Krasnïer is a hell of our
ancestors creation,
never forget what it cost us.
Camp - Krasnïer System - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The former Chancellor of the Old Imperial Empire, Enarbrem Sul'Rikard lounged in comfort in his hammock, the heat was like a sauna and he felt every muscle begin to unwind. Months of captivity in the hands of a demented digital recreation of a long dead psychopath had taken its toll, but he was content to let that stress simply melt away, The Lex Talionis was destroyed, and with it any vestige of Kardiac's dementia.
He sighed blissfully as he felt her fingers on his scalp. He knew that it was inevitable, that she would come to him at some point. Once the fact that they were marooned upon an arid ball of sand somewhere in hostile territory without a means of escape had sunk in, she would forgive him. And he was enjoying her ministrations.
She had skilful fingers, stroking and kneading his scalp as she worked her way down the back of his neck, a cooling slave slipping over the fingers as she began to massage it in. Again Rikard realized that even in hell there were small things that made it heaven.
"You are an angel, bookie," he purred as more of the slave washed down over his forehead, her fingers sweeping in circles as they slipped down his cheekbones and over the stubble of his beard that he was allowing to re-grow.
No they only problem that remained on his mind was Taine and Peligia, again he was faced with a VonGrippen who knew the secret that he craved more than anything in existence. Of course there was still the key that was missing, and the fact that he didn't have the GN-3… but those problems seemed so minor. Rikard was a brilliant being; he could resolve anything given time.
He felt the knocking on his head, a popping sound that seemed so out of place to the massage. He shifted a bit in his hammock, rocking back and forth as the popping continued. Rikard shifted again, as one of her fingers began to dig a little around his nose.
"What are you doing poppet?" he asked, an eye cracking open and staring into the thorax of a large bug, its legs shifting again as its tail bobbed again, a gooey secretion flowing down it and onto Rikard's face…
The crack of thunder rang true and clear across the dunes, a sharp, acrid sizzling smell reaching Katz as he looked up from the cockpit of the escape shuttle, pushing down his sunglasses and glancing over at Doctor Kyr, "Rikard again?"
Kyr glanced back, sniffing the air and shaking his head, "smells like charbroiled bug…"
"It was trying to mate with his head," Lieutenant Galadriel said, cresting the dune carrying a canteen of water. Rikard had been gracious, tending to her wounds their first night, the semi-transcendent being knitting her battered body back together. She had borrowed Katz's shirt, belting it up with Kyr's belt, but there were still scars that she held, scars that weren't so easily masked, even though she appeared on the outside the only optimist in the camp.
"Great, now I have a mental image I didn't need," Katz grumbled slamming the panel closed on the shuttles comm. system. "It's no good; I have no idea how to turn this into a functioning FTL transceiver."
"Because you don't actually have anything you need for an FTL transceiver?" Kyr offered shielding his eyes from the sun, "I mean you can't just make one out of sand…"
"He has a point," Galadriel answered handing the doctor the canteen, "Excalibur's dropships were outfitted with relay drones, but Lex was still running old Imperial technology. This shuttle is three hundred plus years old, and…" she picked at the blackened and peeled paint, "you did cook it on the way down."
"Look we're not that bad off," Katz said mopping his head with a rag, staring up at the brilliant sun that was cooking the planet around them, "the shuttle can still fly, I could go up and take a look around the system. At least find us some water. For all we know there might be a settlement."
"Krasnïer's in Gorean space," Kyr reminded, "they'd be all too happy to rescue us and offer us a great high protein meal in the nearest processor camp."
"Shut up Doc," Katz snapped slamming the gull wing doors of the shuttle closed, marching back towards the escape pod and the tent that had been rigged around it to shelter them from the sun.
Kyr's face fell as he realized what he'd said, looking at Galadriel who was watching the young pilot stalk away, "I didn't mean to say that."
"He lost a lot when he lost Alessandro," Galadriel answered picking a place in the shade under the shuttles wing, leaning back on her elbows, "and the wound's still fresh."
"Bit like Darien is about loosing you," Kyr answered her closing the canteen slowly, "I know we haven't talked much since the crash, but I know Darien was relieved when you got a message through that you were okay."
