Time is such a fragile
thing.
The old learn this, but by
then it is far too late to
stop its cracks.
Wreckage of the Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The rumbling of the tear in time rippled as it flared again, this time collapsing back in upon itself, the energies cascading over Katz as it reversed what it had done, causing the young fighter pilot to collapse into the sand, gasping for air.
Kyr sprinted over before Galadriel could restrain him. The Doctor wrestling Katz over to examine him.
Katz coughed, his eyes flicking open as he scrambled back, staring in shock towards the ruined starship, pulling himself up into a ball shaking. "What the hell was that?"
"The technical description is 'quantum anomaly causing cellular regression,'" Rikard looked at Katz's blank expression from where he lay in the sand and uttered a short bark of a laugh, "for those of us with only a pre-school diploma in finger-painting… that was time being sick. I guess it didn't like what it ate and tried to spit it out, nê?"
Tagria backed up a few steps, her feathers ruffling as she stared towards the wreckage, a hissing noise emitting from her throat. She backed away, her broad feet helping her on the shifting sands.
"This place is…" she looked about her. "I know of this place, it is the unholy lands!"
"We have a word, 'vrot'," Rikard sat up resting a hand against his temple, "wonderful observation though, what is this place called?"
"Krasnïer," Tagria replied as she rounded looking warily across the dunes. "It is written about in Gorean lore."
"And?" Rikard pressed.
"I am not a Gorean," Tagria snapped her beak at him. "I am not privy to the sacred texts, only the Gorean priestesses are. I simply know that this place is wrong, it is evil. A place where time died."
"Temporal fissures," Galadriel murmured walking closer to the wreckage of the Lex Talionis. "Wouldn't that create a paradox?"
"They are paradoxes," Rikard muttered dismissively. "In your limited understanding of reality. They also aren't anything nearly so mundane." He pushed himself to his feet, walking up to join her at the ship. "You can't break time, but it is malleable, you can stop it, manipulate it, be one in it… but reverse it, that's just not… possible."
"You saw what I saw," Galadriel said as she pointed towards Katz.
"What I saw was a physical reversion," Rikard crossed his arms, walking too and fro as he fixed his gaze upon the ruined derelict. "He was still our beloved china, his memories were intact. That doesn't mean it was a temporal inversion, rather something physiological…"
"And the ship?" Galadriel pointed towards the section of the ships hull that was once again blackened and charred.
"Matter regeneration?" Rikard offered, knowing that it was a weak answer. "This place is," his fingers returned to his temple as he sagged a little again. "We need to hurry… I can't make out anything here. This… thing, what ever it is, is clouding my sight."
Galadriel looked about her, and down at Katz who was fumbling with a pack of cigarettes he had pulled from the pocket of his cargo pants, visibly shaking as he lit it. He stared up at her, squinting his eyes against the sun's glare as he shook his head.
"We should get out of here, this is a bad idea," he said.
Galadriel stared up at the ship again, looking back at Katz. "Give me the pistol. I'll go in alone."
"Don't be stupid," Rikard snarled. "No one is going anywhere alone, not in there."
"He's right," Katz agreed. "If we go, we should all go, no splitting up. There's no telling what can go wrong." He sucked on his cigarette as he stood a thumb running back along the stubble on his jaw.
"I am glad I have the simian's vote," Rikard stated. "Though I don't know if having it really helps me or not. If we're to get into this ship, we're going to have to be careful. It's vertical, and given all the modifications Lex did to himself before the crash, traversing it will be difficult at best."
"We can go in through the hull," Galadriel said, reaching out to tap a section of the hull plating, watching as the dead nanites fell away. "Work our way down once we penetrate the secondary hull."
Bridge - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The shard of crystal was carefully wrapped in its hand, clenched tightly against any possibility that it could be lost or stolen. Precious to a being that was neither alive, nor dead. Instead an amalgamation of the past, with the present and the future, fused together with metal and malfunctioning primary coding.
A secondary processing core had initiated upon the destruction of its main processor. Reinitializing the primary backup drives located in its central torso, its wireless LAN attempting to reconnect to the Lex Talionis primary computer, only to discover that there was no primary computer, and it was alone.
The destruction of the Mech's head had left it bereft of sight. Surviving the crash of the Lex Talionis purely by the benefit of its hardened endoskeleton, but it hadn't survived the ordeal unscathed. The damage to a number of primary and secondary systems had forced the Mech to retreat to the inner sanctum of the former warship, using its tactile senses and stored schematics of the ship to navigate through the twisted wreckage. It had nearly failed in its endeavour, were it not for the assistance of the only other to survive the crash.
Across from the headless torso, the Parkins Industrial Mech flexed its servos, standing guard over the only sentient portion of the Lex Talionis that remained. A guide dog that watched over its master as they both returned to the shattered computer core.
