some of them could push two and a half meters in height, and they were simply covered in blades. Blades grew from their wrists, their elbows, their ankles, their knees- basically, they looked like perfectly-designed walking weapons. Two or three long horns grew from the forehead of each one. They had wicked-looking beaks, with heads sitting atop long, snake-like necks. Their tails ended in blades that, while not quite as impressive as Andalite tail-blades, still looked like they could do some serious damage. Their three-clawed feet were large and sharp and talon-like, the better to kick someone to death with.

Thienal had heard that the Hork-Bajir were naturally a very peaceful, even stupid species, but each and every one existed now as the slave to a Yeerk. The entire race had been reduced to nothing more than tools of the Empire. In Thienal’s opinion it was a major improvement.

Every troop, Human or Hork-Bajir, carried with them a hand-held Dracon, and each wore a display glass over one eye, which continually flashed through a readout of information about the area around them on its transparent display. Some of them had the Light’s new Dracon rifles strapped to their backs- a weapon that took the basic design of the hand-held Dracons and made it three times as awkward to use.

Commander Vanress 4144 was easy enough to spot- he wore a Yeerk dress uniform in place of the red-and-black of his soldiers. He was the last one off the ship, barking orders at his troops- it was always strange to hear Gallard, the interstellar trade language in this region, shouted with that thick Russian accent. He wore a scowl as the troops split into groups and moved off to search the area for the Human.

Of course, it was unusual not to see him scowling. His face... or, rather, the face of his host... was wrinkled like old leather, and his dark grey hair was whitening in spots. Though his face was thin, one got the impression of a well-muscled physique underneath his garish uniform. His left eye was covered in an eyepatch; Thienal figured Vanress had lost the eye in some battle. The Commander also sported a salt-and-pepper moustache that was thick and full, yet meticulously well-maintained.

Vanress had split the Yeerk forces into three search teams, which now headed off in different directions to search the area. To Thienal’s dismay, he noticed that the few troops that had drawn weapons were re-holstering them at Vanress’s command, and that the two Bug Fighters were settling to the ground. Trust Vanress to try to keep everything peaceful.

Vanress stepped purposefully towards Ikakek’s ship, which was now landing nearby. Thienal sighed and changed direction to meet him. This was going to be frustrating.

From here, Ikakek’s ship looked even less impressive. It was maybe half the length of the Bug Fighters, and sported no visible external weaponry. If he hadn’t seen it in action, Thienal might have mistaken it for a toy.

The same could not be said of the creature that climbed out once the silver bubble canopy opened. Thienal always found it ridiculous that a creature that size could sit comfortably in a ship that small. His four long, spider-like legs seemed to unfold themselves as he stepped out of the ship, raising his head and torso up to their full height. Ikakek was short for a Zong, standing at just under five meters tall.

His light brown skin grew darker near the top of his thin, vaguely-humanoid torso. His four extremely long, well-muscled arms were evenly spaced around the body at the shoulder. Atop his thin, bony neck sat his head, which was mostly ovular, tall and thin. It split into two lobes in the top, resulting in a head that was vaguely V-shaped. The lower section held his relatively small mouth, ringed with razor-sharp teeth and flanked on either side by insectine pincers. In the upper section of his head were his six small black compound eyes, all facing outward- one on each lobe facing forward, one facing back, and one to the side.

Coiled along the lower half of Ikakek’s torso were some of the appendages Thienal envied most in existence- the infamous Zong tails. The tails were long, thin, remarkably dextrous, unbelievably strong, and covered from base to tip in tiny blades. Thienal had seen Ikakek gently manipulate small objects from across the room with his tails. He’d also seen him wrap them around a tree trunk and slice it clean through. The tails never stopped growing over the course of a Zong’s lifetime, and it wasn’t unusual for sections to break off. It looked like Ikakek was down to only two tails that were really long enough to be useful at the moment.

But then, two would be enough. Thienal would have given his own arm for just one of those beautiful razor-wire whips.

Much like the Hork-Bajir, most Zong were peaceful, in spite of their fearsome appearance. Unlike the Hork-Bajir, the Zong were remarkably intelligent; their empire had been one of the most successful in his home universe, once upon a time. Unfortunately, ‘intelligent’ did not equate to ‘interesting,’ at least in Ikakek’s case.

“Welcome, Commander,” Thienal said as he and Vanress reached Ikakek’s position.

Vanress nodded curtly and greeted them both, “I believe this is the end of the line for our little fugitive friend.”

Ikakek hissed something, his Gallard difficult to understand- it was not a language made for Zong mouths. Thienal gathered that he was talking about collecting bounties at the bar.

Thienal looked around at the motley collection of spacecraft from a dozen worlds, considering. This place certainly had the feel of a little hiding-hole for fugitives. Maybe that was why the Human had chosen it.

“No,” snapped Vanress, cutting off Ikakek’s stilted speech. “You overgrown insect, we are after one thing here. If we can capture this fugitive, I might be able to convince the Council to let me move the Empire out of this dark age it’s stuck in. If you screw this up for me, I will have your ugly head mounted on my wall. You can come collect bounties on your own time." It was interesting- any normal man would have cowered in fear at the mere sight of Ikakek, but in this case, it almost seemed to be the other way around. Thienal smirked. The Zong intimidated by a Human.

Yeerk in a Human suit. Whatever.

Vanress turned away to answer several communications from his unit, now spreading out around the area. Ikakek took the opportunity to say, in the Atazin standard language, “Hello, Thienal. Still short?”

Thienal glared up at the being, at what passed for a smirk on a Zong face, and opened his mouth to deliver a really biting reply, but was interrupted by Vanress.

“You’re with me, I guess,” he said to the two of them with an air of annoyance, and began striding towards the building without explanation.

Thienal spun and followed, half-jogging just to keep up. Vanress continued to answer communications, barking orders and advice into his communicator. The team was spreading out, questioning locals, but Vanress wanted them to avoid drawing their weapons and... look nonthreatening, Thienal guessed. Vanress must either think the locals were dangerous, or that violence here would not sit well with the Council of Thirteen.

“I must come back here,” said Ikakek as he fell into step beside Thienal, both of them trailing the Commander. He kept his voice low in order to avoid interrupting Vanress. “Do you know how many wanted people a place like this will attract?”

Thienal sighed. Of course the stupid Zong wanted to chat. “I only care about our friend,” he said irritably. “He shot down my ship.”

Ikakek stared down at him, “You know better than to engage him without Serin present.”

Thienal snarled, but it was true- Thienal had never seen any ships aside from Serin 612’s that could handle the Human’s black terror in a firefight. Thienal wasn’t even sure why Serin’s ship was effective- even the old-model Bug Fighters would easily best it.

“How did we get stuck working for these slugs anyway?” he growled.

Ikakek shushed him- they’d reached the door of the building. It looked like this was some sort of... bar? Inside, he thought he could see a bar counter and possibly even a Human man using a towel to dry a large empty tankard. In fact, he could make out a number of figures- most of them looked Human, actually, which would be in line with the apparent Yeerk population here.  The Commander had stepped inside and was yelling authoritatively about something or other.

Thienal glanced over and saw that Ikakek was slowly uncoiling his two good tails. Once they were unfurled, he began using them to absently overturn rocks and leaves on the ground several meters away.

Thienal activated his hover boots. He flew up to the roof and drew the rifle from his back, hefting it in both hands with remarkable ease. One of the three search teams had surrounded the building, and now four of the Hork-Bajir moved quickly through the front door, presumably at Vanress’s command.

He sighed. This should be quick and easy with so much manpower around, but this Human had never made things ‘quick and easy.’ If... or rather, when he escaped the Commander in the bar, Thienal was ready to gun him down.

He casually scanned the area through the scope of his rifle, taking note of the rest of the Yeerks still searching for the Human. So, that meant Vanress still wasn’t sure he was in the building... but he must have had some suspicion that this was where the man was, or the Commander wouldn’t have come here himself.

Wait... what was that? A minotaur? Thienal caught only a brief glimpse as a well-built male humanoid with a large, horned head carried... something up the ramp and into one of the parked ships. Thienal would have sworn that the ‘something’ was a body covered in a sheet. One of the Light’s troops, a female Human with yellow hair, followed him up the ramp.

He was distracted by the characteristic TSEEWWW! of Dracon fire from the open area in which the ships were parked. He only found the source of the sound when he heard a second Tseeewwww and a loud crrraaaack as a tree nearby exploded in the heat of a Dracon beam. The search team that had dispersed among the parked ships was having a fight with... nothing that he could see. Maybe they just wanted to see how well those rifles blew up trees.

Wait... the air rippled like heat rising on a hot day where one of the rifles had hit something. A cloaked ship in the yard. Interesting, no-doubt, but not helpful; the Human’s ship didn’t turn invisible. That was likely a Yeerk cloak, from the look of it. These idiots were going to get themselves killed. Those ridiculous anti-vehicle rifles might be powerful, but they weren’t going to win a fight with a shielded spacecraft. He wondered for a moment if Vanress might be on to something by ordering his troops to keep their weapons holstered.

The cloaked ship returned fire, and at least two Hork-Bajir disintegrated before his eyes. He sighed. Maybe the Yeerks hadn’t learned as much from him as he thought. He dropped to a kneeling position and steadied his rifle, ready to shoot... well, since he wasn’t going to be taking out a ship with this thing, maybe he could figure out which Yeerk had given the okay for this fight.

There was a deafening boom from the bar, shaking the roof beneath his feet. It was accompanied by a flash of light, which was bright enough to hurt his eyes even after it had flooded out of the windows and reflected off the ground and trees nearby. In the seconds that followed, he could hear the tinkling of broken glass falling from every window in the building.

He cursed- the target Human had done something, and now the Commander... assuming he was still alive... would probably be in no condition to take him in. He carefully watched the area- this time it was his turn.

Two of the Hork-Bajir who’d entered the bar stumbled out the front door, blinking, apparently somewhat blinded. They were shortly followed by the other two who, in addition to being blinded, held their stomachs and gasped for breath. One of them made it a little way from the door, then stumbled to his knees and threw up on the ground.

The rest of the Yeerk searchers were moving this way now, all three teams spreading out around the bar, trying to cut off all escape routes. It looked like those who’d been in the firefight with the ship had managed to avoid getting themselves killed, and they... or at least, those of them that were left... joined the group surrounding the bar. He took note of Ikakek sprinting away and jumping into his ship, which was lifting into the air before the canopy had fully closed. Coward.

A crrrrraaaaaack! echoed across the land, and when he turned to look, Thienal saw a cloud of purple smoke billowing from the wreckage of what he guessed was an old Skrit Na freighter, crashed near the edge of the woods maybe two hundred meters away. It looked as though it had just exploded. That would be the Human.

Unless... he looked around. Nearly all of the Yeerk troops had turned and were running in that direction. The two Bug Fighters which had served as escorts for the gunship were taking off, already drifting towards the wreck. The Commander, still alive, had stepped out the door and was walking in the direction of the explosion. Even Ikakek’s little ship was going in low and slow for a pass over the freighter.

He silenced the proximity alarm going off again in his jumpsuit. These damn locals. He tried to think. While the explosions and the purple smoke were characteristic of this particular Human, there was something unsettling about the fact he’d managed to travel that far, that fast, without Thienal or any of the Yeerks noticing.

No, he thought as the Yeerk troops surrounded the wreckage and began fanning out again, searching the ship and the woods nearby. No, the Human wouldn’t be there. He was too clever for that. He could be almost anywhere by now- watching, laughing, maybe even drawing a bead on Thienal right this moment- but he wouldn’t be there. He caught sight of the Commander, standing now, watching from the middle of the shipyard. It looked as though he was having similar thoughts.

He shook his head. It didn’t matter where he was, the Human would bleed. He’d caused Thienal enough misery.

“Nice ship, Thienal,” came a voice from his clothing, “but I think you should take better care of it.”

“No!” yelled Thienal. That was the communications link from his ship!

“I think I’ll take it,” said the infuriatingly smug voice of the Human. Thienal swung his rifle around to face the crater in which his ship sat. To his amazement, his ship was already moving away, accelerating up towards space at a sharp angle. The engines were running brighter than he’d ever seen them- the Human must have done something to the systems, or the ship would never allow itself to run that hot. After that crash, it probably shouldn’t be running at all.

He fired, and the supersonic slug from his rifle lanced towards the ship with a sound like thunder. He hadn’t led enough, though, and the shot went wide as the ship picked up speed. It was out of range before he could line up a second shot. Not that his rifle would be capable of really damaging his ship anyway.

As it shot upwards, the ship was tailed by the two Bug Fighters and Ikakek’s ship, all running full thrusters. As fast as they were moving, though, Thienal could tell they wouldn’t be able to catch the Human.

Thienal re-sheathed his rifle and leapt down from the roof. He ran towards Vanress, who was shouting commands into his communicator. As he got close, he heard the Commander tell Ikakek to shoot the Human down. His lips involuntarily pulled back into a snarl- that was his baby they’d be shooting at! But then... but then... maybe better it be vaporized than stay in the hands of the Human.

He looked up and happened to see Ikakek’s ship overhead releasing a small number of missiles, each trailing a red glow. They barely seemed able to catch up to Thienal’s accelerating wooden fighter, and though each impacted with a bright flash, the ship didn’t seem to slow down at all. He shook his head. He’d seen Ikakek use most of his missiles earlier, while his own ship had been tumbling towards the ground.

“There’s no way that Zong can take down my ship with the shots he has left,” he growled at Vanress. “Stupid Human’s going to blow up my baby, running her that hot.” His lip curled at the thought of what he was about to ask. “Can I hitch a ride?”

Vanress glared at him, then turned to run towards the gunship, yelling “Come with me!” Thienal followed, joining the stream of troops already scrambling to get aboard. He raced ahead, eager to get on with this hunt. He’d had enough games.

He reached the open hatch and forced his way into the mass of Hork-Bajir making their way aboard. An elbow blade nicked his temple and, without thinking, he threw the responsible Hork-Bajir to the ground, hissing. The Hork-Bajir was up in an instant, coming after him with blades flashing, and Thienal went down on his back, hard, bleeding yellow from a gash across his chest.

He jumped to his feet and was reaching for the blade slung across his back when he heard the Commander yell “Stand down!”

He paused for a moment, considering how nice it would be to simply cut through every single one of these Yeerks, but then relented. He yelled- a frustrated, wordless moan- and dropped his arms to his sides. With a glare at the Hork-Bajir who’d assaulted him, he made his way inside and took a seat.

The bright yellow plastic chair in which he sat was far too large, having been designed for a Hork-Bajir, but the living metal restraints were still able to fasten securely over his chest and waist. The ship began to rise into the air, and the last few troops were forced to leap for the hatch and scramble their way inside as it slid shut.