"Darien's like that," Galadriel said, distantly, "I wish he was here…"
"Yeah," Kyr agreed, "him and a rescue party…"
"No," Galadriel said shrugging, "just whenever he sets foot on a planet it starts to rain. He's like a Taïrian rain charm."
Kyr flashed a grin, as he again looked out over the desolation of the sand blasted world. Krasnïer had little by the way of tourist attractions, and they weren't exactly close to the beach. Not that there was any water, or anything at all for that matter except, or course, sand, sand, and more sand.
Kyr's shoulders slumped a little as his grin faded, sparing a worried look up at Galadriel.
"We're gonna be rescued, right?" he asked uncertainly.
Galadriel pursed her lips consideringly. "What do we have? An Ace Pilot, a doctor, a communications expert and a megalomaniac with semi-godlike powers… I'd say our odds were pretty good."
"You're forgetting someone…" Kyr reminded pointedly.
Galadriel looked in the direction of the tent, beside which Lady Tagria was basking in the sun, the feathers atop her scaled hide ruffling as she breathed. A beautiful array of colours that shifted like a rainbow every time she moved, she stretched out her clawed hands, flexing them as she shifted upright to look across the sand at Galadriel.
"Why did she help us?" Galadriel asked cautiously.
"For food," Kyr answered. "She was ensuring that she had 'emergency provisions'."
"Now isn't that a lovely thought," Galadriel murmured her eyes hardening as she stared at the Lesser Gorean who returned her hard stare through a bird-like black eye that fixed upon them. "Katz has a gun, right?"
"Yes," Kyr nodded.
"Good, we may have to shoot her." Galadriel turned and opened the shuttle doors again, sliding into the pilots seat and scanning the controls, flipping the intra-system TAC-link, scrolling through the various channels trying to locate a signal.
"Still nothing?" Kyr asked leaning in the door beside her.
"We're not transmitting, but nothing else in the system is either," Galadriel bit her lip as she cocked an ear to listen to the pattern of static. "That doesn't mean there isn't anyone out there. I just don't know if it's safe to send a distress call, we could bring the Gorean down on our heads."
"There are no Gorean here," Rikard surprised both of them, as he walked up behind Kyr. "With the exception of our over-sized Christmas turkey, that is."
Kyr stepped to the side as Galadriel leaned on the console to look out at him, "how do you know there aren't?"
"How do you know you are breathing?" Rikard countered. "You're more intelligent than to question me about things I know."
"You have a proven track record for lying," Galadriel shifted in her seat. "So what else is in the system?"
Rikard folded his arms over the plain black tunic he wore despite the heat. Not a bead of sweat touching his immaculate skin. "There is life in the system, humanoid… and they're worried. But I can't tell you more than that, my senses are dulled here, there is something that…" he chewed his lip drawing distant. "Clouds everything. It is like reality isn't right here, like things are broken."
Galadriel's eyes swept over Rikard's face, reading the honesty there. He didn't seem to bother trying to hide anything as he spoke, too distracted as he murmured.
"So we don't know if they are hostile or not." Kyr sighed as he flopped down in the sand, resting his back against the shuttle's hull. "Can't you just snap your fingers and get out of this?"
"Ag man," Rikard focused, looking at the doctor. "I can do a great many things, but we," he gestured to himself. "Don't work exactly the same way. I can't travel at will."
"Matty can," Kyr muttered. "I prefer my god, to you. At least he's cheerful."
"Idiot," Rikard rolled his eyes, turning back to Galadriel. "We need a Hyperspace transceiver."
"And you can get us one?" Galadriel inquired.
Rikard chewed his lip, looking towards the horizon. "There is one place on this planet where we might find one. Though it might be a difficult journey."
"Where?" Kyr asked sitting upright.
"He's talking about going back to the Lex Talionis crash site," Galadriel answered shaking her head. "I can think of at least a dozen reasons why that would be a bad idea."
Rikard tilted his head up, unfolding his arms as he reached into his tunic and pulled out his glasses. He leaned up to the cockpit window to look over the radio. "Well you have a choice, risk contacting the unknowns in this system, or trying to get a message through to Darien who has a set of Propylons. Personally I think it's worth the risk."
"You would," Galadriel frowned. "We should talk to Katz."
