The Galactic War: Rogue Element ~The Beginning

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Eleric raises his eyebrows, but continues to watch on as Efaen pilots the simulated fighter.  <I can see why that might happen.  Were one to lose all of his or her memories, the rational mind would grasp onto anything it could to try and build an equilibrium.  Of course, the Rebels could have told or showed you anything at all, and you'd have believed it.>

Eleric begins to lean his head slightly to the right as the fighter continues to approach the gas giant head-on.  Too much longer, and the gravity well would suck the fighter it, or rip it apart depending upon Efaen's actions.  <The Captain tends to be driven toward his ideals...perhaps too much so.  But I do understand his reasoning behind bringing you back...although I suppose it all worked out the same in the end.  The Andalite attack on the rebel base would've happened much sooner if he hadn't brought you back.  Apparently the rebels were going to execute you, so it surprises me that you'd say you wanted to stay with them.  Either way, the Homeworld would've decimated the base rather than leave a morph-capable host in possession of any Yeerk group, including the Rebellion.>  Eleric shrugs.  <I'm not saying I wholly agree with them, but it does make a sort of ruthless sense.>

<I do not agree with the way you were treated on the Homeworld after your return, that much is certain.  I can understand your frustrations with the Electorate, but not all Andalites are the same.  This ship is full of Andalites who would never treat you as a vecol.  I...hope I'm helping to demonstrate that to you.>

[Shenmue654]

Joanne grins slightly at this. She suspected the Andalite wanted to imitate Prince Ossanlin, his commander. Keshin left this bit of information to her, understandably--- he had never been the warrior of the two. "Well, it's a lil' tricky ta' tell what you guys can use and whatcha can', given the big deer butt you got. But you should prolly use weights, like things you can lift. See...."

Joanne makes a motion with her arm up and down, as if holding something. "....if you leave 'em on a table or somethin', you ought to be able to pick 'em up from there. Once you got both of 'em, you move your arms down holdin' 'em as far as they go. And then back up, just like..." Joanne does the motion herself, with invisible weights. "...this. Holdin' your arms all the way out and then pressin' them in front of your chest also works. Like this."

Joanne demonstrates this motion as well and looks satisfied. "Least we can do. You've been helpin' us, after all."

[Chad32]

<Thank you. I feel it can be useful to try some unconventional ways of defending myself, as long as they work. Using melee weapons with the arms seems to work for Prince Ossanlin. Not that I'm trying to become exactly like him, but if something is useful it should be considered.>

He excused himself, and headed towards his room. He didn't have anything else pressing to do, so he felt like trying this now. He passed the room where he saw Aetheas talking to Terenia. That was about the last person he should be talking to, but claxter made no comment. Her abrasiveness would likely drive him off soon enough.

Inside his room, he got out his scrap rods. In previous sessions, he just used the rods while swinging like he thought Ossanlin would do, but now he tried just repetitive lifting and lowering. Up and down, and side to side. It felt less clumsy and embarrassing this way.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

~Story Narration~


The day passed, remarkably, without anyone losing a head.  Ossanlin and Enorryma were both consumed with the monitoring and repair of ship systems ensuing the double jump.  Eleric had finished his lesson with Efaen, and had felt quite good as he trotted back to the docking bays to help with the remodding of the Tail Fighter coils that had been disturbed by the double-jump.  Aside from the strangeness of having humans aboard the ship, most of the crew went on about their daily duties without much interruption.  Of course everyone was overly busy due to the extreme understaffing of the ship, but the work proceeded smoothly.

As such, Ossanlin was somewhat bemused as Enorryma announced that they’d nearly arrived at the coordinates Ossanlin had specified.  As Myitt had mentioned, it had seemed a bad idea to have a fully-armed Mark-III Dome Ship drop in on top of a bunch of rebels that had just witnessed their base being destroyed and friends and compatriots murdered by a fleet of Andalite ships.  These coordinates should be outside of the rebellion’s sensors warning range.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin nods as Enorryma informs him of the impending arrival.  <Good, drop from Z-Space.  Kerrin, give me a whole-ship feed.>

The Command-Warrior nods and dials up the ship comms.