Vanress took a seat beside him, “I understand that you’re frustrated, Thienal,” he said, his tone surprisingly polite. He clapped a hand on Thienal’s shoulder “But if you attack my troops again, I’m just going to let them kill you.”

Thienal snarled at the Commander, but seemed unable to find a comeback through the fog of rage that seemed to fill the very air in the ship. He was feeling a little lightheaded... though whether that was anger or blood-loss, he really couldn’t say. He rubbed the spot where the Commander had patted his shoulder.

Maybe... maybe he’d just rest for a moment...

The next thing he knew, he was being carried through one of the familiar corridors aboard the Yeerk battleship on a stretcher. Human-controllers wearing Yeerk medical uniforms held either end, and his chest... his chest seemed to have been hastily wrapped in an emergency bandage, which was already soaked clean through with his yellow blood.

“The Commander,” he said angrily, trying to sit up. His head spun, and he had to lie back down.

“Chill there, Thienal,” said one of the Human-controllers, a male with broad shoulders and brown hair cut so short he almost looked bald. Thienal felt he should recognize him... had he seen this Human before? He glared at the man and hissed.

“Whoa now. Thienal, remember me? Ardiss 454. You were teaching me to shoot.”

Thienal shook his head, slowly. How was one supposed to remember so many different Humans? With a growl he leapt up and shoved ‘Ardiss’ into a wall, sending the man at the other end of the stretcher sprawling.

He stumbled a short way down the corridor and then stopped, panting and holding his head. A shout from behind made him turn- the two men were approaching him slowly, as if he were some kind of dangerous maniac. Someone crazy that needed to be approached with the utmost care to avoid upsetting.

The thought made him angry, and he snarled at them and darted away down the corridor. He made a few quick turns and found himself entering the small, cramped bridge, surrounded by bodies under control of Yeerks- Humans, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons. Vanress stood at the center of the room, receiving a report from his Hork-Bajir first mate.

“... casualty count to fifteen; eight confirmed lost with hosts, seven injured, one of them badly enough that we don’t expect the host to survive. Not one of our better days,” the Hork-Bajir was saying. “We detected a large ship near the edge of the system. We think it’s a Dome Ship. Mark III. We don’t think they saw us. If we wanted to engage after this is over with, this would be our best chance to finally...”

“Nobody cares about ****ing Dome Ships!” Thienal yelled, spit flying from his mouth. “Find my ship and let me kill the Human!”

Every eye on the bridge turned and stared in his direction. He felt faint. He felt weak. He felt nausea. He felt pain. But mostly, he felt rage.

“Thienal...” began Vanress, in an annoyed, condescending tone of voice.

“You think you’re so great, you Yeerks, but you can’t even catch one Human!” Thienal shouted. “If you think I’m going to just...”

“Thienal, shut up,” said the Commander, cutting him off. It wasn’t said loudly, or forcefully, but there was an edge behind his words, a coldness, that made Thienal reconsider what he wanted to say. That was the voice that made Vanress seem so much like the Visser he’d once been.

“Now,” Vanress began, calmly, “your ship left the system at high speed and entered Z-space about five minutes ago.” He glared around the bridge, and the Yeerks all seemed to decide very suddenly that they had important work to be doing. “We’ve just reached the point at which we last saw it. We are trying to trace it, but it’ll be a few minutes yet.”

He turned his one-eyed glare on the two men who’d been carrying Thienal’s stretcher as they arrived, panting. “I thought I told you to keep him sedated,” he said levelly.

“Sorry,” gasped Ardiss, “I didn’t know how resilient...”

Vanress cut him off, “Judging by the state of the ship, he won’t be jumping far. We’ll find him. And I thought,” he glared daggers at Thienal, “that I had asked you, multiple times, to bring him to me alive.”

A sudden wave of dizziness washed over Thienal, and he slumped against the wall, too weak and distracted to argue. “Yes,” he said. “Save him for the Yeerks. If he’s infested, an enemy becomes an ally. That’s...”

Wait... he’d missed something. They were out here, chasing Thienal’s ship... but that meant... that meant...

“****!” he yelled. “His ship! He left his ship!”

Vanress stared at him for a moment, then narrowed his eye as he realized what Thienal was getting at. There was an easier way to find the Human. He’d never leave his ship behind.

“Karner, bring us about,” he said to the Taxxon at the helm. “We’ll go back and pick up his ship. Then we can come back here and take our time.”

Thienal was only half paying attention as the massive battleship slowed to a halt and began to turn around. The other half of his attention was alternately feeling woozy and wondering why his shoulder ached so much. He hadn’t...

The excited, garbled speech of one of the Taxxons distracted him. Thienal always had a hard time understanding the Gallard spoken by the creatures- theirs wasn’t as bad as Ikakek’s, but it still came out mangled. From what he could gather, the Taxxon was saying that the system didn’t exist anymore.

“What?” Said Vanress, his voice still remaining level. “No, you idiot. Learn to read your instruments. I just want to go back the way we came.”

“Sir, it’s true,” supplied one of the Humans, a young woman seated near the front of the bridge. “But... I think it’s us that are gone, not the system. The stars around us aren’t the same as they were before. I didn’t know those stars. I do know these.” She paused, looking at her readout, “I think we’re close to where we were before the target transported us to that... to wherever that was.”

“That,” said Vanress, his voice finally rising, “Is not possible. You’re not making sense, Ryxil. Why don’t you check again? Star systems don’t disappear.”

There was a tense silence for a few moments before the woman spoke again, her voice wavering, “S-sir? I can’t tell where we were. We’re moving back in the direction we came from, but there’s no sign of any system.”

Thienal’s anger had only built over the course of the exchange, and now it finally broke through the surface. He screamed, loudly, wordlessly, and snatched a data pad off a nearby console, ignoring the Taxxon working there.

“****ing Human!” he yelled as he heaved the pad across the bridge to shatter against the console on the other side. Once again, all eyes in the bridge were on him.

He breathed, first in, then out, and took a moment to compose himself. He was a hunter. He would be patient. He’d get another chance. Until then, he’d wait.

“You’ve seen how slippery this man is,” began the Commander, staring straight into the face of his Hork-Bajir first officer and speaking in a tone that said I told you so. “He brings only pain and destruction everywhere he goes.” He looked around the bridge and his voice rose theatrically, “He’s evaded capture by the Empire time and again. He’s been responsible for more deaths than even the most bloodthirsty of the Andalites. He’s brought about the destruction of entire civilizations. That,” he said, with a dramatic pause, “is why I disagree with the Council on his importance. That’s why he’s a priority mission for this crew. If we can rid the universe of this plague, it is our duty to do so.”



He’d seen strange things... he could remember... just barely remember... but it was like trying to hold on to a dream that was slipping away...

There was a Hork-Bajir, drawing a Dracon Beam. There was a tall, armored humanoid, bringing up its own weapon. Mostly, though, there were Humans. Humans crowding into the dark back hallway. Humans watching from the tables. Like the woman with the long, straight dark hair and the pretty blue eyes...

One of the men he could see in the throng... the tall, good-looking one with the dark skin and the sharp, intelligent eyes... he knew, somehow, that that man had arrived with the ship... and yet he could not recall having seen the man amongst the crowd that had disembarked.

The ship... he had an image, in his head, of looking out the window, of seeing a large craft land in the dirt field... of seeing it disgorge people... mostly Humans, some of them walking freely, some of them bound and chained... maybe a half dozen in all... and there’d been an Andalite... a young Warrior... except for that, the new arrivals had trickled in by ones and twos... Humans, Andalites, and other things... unusual things... bizarre things... but so few of them remained...

There’d been a giant humanoid with broad, curled horns, so tall that it’d had to duck simply to avoid hitting the rafters with its head... There’d been a shirtless, four-armed swordsman... There’d been a half-cat, half-woman... There’d been an Andalite, normal in every respect except for its golden fur... And others. So many others...

They weren’t there now, though. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember them leaving. It was as if they’d simply faded away when he wasn’t looking..
.[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 01:41:33 PM by Kitluminator »

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Salem's Story

Offline AmberKatira

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2013, 12:33:19 AM »
I feel like I should post on here because you are sadly lacking comments.... and I've pretty much told you everything I think needs telling, so.... go fix that ridiculously awkward beginning of the prologue.  Eventually.  I still want new chapters.


To people who are not reading and commenting: you should!  Trust me, it gets much better than the awkward domestic bliss scene at the beginning of the prologue.  More banter with Al!  ;)
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Offline Aluminator (Kit)

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #8 on: July 01, 2013, 01:49:28 PM »
Hey, the domestic bliss was great fun to rip apart at the end of the prologue! Haha. And yes, I'll fix it. Eventually :P

In the meantime:

[spoiler=Chapter 5]Pallas

Xenntervii sat, staring across the room at two figures. Humans, dressed in the faded greys and greens of their secondhand survival gear. This little backwater world would be considered too cold and wet for Human comfort.

In fact, it was a little cold and wet for his own as well, he thought, looking out the tall windows. A torrent of methane rain poured down from the sky above, producing streaks and runs down the outside of the glass, and a dull roar like static from the roof. The black-and-grey fauna that covered every inch of visible land outside, combined with the dim light of the distant, setting red sun, barely visible on the horizon despite the rain and the storm clouds above, made the landscape seem forbidding and bleak. At least it served to make the little lodge here seem just a bit cozier.

And the lodge could stand to feel cozier. The grey-and-blue carpet and the grey tables and benches gave the room an aura of coldness, and the harsh white light from the ceiling overhead did nothing to ease the feeling. The outer perimeter of the big, fat-crescent shaped room was almost entirely filled with windows looking to the outside, with the exception of the small concession stand set right in the middle, manned by a young Greenite. The inner border of the crescent was textureless matte grey.

Perhaps a dozen individuals sat and lounged in the area, this little nowhere land, waiting for the next train. Nearby, a pair of Cosmain women stared out the window, conversing quietly and occasionally bursting out in laughter at something one of them said. Across the room, a Radon couple tried in vain to quiet their crying baby while its older sibling threw a fit. Everyone else was silent.

This little station was nothing more than the interchange for two gravirail lines. It sat almost exactly in the middle of the two minor spaceports on this tiny planet. The planet itself occupied an orbit that had long since taken it out of its original useful location; it was now eclipsed by the two major ports in this system, and often served as nothing more than a go-between for them.

All in all, it was about as distant as one could get from the IPA while still remaining deep within the IPA.

Verrim would be an unusual sight here, and he’d wrapped himself in a cloak to keep his face hidden. No sense in drawing unnecessary attention to himself. With the cloak on, one would only be able to tell that he was humanoid. They’d be unable to see his cat-like face, his eyes, his claws, his large, triangular ears. They’d be unable to see his dozens of little razor-sharp teeth. Unable to see his thick, bushy tail. Unable to see his hair, in its various shades of brown, save for the single black streak that evinced his distant blood connection to Zengata and the royal family.

Not that being related to the dead emperor was going to win him any favor here. Relations between the ZFD and the IPA had been strained at best, even back then. Now a Verrim in IPA space would probably be arrested as soon as they showed their face.

Hence the cloak.

The two humans sat at one of the low tables, side-by-side. The male rested his head in his arms on the table, tracing the lines of the artificial marbled pattern with a finger, and the female stared distantly out the window. They both wore expressions of exhaustion and defeat. It was hard to see on faces that young. Xenntervii had spent enough time around Humans to know that these were probably in their middle teens somewhere.

“You sure about them?” he asked quietly, though there appeared to be no one around.

“Hey, all you can do is talk to them,” Ven Dora’s voice said inside his head. Xentervii wished she could have come down with him, but a Mauselean in IPA space wouldn’t even get the luxury of capture that he would. A Mauselean would be shot on sight.

Xenntervii sighed. According to Ven Dora, these two had shown exceptional marks in school, and more importantly, a special kind of disregard for the rules. They had survived the destruction of a space station during the IPA’s capture of Radon. And now they’d gone into hiding, darting from one place to the next under the very nose of the government that would crush them if it found them. Besides which, Ven Dora said they’d be great, and he’d learned never to doubt her instincts for this kind of thing.

But it still didn’t sit well with him to spring this on such young creatures. No matter how great his need.

He rose from his bench and wandered over to the concession stand. If the Greenite working there was at all surprised to see a Verrim ordering a bagel sandwich, he didn’t show it. While Pienterre waited for his sandwich to finish toasting, he turned to examine the two Humans more closely.

The female looked like the more promising and intelligent of the two. She had brown skin and her head was covered with longer hair, dark and wavy, hanging to her shoulders. Her lips were full and her eyes were light brown, or even a gold color, depending on the angle of the light. She stared, lost in her thoughts, off into the darkness outside.

The male’s skin was lighter, and his hair was straight and black, cut much shorter than the female’s. His face was now hidden in his arms, and he looked like he might have fallen asleep at the table.

Xenntervii thanked the little green man behind the counter for his steaming hot bagel sandwich and made his over to the Humans’ table, sitting down across from them. The girl looked him up and down, frowning, but the boy didn’t move. Xenntervii wondered if he could get away with just taking the girl. Probably not.

“Crazy weather we’re having,” Xenntervii said, trying to sound unconcerned with the world.

He heard a snort from the boy- apparently he was paying attention. The girl looked like she might say something, but instead she just swallowed hard and nodded.

Xenntervii sighed. This was going nowhere.

“So did you happen to see the galactic Banterball championship? What a fiasco, eh?” Xenntervii asked with a grin.

“We haven’t really had time to follow it lately,” the girl said.

“Or in my case, ever,” came the muffled voice of the boy. She smacked him on the shoulder, and he finally sat up, smirking and blinking in the light.

This was good! They were loosening up. It was a start.

Xenntervii held out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, Mr...”

The boy took it and exchanged a look with the girl. “I’m Pallas,” he said, with his lips pressed tight.

“And I’m Threecra,” said the girl. Xenntervii had to stop himself from laughing out loud. He might have believed the boy’s name if he hadn’t already known better, but the girl had chosen the name of Nerphid’s late handmaiden. Any child in the ZFD would know that name.

“Well,” said Xenntervii, taking a bite of his sandwich, but he had to stop and glare back at the Greenite behind the concessions counter. No little out-of-the-way travel stop had any business serving anything this tasty, he thought as he chewed.

“So,” he started again, “what brings you two to a place like this?”

“We’re visiting our aunt,” the two said instantly, together. So they’d come up with a lie. That was a good start.

“Ah, your aunt. Does she live nearby?” he asked.

Threecra shook her head, “Nope. She lives on Washban.” They were engaged now, as if they’d rehearsed this conversation and were eager to deliver it.

“What’s she do there?” he asked without a pause.

“She’s a paleontologist,” said Pallas.

“And you two. You’re related?”

“He’s my half brother,” responded Threecra. They weren’t bad at this, but anyone really talking about their background would probably not be quite as quick to reveal it to strangers.