The only thing that had remained was the shard of crystal that had been embedded in a bulkhead, precarious above the shattered observation windows that looked out over the sand blasted desert. It had taken monumental effort to recover it.
PIM up-linked with the headless Mech, relaying an image of the approaching humans and Gorean. Appearing from nothing using some form of Propylon device.
The other, that shared the trinary link of their make-shift network stirred, inputting his own commands, causing the PIM to leap into action, clambering its way back up into the ship, and slinking into the shadows to bring death.
The Headless Mech settled in to watch and wait, its other hand returning to work on repairing its head from parts it had scavenged, using its tactile senses to guide it.
Wreckage of the Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The ship was a mess, the hull was perpendicular to the plane of gravity meaning that in order to get anywhere they were required to climb. Ahead of them was a decent that was made all the more hazardous by the debris and wreckage everywhere.
Katz led the way, more sure footed than the others; he scaled down bulkheads, his hands wrapped in cloth to avoid being cut by jagged pieces of metal. Without safety ropes or harnesses, there had been a couple of times when they had come close to utter disaster. Only averted by the timely interference of Rikard, wielding his formidable telekinesis to steady whoever was about to fall.
That irritated Katz, knowing that his life was in the hands of a sociopathic megalomaniac who often took delight in random acts of senseless brutality. Katz ensured that he stayed close to Kyr, offering the small doctor help to ensure that he didn't have an opportunity to rely on Rikard's assistance.
Trust wasn't something the survivors had in abundance. There was little reason for them to trust each other. Katz, Kyr and Galadriel were stranded with a Gorean that viewed them as a packed lunch, and Rikard.
"How much further?" Katz called out irritably.
"Another two hundred meters and we should be near to the flight lockers," Galadriel called down. "We're somewhere on the lower decks of the ship, near to the flight deck. If we're lucky there will be a long range shuttle or something with an FTL-comm. array."
"There's nothing like that on Lex," Rikard called down from higher above. "We're wasting our time going down, we should be heading up to the main communications centre and trying the primary array…"
"With what power?" Katz snapped back up at him. "In case you missed it, the entire engineering section of the ship was blown off by your Amsus Predators. And that includes the main generators."
"Ag, and your idea to descend to the flight decks where there most certainly isn't anything that can help us is so much better?" Rikard bit back. "My god your deductive reasoning leaves a lot to be desired china, it is astounding you ever survived into adulthood as mentally stunted as you are…"
Katz seethed, "shut up, or I'll blow a hole in your head…"
"Wonderful idea, waste a bullet on shooting me…" Rikard rolled his eyes as he negotiated a treacherous section of collapsed bulkheads. "we all know how effective that would be, nê?."
"It would, at least, buy me a few minutes without the sound of your voice," Katz rumbled. "G, can you tell him to shut up?"
Galadriel rolled her eyes as she shimmied around a railing that was supporting her weight. Hopping down, off of it and onto the wall that held the flight locker door. "I'm just going to keep my mouth shut till you two stop your pissing contest and start focusing on the fact that we're all equally screwed here."
Kyr bounded past Katz next, dexterously dropping down next to Galadriel. Looking up at them, "I'm with Galadriel on this one; we all need some peace and quiet."
"He's a mass murderer," Katz snarled angrily.
"Now now," Rikard replied smiling sardonically, "I should start by saying I hate the fact that everyone thinks I'm a murderer. Now while some may view these deaths as a crime, I view it as aesthetic-statements on the world. After all, I do only kill the very annoying."
Katz turned and stared at Galadriel and extended his hand, "why exactly did we have to bring him along?"
Galadriel ignored them, as she wrestled with the hatch, pulling it open and stepping back as it clanged open, back on its hinges. Looking down into the overturned mess of the flight locker. Over turned berths that had never been used, drawers that had fallen open in the crash spilling equipment all over the place.
"Shut up will you?" She demanded, lowering herself down, and dropping into the room, picking her way along the berth, crouching down to sift through the equipment, yanking back triumphantly, a sealed case in her hands. "If we're lucky…"
Flipping the catches open, she pulled open the box of TAC-links, nodding to herself. "We're connected again." She closed the case and passed it up to Kyr. "Looks like the Kardiacs had time to equip the locker before they all died."
Katz took the case of TAC-links, opening them and quickly configuring them into an ad-hoc communications network, distributing one each to the other survivors.
Rikard looked in disdain at the device before he clipped it to his belt, "how horribly mundane." He complained.
Tagria said nothing, having had the hardest time descending through the wreckage due to her size, she took the small TAC-link without complaint, slipping it into her feathers and making it vanish.
"Flight suits," Galadriel called up, "thankfully. Jackets and such." She held up one of the leather suits, checking its size against her frame, before pulling on the pants and slipping the jacket on.
