Trianna Yang and Shey watched through the plastiglass window that separated the rest of the hall from the medical lab. There, Dr. Darling and Dr. Carothers both worked together above the Captain's prone body. Trianna frowned. "Hey, Doc, how's the Captain?"
Dr. Carothers lifted his basilisk glower and grabbed onto the hanging microcomm that connected him to the rest of the ship in his hermetically sealed emergency ward. He growled into it, and his voice emerged as grainy echoes from the PA system. "Damn it, Tri, I'm a doctor, not a soothsayer. It'll be how it is when it it is. Now get off my back."
Trianna turned to face Shey, frowning. "Great," she said, quietly. "Not only do we get an old souse, but he's also a Calvinist."
Shey frowned intently, watching the Captain under the heavy layers of blankets and breather masks. "John will pull through," she said. "If it was a serious bioweapon, I think he'd be dead by now." She pushed herself up right with the careless sensuality Sensurians were known for, her fingers darting through her crimson hair as she turned to face Trianna. "We still have a Swiffo ship to deal with. If they're beaming SO Radio back to the Zemturaga, then the Totality will have a battle fleet here - no matter how disrupted their internal organizations are."
Trianna sighed. She looked back at the glass as Dr. Darling swung a scanner apparatus down to start beaming energy waves into the Captain's head.
She touched her fingers to the glass, placing them where the Captain's cheek would be.
"Stay kicking in there John," she said, quietly as the doctors continued to work. Then she turned and she and Shey hurried down the corridor and towards the bridge. The
Excalibur
rumbled slightly as her RCS thrusters kicked on, bringing her prow to bear on the distant glimmering of Pluto. The entrance into the SOF was almost unnoticed - but it would soon bring them to that distant world and the mysterious
blip
they had received.
As it flew, John Tangent remained asleep.
And as he slept?
He dreamed.
***
John strode through the thick forest, brushing aside the leaves and branches, wincing as he felt the branches and bramble slapping against his body. He grunted, then burst forth, stumbling out into brilliant sunlight - brighter than he had expected from the dimness before. He stood on a grassy hill overlooking a grassy vale that itself was home to a burbling river that wound through the greenery, with no sign of human civilization anywhere to be seen. The vast curve of silver in the blue air, though, made it clear: He was on Earth, for no human world ever found or ever settled since humanity had cracked faster than light travel had something to match the immense size and position of Earth's titanic moon, Luna.
The sun was brilliant and warm, and as he looked down at himself, he saw he was quite naked, and had a few small scratches and scrapes on his body from his flight through the forest. He winced, touching one scratch, lifting his finger to examine his hurt finger, then muttered to himself. "This might not be a dream, John. Don't assume you haven't been kidnapped by some alien to some..." he frowned. "No. That's Earth. Earth trees. Earth moon. Earths sky. Earth air. But if I'm dreaming of Earth...why?"
He had never set foot on his ancestral homeworld. He had barely explored her cities and her wilderness in the simulacra pods back on Zeta colony. His life had been nothing but endless Luciferian ruins and the hardscrabbe subsistence carved out among them. He pursed his lips and started to walk down the vale, the breeze blowing along his naked backside like the comforting caress of a woman. He came to the river. Fish leaped from the river as they swam upstream, and the water looked pure and clean. He knelt beside the waters and looked down at himself.
John Tangent stared back, just as he had expected. His hand cupped his cheek and he shook his head slowly.
"Well, at least you're not transposed into another body," he said, quietly. There had been stranger events that had happened to United Nations star captains - traveling in the Space Opera Field had its risks, doubly so when one slipped deeper and deeper into the faster and faster tiers of travel. He was about to wash the sweat from his face when a scream split the air. It was high and female and coming from a small copse of trees. John sprang to his feet and looked down at the river and spied some rocks that would make a passage. He leaped from rock to rock, bounding across the narrow span and landed on the far side, pausing only to snatch up a few throwing stones. He had no other weapons - and had the uneasy, unsettling mental image of running up against some thugs armed with needlers or cryoguns. He forced the thought out of his head and instead darted towards the fringe of the trees. He pressed a shoulder against the bark, panting softly, and peeked around the edge.
He saw the woman first.
She was no Terran.
She was bright pink, with little antennas emerging from her forehead, and brilliant blue eyes. She was dressed in frilly finery - flowing gossamer voidsilk from Betelgeuse, with Alphan star sapphires and Proxian flare gems on gold filigree like the finest of smiths from France or Seattle. The whole ensemble accentuated her pink frame, with was more fae than curvaceous, and had room enough for her back to be bare, which was required: She had a set of interlocking, iridescent wings akin to that of the Earthican dragonfly. She was trying to flee, but something huge and brutish had grabbed her right arm, tugging her to a stop as it let loose with a low, guttural laugh.
A
Kruul
.
There was no species in the galaxy more perfectly designed for the Zemturaga Totality and their brutal systems of slavery and vassalage - for only the Kruul could say they
were
designed. From what little the United Nations knew, something or someone had altered the Kruul from the depths of their genomes to the highest strictures of their enshrined Constitution (called the Articles of Cruelty) so that they would be the perfect Battle-Thrall. Their religion venerated evil and barbarity, their bodies were enriched and pleasured by acts of spite...their Captains could and would be put up on charges if they committed any of the acts the Kruul Navy considered war crimes.
Accepting surrender. Prisoner Exchange. Not using torture. Forgoing looting and plundering. Even fighting fairly had gotten one Kruul captain, according to the history tapes, drawn and quartered.
And one was grabbing this fae woman, laughing as he tugged her back into his beastly, orange furred embrace. "Don't run, pretty pretty!" The Kruul laughed, his paw cupping at her dress - clearly preparing to tear it off her body!
John saw there were two other Kruul - but thank god, they were only sporting. Rather than carrying their standard sidearm, the Mastication Field Emitter Pistol, they were instead armed with brutal axes and longswords and daggers, which hung from their tool belts. They were otherwise, like John, nude. Unlike John, the Kruul were made for nudity in a way Terrans weren't: Their bodies were covered with thick, slablike muscle, hardened skin that could turn aside blades and even some bullets. Their only weakness were their glittering compound eyes and their relative slowness and clumsiness when it came to agility.
That was John's only hope.
He sprang from around the tree, and blew a sharp whistle through free hand. "Hey, vac-heads!" he shouted. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size!"
The Kruul lifted their heads and he threw in the same motion. The rock he had chosen drove into the compound eyes of one of the Kruul, who clutched at his face, stumbling backwards. Blood spurted between his thick, stubby fingers, while the other Kruul growled and advanced. They knew their weaknesses: Rather than charging straight for him, they fanned outwards and drew their weapons at the same time. Their thumping footfalls shook the trees and sent leaves scattering. The one that he had wounded stumbled to one knee, clutching at his bloody eye.
"You will pay for that Terran!" the Kruul growled. "I will drink your blood and use your skull as a paperweight!"