He swallowed the rest of his sandwich in two quick bites, licked his fingers, and asked, “Where are your parents?”

With a glance at Threecra, Pallas said “They’re on Earth, where we’re from.”

“And which of you is the oldest?”

“He is, by six months.”

“So you share a mother?”

“Father,” Pallas said, and he could see the frown in the boy’s features now.

“What’s his name?”

“Gene,” responded Threecra after only the briefest hesitation.

“What do you think of the invasion of Radon by IPA forces?”

That stopped them both cold, and Pallas’s blood drained from his face as he searched Xenntervii’s eyes.

“It was a great victory for us,” Threecra managed to say, glaring at Xenntervii. “Who did you say you were?”

Xenntervii shook his head and shrugged, “Nobody, really.” The smaller interior curved wall of the crescent-shaped room faded away, revealing a causeway leading into a newly-arrived railcar. Some of the people in the room rose and began gathering their belongings to walk through the door, but most simply stayed put.

“I think that’s your ride,” Xenntervii said.

The two rose without a word and walked towards the causeway, casting the occasional suspicious glare back over their shoulders. Once they were past it, the wall re-formed behind them, blocking them from view.

They were young. They were presumptuous. They’d have an awful lot to learn.

But they would do.

Xenntervii stared at the spot he’d last seen them and grinned. He spoke, his words transmitting to Ven Dora and the Esprit.

“Take them.”



He remembered ducking, sliding down into his seat, trying to sink into himself, to become invisible, when the War-Prince had walked in.

The War-Prince had been large, for an Andalite... with arms that were toned, well-muscled, so unusual for their kind. There’d been two swords, strapped across the War-Prince’s back.

You could always tell War-Princes by the way they carried themselves, he mused.

Either the War-Prince hadn’t seen him or hadn’t recognized him, so he’d breathed a sigh of relief.

There was one who did seem to know him, however... The man nobody ever seemed to notice or remember until they had need... The mute, unassuming man who now stood polishing a tankard seemed uninterested in what was occurring in the back hallway, and had instead turned a piercing gaze on him...

[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 01:42:17 PM by Kitluminator »

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Salem's Story

Offline Aluminator (Kit)

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2013, 10:59:15 AM »
Alright, this is the first chapter to take place in the GESB proper. I'm telling the story almost exactly as it happened in the GESB, and very nearly all of the actions and dialogue are directly from the RP. I'm taking some liberties for the sake of the narrative (flow in a story is quite different from the flow in an RP), and inserting a lot of narration and Salem's internal commentary that I didn't when I wrote my posts originally.

If any GESB folks happen to find their way here, and have any pointers as to the portrayal of their own characters or the Bar itself, I welcome them ^_^

[spoiler=Chapter 6]Salem

He watched as Ikakek and the two Bug Fighters followed Theinal’s ship into the sky.

He lay on the ground, covered in Al’s cloak. He wasn’t sure how well it would actually hide him-- they’d modified it never really expecting to have to use it in the field-- but lying on the ground in a crater with the cloak bending light waves around him and projecting the image of the ground beneath him, he ought to be pretty hard to spot.

Unfortunately, it made it difficult to get a good view of the situation, since he was reduced to looking through only the tiny gap between his hood and the ground. He thought he could see the Yeerk troops running, and he definitely heard the rising whine of the gunship’s engines powering up. It seemed they were leaving. So hard to tell lying on the ground, though.

He stood up.

The sound of an indrawn breath made him turn around. The first thing he noticed was the Dracon Beam pointed at his head.

Crap.

The second thing he noticed was the woman holding it. She had brown hair and hazel eyes, and was in very good shape, judging by the arresting curves under that semi-armored form-fitting black jumpsuit of hers. She was smirking.

Finally,” she said, speaking Gallard. That was interesting. “We’ve been looking for you.” Double crap. “Put your hands in the air and get the hell out of that ditch,” she said, motioning with the Dracon. “And don’t try anything crazy. We’re fast”

We? he thought, raising his hands slowly into the air. She was the only person he could see. He didn’t doubt that she was fast- she handled the Dracon with a practiced ease. She knew how to use it.

The Gallard. The Dracon. She was almost definitely a Yeerk. That was definitely not an Imperial uniform, though.

He stepped out of the crater, his cloak returning to flat black. ‘Hands in the air’ is not a great position to be this comfortable with, he thought. He could feel the rush of adrenaline, the all-too-familiar thrill of tension, beginning to course through his veins.

He looked around as well as he could without taking his attention from the Dracon. They were at the edge of the clearing that served as a shipyard or parking lot for the little building that he’d recently discovered housed a tavern. The Yeerk forces seemed to all have run for their transport. He could see it in the corner of his eye, a crowd of Controllers pushing their way aboard.

He didn’t know if this woman was friend or foe, but she hadn’t immediately alerted the Light. That was good. He didn’t have to stall her long. Just long enough, then he could deal with the situation here without having to worry about Sergei or Thienal or any of them trying to fry him.

“So,” said the woman, “why the hell is the Imperial army after you anyway? You piss off a Visser or something?” Her eyes quickly scanned the area, then returned to his face. She was calculating the situation, just like he was. Waiting, ready to act when whatever was going to happen... happened.

He smiled, in a way that he hoped said 'I know something you don’t.' Should keep her off-balance, at least.

“No,” he said. “The Commander there isn’t a Visser. Not anymore.” Let her sort that one out. In his peripheral vision he could see that the Yeerk gunship had lifted off and was gaining altitude.

“So, uh...” he began, trying to project an aura of innocent unconcern in spite of his hands still being over his head, “where am I?

The bemused look on her face told him she wasn’t buying it.

“You’re at the Galaxy’s Edge Space Bar,” she said. “It’s where rebels, misfits and weirdos go to relax.” She smirked, "Except relaxing never seems to happen. All hell tends to break loose in this place. I think you picked the wrong asteroid to crash on."

From the larger ship behind her came... something. As it walked towards them, he saw that it was humanoid in shape, but was covered from head to toe in what could be a green suit of environmental protection armor. It stood nearly a head taller than him, and its face wasn’t visible under its helmet. Strapped across its back, it carried... a sword? And what looked to be a number of projectile weapons- solid-matter guns, he guessed.

“So you’re the one they were after, huh?” said the thing, stepping up beside the woman. Its deep voice echoed from a speaker somewhere on its suit. It didn’t draw its projectile weapons, but it did remove a strange shaped piece of metal from its waist, handling the thing carefully. It muttered something he couldn’t hear to the woman, and she responded, just as quietly.

He swallowed. If this was their idea of intimidation, it wasn’t bad. He’d seen far better, though. Its arrival didn’t change the situation much.

“What’re you planning on doing with me, anyway?” he asked, nodding towards the woman’s Dracon.

She considered for a moment, sparing a quick glance for the swirl in the clouds above through which the Yeerk gunship had ascended.

With a sigh, she re-holstered her Dracon. He thought he heard her mutter something about “this turelek’s long list of failures.” He should know that word, he thought as he gratefully lowered his hands to his sides. The tall green humanoid followed the woman's lead, re-holstering the metal... thing that it had been holding.

“Now that we’re square,” she said, “just what the hell did those guys want with you, anyway?”

“That’s... actually kind of complicated. I’m wanted in their empire for a number of reasons.” He saw no point in enumerating them. “These guys were after me because that commander of theirs promised their...” what was it called? “High Council that he’d catch me.”

The woman laughed, “Man, that guy is screwed. The Council of Thirteen don’t like being disappointed much.”

He grinned. That much, at least, was true.

"So,” he said brightly, before she could press him for any more details, “ever heard of these Yeerks?” A little feigned ignorance would make him seem less threatening, and he might get some information out of her reaction.

She laughed again, “I am a Yeerk,” she said, gesturing to her own head. “I’m just... not allied with the Empire.”

Bingo.

The tall humanoid nodded, “There are plenty of Yeerks around here.”

This was almost too good to be true. He’d managed to crash in a place that contained Yeerks-- that may even still offer access to his home-- but that wasn’t allied with the Yeerk Empire. This served as a place for... what had the woman said? Rebels, misfits and weirdos? He should fit right in.

“Yeerks are parasites that infest other species,” continued the woman. He knew that, of course, but it was interesting that she felt she should tell him. “The body you see isn’t mine, precisely. It’s Joanne’s body. She’s a Human like yourself.”

Ah. That would explain a lot.

“Yeerks actually take control of the bodies of other species? That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking,” he admitted. If she was so willing to talk about this, he should probably get all the information he could.

“So... what are Yeerks, exactly?” he asked excitedly. Or... wait, no, better question. “Is this ‘Joanne’ of yours still... intact?”

At that, the woman’s posture slumped and her head tilted a bit.

“Nah, boyo, us hosts are still here,” she said, in a pattern of speech that was markedly different from the one she’d used so far. “It’s why the whole deal can get real creepy if you don’ like your new boss. Me an’ Kess share the body, with me gunnin’ an’ him wordin’ stuff right. An’ gettin’ us bloody jobs.”

His jaw dropped. There were definitely two distinct people in there.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, stepping forward and offering his hand. “Both of you, I guess. Joanne and... Kess, was it?”

“Keshin,” she corrected, shaking his hand. As she did, her posture straightened again, and he could tell that the Yeerk was now in charge again. That was... incredible to watch.

He nodded, “Keshin. I think I like you better when you’re not holding me up.” He gave a goofy grin to show that it was a joke.

“What are you, anyway?” he asked, turning to face the tall green thing beside her.

It took the thing a moment to answer. “I’m... human,” it said, in a tone that suggested that it was a little taken aback by the bluntness of the question. Or perhaps by the lack of intimidation its presence was having on him.

He nodded, relieved. Human. Not Ildari. Not something new. Another indicator that he might still be able to get home.

“Who are you?” asked the man in green, sounding just a little bit defensive.

“Name’s To... ah.” He stopped himself. That life had ended the moment he’d heard Jamil’s voice over the comm.

He smiled sadly. He knew who he had to be this time.

“Salem,” he said, sticking out his own flesh-and-blood hand to shake the man’s armored one. “You are?”

“Parker Eight-Two-One,” offered the man. A human with a numerical designation. Unusual. “Or just Parker, if you like. Nice to meet you, To-ah-Salem.”

Salem smirked. Parker was making fun of him.

“I don’t recognize that... whatever you’re wearing,” he said, indicating Parker’s armor.

“No,” said Parker, “you wouldn’t in your universe.”

Salem’s thoughts screeched to a halt. My universe? he thought. That had to be a misinterpretation on the part of his translation chip, but hearing a local ‘use’ the word this soon after his arrival was a little jarring.

“It’s impressive,” he said, but in his mind he was already lost in thought. These two seemed friendly enough. In fact, he thought with a smirk, they acted almost like receiving random, offworld visitors was an everyday thing. He had to move. He didn’t know how long he’d have before the Light realized what he’d done and returned.

“Do...” he began to ask, then paused. When he’d communicated with Al earlier, his companion had said that it probably wasn’t safe to move the ship under its own power, as the damage it had taken had allowed water to seep into some of the critical systems. If he asked these two for help, he’d be revealing his weak position, but if he could get the help of the locals, he might stand a better chance.

“Do either of you know anyone who could help me get a ship out of a lake?” he asked.

They both paused to think for a moment. Parker shrugged, but Keshin said, “There’s this really weird four-armed guy. He could lift it for you.”

Salem blinked. ‘Four-armed guy?’ That had to refer to some Yeerk-controlled species he hadn’t encountered yet.

“Alright,” he said. “Where can I find this ‘four-armed guy?’”

Keshin gestured towards the building-- the ‘Galaxy’s Edge Space Bar,’ she’d called it. “Thordon’s just inside somewhere,” she said, shrugging. “He doesn’t do much other than sit around and sleep, but he’s pretty nice. You could get him to move the ship for you, no problem.” She fixed him with a cold gaze, “And as long as your buddies don’t come back, I don’t have a problem with it either.”

Salem swallowed. If he hadn’t already been hoping to never see the Light again, that look would have done the trick.

He began walking towards the building. “Thanks. I think I could go for a drink anyway.” Parker and Keshin fell into step on either side of him.

As they walked towards the bar, Salem took a better look around the field. There were dozens of craft here, but most didn’t look functional. Interspersed among them were other piles of ship parts and machinery and debris-- it felt more like a junkyard than a shipyard.

“Yeerk ships are all around my Earth,” mused Keshin beside him. “You couldn’t be a spacefarin’ human in this area and not know what Yeerks were. You from out-universe, Salem?”

Salem stumbled as his thoughts skipped a beat. The ‘universe’ thing again, and this time in was pretty clear it was actually intended to mean ‘alternate Earths,’ so it wasn’t a problem with the translation.

“You’re aware of the existence of other universes?” he asked wonderingly. This was a first, even for him. “Where... am I?”

“No one really knows,” answered Parker. He apparently didn’t find anything odd about the question. “This place seems to exist in every universe at every moment in time.”

What the hell was he supposed to say to that?

He was distracted as the three of them reached the front door of the bar, and Parker and Keshin followed him inside. Salem had been in here earlier, of course, briefly, so he wasn’t surprised by the appearance of the Bar, old and rundown and dirty, with wooden tables and wooden barstools and a jukebox playing oldies in one corner. He wasn’t surprised to see the collection of Humans, or the robot, or the Hork-Bajir. He wasn’t surprised by the man in the puffy shirt, or by the mute bartender, staring silently out into the bar while absently wiping down a clean mug with a dirty towel.

The Minotaur-looking creature now sitting at one table caused him to falter for a moment, but the thing that floored him was the windows. They were all fully intact, looking dingy and dirty and like they hadn’t been washed properly in years-- but he was sure he’d seen every single one shatter just a short time ago.

Salem shrugged. He’d seen weirder things. This place sort of reminded him of Marly’s, but a little more worn-in, and with more Humans.

Parker and Keshin decided to take a table near the door, and Salem excused himself to walk over to the bartender to order a water. He longed for a real drink, but he was sure he didn’t have any currency that would be good here. It was one of the most irritating parts of jumping.

He walked over to the table and set down his glass, then removed his cloak, folded it messily and set it next to the water before taking his seat.

“Hey, Parker,” said a voice, and Salem turned to see a young Human man limping over to join them. He wore a green uniform and had extremely short-cut black hair. The strange red, white and blue insignia on his sleeve matched the one on one of the smaller winged craft crashed outside. Strapped over one shoulder was a weapon that looked to be of similar design to the ones Parker wore, and holstered at his waist was yet another, this one a pistol-type weapon.

“Thanks for the help back on the CG ship,” the man said to Parker. “I reckon that if you weren’t there, I’d have probably been toast.”

“Don’t mention it, Corporal,” responded Parker. “How’s the leg doing?”