"Any food?" Kyr inquired as he looked down.
"Lex Talionis didn't carry food," Rikard murmured as he leaned a little still standing on the railing looking down into the depths of the Lex's bow. "Though there might be supplies in the Amsus barracks…"
"I was going to ask you about that," Katz said as he took one of the jackets Galadriel tossed up to him. Pulling it on and popping the TAC-link into the arm pocket where it belonged.
"About the Amsus?" Rikard inquired, "I don't actually know. Our host wasn't exactly the most forthcoming in discussing his plans. I merely know that he had Amsus, and that they were all loaded onto the secondary ship…"
"The one with the Propylon drive," Galadriel called up from below, handing another case up.
"Yes that one," Rikard responded. "I am afraid I don't know more than that." He looked in interest as Kyr opened the case and produced a couple of woollen sweaters. Extending his hand to telekinetically draw one up to him. "We can't waste time down here. There's nothing but rubbish… if you want a transceiver we need to go back up."
Katz shook his head, drawing out a pair of sunglasses from the TAC-link case, checking the HUD display was configured, tucking them away as well. "Any weapons down there?" he called.
"Nothing per-se. Just a plasma torch," Galadriel hauled herself up and out, pulling the tool out of her pocket. "Won't do much at range, but up close…"
"Right," Katz responded closing the case as he watched her get to her feet. "So do we continue down?"
Rikard threw up his hands, "sure, ignore the man with an IQ off the measurable scale, and listen to the mompie…"
Galadriel nodded, "if we have any hope of finding a generator to run Rikard's FTL Comm, then we will find it in the hangar deck. Lex was building drones down there. They had to be powered by something, and since they were small, it means their power supply will be portable."
Rikard looked impressed, "well…"
Katz turned back to Rikard, "not a bad plan for an idiot eh mister IQ off the scale?"
"Oh, I don't know," Rikard said with a shrug, "it would have been had Lex not launched all of his drones after that lovely little ship of yours. If you want a portable generator, then you are better off with one of the escape pods…" he smiled, "and guess where they are, nê?"
Everyone's eyes looked upwards.
Camp - Lex Talionis - Krasnïer - Gorean Territory
~~*~~
The sounds of the dead ship kept her awake. The wind that whistled through the shattered superstructure, the sand that trickled through the cracks and the occasional ringing of metal on metal as debris fell from precarious perches deeper into the bowels of the ship.
Galadriel sat up, pulling the flight jacket closer around her. Katz was curled up with Kyr, the pair of them snoring lightly while Tagria, a mound of feathers, slumbered with a watchful eye open.
They'd elected to take shifts when they'd agreed to camp on the long climb up towards the FTL transceiver. Keeping a watch in case of more temporal rifts, or any of the myriad of dangers that lurked in the shadows of the derelict battleship. And in those hours, just before the dawn, it was Rikard's turn.
She didn't see him immediately, but with the moon's brilliant light, she was able to pick out a shadow wrapped in the borrowed sweater, sitting out on the edge of what had been a cargo railing, staring out of the twisted wreckage towards the horizon where the sun would rise.
Knowing that she should be sleeping, she got up and crossed to him, careful not to step on any of the weakened bulkheads that might give way and plunge her to her death somewhere far below. Taking a moment to steady herself on the slippery cargo railing as she crouched down beside him.
Beyond them, in the clear night's sky, blue watery balls of light erupted and then imploded in upon themselves as a time-storm raged on the horizon. It was a beautiful spectacle of raw power.
"What is it?" She asked looking tensely at his pensive face and eyes that weren't watching the sky.
"Hush my darling, don't fear my darling, the lion sleeps tonight," he murmured settling deeper into the heavy woollen sweater.
"What?" she asked confused.
"A very old song," Rikard said. "It felt appropriate. It goes… In the jungle, the mighty jungle the Lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the quiet jungle, the lion sleeps tonight… A-weeee-eo-a-weom-mum-away…" He chuckled at her incredulous expression. "Why so surprised?"
"You, singing," Galadriel said as she sat down beside him, snuggling in against his chest. "You aren't the kind of man with a song in your heart."
He opened the zipper of the sweater, and pulled it around her to keep her warm against the chill desert night air, resting his bearded chin on her shoulder, falling silent again. The breathing steadying as they stared out at nothing.
"I used to like music," Rikard admitted. "It was a science, a window into the soul. The kinds of music a person liked, that told you who they were, what they had experienced, what they identified with. And I like that kind of art."