<Attention Dome Ship Tyrennian, this is Prince Ossanlin-Rethin-Sephirel.  We will be dropping from Z-Space momentarily at the pre-determined coordinates for dispatch of an emissary to the first group of surviving rebellion members.  I need everyone at-station and ready to respond to any situation.>  He pauses before continuing.  <Command-Warrior Claxter, Command-Warrior Serid, Myitt One-Nine-Five, and Keslin Five-Seven-Four, please rendezvous with me in the irregular Docking Hangar in fifteen standard minutes.  Warrior Eleric, prepare Lightning-Strike for a patrol deployment.  Thank-you.>

He signals Kerrin to close the channel and nods to Enorryma.  <You have the command, Prince-Commander.  Don’t take aggressive actions unless absolutely necessary.>  He turns to leave the bridge before pausing and looking back with his stalk-eyes.  <Although I would appreciate it if you kept an eye or two on my back for me.>  He smiles before trotting off toward the hangars.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Eleric, taking a moment to relax and watch the sunsets in the Dome, raises his eyebrows at the ship-wide announcement.  He takes out his private communicator and quick-dials his squad-mates.  <Lightning-Strike, prepare for deployment, one quarter.>  He makes his way quickly down to the hangars and to his quick-launch bay, giving his Tail Fighter a good going-over in preparation for deployment.  Nothing really ever felt so natural to him as his interactions with his fighter.  It was a relationship in many ways...you take care of her, she takes care of you.  There's an inherent trust between Andalite and machine that Eleric has always found comforting, though a Tail-Fighter couldn't offer the same kind of company that a female could.  And that starts his mind on Efaen again.  She had so much potential, and her morphing was so beautiful...and that wasn't to mention her own Andalite form.  She was actually quite comely, if only she could get over that bothersome self-loathing...

[Chad32]

After claxter finished his arm exercises, he had gone back to the simulator room and booted up a bridge simulation. He wanted to see the bridge controls again, and continue familiarizing himself with them. He didn't do much of significance after that. Took a walk, checked his Tail Fighter, organize his space a bit. Eventually he heard the summons, and after taking a feed and drink, making sure his shredder was functioning properly, he headed to the irregular docking hangar. Hopefully he wouldn't have to use it, but he figured if he and Serid were going down, it was as Ossanlin's bodyguards.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Aetheas heard the announcement and groaned, looking up from his reading regarding the Rebellion. Of course they were going to rub it in his face that they were going on another mission without him. Being an aristh would be frustrating enough, but his allergy to the morphing technology all but insured that he'd be stuck on the ship until he'd been promoted a couple of times.

He closed the file he'd had open and left his tiny quarters. His eyes were beginning to hurt anyway. With a look around, he sighed and set off towards the hangar. He'd at least like to see the team off.

[Chad32]

Claxter saw Aetheas on his way to the hanger. <Hello Aetheas. Did you have a good time with the rebels? You think socializing more was a good idea?> He said as he kept walking. He was curious about what Illim and Terenia may have said to him, but was more concerned that he may not have enjoyed it and decided not to do it anymore.

[Shenmue654]

Keshin awoke to Ossanlin's announcement mid-speech blearily, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. Andalite quarters were rather obviously not designed for bipeds. <We sleep inside the Dome on the grass next time. Your dreams were very strange.>

<Agreed, Kess. Lemme get a look around first.>

Keshin rescinded control and allowed Joanne to orient herself. It was weird, the way they did things. She suspected even most of the rebels didn't switch the controlling mind regularly, but for them it made sense. Since Joanne did most of the fighting, they had to be able to change who was using the body without any delay and so they had to keep in practice. According to Keshin, long periods of time without control led to considerable disorientation normally when the host regained it.

Joanne tried to remember what Ossanlin had said, wandering out of the quarters. Did the announcement mean them? It didn't sound like it ---he had mentioned Myitt by name, but he'd confined them to the Dome and the crew quarters. Joanne rubbed her eyes, glancing down the hall for signs of the others. She'd have to ask one of the rebels.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

<Hello, Claxter,> Aetheas says, acknowledging the Command Warrior with a nod of the stalk eye. He falls into step beside him. <Socializing with the rebels was...> he pauses, searching for a word, <...interesting. They are not quite what I expected. Are all aliens so...> He pauses again, <...forward?>

[Chad32]

<I'm afraid I don't have a lot of experience talking to different groups, but aliens can be quite different from us culturally. I'm glad they were at least somewhat forward. What did you talk about?>

[Estelore]

Norry listens to the summons list. She feels a twinge in her upper chest, a sharp stab, and winces.

<You have the command, Prince-Commander.  Don’t take aggressive actions unless absolutely necessary.>

Enorryma nods confirmation, swiveling her stalk eyes toward Ossanlin to watch his exit. The stabbing pain travels up the sides of her neck and explodes in a blistering burst of heat-light-noise-pain inside her head, and ripples down all her limbs like half a dozen bolts of lightning.