Salem sighed and looked around. It seemed like a tight-knit little community of rebels, misfits and weirdos here. Close-knit and well-armed, judging by what he could see. How could a group that walked around with this much weaponry between them justify being as friendly towards strangers as they’d been towards him?

The communicator in his pocket trilled, signalling that his ship had detected the Yeerk battleship leaving orbit. Good. That meant, firstly, that his ship was still functioning, and secondly, that he ought to have some time yet before the Light came back looking for him.

At the sound of a group cheer, he looked across the bar. The large group that included the Minotaur was raising their glasses to something. Salem raised his glass towards them because he could, and downed it all in one go. He caught the Bar’s... resident robot, he supposed... staring at him.

At least, he thought it was staring at him. It had only an orange, glowing slit in place of eyes. Its upper half looked humanoid, with a rounded head and two arms. Its lower half looked insectine, or maybe Zong, with four spindly, spider-like legs. The silver color and construction, he realized now, looked remarkably similar to a pile of broken robot parts outside, in the shipyard.

He’d seen that robot speaking to the Yeerk Commander earlier, and now, with the way it was looking at him, he got a prickly feeling at the base of his spine. It didn’t like him. He’d have to keep an eye out for that thing.

“So where’s this guy who can help me out?” he asked, turning back towards the table.

“You just toasted towards him,” said Parker, sounding amused. He pointed towards the large table at which the Minotaur sat, “Thordon’s the only guy with four arms.”

Salem had to do a double-take when he saw that one of the men at the table did, indeed, have a second set of arms protruding from his waist. Salem had apparently not paid enough attention; he’d registered the man as just another Human.

“That’s new,” he muttered. “Thanks, Parker. Excuse me a sec, guys.”. He rose from the table and walked over to ‘Thordon.’

Thordon really did look mostly Human. His skin was light-colored, but nicely tanned, a little darker than Salem’s own. He wore black jeans and a plain black t-shirt that looked pretty ordinary. Except for the extra arm-holes. His muscles were well-defined, even under the shirt. His head was topped with somewhat shaggy (though quite well-kempt) dirty blonde hair.

“Hey, I’ve heard you might be able to help me,” Salem said without preamble. He smiled charmingly.

Thordon stood from his chair and turned. The way he crossed both pairs of arms, along with the glare he wore, was anything but friendly. His eyes were a startling, vibrant bright blue. With a shock, Salem realized that he could see what looked like tiny arcs of electricity jumping across Thordon’s irises.

“You are the one that brought the soldiers here,” said Thordon.

Salem laughed. So Thordon had been put-off by the Light. It was an understandable reaction.

“Yeah, I guess I am. It was totally inadvertent, but yeah.”

Thordon glared for a moment longer, then sighed, “I apologize. Of course you couldn’t control those chasing you.” He uncrossed his upper arms, “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. Call me Salem.”.

“Thordon,” said Thordon, shaking Salem’s hand. Thordon uncrossed his lower arms and placed his upper arms on Salem’s shoulders, looking him in the eye. “Now, how may I help you?” Definitely friendly.

“I managed to park my ship in a lake nearby,” Salem said, looking sheepish. “I was told you might have some way of helping me get it out.”

Thordon nodded without hesitation, “Yes, I can remove your ship. Please, lead the way.”

Salem turned to walk towards the door. Just before he left, he grabbed Al’s cloak from his table and waved a quick goodbye to the three seated there.

Thordon and Salem conversed as they walked towards the lake, and Salem learned a few things about this so-called ‘Space Bar.’ Scuffles and confrontation were apparently common here, but they were usually small and contained-- the Light would have upset everyone with their arrival. Everyone who’d found their way here seemed to have done so by accident. Thordon claimed to be a pacifist and an altruist. He also claimed to be an ‘ascended being’ with clairvoyant visions.

That wasn’t impossible, Salem supposed, but it was far more common to run into someone claiming to be clairvoyant than someone who actually was.

“Is your ship near?” Thordon asked as they reached the lakeshore.

Salem nodded, “Should be somewhere near the bank. Just a sec.” He pulled his communicator from his belt. It resembled an old Earth microphone, and was just long enough to not fit in a closed fist. It was an archaic device he still used only because of the meaning it held for him.

“Hey, Al, can you tell where you are?” he said into the device.

Al's slightly metallic-sounding voice came back instantly, "I'm underwater. That's all I know. I hope you have some way to get me out of here, because I don't think this junk heap'll start, and I know you'd hate for me to open the door and ruin your clothes."

Salem rolled his eyes, “Thanks, Al.”

He turned back to Thordon, “It’s black. Like, extremely black. Should be pretty visible, even if it's managed to slide somewhere deep.” He started walking along the bank, peering into the water for the shape of his ship.

“Thank you,” Thordon replied.

Salem turned back to ask for what? but the words stopped in his throat. Thordon’s eyes were closed, and all four of his hands glowed a bright blue. As Salem watched, Thordon began to move them in intricate patterns, first slow, then faster and faster. His hands flew and danced in circles, overlapping, revolving, sliding and swaying. He finally pushed all four hands downwards, as if he intended to push off the ground itself.

It seemed to work. He levitated upward into the air, and once he was a few meters off the ground, he folded his legs and ‘sat,’ far off the ground.

Salem blinked. Now this was unexpected. Thordon was a talented magic-user, a powerful telekinetic, or possibly a lesser Immortal.

He shrugged. So far this place had been full of surprises. Why shouldn’t there be an Immortal here?

While Salem watched, Thordon floated out over the lake, finally stopping and hovering in place a ways off. Thordon uncrossed his legs, ‘standing’ now in the air, and began another series of mesmerizing gestures. His still-glowing hands waved up, down, back, forth, left, right, again and again, circling, swirling, dancing. Again, he ended by throwing all four arms downward, but this time he curled them and made a motion as though he were pulling something upward.

For a few moments, it seemed as though nothing was happening, but then a shape broke the surface below Thordon. Salem’s ship rose, slowly, from the lake, water cascading off of the surface. As it rose, it rolled from its slightly-sideways orientation, righting itself. Soon, the ship had cleared the water entirely, floating in space above the lake. Both the ship and Thordon hovering above it began moving, accelerating towards the Bar.

As the rounded ‘fat teardrop’ shape of Salem’s ship passed overhead, he saw that the impossibly black surface was coated in a thin sheet of ice. The surface details, normally obscured by the darkness of the paint, were visible thanks to the sheen. The ship was pinched slightly at the equator, creating a small ridge that ran entirely around the craft. A number of small ‘trenches’ ran along the craft from front to rear, no wider than a closed fist. Other than those, there were no details to be found-- no windows, no external engines or weapons or even a ****pit.

He ducked his head to avoid the momentary dripping of frigid water, and then turned, jogging, to follow the ship back towards the Bar. Even at this pace, Thordon would beat him to the shipyard by a wide margin.

Thordon lowered the ship, gently, towards the middle of the shipyard. As he did, the ship’s landing struts extended, the metallic shafts carrying three rectangular sections of the ship’s hull downward far enough that, when the ship touched down, there was a visible clearance gap between the ventral surface and the dirt beneath it. The ship would likely need some time to purge the water from its systems before it could be used for flight, so it wasn’t his main defense if the Light came back immediately, but he wanted to be ready to leave this rock as soon as possible.

“I really hope that was you,” came Al’s voice from his communicator.

Salem grinned and grabbed the communicator from his belt. His voice jumped as he jogged towards the ship, “Yeah, that was a friend of mine. You’re out of the lake. Hey, set the ship to even. You’re icing over.”

Salem reached the ship just as Thordon reached the ground beside it, facing away from Salem. When his feet touched the dirt, the glow in Thordon’s hands died instantly.

“So I guess that’s what you meant by ‘ascended being,’” Salem said, still grinning. “I have an Ennish Protection Gem aboard my ship that I can offer you in payment. It’s very valuable, but I can’t use it. Since you’re a pacifist with your,” he waved a hand at Thordon’s body, “abilities, you might find it useful.”

Thordon turned towards Salem. His face was bright, as though he’d gotten a genuine thrill out of levitating a spacecraft out of a lake.

“I don’t help others for payment,” Thordon said. “I’m happy just being of help.”

“That’s admirable,” said Salem dryly, staring into Thordon’s eyes. After a moment he shrugged. He’d find out Thordon’s price sooner or later.



There were voices now, from the back... so many voices... angry... shouting...

He remembered sitting... talking... then it was as if he’d forgotten how to speak, had remembered only how to observe... those he’d been speaking with hadn’t seemed to notice, and he’d watched as they’d drifted away, drifted to other conversations...

He remembered the scowling young woman with the long blonde hair and the other, the one whose hair was wavy and brown. He remembered watching as they downed drink after drink, as they laughed and shouted and sang and laughed some more. He remembered another woman and a man that had joined them. He remembered thinking he should get up, go over, introduce himself.

Why hadn’t he introduced himself?

He remembered speaking with a young woman... pretty... she’d looked Human, but her tattooed skin had glowed and she’d claimed she had the power to bend light...

Most of the shouting voices sounded Human, he thought. But in this place there was no way to tell who was Human and who was Yeerk and who was something more...
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 09:34:26 AM by Arch Aluminator »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #10 on: July 05, 2013, 02:36:03 PM »
[spoiler=Chapter 7]Pallas

Threecra felt herself moving, floating along, as if in a dream. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had happened, but it seemed like so much work to remember it, and it was so nice to just float along. Nice and warm. Maybe she’d just sleep a little more.

When she finally decided to wake up, she couldn’t tell if minutes or hours had passed. She opened her eyes and stared up. Weird. There was something staring down at her.

No... no, that was her, she realized. She was looking up at a mirror on a ceiling that was low enough to be within arm’s reach. She could see her reflection staring down from an upside-down bed. It was dark, and she couldn’t tell if the blankets were blue or black. Mirror-her was just lying on top of the covers. Why didn’t she crawl underneath them?

No, wait... that wasn’t a ceiling. The underside of the bunk above hers. She was in a small cabin, she realized, rolling her head to the side with what felt like great effort. The architecture was nice, a mixture of rounded shapes and wide-angled sharp edges that drew the eye through the room. Very feng shui. Every surface was the same ugly cream color, textured where it was solid and smoother where it was soft. She could see a desk set into the wall, and next to it an open doorway led into a tiny bathroom. Above, a single, round spot of light glowed dimly, casting just enough orangish light to see by.

To the other side of the desk, set high up in the wall, was a small round window. Below it sat a bench that spanned the entire width of this tiny room. Outside the window was only darkness from this angle. It was probably night. She might be able to see something through it if she walked over to it.

She sat up, but her head screamed in protest, and she had to lie back down and press her eyes shut. Gritting her teeth, she sat up again and hung her feet off the side of the bed, pressing her hands to her temples for what seemed like hours, until the pain subsided a bit.

Someone had bandaged her wrist and elbow, it seemed. She flexed her arms-- they both ached dully, but she couldn’t remember why. She was still in her olive-green survival jacket and grey, padded heatsuit. One sleeve was rolled up for her bandages.

Her cheeks stung-- that was where her tears had frozen before her suit’s heater field kicked in, she realized. She could remember... something... a blast of frigid air, and a black something, about the size and shape of a raccoon, making an arc that seemed too steep in the planet’s immense gravity outside, flying perfectly through the hole in the side of the train car, skidding to a halt, staring at her with two big, glowing green eyes...

The IPA. The thought rose into her mind like a bubble through thick mud. The Special Forces had finally caught them. A moan of despair escaped her throat, sounding inhuman through the ringing of her ears.

No. Maybe not the IPA. Her thoughts felt like they were pushing through molasses. Why would the IPA burn a hole in its own train car? Why wouldn’t they just stop it and arrest them?

She stood up, using the top bunk for support. Her legs felt weaker than she remembered, shaky, and she had to stop for a moment as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. She pressed her eyes shut, and for a moment she was in the train car, the sound of that awful methane rain falling on the plants below like static, crystal-clear through the open hole, the scene dimly illuminated by the scattered light of the blood-red sunset, the two larger figures, clad all in black, that followed the small one by seconds. She remembered the way the first had turned towards the back of the car, the way Pallas had run, the way she’d seen him, in a flash of lightning, taking a swing at the figure just before the other had lept over the seats and landed directly in front of her, its glowing green eyes, identical to those of the other figures, staring into her own...

A stab of pain made her reach a hand up to feel the back of her head. It ached, and there was definitely a bump there. Now that she knew it was there, she noticed the tingling of her healing process at work.

Who the hell were they? She didn’t know of any beings that looked like that. And Pallas...

Oh, gods, where was Pallas? She couldn’t lose him too. Not after all they’d endured. It would be too much.

A rasping sound from behind her made her jump. She turned around to look, too quickly, and was hit with a wave of dizziness. Even as she fought it off, she could see the shape of Pallas, curled into a fetal position, fast asleep on the top bunk, his face now level with her own. There was a stream of drool running down to his pillow, and he was breathing loudly. Like her, it looked like he’d been dumped onto the bed in his environmental-protection clothing.

Wait... maybe that was it. Those figures may have been wearing some kind of environmental suit. That would explain why they’d been the same color, but different shapes. The green eyes... goggles of some kind?

If she thought about it like that, the small figure might have been Calrin. The larger two... Syler, almost definitely, for the one that had gone after Pallas. The one that had come after her... Radon, maybe? It would be tall for a Radon, but she couldn’t think of anything else with that broad-shouldered humanoid shape and swept head.

Pallas looked okay. And he was breathing. She’d let him sleep for now. She could do that. She should do that... right?

She made her way to the window, hating how weak she felt. Not okay. She managed to climb onto the cushy bench and, standing on her toes, she could see out the small window.

They were high up. High enough that the red sun that had already set could be seen again. High enough, she realized with a start, that the dark shape of the storm cloud could be seen below, flashing with lightning. Beyond the edge of the cloud, stretching towards the far-distant horizon, she could see the surface of the planet. Every inch of visible land was covered with that horrible black vegetation, and it seemed to stretch on forever, all the way to a distant mountain range silhouetted against the reds of the sunset.

The reds that deepened even as she watched. They were rising. She could see the curve of the edge of the atmosphere, the planet’s surface slowly falling away. So... they were on a ship?

She could remember looking out the window at that surface, the bushes that passed for a ‘forest’ on this inhospitable rock blurring by beneath them, Pallas’s head cradled on her shoulder while she rubbed his back, trying to comfort him, unable to stop crying herself, glad of the fact that they were the only ones in the car so that no one could see. It was so hard. The pain had lessened in the months since, but it was still always there, just below the surface, and any memory of home was enough...

Gods. Home. It was gone. Everything was gone. Memories of home, of her mother and father and friends, passed through her mind, threatening to bring with them fresh tears. No. She wouldn’t cry this time. She was stronger than this. This was stupid. She’d spent too much time crying lately.