Rikard rolled his eyes, "our fate is in the hands of a rooineck, an intellectual giant named Alvin Katz. The one man so ignorant that every event in his life comes as a surprise."
HMS T'zaht - Silent Running - Outer Krasnïer System - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Chuck rested in the pilot's seat at the front of the bridge, looking up through the cracked window of the bridge and out over the desolation of the Krasnïer system. Around him, much of the bridge had been disassembled, cables running too and from consoles as Hartley had attempted to bypass many of the damaged systems. But it was proving to no avail, the damage done by the Lex Talionis drones had torn the T'zaht to shreds.
His immediate concern was the single hunter-drone that was skimming through the system caught in the Lex Talionis Hyperspace bubble and dragged along with the T'zaht to the middle of god alone knew where. Now, like a predator, the two meter long drone was searching for its target, to finish the job its master had set it upon.
Sergeant Killborne was sitting at the weapons console, the defacto leader of Captain Hansen's dragoons who were helping as best they could to fix the damaged Osterberg.
She pivoted her seat to look over at Chuck, "I've got the drone on our scopes," her deep voice sounding tired, "he's searching the rings of one of the gas giants."
"He's covering a lot of ground, eh?" Chuck observed as he looked at the flickering sensor displays that showed the real-time RADAR and LADAR patterns. Displaying the rapidly moving drone that was skimming the broad elliptical ring of debris around the furthest gas giant.
"Polian enhanced engines," Killborne replied as she reached for her coffee mug. "They can out run us, and what ever power source he's equipped with, seems to sustain him…"
"Do we have anything on him?" Chuck asked.
"Well our gun cameras registered a hit on him when we were escaping from the Lex's gravity well during the crash, serious enough to cause him problems in his right turnout. But I can't say how bad he's damaged without a visual inspection."
"And to get that," Chuck murmured, "we'd have to put ourselves under his guns. Given the state of our shields, engines, and just about everything else on this ship. I don't much relish the thought of another dust up with the drone."
He scratched at the stubble on his chin, blinking tiredly. He hadn't had much sleep, not when he was being mercilessly hunted by a machine that required no sleep to kill him.
The engineering console began to flash and trill alerts as across the bridge a console jerry-rigged with about a dozen cables hissed and sparked as it overloaded, a cascade of crackling energy spat its path across the console. Lights dimmed as other consoles flickered and shut down. The smell of ozone and smoke filling the bridge.
"Damn it!" Chuck cursed standing up from the now dead helm, watching all the instruments go dark around him. He had enough time to turn to Killborne before the overhead lights went out and the ship was plunged into darkness.
"Hartley!" He bellowed back through the connecting corridor.
Hartley cursed as he wrenched himself out of the access panel, as the bridge emergency lighting blinked to life, everything lit by an abnormally clear harsh light that was out of place on the usually soft lit bridge.
The T'zaht's chief engineer was clear-eyed, short, sinewy teenager with a shaggy mop of red hair under a grubby back-to-front ball cap and an unwashed look about him-both by necessity and by design.
He looked at Chuck, throwing his hands up into the air, "I give up, this ships toasted, beaten in more farkin' ways than I can put back together… and she's the most stubborn piece of crap…" he kicked a bulk head furiously, "I've ever farkin' seen!"
"You should ask it nicely," Killborne said as she stared with a dead-pan expression at the stressed out engineer, standing from her now useless console. She was a good foot shorter than Hartley, with a large mouth, cropped, dyed-black hair, and what some might have termed a cherub-like cuteness about her.
"Nicely?" Hartley blinked at her. "Sorry, I didn't know you were so… in tune with machines. They teach you to commune with your hair dryer in boot camp?"
"Cut it out," Chuck ordered. "we need power."
"Yeah, and I need a cold beer," Hartley snapped, kicking open a panel as he knelt, setting to work replacing smouldering relays that had been unable to handle the power-load.
Camp - Krasnïer System - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
Katz was sitting on the edge of the escape pod as the trio approached him.
Rikard stood to one side, looking dark and pensive as he stared across the sand at the young man that was the senior officer of the group. He flicked his eyes over to Galadriel, urging her on with a glance to propose his idea.