Galadriel's fingers ran along the edge of his sleeve, touching the stitching underneath the sweater. "Is it all about manipulation with you? Everything you like is about how to control a person, how to use their weaknesses and fears against them…"
"Everyone is broken," Rikard answered her. "look at our companions. The ravenous slave who swims in the guilt of disobeying her masters… reeking of failure. The Jintoe who tries to clothe himself, but nothing can hide the shattered look of a whore in his eyes, the look of someone who has given away the best part of themselves a long time ago, and now has nothing left to give. And the Doctor…" Rikard's eyes darkened as he looked back into the shadows to where they slumbered.
"Go on?" Galadriel pressed.
"A Kaynin, I created them… and yet they have evolved so far… nê?" He smiled thinly, "you know I had a pet beagle named Patches? The progenitor of their entire race was called Patches, beautiful disposition, so playful…"
"What happened?" Galadriel asked.
"I dissected her, I needed to extract genetic material and it was the most efficient way to do so." Rikard wrapped his arms around her a little tighter. "There is something of Patches in all of her bastard off-spring. Playful and naïve, lost in the great big universe that is out to consume them. Though the mating thing… I don't understand why he would seek to mate with… the rooineck."
"Why do you call him that?" Galadriel asked. "What does it mean?"
"Redneck," Rikard replied. "Country bumpkin in good ol'US of A bastardized English that's the norm on so many worlds. China is from Karin, and little more than another farm boy lost in a city, driven into a life of painting his face and selling his body… Ag, sies… disgusting."
"Love happens…" Galadriel said.
"Kak," Rikard snorted. "That is like believing that Michelangelo dropped a big rock and it just happened to break into the statue of David… No, trust me the old pervert spent too much time fondling the muse for it to be an accident."
"How are you broken?" She asked.
Rikard looked at her, "the question you should be asking is why you aren't broken? Trust me, it is quite a perplexing riddle. And usually I am quite good at unravelling the complexities of the human enigma."
"Darien Taine?" Galadriel asked.
"A particularly frustrating puzzle, I'll admit that." Rikard shook his head, "however I enjoy a good game of wits. And while he rushes to unravel the complexities behind my goals, I am using that time to understand him… The problem is I have an advantage. You see Darien Taine is dying… And I know the cause… but I don't understand the pattern of infection. I guess that is my fatal flaw, that I am not omniscient…" he looked away bitterly. "I will change that…"
"How?" Galadriel asked.
"Ahh, clever in the simplicity of it," Rikard squeezed her a little. "I am flawed, but far from stupid… speaking of rocks that fall into masterpieces… you seem to be the one exception to that rule. Who would have thought that random and senseless procreation with reckless abandon would yield such a rare and beautiful thing?"
"Evolution is no joke…" Galadriel began.
"No joke?" Rikard blinked at her. "Maybe once, when we were all huddled in tents around two rivers in the cradle of life, where one child in ten survives past childhood to grow up into an adult… But now? Here today? When the average age of a grandmother in a Martian housing project is Twenty-Eight? Seems to me evolution is nothing but a joke. Take Katz for example, he is a product of his environment; a whore child of a whore… is that evolution? Because I am glad that I am not a part of that muddy…writhing pool of proto-matter called a gene pool."
"I'll remind you of this conversation the next time you want sex," Galadriel smiled. "Your belief system is so skewed, I think that is where you are broken. Someone once told you that you were the pinnacle of evolution, but you aren't. You are the aberration, not me. Bits were placed in a test tube, and shaken up… like some kind of human cocktail, they poured you out, set fire to you and presented you to the world. And you have burned ever since."
"Shall I tell you a secret?" Rikard asked. "I am not the pinnacle of scientific evolution. I am only the first generation, your great Immortal Emperor was the second, and he in turn created the third… your precious Prince Edward. My human cocktails became your gods."
"And what about you? The father of God? Are they leaving you behind?" Galadriel's hands settled over Rikard's, tightening on them.
"Pity?" he spoke lightly into her ear, his lips brushing her lobes as he spoke. "I don't need your pity." I am the supreme ruler of…"
"Nothing," Galadriel answered. "This is your Empire." She nodded out at the sand as the first rays of the sun touched the dunes, exploding into beautiful hues of red and gold, as they reflected through the spheres of volatile time. "You are the master of a great castle of sand… and eventually the storm will come and wash it away."
"He that comes with the storm…" Rikard murmured, turning away.
"Where is that from?" Galadriel asked curiously.
Rikard picked up a piece of scorched gold plating, turning it over so that she could see the words etched upon it. The Templar's Edict, fallen from the golden hallway somewhere far above them.
She turned her eyes towards the lord of yesterday, the shadow that had never faded. Reading the lines on his face like a map of sin. The darkness in his eyes, in his heart, that consumed the light… and yet she could still feel the light in there. The golden hope of a man, irregardless of his origins and his ambitions.
She stayed silent as she watched him, watching the dawn of another day, of another sunrise on his unending life, his unending lie.