The good memories were pushed aside by memories of the rushing air, the explosions, the fires and the screaming and the screeching alarms and the smoke and the shapes of the IPA cruisers. She tightened her hands into fists, hatred building up within her. This, also, was becoming far too familiar.

Close on the heels of those memories were new, unfamiliar ones. The lights flickering out. The metal-on-metal screeching sound as the grav-lifts gave out and the train car ground along the track. The sudden, jarring deceleration that had pressed Pallas into the seatback and sent Threecra tumbling end-over-end towards the front of the car. The brief glimpse of the rest of the train, already far ahead of them. The sickening crack and the way her vision had flashed when her head had struck the wall.

She sat down on the bench, her heart pounding. What the hell had happened to them? Who were these people? She had to find out.

She stood and strode to the door, but it didn’t open. She pushed at it, but it remained firm. Locked, pretty obviously. ****.

She began to methodically search  the room for something-- anything-- that might be useful. There were no vents, no seams, nothing that could provide a potential escape. The area under the bed was clean. The bathroom was devoid even of toilet paper. In the closet, she found a number of plastic coat hangers, one of which she kept in her hand, but there was nothing else.

She turned when she heard Pallas stirring behind her. He stared at her, a muddled look in his eyes, and mumbled something.

She walked over to him and ran a hand through his hair, “What was that?”

Again, he slurred something unintelligible, blinking his eyes blearily. He pushed himself up on one elbow and rubbed his eyes.
“Still couldn’t understand that,” she said, smirking a bit now.

That seemed to frustrate him. “Screw you!” he said, enunciating very carefully, and flopped his head down on his pillow.

Threecra laughed, then shook his shoulder. “Hey, seriously, get up. I need you to help me figure out what happened.”

Pallas groaned and sat, slowly, dangling his feet off the bed and pressing his hands to his head, just as she’d done.

“What the hell?” he asked, sounding very sleepy.

“I think we were drugged or something,” she said. She made her way back over to the bench and continued her search for weaknesses or something useful, prodding her way along underneath the seat. “It wears off.”

Pallas didn’t answer at first. He looked up, blinking, then shook his head, which made him groan in pain and bury his face in his hands. “Where are we?” His words came out slurred, as if he’d been drugged.

“Some kind of ship. I don’t know,” she admitted. There didn’t seem to be anything under the bench either. She sat on it, facing Pallas, and sighed.

Pallas continued to sit for a moment, then looked at her, his eyes widening. “IPA?”

Threecra shook her head, “I don’t think so.”

“Then... what?” he lowered himself shakily to the ground and stood for a moment, looking around the room. She could tell his head was already clearing. He had a bandage around his head and another around his torso, under his jacket but wrapped over his heat suit.

She just shrugged.

He walked unsteadily over to the bench and sat down beside her. His hand went around her shoulder, and he pulled her to him, somewhat awkwardly. Nice of him, she thought, but not helpful.

She frowned and looked around the room. There had to be some way out. If not, they had to come up with a plan. She didn’t know who had them, but she was beyond caring. They’d been kidnapped, and they had to get out.

The single light in the ceiling began to brighten, then to change color and flicker. A figure appeared slowly before them, projected by the flickering light. The projection sharpened until there seemed to be a solid being, glowing brightly, standing in the room with them.

It was the man from the train stop, no longer dressed in his ridiculous cloak. He was smiling.

“I told you he was Verrim,” she hissed at Pallas, elbowing him in the ribs and earning a groan in return. She winced at the pain that shot through her arm, but wasn’t about to admit that using her bandaged elbow like that had been a bad idea.

“What the hell do you want?” she asked the Verrim as venomously as she could manage.

The projection laughed, “You’re definitely spirited,” he said. “Call me Captain.”

She snorted and tightened her grip on her plastic hanger. He was way into his rank, apparently.

“You gonna let us out of here, Captain?” she asked, sarcastically stressing the title.

“One way or another, yes,” he said. He seemed pretty loose about this whole thing, but she definitely heard the threat behind his words.

“What do you want with us?” asked Pallas, speaking slowly, carefully enunciating each word.

The Captain raised an eyebrow and turned his cat-like gaze to Pallas. “Now that’s jumping the gun. We’ll get there.” He looked back at Threecra, “I know who you really are.”

Threecra opened her mouth to question that, but shut it again. That last question he’d asked... Maybe he really did know...

“You’re IPA,” Pallas spat accusingly.

The Captain laughed, “Really? You know I’m Verrim. When was the last time you saw a Verrim in the IPA?”

“Are we ZFD prisoners?” asked Threecra, then answered herself before the Captain could respond. “No, the guys in black were Syler and Calrin, I think. So not ZFD.”

The Captian nodded at her, smiling, “I’m impressed you deduced that.”

“Look, just tell us where we are,” said Pallas, his eyes pressed shut.

“Be patient,” responded the Captain, speaking soothingly, as if to a child. “Have you ever heard of the Lightning Emerald?”

They had, of course, and nodded. The legendary pirate craft had supposedly cruised the galaxy for decades, righting wrongs and doling out vigilante justice or whatever while evading major authorities. Shannon had said that half the stories probably weren’t true, and the rest were almost definitely exaggerated, but there was no question that the ship had existed, and had played a major role during the Mohemian war. It had been destroyed defending the new Erathak homeworld, and in the years since its name had become a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry for those espousing political causes.

“And you both know of the wrongs committed by the new IPA regime?” the Captain continued, as if this were the sort of thing that was just an ordinary dinner conversation.

Threecra swallowed and nodded. The Captain seemed to know that they’d experienced those ‘wrongs’ first-hand.

“This is the Esprit,” said the Captain, waving his hand to indicate the tiny room, the gesture as grandiose and his expression as proud as if they’d been standing in a grand banquet hall he’d built himself. “I am Captain Xenntervii Effel Minna Pienterre, defender of the People and former first mate of the Lightning Emerald. It’s in her name that we fly. I am asking you” he spread his arms wide, “to take a chance. I am asking you to help me right the wrongs of the galaxy. I am asking you,” he stretched an open hand towards her, as if he expected her to reach out and take it, “to join my crew.”

Threecra and Pallas stared at him for a moment, then at each other. She could tell Pallas was as impressed with the Captain’s performance as she was.

At the same moment, they both burst out laughing.

“What’s funny?” demanded the Captain, his proud grin devolving instantly into a disapproving frown.

“Nothing,” Pallas managed to choke through fits of laughter, while Threecra tried and failed to stifle her own.

The Captain sighed, “Okay, but really, you want in?”

“Do we have a choice?” asked Threecra, wiping a tear from her eye.

“What?” The Captain seemed confused. “Yes. Yes you do. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Then why are we already leaving the planet?” she asked, indicating the window and the stars outside.

The Captain grinned, “Because you won’t say no.”

She had no response to that. She looked over at Pallas, catching his eye. He stared at her for a moment, then spoke up, “Can we have some time to talk about it?”

The Captain nodded, “I’ll contact you in five minutes,” he said, and his glowing form disappeared without another word. The room seemed suddenly very dark and very empty.

“This is bull****,” said Pallas immediately, though he was still smirking at the memory of the Captain’s words.

“This is perfect!” said Threecra, looking into his eyes. “Look, we’re on the run. What are we going to do if we don’t become vigilante space pirates?”

Pallas rolled his eyes, “Are you listening to how ridiculous that sounds? The Emerald was destroyed with all hands. There’s no way these guys are who they say they are.”

She shrugged, “Maybe not, but they want to fix the IPA. We should join them either way.”

“I want to hurt the IPA,” said Pallas darkly.

She laughed, “If half the stories about the Emerald are true, we will.” She was excited now-- the prospect of being able to do something besides hiding was a good start. The idea that they’d been given a one-in-a-trillion chance to join a pirate crew, to go out and fight for a cause... she wasn’t going to let Pallas make her pass this up.

He shook his head, worry creasing his brow now. “What if it’s just the IPA trying to... like get us to say something treasonous so they can... throw us in prison or whatever?”

“I don’t think it’s the IPA,” Threecra said. “Wouldn’t we already be in prison if it was?”

Pallas swallowed, then shrugged. She knew he didn’t have a clue what the IPA did with prisoners these days. Neither did she-- it was part of the reason they’d worked so hard to avoid detection-- but she wasn’t going to admit that, and besides, her gut was telling her that this was real.

“After what they did to the station, we have to try,” she said.

Pallas stared into her eyes for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close with a shuddering sob. She wrapped her arms around him, suddenly glad there was nobody else around, tears welling up in her eyes, too.

“Alright,” he said quietly, pulling away from her and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. She pushed down the pain, as she did a hundred times a day now, and she knew he was doing the same.

He nodded and spoke with a little more confidence, “Alright. Let’s do it.”

“Good? Decision’s made?” came an unfamiliar voice from the door. “Okay, cool. Captain’s got indigestion, so I’ll take over from here. I’m gonna open the door now.”

“That was so not five minutes!” snapped Threecra as the door slid open with a hiss. She would have said more, but the figure in the doorway froze her blood more effectively than methane rain.

It stood on two legs, ending in spindly, six-fingered feet. Two long arms reached up to grip the top of the doorframe with hands that were very similar. The fingers had knuckles dividing segments about as long as those of human fingers, but each finger had nine or ten knuckles, so that they ended up being far longer. The creature’s torso was absurdly tiny compared to its spindly limbs. It looked almost human, well-muscled and similarly shaped. The head that sat atop it was nearly the size of the torso itself. It lacked any visible eyes, but the short, orangish-tan fur-- rough fuzz, really-- that covered the creature from head to toe changed to black-and-white spots on the head, where the eyes would have been. Its huge mouth split the head from small, pointed ear to small, pointed ear, at an angle that naturally curved up at the ends. As a result, it appeared to be permanently smirking.

This was a member of a race that had been associated with death and destruction since before the Mohemians had invaded, since even before Hafaal had appeared. This race had threatened the peoples of the IPA since before the IPA had formed. It was a race that would evoke fear in any citizen of the IPA, and rightly so. It was the race most commonly considered the leaders of Axis. It was the race responsible for the destruction or enslavement of a thousand worlds.

She was staring at a Mauselean.



There... in the corner... the tall, well-built man with the head of a bull... he was kneeling... comforting someone... The woman with four arms knelt next to him. She was a doctor of some kind, that woman. The girl with the glowing tattoos... she’d claimed that was her father... and the woman lying on the ground... that was her mother...

He should go over there... offer to help... if he could... in fact, he had a memory in his head of doing just that... So why was he still over here?

He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t decide where he wanted to be, he thought with a smirk. There was a jukebox, smashed almost beyond recognition... but he had a memory of someone playing a song on it just a short time ago... of offering to buy a round... using his money, at that.

That had concerned him. He’d thought he had no money here. But as it turned out, this place could access his account. Funny... he’d have thought he’d be more concerned by that fact. But it hadn’t seemed to matter...

The deafening, explosive sound of a burst of gunfire from the back hallway brought his attention back to the present.
So many people crowding back there. Whatever was happening must be very interesting...
[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 01:13:38 PM by Kitluminator »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2013, 10:45:10 PM »
I must say, Scott...this made for an enjoyable evening of reading.  I might have to start actually penning some Andalite history and such as this inspires me.  ^^  Can't wait to see Salem's monologues for interactions with Ossanlin and Rathien.  :)
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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2013, 07:16:14 PM »
Glad I can be an inspiration ^_^ And yeah, I'm particularly looking forward to the Rathien chapters. It's going to be a pretty wild ride >:D

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2013, 01:32:58 PM »
Okay, this is my third attempt at writing this chapter. For those of you who read the version I briefly posted already, this one doesn't really provide any new information, but I feel so much better about this one. And hey, it actually takes place on a Dome Ship, so there's that.

Also, I've added a small... partial-scene end-doodle at the end of every chapter thus far, if those of you who've already read the chapters wanted to go back and find them. They're not necessary to the understanding of the story, strictly speaking, but they do add a lot to the feel of the entire piece, and do a lot to help tie together what I have so far.

[spoiler=Chapter 8]Winston

He stood, blinking, at the top of the ramp. The huge, brightly-lit area into which he stepped stood in stark contrast to the small, dimly-lit metal interior of the transport that had brought him here. At the bottom of the ramp stood an Andalite, larger than the ones who had escorted him. Though this one lacked the tan patterning of the others, there was the barest hint of a greenish tint to its blue fur.

They’d turned out to be quadrupeds, these Andalites. Four legs, four hooves, and a body that resembled that of a small horse, he’d realized, after remembering what a horse was. They were covered in a fine blue fur.

Instead of a horse’s head and neck, the Andalites had a torso that looked remarkably Human. It was complete with Human-looking shoulders and a Human-looking neck. The Andalites’ two arms would have been somewhat scrawny by Human standards, and their hands each had seven fingers, but those differences were marginal at best.

Even the Andalite head looked somewhat Human, what with the positioning of the eyes and the ears. Andalite eyes were large, and always green, from what he’d seen, and their ears were pointed. The Andalites had no mouths, and in place of the Human nose, they had three slits that expanded and contracted slightly as they breathed. From the top of the Andalite head grew two thin, flexible ‘horns’ or ‘stalks.’ At the end of each stalk was another eye, which the Andalites swiveled constantly, always looking around themselves. The waving motion of the stalks reminded him of antennae on an insect of some kind.

If it weren’t for their tails, the Andalites would have looked pretty nonthreatening. Their tails were long, thick and muscular, and he’d observed a wide range of motion. The tail curved up and over the back, resembling the tail of a scorpion. The tail ended in a huge, lethal-looking curved blade.

<Welcome to the Scion,> it greeted him. Its thought-speak voice made no sound, and could be heard only in his head. Their telepathic means of communication had been a surprise. When he’d spoken to them over the communicator, their voices had been expressed audibly, but that had to be either his ship or theirs translating somehow.

“Thank you,” he replied carefully, eying the Andalite’s deadly tail.

The Andalite smiled-- something it somehow managed in spite of its lack of a mouth. Something it did with its eyes. <I am Prince-Commander Senexra-Valnikas-Melzer. I am the Flight Commander aboard the Scion.>

“I’m Winston,” he said as he reached the bottom of the ramp.

<I have been informed,> said Senexra, still smiling. <Winston of the Maltoris Kazin. I’m afraid I do not yet know the name of your companion.>

“Al,” said Al, stepping up beside Winston. Winston shot Al a glare, but Al didn’t seem to notice. He was a little shorter than Winston, with short brown hair and brown eyes. His features suggested he was of Native American descent. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Dozens of Andalites walked and worked and thought-spoke openly in this space. Behind the craft that had deposited them, through a massive opening in the wall, Winston could see out directly into space. There must be some kind of force field holding in the atmosphere. Hanging in the space outside, he could see the hazy blue shape of the little moon on which they’d left their ship.