In an instant, she's overwhelmed with a memory from nearly a decade ago, a tail-fighter ****pit during a dogfight near the edge of an obscure solar system. The fuselage of her wingman's ship shattered in an instant by debris from a not-distant-enough comet. A flash of shredder light off ice, stone, fluorescing frozen gases. Collision. Fragments of ship and Andalite, crystalline in the void, swept up in the comet's passing gravity, and now a permanent part of its coda. All in seconds and half-seconds. All without any conscious hand directing it, just the hideous unmeaningful cruelty of chance, physics, wrong place and wrong time. Should have been me.

She feels her hearts clutch simultaneously, and she stumbles. Recovers. Shakes herself like casting off water from her fur. Withdrawal has never felt like THAT. She slips a stim tablet from her utilikit, cracks it in half- just to take the edge off, set the world back in order, of course- and furtively crunches the half-tab under a forehoof. The radiant pain seems to step back a few paces.
She can think again, between breaths.

<Although I would appreciate it if you kept an eye or two on my back for me.> He's gone from the bridge before Enorryma remembers fully where she is again, and finishes nodding her reception of his request.

The bolt of heat strikes again, fierce and angry, like the last one was merely a warning shot across her bow.

He's gone from the bridge, which means he doesn't notice how her normally military-crisp posture starts to droop suddenly,

or how her legs buckle under her as she collapses onto her side,

or how all four eyes roll back, their lids fluttering saccadically.

She isn't conscious when the medic is called.

[Terenia]

Chris O'Hearn has spent the better part of the day sleeping, while Keslin waits impatiently for the human's body to recharge. The Yeerk spends many of the hours going over his own and his host's memories of the interactions on the ship so far. He steers clear of memories of Tess' delivery, or the death of their son, or even the survival of their other son, who seems to be doing well. All of those personal considerations would make his role as leader more difficult.

For the many years that Keslin had served as leaders of the pirates he had refused to allow himself to get too close to Tess, despite Chris' own relationship with her. Rejoining Reven's rebellion had allowed Keslin to relax, to find stability, and to truly become a part of Tess' life, intimately. When they had decided to start a family, they had known there were risks, but now Keslin is cursing himself for allowing himself to become complacent. The risks were there, but they had seemed so distant, until that night the Andalites had attacked.

Never would have expected it from them, Keslin berates himself.

Dimly, Keslin is aware of Ossanlin's thought-speech. Chris' consciousness stirs slightly in response, and Keslin prods it further.

<<Come on, Chris,>> Keslin sighs. <<You've gotten more sleep than you probably will for awhile. We have business to attend to.>>

He isn't allowing himself to get his hopes up. This rendezvous spot should be where the better part of their medical staff was located, along with any patients that had survived and a few stragglers assigned to that particular division. Should be. Assuming they hadn't been shot down during the escape, and had managed to survive the intervening weeks.

Pushing himself up from the bed, Keslin ignores Chris' groggy protest and moves carefully through the room. Tess is still asleep, he notes with some relief. She deserves it, he thinks to himself, pausing to brush back a strand of her vivid pink hair.

He stops again at the small, makeshift cradle, holding his son. "James," he whispers. His hands are trembling too badly to grant him the confidence to pick the child up. Instead, he just watches the infant for a long moment, swallowing back a wave of bitter emotion.

Not now, he commands himself, straightening. He goes over to the facilities and cleans himself up best he can.

<<It's alright, man,>> Chris comments, slowly coming out of his sleepy stupor. <<I know. It sucks.>>

<<It does indeed,>> Keslin murmurs. <<But we do not have time to grieve, or to celebrate. We must continue moving forward.>>

By the time Keslin makes his way to the indicated Docking Hangar Chris is fully awake, and more well-rested than he has been in awhile. He steps into the hangar and looks around cautiously.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Claxter's stalk eyes sweep the area as he and Claxter step into the hangar bay. <Reputations, and how they are influenced,> he allows generously. <The Rebel Terenia seems quite insightful.> He turns and trots towards the Lightning Strike, giving Eleric only a nod acknowledging his rank as he approaches. The pilot is neither someone Aetheas knows well, nor someone he has any desire to know well. So many Andalites on this ship, how is he supposed to keep track of them all? The only reason he knows Claxter is because he's been assigned as his training instructor.

He comes to a stop some distance away from the ship and stands, watching the team assemble.