Galadriel rolled her eyes as she folded her arms, "we need to check out the wreckage of the ship. There might be things we can salvage, supplies parts, maybe a transceiver..."
Katz squinted up at her, "are you nuts? The ship fell from orbit, it'd be a burned out shell at best. Nothing survives re-entry at that kind of velocity. Besides, if anything did survive, who's to say it isn't dangerous? Lex wasn't exactly the safest place to begin with, and I don't know if I want to meet anything that could survive a crash like that."
"And, with all the reasoning of a pre-pubescent monkey, china here states the obvious," Rikard sniffed as he stared at the young pilot.
"Curiosity killed the cat," Katz sniffed.
"Nonsense," Rikard shot back. "Three thousand volts of electricity killed the Katz, if you would care to see a demonstration…" the air crackled as a flicker of electricity snaked its way up Rikard's arm.
"Enough Rikard," Galadriel snapped. "If we have any hope of getting out of here, we're going to have to take some risks. Rikard is right; Lex is probably our only chance of getting the things we need."
Katz shook his head firmly, "I'm in charge here, and we're not going anywhere near that thing. Every time I mess with a Kardiac ship something bad happens, I'd rather risk using the TAC than tempting fate again."
Tagria uncoiled her self from her slumber, lifting herself upright as she pulled a canteen from her blankets, her clawed hands unscrewing it and tilting it upright as everyone watched the single drop of water spill out and onto the hot sand.
"And," she hissed, her tongue running over her bill. "how do you intend to provide water, great leader?"
Katz stared at each of them facing him, before he sighed and stood up, adjusting the pulse pistol in its holster, drawing it and handing it over to Kyr. "The shuttle can only fit two of us. Galadriel knows what communications equipment we need, and I am the only one who knows how to fly a ship. That leaves you, doctor, to watch these two."
"You should take the gun," Rikard said calmly.
"I'm not leaving Kyr here unarmed," Katz fired back.
"China," Rikard said flatly, looking evenly at Katz, "you really are the intellectual equivalent of an amoeba aren't you? Doctor if you would be so kind as to remind Katz of what happened the last time you tried to shoot me with one of those pistols?"
Kyr shrugged as he handed the gun back to Katz, "he's right. It's useless on him, and I don't know if I can take down a Gorean with it."
Lady Tagria bared her teeth, a noise rasping out of her throat that resembled laughter. "It would be difficult for you. I can give you my word, Captain, that I won't eat your mate until you return…"
"Ag, sies, man," Rikard blinked a moment in astonishment before he rolled his eyes. "You're sleeping with him?" he pointed at Kyr. "I didn't create the Kaynin for a moffie like you…"
Kyr took a sharp step backwards, baring his own teeth as a low growl emitted from his throat.
"Oh stop that," Rikard bit out. "I don't care what you do, I was just surprised that you'd let him take advantage of you like that…"
Galadriel cleared her throat. "I want your word Rikard, nothing will happen to Kyr until I get back."
"Because my word is, as you so delicately put it before, so dependable, nê?" Rikard smirked at her.
"Because if you want your mate to continue to let you take advantage, then you'll honour it." Galadriel looked at Katz, who was equally as surprised as Rikard had been at the first revelation. "We need to go."
Katz sighed as he followed her, "this is all messed up, you know that right?"
Lady Tagria shook her head, "perhaps if you observed all of this from my perspective you would see exactly how that is true." She ruffled her feathers as she swept a hand into her pack, pulling out a box-like device. "However, I have an answer to our transportation issue."
"A port key," Rikard said his eye brows shooting up. "My lady, it appears as if you have committed a cardinal sin against your masters."
Tagria turned her neck to sweep Rikard with a withering gaze, "and what, prey tell, would you know of our sacred items?"
"Sacred," Rikard snorted. He looked at the group and gestured, "it's a micro-Propylon system. I wasn't aware that the Gorean permitted underlings to use these. From what I know of your sacred texts, it is a crime to even know of their existence."
Tagria stared at Rikard, choosing her words before answering. "I am privileged amongst my kind. As you must be, as an outsider, to also possess this knowledge."
"I am very resourceful," Rikard dismissed. "Does it work?"