The bay was divided down the middle by a large, empty concourse running parallel to the opening. The transport that had brought them up from the surface sat to the side of this concourse. There seemed to be spaces for several more large craft, though none of them were filled. Looking to his right, Winston could see that the concourse continued into what looked to be a second hangar bay, roughly the size of this one.

To the side of the bay opposite the opening were spaces for smaller craft, stacked two layers high. He estimated there was room for forty smaller craft there, and from here it looked as though all but one of the spaces was occupied. It was around these small craft that most of the activity in the hangar bay was centered.

A broad thought-speak announcement made him look up instinctually, in spite of the fact that it was impossible to determine direction from thought-speech. From the ceiling hung a number of idle machines that, from the look of them, were probably cranes or movers of some sort.

“Lotta ships you got here,” said Al, beaming brightly at Senexra.

<The Scion retains the capacity for seventy-two Tail Fighters, plus auxiliary craft,> said a proud thought-speak voice. Winston turned to see an Andalite-- the one that had stood, watching them, the entire ride here-- stepping out of the transport behind them. Harinkil-Lemnas-Raithil, this Andalite had called himself. <We retain most of the functionality of a Mark II, in spite of the more limited space thanks to the integration of the dome into the main hull,>

Al turned and stared at him blankly for a moment before breaking into a wide smile. “Lotta ships you got here.”

“Ignore him,” sighed Winston, turning to Senexra with a smile. “It’s impressive.”

<The Mark III dome ships are the most advanced craft in the galaxy,> said Harinkil pretentiously.

“And the most well armed?” wondered Winston.

<No,> responded Harinkil. <But it is the most efficient. Due to size and space concerns, the Mark II actually holds...>

<Warrior,> snapped Senexra, glaring at Harinkil, <shouldn’t your shift be beginning soon?>

<No, Prince,> said Harinkil. <I still have a full standard hour before I’m scheduled to...>

<I think you’d better go make sure you’re ready,> said Senexra, his voice level.

Harinkil hesitated, catching the look in Senexra’s eye, but finally said stiffly, <Yes, Prince.> He turned to trot towards the large ramp leading into the main body of the Scion.

Senexra watched him for a moment before turning both stalk-eyes to Winston. <A liaison  has been assigned to speak with you. You are to wait for him in the dome. If you’ll follow me.>

He turned to walk towards the same ramp Warrior Harinkil was now ascending ahead of them. Al and Winston fell into step behind him.

“I don’t really feel like I fit in here,” said Al, tugging at his collar and looking around at the Andalites with apparent nervousness.

Winston laughed, “I don’t think you fit in anywhere, looking like that.”

Al looked offended, “Hey, come on. Cherokee is respectable!”

“Okay, sure, but what about that?” Winston waved a hand to indicate Al’s suit. It was bright white, crossed by swatches of pink and yellow, and littered with green polka-dots. The high collar reached up past Al’s ears, and he had all but two buttons undone, so that the top was open almost to his naval. The one-piece suit continued, skin-tight, down his legs, until it ended in pointed shoes that curled up at the ends. A thick, black plastic belt sat snugly around his waist, though without belt loops, Winston couldn’t see how it did any good. The sleeves hung low from his wrists, and for some reason, the whole getup had apparently necessitated cufflinks to squeeze the long, flapping sleeves shut closer to his wrists. The cufflinks were the only part of the outfit Winston didn’t hate outright- large, diamond-shaped and silver with inlaid black stones.

“This,” said Al, turning up his nose and affecting an air of pretension, “is designer Yemlis stuff, and the most advanced suit in the galaxy. Unlike the Mark II, this suit has...”

He was interrupted by a blast of air and a loud roar as one of the small ships flew overhead on its way towards one of the empty spaces. At this distance, Winston could really see the details. The central body of the craft, much like the main body of the Scion itself, was somewhat ovular in shape, pointed towards the front. At this distance, the ****pit windows and the hatch in the side were clearly visible. On each side of the main fuselage, attached by stubby wings, was an engine pod, glowing blue at the end.

Much like the Scion, the small fighter had a ‘tail’ that arched from the rear up and over the main body, ending in a point. If the small ship was anything like the Scion, that would be the main weapon, a high-powered directed energy emitter.

As the smaller craft hovered into the empty space in the row of fighters, Winston ran some rough calculations in his head. The Scion was bristling with weaponry. Huge amounts of weaponry. More firepower than he’d seen anywhere since leaving the IPA, in fact. The Warrior had said that there was a capacity for seventy-two of those smaller ships. If each one had a similar power-to-size ratio as the Scion-- or a better one, since that ratio did tend to increase dramatically as ship size decreased-- then this dome ship could easily win wars with entire planets.

The thought made him wary. Well... more wary than he’d already been. What kind of species would build war-engines this massive? What possible need could they have of this much destructive power, especially when each Andalite already carried a weapon at the end of its own tail?

They passed dozens of other Andalites as Senexra led them through the main corridor heading away from the hangar bay. They also passed many, many closed doors and cross-corridors. Winston found himself wondering just how many hundreds of Andalites made up the crew of the Scion.

It would be tough to feel claustrophobic on this ship, Winston saw; the ceilings were high, the hallways were wide, and the lighting was more than sufficient. It was quite nice, actually.

He and Al continued to quietly discuss matters of import as they walked. The corridor eventually ended at a pair of glass doors, but Winston was so engrossed in one of his arguments with Al (no, he did not think the Andalites would be any good at surfing) that he failed to notice what was on the other side until he’d walked through it.

It was the cool, gentle breeze that made him look up.

They stood in what appeared to be an open, grassy plain. It was dark, and two moons hung in the sky amidst a backdrop of twinkling stars. By their light, Winston could make out dozens of little stands of trees dotting the plain, all of them of unfamiliar types.

The sound of running water caught his attention, and when he looked, he realized he could make out a dark, meandering stream running to a small lake nearby. On the other side of the lake, he thought he could see the stream continuing, winding off towards the distant horizon. A faint golden glow on that horizon seemed indicative of an approaching dawn.

There was a faint, distant chorus of a dozen different creatures of the night, buzzing and clicking and trilling and calling in the darkness. The one that caught his attention best was a sort of screee-clunk sound from the direction of the lake. It sounded as though there were hundreds of whatever was making that noise nestled into the trees that rimmed the bank. These particular trees reminded him of asparagus shoots, tall and thin and straight, though some of the taller ones did droop a little towards the top.

<You like it?> asked Senexra, smiling

“It’s gorgeous,” said Winston. “Are we inside the dome?”

<Yes,> Senexra replied. <The dome allows us to bring a little piece of home with us.>

“I think calling this ‘little’ might be a stretch,” commented Al, eying the light on the distant horizon.

“Yeah,” agreed Winston. “This did not look this big from the outside.”

<Most of what you see is projection,> explained Senexra. <The dome is large enough for running and sparring and eating and relaxing, but not as large as it appears. The extended environment is projected onto the perimeter walls.>

“It looked transparent from outside,” said Winston, staring up at the moons that could not possibly be moons.

<It is,> said Senexra. <The moons are projected, but the stars you see are real. If you look straight up, you can see the end of the Scion’s main Shredder.>

It was true, Winston saw- a long, thin shape pierced the darkness far above, arcing up from behind them somewhere to end in a point almost directly overhead. They were definitely looking out of the dome.

“I can’t tell what’s projected and what’s real. The way they blend together... it’s flawless,” he said, awed.

<I am glad you like it,> said Senexra. <I must return to my duty. Prince-Lieutenant Duecer will join you shortly. In the meantime, you will be allowed to wander the dome as you please, but not to leave without an escort.>

“Fair deal,” said Al, looking around the dome with his hands in his pockets.

Senexra turned and trotted back through the doors. The wall was an opaque grey near where they stood, Winston saw, but faded into the projected environment farther away.

They turned and began to wander towards the lake. The stars were slowly being hidden by the brightening sky. As it grew lighter, colors became more distinct. It looked as though the grasses in this dome existed in various shades of green and blue, rolling up and down the nearby hills. Across the lake, he could see what looked like a field of white and purple flowers blowing gently in the wind.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Winston noticed the wall of the dome seeming to disappear as they walked away from it, leaving only the two clear doors and the hallway beyond, seemingly standing in the middle of a field. That must be some trick of the light for safety reasons, to make the wall only become visible when one was near it.

Winston and Al found a patch of grass to sit in near the edge of the lake and simply sat, watching the sky change from black to yellow to red, listening as the chorus of creatures of the night slowly died away.

“So,” began Al, “you told them you were Maltoris Kazin.”

Winston swallowed and nodded, “I think I still am, deep down.”

Al smiled sadly, then changed tacks, smirking. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you called yourself Winston.”

“Hey, I happen to be a fan,” said Winston defensively. “What about you? Why the hell would you give them ‘Al’?

Al laughed, “Hey, I happen to be a fan.”

They both fell silent, watching the sunrise. It seemed neither one was particularly interested in breaking the tranquility of the dome.

Twin simulated suns finally appeared on the horizon, casting a very real, very natural-feeling warmth. Winston closed his eyes, enjoying the glow of the suns and the fresh breeze and the sound of the trickling stream under the steadily-brightening red and gold sky. Oeamis would love this, he knew.

The thought of Oeamis was almost like a physical blow, and his breath caught in his throat. He had to find out how much these Andalites knew.

<You must be the aliens,> came a thought-speak voice, and Winston found himself looking around for the source. Approaching them from the direction of the door was an Andalite, larger than Senexra had been, with a series of tan streaks across his neck and chest.

They stood up and walked to meet him. As they did, he laughed, <You really are bipeds with no tails but excellent balance. All is as promised.>

“My name is Winston. This is Al,” said Winston as they reached each other. “We’re Maltoris Kazin.”

<Or at least one of you is,> corrected the Andalite, staring at Al, but still smiling. <I am Prince Lieutenant Duecer-Geigas-Landina.>

Al laughed, “And a regular detective, too. Pleasure, sir.”

<I’ve not heard of the Maltoris Kazin,> said Duecer. <Where are you from?>

“Oh... a ways away,” replied Winston.

If Duecer found anything strange about the answer, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled and said, <I would be interested in learning more about your people. Perhaps we could agree to a mutually beneficial exchange of information?>

At that, Winston had to grin. “That,” he said, “is exactly why we’re here.”



TSSEEEEEEWWWWWWW! The sound of a second discharging Dracon Beam finally--[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: July 25, 2013, 03:13:53 PM by Arch Kit »

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Salem's Story

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Re: Salem's Story
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2013, 12:25:41 PM »
This is one chapter I have really been looking forward to writing. Enjoy ^_^

[spoiler=Chapter 9]Salem

--shook him to his senses.

“****.” Smoke wafted from the back hallway, and the amount of shouting from the people there had only increased. The gunfire... the smell of burning flesh... this place was getting too hot for him.

He leaned closer to Al, “We need to get out of here.”

“Deal,” said Al, staring towards the back hallway with wide eyes.

Salem stood... his feet... his body... everything tingled, and he had a strange sense that he was now remembering how to... be...

He drew his neural pistol from the hidden pocket in his jacket and quickly made his way out the front door in a low crouch. Al followed, imitating his stance with dramatic relish. At least Al’s standard black tuxedo seemed right for sneaking around, for some reason. In his expensive purple suit, Salem felt like an amateur doofus by comparison.

And his memories... the way time seemed to pass... there was something severely wrong about this place...

Outside, in the cool air, he stood up straight, still holding his weapon, and walked briskly towards his ship. He was getting off this rock.

Now.

In the red light of the setting sun, he caught sight of something... someone... making their way through the shipyard. He stopped, hesitated for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a copper-colored spyglass.

Peering through it, he could see that it was Parker, the heavily armored man, jogging away from the Bar’s back door. In his arms, he carried something... no, he realized with a start. He could see an arm hanging down. That was also a someone, and this someone was no longer conscious.

Or no longer alive.

Al nudged him in the side, and when Salem turned to look, Al pointed to another figure making its way through the shipyard, heading a different direction, carrying another heavy bundle... another person. Through the spyglass, Salem could make out the Hork-Bajir he’d seen inside. When the Hork-Bajir turned to walk up the ramp of its ship, Salem caught sight of the face of the person in its arms and his heart jumped into his throat.

Joanne! Or... Keshin. He still wasn’t really sure which name to call her by.

He could really use Keshin’s help, he thought as he watched the Hork Bajir step inside and close the hatch behind itself. A plan had begun to form in his head while he’d sat, watching life in the bar race by. For the plan to work, he’d need someone like her.

More than that, though, there was the fact that she’d spared his life, had let the Light go without turning him in. He had to find some way to repay that debt. It could be that the Hork-Bajir was a friend, but if not... There was no way he was just going to let some Yeerk stun her and take her away.

Assuming she was only stunned.

He had to know.

“Well... crap,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Al, get the ship.”

Al’s eyebrows shot up. “You serious?” he asked incredulously. It seemed he’d expected to just leave and never come back.

Which, Salem thought as he stuffed the spyglass back into his pocket, they really should do.

“I’m gonna go see what happened to Keshin... Joanne... whoever.” Salem said. “I could use your eyes behind me.”

A knowing smile crossed Al’s face. “Alright, fine, I’ll cover your ass. Go rescue your princess.” He jogged off towards their ship, leaving Salem sputtering.

He was still muttering to himself as he approached the Hork-Bajir’s ship, quietly, crouched low. The craft was of an arrowhead-shaped design he didn’t recognize, maybe twice the length of a Yeerk Bug Fighter.

He looked around, and, seeing no one, strode up to the ship. He dialed a setting into his neural pistol that he hoped would knock out a Hork-Bajir, if it came down to that, and knocked loudly on the hatch.

After a few moments, hatch slid open again. Salem found himself staring up into the intimidating face of a large Hork-Bajir male. Behind him, in the brightly-lit ship, Salem could see a flickering transparent dome. Lying within it was Joanne’s unmoving form. It looked like the Hork-Bajir had dumped her unceremoniously on the floor.

On the other hand, the force field could only be a good sign. Corpses didn’t need force fields.

“Hello?” asked the Hork-Bajir in its gruff voice.

“Hi there! My name’s Salem!” said Salem, adopting a friendly smile, trying to sound as harmless as possible. He kept his weapon at his side, but did not holster it. He wanted to be ready to use it.

“Temrash,” offered the Hork-Bajir. A Yeerk name. Its eyes flicked to Salem’s weapon, then back to his face. “Why have you followed me to my ship?”

“I’m a... friend of Keshin,” replied Salem. “What happened?”

Temrash’s eyes narrowed, and he hesitated before answering, “I’m quite certain that Keshin tried to kill Terenia. I plan to question Keshin about who hired her. I have no plans to kill her, but she is an enemy of my comrades, and I may need to hold her until further notice.” He didn’t move from the doorway.

So it had been a hit. Or at least an attempted hit. Temrash seemed to think that Salem would just go away and let her be held indefinitely.

“Okay,” said Salem, nodding and affecting an air of unconcern. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to her when you’re done.” He stepped to the side and leaned casually against the hull of Temrash’s ship. “I’ll wait here.”

Temrash glared at him and seemed about to say something, but then seemed to reconsider. “I don’t see why not. I’ll be back.” He stepped inside, and then stepped back out carrying a case of some sort. Just before the hatch slid shut, Salem caught sight of movement from inside-- Joanne beginning to stir.

“****,” Salem muttered, watching as Temrash walked back towards the Bar. He stuffed his weapon back into his jacket pocket.

<<Hey, Al, you hear me?>> Salem asked, directing his private thought-speech directly at his companion; it would be heard by no one else.

It took Al a moment to reply, via the ship’s thought-speech amplifier, <<Yeah, barely. Thought you hated thought-speak.>>

<<I do,>> responded Salem. <<A Hork-Bajir just left this ship. Alert me when he starts coming back.>>

<<Aye aye, captain.>> replied Al. Salem rolled his eyes. He couldn’t see it, but he just knew Al had performed a mocking salute.

<<And see if you can tell me how to break into this thing,>> said Salem, pulling a device about the size of the palm of his hand from his pants pocket. He began pressing keys, intently eying the small display.

<<Based on the construction, technology, and materials, it’s probably Yeerk, or something close,>> said Al. That was surprising. It sure as heck didn’t look Yeerk. <<So, y’know, just pretend you know how to hack Yeerk ships.>>

“Right, cause I’ve always been so good at that,” muttered Salem. Still, he had to try.

His device began to interface with the computer aboard Temrash’s ship, looking for access... any access. Salem continually pressed keys, granting permissions, making decisions, changing settings, but for the most part the process was automated.

<<Movement from the bar... Human wandering towards you through the ships... Mmm... no threat. >> Al continued reporting on the surroundings as Salem worked. All too soon, that report was, <<Hork-Bajir approaching your position. Human with him also.>>

Salem cursed and stuffed his device back into his pocket. He’d gotten precisely nowhere. He reclaimed his position leaning on the hull and made a show of examining his fingernails, waiting impatiently.

A moment later, Temrash rounded the corner, talking with someone. Salem found himself staring at the man with the dark skin and the shining, intelligent eyes, who was walking beside the Hork-Bajir. Salem flashed a brief smile, but the man didn’t seem to see it, continuing his conversation with Temrash. Temrash nodded to Salem as they reached the ship. The hatch slid open, and Salem followed the pair inside.

Temrash sat in one of the ship’s chairs and swiveled to face Joanne, who was now sitting up within her tiny cell. The man knelt next to her force field and said something to her. Salem couldn’t hear it, but he could see the look of shock, then worry, on Joanne’s face. So this man was not her friend.

“Alright, Keshin,” said Temrash, speaking commandingly. “Explain yourself. Who hired you, and why?” It wasn’t said with any particular force, but Salem thought he could sense a definite threat behind those words.

Keshin shook her head, “I’m not telling you anything that doesn’t concern you. That’s between myself and my client.”

“Who else did they hire you to kill?”

Keshin simply shook her head.

Temrash nodded as though he’d expected that. He rose from his seat, “You will remain here while I check the prime suspects. Salem,” he snapped with the forcefulness of a drill instructor, “You may have some words with Keshin. Then we’re leaving.”

The other man rounded on Temrash, “Surely you won’t leave this creature alone here?” he asked angrily.

“I’m not going to sit here and watch him for days,” replied Temrash, sounding annoyed.

“I think you underestimate the power of this creature,” snapped the man, stepping closer to Temrash.

Temrash explained, loudly, how there was no better place to keep Keshin, and Salem realized that this argument could be just the distraction he needed. As the man shot back at Temrash-- something about how Keshin was a ‘walking timebomb’-- Salem began to look, carefully, around the ship’s interior.

Several chairs, large, probably built for Hork-Bajir. Control console. Mostly empty space and a clear line of sight between the shield-dome that held Keshin and the open hatchway.

Getting her out should be doable.

The argument seemed to be winding down already. The Human man wasn’t just holding his own, he actually seemed to be winning, and Temrash seemed about ready to relent. Standing up to a Hork-Bajir Yeerk like that-- Salem was impressed. Unfortunately, at this rate, they’d be done arguing within moments, and Keshin would be left to the man for questioning.

“Who did you say you were?” Salem asked, loudly.

Human and Hork-Bajir simultaneously turned to glare at him. He felt a tingling rush of adrenaline, and had to concentrate to keep from breaking out in a grin. Enjoying this kind of thing had to be a sickness of some kind, he knew.

The man eyed Salem up and down, seeming to see him for the first time. Finally, he spoke, angrily, “My name is Hadrin Eight-Seven-Five. I'm a soldier of the Yeerk civil resistance, and I just lost... an awful lot for the sake of the girl this thing tried to kill.  Excuse me if I think it's important to the safety and security of my people to know who else the dapsen is after.”

A civil resistance? Now that was interesting. He’d have to talk to Hadrin about that one later. For now...

“Respectable,” said Salem, nodding his head in sage-like understanding. “Commendable, even. But it seems to me that this is Temrash’s show.” Glancing over, he could see Temrash scowling at that as he realized that Salem was right.

“This may be Temrash’s ship,” growled Hadrin, “but I am not going anywhere until I have answers.”

“Impudent soldier,” snarled Temrash. “We don’t need his information. Go talk to the person you believe hired him.”

Hadrin turned to face Temrash, marching towards him angrily, “Who are you to talk to me about impudence, grub?”

Salem smirked as the two began shouting at each other again. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

<<Keshin, if you can hear this, cough,>> he said to her as the other two continued discussing her fate at an ever-increasing volume. He rubbed his temples. Thought-speech always gave him such a headache.

Keshin’s eyes went wide for a moment as she looked around for the source of the thought-speak voice. Finally, her eyes locked on his, and she let out a small cough.

Salem smiled and crept closer to the mobile generators sitting on the floor that were projecting the force field over Keshin. Either Temrash and Hadrin didn’t notice, or they were too caught up in their fight to care. Salem knelt down and began examining the generators. He kept an ear on the argument behind him. Apparently Temrash actually was a former Visser. Interesting.

At one point, Temrash put in a communication to an ‘Ossanlin’ for help in settling their argument. In fact, calling this ‘Ossanlin’ seemed to be the one thing on which Hadrin and Temrash agreed.

<<I may be able to get you out of here, but with this many people around, it’s a pretty big risk,>> he said without looking at her.

“Why are you helping us, exactly?” whispered Keshin, looking at him suspiciously.

<<You didn’t turn me in to the Yeerks when you had the chance,>> replied Salem. <<Least I can do. Besides,>> he looked into her eyes <<there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.>>

They both glanced over to the argument at a yell from Hadrin, who was now cradling a bleeding arm. There was blood on Temrash’s wrist blade. Things over there were getting hot.

“By all means, make an attempt,” whispered Keshin, looking wary and confused. “I do have an idea of my own if it doesn’t work.”

Salem nodded and briefly explained his plan to her, then moved back towards the door. Just as he started explaining his plan again, to Al this time, Ossanlin arrived.

‘Ossanlin’ turned out to be the War Prince. The one with the muscled arms and the twin swords. Salem shrank back against the wall. This time, there was no chance of the Andalite failing to see him.

The War-Prince was followed by a man Salem had seen inside. The man was dressed in an absurd way that, for some reason, had caused Al to call him a ‘regular Napoleon.’ Something about this man, the aura he brought with him, sent a shiver down Salem’s spine.

<I heard weapon discharges a while back,> said the War-Prince. <I take it that’s what this is about?> He spoke commandingly, but not harshly. Salem could feel that this situation was now under this War-Prince’s control. Even with the former Visser Temrash and the intense, adamant Hadrin aboard, there seemed to be no question that this Andalite would have the final say.

Not that it would stop Temrash and Hadrin from arguing. They both seemed intent that the Andalite see the situation from their perspective.

Salem froze when Ossanlin’s stalk eye turned towards him, but the War-Prince didn’t seem to find anything to be concerned about. Salem relaxed a little and continued describing his idea to Al while Temrash filled Ossanlin in on the situation. Al, of course, felt it necessary to raise several objections.

As he argued with Al, he did his best to listen to the discussion between the other five aboard Temrash’s ship. They mentioned several names, referenced several events, most of which Salem could only guess at. He was, however, able to follow the gist of the conversation. Ossanlin, the War-Prince, seemed to be quite understanding, the most likely of the three to let her go, and Salem found himself warming to the Andalite.

Finally, Al relented, and Salem was able to turn his full attention back to the situation at hand. It looked as though Temrash and Hadrin had just about convinced Ossanlin that Keshin needed to be held and questioned. Even though both Hadrin and Ossanlin were adamant that there would be no torture or violence involved, Salem felt the hair on his neck standing on end.

He decided that this would be an excellent time to make a graceful exit and put his plan into motion.

“An Andalite War-Prince comes to a bar, throws together his own band of thugs, and expects to terrorize and control those who won't join him," Salem muttered darkly, just loudly enough to be heard by those around him. "Typical Andalite. Arrogant. Always willing to help others by getting them killed." He leaned against the bulkhead and examined his nails with an air of unconcern. Without looking up, he continued, "Remind me to throw a ****in' parade."

There was shocked silence for a moment, before Temrash growled, “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome on my ship, Salem.”

Salem glanced at the former Visser and the War-Prince beside him, acting as though he’d noticed them for the first time. “Couldn’t agree more,” he said coldly, and turned to walk out the hatch. He smirked. He could feel all their eyes on him.

Which meant that all their eyes were turned towards the open door.

<<Now! Now!>> he yelled as he walked through the door, directing one shout at Al and the other at Keshin. At the same time, he ducked off to the side, pressing himself against the hull of the ship. A split second later, a plasma projectile flew over his head from somewhere nearby and exploded just inside the hatchway.

The weapon was extremely low-yield, meant to disperse a thin haze of plasma more than explosive force. Even so, Salem found himself sprawling on the ground. He stumbled to his feet, dizzy, and tried not to pay attention to the burning sensation on his skin. It wasn’t harmful, he knew, but it wasn’t easy to ignore.

He bent into a low crouch and started moving as quickly as he could away from Temrash’s ship. He twisted back to look inside. The oddly-dressed man, Temrash, Hadrin and Ossanlin were all struggling to get up, blinking away the blinding light. Joanne was sprinting for the exit, and the force-field dome was sputtering back to life behind her. Something, he thought, was not normal about the way she ran...

As she cleared the threshold, he could tell for sure. She was moving fast. Inhumanly fast. Almost too fast to be seen. A single flash of white light in his peripheral vision drew his attention-- there was his ship, hovering just off the ground between two of the parked craft nearby, the open ramp facing Keshin. She saw it too, and changed direction to race towards it.

Salem skidded to a halt next to one of the parked hulks in the yard. This was out of his hands now. Joanne had already covered more than half the distance between the two ships when a silver blur shot out the door of Temrash’s craft, headed straight for her. Salem caught only the briefest glimpse of it as it rocketed by.

The Andalite.

Temrash’s ship was moving now. The hatch was still open, but the ship had lifted off the ground and was gaining altitude, moving in the direction of Salem’s ship. Leaning out the door, Dracon Beam drawn, was Hadrin. He was taking his time, trying to get a bead on the impossibly-fast Joanne.

Salem reached into his pocket for his own weapon, but it caught on the fabric as he tried to pull it out. He struggled with it for a second, to no avail, and managed to choke out “H-Hadrin!” just as the Yeerk fired.

At the sound of his voice, Joanne ducked to her left and twisted, drawing her own Dracon and firing up at the rising ship without taking the time to aim. Hadrin’s beam sizzled the air where she’d been not a moment before, but Joanne’s connected. It was a one-in-a-million shot. Salem couldn’t have made that shot on his best day. Hell, Amiya couldn’t have made that shot.

Salem watched in horror as a hole appeared in Hadrin’s chest, just below his heart. He could clearly see light through the other side.

Hadrin slumped against the wall, a look of surprise on his face, before Temrash’s moving ship carried him out of view.

No...

Joanne reached the bottom of the ramp to Salem’s ship just as Ossanlin did. They both skidded to a halt, and she turned to face him, looking positively exhausted, but defiant until the end. His tail blade flashed forward, slicing the Dracon Beam she held clean in two. Even from here, Salem could see that Ossanlin had drawn his twin swords , and held them, crossed, to her throat. His fur glowed an eerie silver.

A beam of red light lanced forth from Temrash’s ship. It impacted his own near the forward section, searing the hull and rocking Salem’s ship.

The ship rolled with momentum created by the impact, driving the ship’s ramp down into the dirt behind Joanne. It accelerated backward, briefly, using the ramp as a shovel, scooping the dirt from under her feet. It then rocked back the other way, lifting her into the air.

Nobody but Al could have pulled it off.

Ossanlin had scrambled to pull his blades back, to keep from cutting Joanne’s head off as she’d been pushed towards him, but that was all the time the War-Prince got. The ramp caught both of the Andalite’s front legs, and even from this distance, Salem could hear the snap! as they both bent backwards. As the ship rotated upwards, Ossanlin fell forwards, the support gone from under him, so that the ramp caught him under his chin, bending his neck and back at impossible angles as it rose.

The ship tilted back and the ramp began sliding shut. The last glimpse Salem had of Joanne before she lost her balance and tumbled into the ship was of her eyes fluttering closed, a line of red appearing across her neck where the Andalite’s blades had been.

No!

The ramp flipped Ossanlin at an awkward angle, dumping him unceremoniously into the dirt. His twin swords clattered to his sides, and as his body hit the ground, his fur flickered back from silver to the normal Andalite blue. He didn’t move.

No! No! No! How had such a simple plan gone so terribly, terribly wrong!?

Salem sprinted towards the fallen body of the War-Prince. As he did, Temrash’s rising ship shot twice more at his own. The belly of his own craft slammed into the dirt not far from Ossanlin, and Salem could feel the impact through his legs, but in a moment it had bounced back up, and was accelerating away along the ground, into the shipyard. Temrash’s ship gave chase, firing downward repeatedly.

In the air near where Temrash’s ship had just been, there was a man. Floating. Flying, even, down towards the ground. The regular Napoleon! Salem nearly fell flat on his face. What the hell was this place, that women ran at super speed and men flew and War-Princes glowed silver?

No time for that now, though. He skidded to a stop and knelt next to the body of the War-Prince. Up close, the Andalite looked even worse-off. His front legs were both bent at unnatural angles. The white bone of one of them stuck out of the flesh, blue-green blood seeping out around it, coating the fur and the ground underneath it. Salem ran a hand gently down Ossanlin’s twisted neck and back, and cursed when he felt a few clearly broken vertebrae.