"It does," she answered him, depressing the device, watching as it separated into five separate pieces, each floating into a precise ring around her. She held the main box in her hands, fiddling with the complex pattern, her claws working the device as she set the controls. Noting that Rikard was watching her actions with rabid curiosity.
"You must all be within the ring," she commanded looking up. "The journey will be…"
"We're all familiar with Propylon travel," Rikard returned stepping into the ring.
Katz followed next, returning his pistol to its holster as he stared cautiously over at Tagria. "Could that get us off this planet?"
"It is too limited," Rikard answered for her. "Best it can do is intra-system hops. Though with a little time and the right parts I might be able to boost it…"
"If you lay a finger on it I will kill you," Tagria warned.
"Death really isn't the threat it used to be," Rikard muttered. "I mean technically it's my turn at the resurrection pool."
Galadriel and Kyr entered the ring as Tagria finished calibrating the main stone, looking up as they flashed, travelling hundred of miles in the blink of an eye to stand in the lee of a shattered wreck half buried in the sand.
The blackened remains of the Lex Talionis towered above them, burned and charred. The aft section gone and the bow buried almost vertically into the sand. It was a stricken skeletal hand, straining upwards at the heavens, like the solitary middle finger of a fallen angel raised in defiance of God.
Katz stepped back as the port key reassembled in Tagria's hand. His jaw falling open as he looked at the wreck. His mouth working as he tried to speak, overwhelmed in a way that could only be explained by the fact that he was staring at something so wrong. A starship belonged in space, amongst the stars, not half buried in the sand.
Rikard sagged a little to the right, his hand flying to his temple as he sank into the sand. His knees buckled and folded under him as he crashed to the ground.
Kyr reacted on instinct, rushing to his side and immediately checking for a pulse. Galadriel knelt worriedly beside him as well, cradling his head as she brushed his hair back from his pained eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Rikard gritted his teeth as he forced his eyes open, looking up at her through the waves of nausea. "Ag, I… there is something horrifically wrong here…"
Katz leaned down, looking at Rikard and smiling tightly. "I hate to say I told you so, but…"
"Don't," Galadriel pleaded, looking up at Katz.
Katz rolled his eyes, walking away from them and climbing towards the wreckage of the Lex Talionis. His hand settling onto the butt of his pistol as he climbed resting a hand on the blackened hull plates of the ship, pulling back as a section of the hull turned to fine dust in his hands, a hole shedding from the armour plating as the nano-fluidic armour failed, collapsing into deactivated nanites into the sand.
He took a step backwards as he looked up at the wrecked ship, shaking his head. It was going to be exceptionally dangerous to attempt to go aboard such an unstable wreck. The fact that the nanites had managed to keep the bulk of the ship intact through the crash had been a miracle. But with the holed aft section, anything inside would have been cooked out. Their only chance at finding anything lay in the bow section, and that was buried deeply into the sand.
Shaking his head he made to turn, a rumbling catching his attention. He looked back, his eyes widening as a small sliver of light flared in front of him, it looked like a crumpled ball of aluminium foil rapidly unfolding, silent and brilliant. Flaring and flashing as it expanded. It expanding with a pulse, sweeping over the hull of the ship, the nanites shifting and coming alive as they reconfigured, the section of the hull realigning into pristine condition, half of an Imperial insignia resolving as Katz stared at it.
He took a step back again, as the ball flared again; doubling in side sweeping over him and in a flash it was gone. He blinked as his trousers fell down.
Rolling his eyes he yanked them back up surprised at how large they seemed suddenly. Turning back to look down at the camp he tired to call out to them.
"Hey!" his voice cracked.
Galadriel looked up, standing in surprise as she stared at him. Kyr turned at her reaction, and his jaw flopped open.
"What?" Katz's voice cracked again, and he reached up past the baggy tee-shirt he was wearing to grab his throat, feeling the smooth skin, and realizing that something was horribly wrong.
Galadriel approached him cautiously, "Katz?" she asked, hesitantly.
"What?" Katz demanded again in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.
Her eyes stared past him towards the repaired section of the hull, looking at him in wonder. "You… you don't look like yourself." She said in wonder, her hand reaching out to touch his youthful features of the child-like Katz. "You look twelve…"
"Oh come on!" Katz protested, "why does the weird shit always happen to me?"