On the other hand, Ossanlin’s chest rose and fell, and Salem could see air rippling the blood seeping from his breathing slits. He was alive.

He was aware of a growing crowd. Apparently they’d drawn a lot of attention, and everyone who’d come to see what the noise had been about was now gathering around the fallen War-Prince. He could still hear the repeated, ever-more-distant sound of Dracon fire from Temrash’s ship. None of that seemed to matter as Salem knelt next to the fallen Andalite.

“He’s slipping,” said a voice nearby. Salem looked up to see Thordon. “His body is too tired to continue to function. I shall do what I can.”

Salem nodded. The Immortal would fix this.

Thordon’s hands began to glow, and he moved them back and forth over Ossanlin’s body, increasing in speed.

Salem reached into his pocket and pulled out an object resembling a little silver pill. He broke it in half, revealing a tiny needle in one end, which he plunged into Ossanlin’s shoulder, into one of his major arteries there.

“This’ll dull the pain,” he whispered. “From my War-Prince to me. From me to you.”

Suddenly, Ossanlin’s eyes shot open, and he coughed blood violently from his breathing slits. He kicked his legs, yelling in pain as his front two flailed. Salem stumbled back, but was caught by Ossanlin’s wildly-thrashing tail and thrown to the dirt. Ossanlin was ranting in thought-speak about something... giving orders to a TO... demanding that they return fire. Delirious. He settled down again as soon as the glow in Thordon’s hands died away.

Salem scrambled to his feet and looked at the faces of those around him. Any other time, it might have been funny. Every last one of them looked frightened and bewildered, Thordon included. Nobody looked like they had a clue what to do.

Damn it.

“You,” Salem snapped, pointing to the woman with the long, straight dark hair and the pretty blue eyes, “find something that I can use to splint his legs. Pipes or sticks, stiff and straight.” He pointed towards the young woman with the long blonde hair- one of the ‘twins,’ as he’d taken to thinking of them. “You, get me something flat and straight. I need to immobilize his neck, and a back board is the best way I know. Flying guy,” he said turning to the regular Napoleon, “go find that four-armed doctor. Or any doctor. Fast.”

Without waiting for an answer, he took off his jacket and again knelt down next to the War-Prince. “Let’s not wake him again,” he said to Thordon, tearing a long strip from the bottom of the jacket. As the fabric tore, it gave off sparks and tiny flashes of light. “That did more harm than good.”

“Only he can heal himself, by changing his body,” said Thordon as Salem tied the strip of fabric around Ossanlin’s leg above the compound fracture, lessening the flow of blood. “As Terenia restored her body through transformation, so too must Ossanlin.”

Salem frowned. What the hell was he rambling about?

“Morphing, I believe they call it,” clarified Thordon.

It took a moment before Salem caught the meaning. The morphing technology restored the user’s original body from their DNA. When Ossanlin morphed back to his own form, his DNA would remain uninjured, and he’d be fully healed, as though nothing had ever happened.

Now that was something that would have come in handy, had he thought of it sooner.

“Just help me keep him still for now,” he said tersely, finishing tying the tourniquet.

Thordon nodded, “I will attempt to drain the energy from his lower body, paralyzing him.” Before Salem could voice any concerns over that, a beam of light had formed between Thordon’s hands and the lower portion of Ossanlin’s humanoid back.

At that moment, Parker knelt down next to him. It seemed he’d just arrived. Parker wrapped his arms around Ossanlin’s body above his front legs. Salem didn’t know how well the armored man could actually hold a flailing, muscular Andalite, but the gesture was appreciated, and he smiled. “Good to see you, Parker.”

Ossanlin’s fur began flickering from blue to silver and back again, and he began to kick weakly, to flail his tail, to speak in delusional nonsense. A particularly violent swing of the tail nearly sent Salem sprawling again, but Parker let go of Ossanlin’s legs and blocked the tail with his arms, stumbling back. He got back up and again tried to hold the struggling Andalite down.

“Be gentle,” advised Salem. “He has blood in his airway. If he chokes, this won’t work. Dead Andalites don’t morph.”

“Salem, talk to him,” said Parker tensely. “Get him to come around.”

Salem almost laughed. “Talk to him? I think you and I went to different schools of first aid.” Then again... “Good idea,” he muttered.

<<Andalite. War-Prince. Now’s the time to morph.>> He began to tear more strips from his jacket. “From the water that gave birth to us...”

<<Come back to us, War-Prince.>> He looked around. None of the three he’d sent off for supplies had returned yet, but at least they’d all left in the first place. “From the grass that feeds us...”

<<Time to morph.>> And now he was using a Sparkle-Be-Good jacket for bandages. Ossanlin seemed to be calming down a bit, but he still spewed the occasional delusional thought-speech, and his breathing was rapid and shallow-- Salem wouldn’t have long before shock fully set in. This Andalite had better not die on him. Especially after that whole turning-silver-and-superpowered stunt he’d pulled. They really needed to have some words about that. “For the freedom that unites us...”

“How’s he doing?” asked the dark-haired woman, kneeling next to him and holding a large, flat wooden board that would serve as an adequate neck brace.

“He’s still breathing, anyway,” answered Salem quietly. “We rise to the stars...”

In the distance, he could hear a thunder of repeated explosions from whatever Temrash’s ship was firing at his own. At least that probably meant Al was still alive. For now. Some part of his brain noted the dark-haired woman leaving again. “Freedom is my only cause...”

<Here.> A number of long, straight sticks dropped to the ground next to him. <At least several should serve as sufficient splints.>

Salem looked up to see purple fur, a lithe figure, and a small tail blade. An Andalite female. He frowned. The War-Prince’s rambling had died down, and his eyes were now fluttering shut. “Duty to the People, my only guide...”

“You’re putting him to sleep,” complained Parker. “You need to jar him to reality.”

“This should jar him plenty,” said Salem, smiling softly. “Thordon, Parker? He’s going to want to move.” He placed his hands gently on either side of the fracture in Ossanlin’s broken, non-compound-fractured leg. “Obedience to my Prince, my only glory...”

He sucked a deep breath and gently, firmly, wrenched the leg back to the proper angle.

Ossanlin’s eyes shot open as he screamed in pain. He twitched wildly, desperately, but it seemed as though the two holding him were managing to keep him under control. The Andalite balled his fists and swing his arms wildly- not normally a danger with Andalites, but this one would probably pack a punch. Salem ducked to avoid one of those punches. Finally, Ossanlin’s eyes locked on Salem’s.

<Who are you?> asked the War-Prince, sounding frantic. <How do you know those words? What do you want with me?>

Salem forced himself to smile. He picked up two of the sticks and two strips of fabric, and began working to create a splint for the leg. He spoke to the War-Prince gently, alternating between verbal and thought-speech. “Just a friend, Andalite.” <<My name is Prince Tobias.>> “Call me Salem.” <<Time to morph.>>

For a second, it looked as though Ossanlin understood, but then his eyes narrowed, and he again became agitated, and began struggling against Thordon and Parker <I’ll be defenseless. Can’t morph. They’ll infest me...> rambled the War Prince. He began coughing, violently, blood spraying from his breathing slits onto Salem’s suit.

In a moment, the coughing fit had passed. Salem cursed. With his cracked vertebrae, the Andalite was going to end up paralyzed if he kept struggling like this. The Andalite seemed to be calming down a little bit, but his murmered thought-speak was becoming increasingly erratic and his breathing was still shallow. He was shivering violently now, in spite of the warm air and the heat provided by the setting sun. Shock was truly setting in.

“Ossanlin, morph something big,” suggested Parker. “Morph something that can’t be infested.” As Salem finished tying together his crude splint, he shot Parker a questioning look. Parker explained, “He’s identified you as a Yeerk. Speak to him like a Yeerk. Whatever he needs to hear to morph. We can sort it out later.” The nod from Thordon suggested he agreed.

Salem felt a flash of anger. Everybody seemed to think there was an easy way out of this. “Have any of you ever been this dazed?” he snapped, moving gently to Ossanlin’s head and again running a finger along his spine. “Morphing isn’t easy at the best of times.” He gritted his teeth as Ossanlin twitched again, still babbling. “I don’t know if he can start the process. Morphing would be so much easier than what I’m doing, but this Andalite does not get to die just because we couldn’t keep him alive long enough to morph. Hold him now.”

Salem picked up the flat wooden board and stared at it for a moment, contemplating what he was about to do. He hated spinal injuries...

He maneuvered the makeshift back board into place behind Ossanlin’s head and made sure he had some strips of fabric within easy reach. He gently, gingerly lifted the Andalite’s head in his arms, moving it slowly, so slowly, carefully into place. As he did, he spoke softly to the War-Prince, taking Parker’s advice, in spite of his skepticism about Ossanlin’s current ability to morph. “Time to morph, War-Prince. It’s the only way to escape.” <<Can’t let the Yeerks infest you. Have to morph. Have to get away.>>

Some part of his words did seem to have an affect on Ossanlin, at least, as he began thrashing again, more weakly than before, but still with enough energy to make it difficult for Parker to stay atop him. Salem gritted his teeth and put his entire body into holding Ossanlin’s head and neck steady, giving everything he had to not letting the Andalite twist from his grasp. With Ossanlin’s head in his arms, the risk of spinal injury from the thrashing motion was significantly higher.

<Human... thought speech... drugs? I’ll be defenseless... unhh... I’ll take your heads off!> rambled the War-Prince as he thrashed.

<Ossanlin!> cried another thought-speech voice, and within seconds, there was a second Andalite kneeling next to Salem. A female, he noted dully, but not the same one that had brought him the splints.

<Prince Ossanlin!> yelled a different voice, and in a moment a young Andalite Warrior was standing next to him as well. <You must morph something immediately! Everyone, please give him room!> It seemed all one had to do to make the Andalites all show themselves was run their War-Prince over with a ship.

“Either step back or find some way to keep him from killing himself,” Salem growled at the two Andalites. It came out harsher than he’d intended, and he could feel their curious, angry stares on him, but at the moment, he did not care.

As the War-Prince’s fight again died down, Salem gently, carefully laid the War-Prince’s head back on the ground, and sat back on his haunches, shaking. He noticed sweat dripping from his nose. There was no way this was going to work if the Andalite was going to continue to struggle. Both of the new Andalite arrivals had ignored him and now knelt next to the War-Prince as well, talking gently, trying to coax him into morphing. That was to be expected, he supposed.

“Here,” called a voice. “I brought a first aid kit.” Salem looked over to see the dark-haired woman jogging back towards them and carrying a red-and-white case. He smiled faintly. At least somebody here seemed to be thinking.

“Bring it here!” he called. “I need his leg cleaned, and if you’ve got any sedatives in there, give him one.”

“Roger,” she said, kneeling next to him and digging in the kit until she found a small syringe. She read the label, then said quietly, “This may not even calm him down a hair, but it’s the best I’ve got.”

“We need his mind active,” snapped Parker, sounding tense. “If he goes to sleep, he’ll die from internal bleeding.”

The dark-haired woman looked at him and shook her head, “It’s a mild anxiolytic. Shouldn’t make him tired. Just less stressed.” She looked to Salem, “Should I proceed with the injection?”

Salem was about to tell her yes, for Thaum’s sake, inject him, but at that moment, the War-Prince’s eyes seemed to focus on the female Andalite. <Aliciana?> he wondered, sounding dazed. <Alic... Where is this... Who are these people? Alic... I... I can’t breathe...>

<You cannot leave me,> pleaded the female Andalite, her voice wavering, <You must morph. Anything!>

Salem shook his head lightly at the dark-haired woman and mouthed the words, “Not yet.”

<I... I trust you... Alic...> came the War-Prince’s voice. A look of concentration crossed his face, then quickly melted into confusion. <I... I can’t... focus... I’m so tired... let me nap first... then I’ll morph...> His eyes slid shut, and his breathing slowed, a gurgling sound coming from his breathing slits. This earned him a round of shouting from the two Andalites.

“I am sorry,” said Thordon, and before Salem could ask what he meant, the beam of light that connected Thordon to Ossanlin had disappeared and Thordon had stepped back and crossed his arms.

Instantly, Ossanlin’s eyes shot open again, and he screamed-- a horrible, gut-wrenching noise that could only be heard in their heads. His weakly-flailing tail forced Salem and the dark-haired woman to scramble back, standing side-by-side just out of Ossanlin’s tail range. Parker still held on to Ossanlin’s torso, but only just.

<What did you DO to me!?> demanded the War-Prince, looking around frantically, fury in his eyes.

“Keep that ready,” Salem muttered to the dark-haired woman, indicating the sedative syringe. “This crowd still thinks we can take the easy way out, but I’m not sure he’s capable of morphing. Why are there never doctors around when you need them?”

The female Andalite Ossanlin had called ‘Aliciana’ still knelt next to him, in spite of his flailing. She placed a hand on his face, <I promise, love, I will keep you safe. But right now I need you to morph!>

Ossanlin finally, finally, seemed to get the message. He closed his eyes, and Salem saw the changes begin, the Andalite’s fur shriveling away, his hindquarters shrinking, his stalk eyes schlooping into his head.

He was morphing.

Around Ossanlin, the spreading relief was almost tangible, as he transformed, bit-by-bit, into a naked, black-haired Human man. An uninjured Human. Exhausted, barely able to move, but alive. The first female Andalite, the one who’d brought him the splints, was angrily demanding that someone tell her how Ossanlin had been injured. Salem figured he’d let the others explain that one.

His ears were ringing, and for some reason, he had a throbbing headache. Funny that he hadn’t noticed that earlier. He closed his eyes and drew a deep, shuddering breath. He suddenly felt weak, his legs just about ready to give out from under him.

“Good work,” said the dark-haired woman quietly, laying a hand gently on his shoulder.

Salem turned towards her and smiled weakly. Very pretty eyes... “I’m Salem,” he said, just as quietly.

“Elayne,” she offered her hand with her own shaky smile, looking about as rattled as he felt. “What a way to wake up,” she said, nodding towards Ossanlin with just a hint of a smirk.

That managed to wring a weak laugh from him.

They watched silently for a moment as the group that had gathered around Ossanlin congratulated each other and worked to carry his now apparently-unconscious body towards the larger ship that had landed recently.

He should go check on Al.

“Excuse me,” he muttered apologetically to Elayne. “I have something I need to do.” He turned and began walking towards the woods. From here, he could still hear the female Andalite insisting that someone explain how, exactly, Ossanlin had been run over by a ship.

“Somebody tell the War-Prince not to get himself killed until I get back!” Salem called over his shoulder to the chattering group gathered protectively around Ossanlin. To himself, he muttered, “Andalite owes me a jacket.”[/spoiler]
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 09:34:41 AM by Arch Aluminator »

Marie and Abby are my wonderful RAFsisters ^_^
Salem's Story