Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ransom Due ❯ Gremlins ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer - Dragonball was created by and copyright to Akira Toryama, Bird Studios and several others. Lyrics to “Delia's Gone” written by Johnny Cash. I own neither.

 

Ransom Due

Chapter 10 - Gremlins

 

Ranchi thought during the one experience that she had witnessed her counterpart's actions that seeing everything made her uncomfortable. She quickly found it maddening that she could only hear what the blonde did when she knew the possibility of watching her existed. She concentrated on deciphering the sounds so as to get an idea of what was happening. The Other clearly had a plan. Things happened at methodical and precise pace. She heard the familiar `pop' of a capsule being opened, the first truly recognizable sound in a string of unfamiliar ones. She surmised it came from the capsule full of stolen goods from planet Freiza 75. Next came the shuffling of items being sorted. As she worked, the counterpart quietly sang in a moderately off key yet steady voice.

 

“Delia, oh, Delia - Delia all my life - If I hadn't shot poor Delia I'd have had her for my wife - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

 

Next she heard a sharp grating, like steel on steel, perhaps the drawing of a blade from a scabbard. She vaguely remembered such a thing from Pratt's collection. The sound of something tearing, possibly the mattress cover, came next.

 

“I went up to Memphis and I met Delia there - found her in her parlor and I tied to her chair - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

Another `pop' sounded, obviously another capsule, then the standard audible from a scouter rebooting.

 

“She was low down and trifling and she was cold and mean - kind of evil make me want to grab my sub machine - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

 

A distinct humming began and stopped abruptly, one that took her a moment to place as the quantum charge of a concussion gun, then a second similar one.

 

“First time I shot her I shot her in the side - hard to watch her suffer but with the second shot she died - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

 

Another string of electronic peeping noises, followed by the chirp of the scouter again. The particular cycle repeated several times before it occurred to her that it must be some sort of synchronization process.

”But jailer, oh, jailer - jailer, I can't sleep - 'cause all around my bedside I hear the patter of Delia's feet - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

 

Something heavy and unwieldy dragged across the floor, probably the mattress, followed by a few muffled thumps, the rattling of things being replaced in a bag and the familiar sound of air being displaced as something returned to one of the capsules.

”So if your woman's devilish you can let her run - or you can bring her down and do her like Delia got done - Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone.”

 

Immediately after the last verse ended, a horribly loud blast echoed through the small space. A short pause followed.

 

“Heh. Alrighty then,” the counterpart said under her breath without any hint of apprehension. “Game on.”

 

After the sound of a few quick, solitary footsteps echoing through the corridor, a drawn out space of silence preceded the woosh of a portal opening a distance away.

 

“Gee, boss, don't tell me you're loosing your edge. It took like,” a short pause as if she were checking, “at least twenty seconds longer for you to come running than I thought it would.”

 

“Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?” Ranchi recoiled inwardly at the seething maliciousness of her master's voice. The threat implied by his tone, in and of itself, served as more than enough to send her scurrying back into confinement. Not so her counterpart.

 

“Uh… leaving. What does it look like? Of course you're welcome to try and stop me, although I warn you this is far from my first Mexican standoff and there's plenty of charge left in this concussion blaster. It won't really hurt you but we both know it's sufficient to knock you loopy long enough for me to get a good head start on you.”

 

Was she completely insane?! Even if there was a reasonable chance of her making it past him like that, where would she go? How would she even get off the ship? She heard the quiet sound of her counterpart shifting her weight to shoulder the cumbersome weapon. She knew from limited experience that compensating for the kickback alone was no laughing matter and would give him more than enough time to recover from the blaster's effects.

 

He laughed then, in a way well beyond mockery and tinged with spiteful intent. “Are you completely insane?! You can't seriously be willing to take the chance that I wouldn't be fast enough to stop you before you even get one shot out of that thing…”

 

“Be that as it may, it only takes a twitch of the finger. I think you know me well enough by now to know how easily my finger tends to twitch.”

 

“You're clearly delusional. Again. You must be suffering memory loss from your transformation. Perhaps I should find a way to make you remember…”

 

“Oh, I heard what you said earlier.” Ranchi marveled at the nerve her counterpart had to interrupt him. Surely she didn't think his patience would last any longer that it already had, but an even more sardonic declaration followed right on the heels of the first. “Really, I'm surprised I had to move my timetable forward. I mean, taking the initiative to use a shortcut through the rift, that's nearly uncharacteristic of you isn't it?” She chuckled under her breath shortly, even as her adversary issued a guttural snarl like an animal warning of imminent attack. “You may yet have potential. And here I was under the impression they had you all domesticated. After Andolonusia and the way you practically ran right back to heel for your master, like a dog with his tail between his legs, I have to say I'm thoroughly supr…”

 

She never got to finish. An abrupt, wet crack cut her off, a sickening sound Ranchi recognized from her recent observation of the tournament, as the crushing of bone and splitting of flesh. Her counterpart issued a short grunt. Then, after another pause, she said in a rasping whisper, “You may have Miss Priss wrapped around your little finger, but you will never… Have… Me. If I cross to the next world… you will have relinquished any claim you had.

 

Then she heard her counterpart inhale sharply. Realizing too late to prepare, she was forced to surface. After that, she only knew pain. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted a horrible keening sound, but the searing, twisting hurt swallowed her up too thoroughly to recognize her own screams. Agony became everything. She didn't recognize that she was writhing, wildly clutching at her attacker as he squatted over her to survey the damage. All the while, the void pulled at her, now almost alluring in the promised conclusiveness of its embrace. A last gasp of coherent thought, that she would have to use the pain to fight the dark emptiness, fleetingly slipped through her mind.

 

---

 

She breathed deeply, her consciousness rising languidly from the warm recesses of sleep. She stretched out, halfheartedly noting that something obstructed her efforts. Her arm felt as though entangled in something cool and smooth. She slowly opened her eyes, not really wanting to, preferring to spend a few more minutes lolling in the woozy darkness of sleep, but she reflexively felt the need to see the impediment. She opened her eyes, shocked when she felt them burning, her vision useless. It took a moment to comprehend her submersion in a fluid somewhat more viscous than water. She jerked involuntarily, overtaken by a moment of claustrophobia. A flurry of bubbles rose around her, tickling her exposed skin as she strained at the tubing that snaked around her before she made the connection that it was delivering the air that kept her from drowning. She managed to make out a few blurry shapes before the liquid suddenly drained. She let herself float limply to the bottom of the tank with it as it rushed out. She regained a sense of awareness when the chamber door opened and cool air teased at her. Ranchi teetered to standing, accepting gratefully the smooth, dainty blue gray hand the technician extended to her. Another small hand passed her a large towel, a swath of textile that felt more like a thick chamois than the terry cloth she was familiar with.

 

As her vision cleared more, the standard lighting glared, appearing brighter than normal. The worried face of the female medical technician came in to focus in front of her as she hurriedly handed her a dry bodysuit.

 

“Do you remember what you're supposed to do?” she asked in a harried voice as she followed up the clothing with a set of chest armor and a scouter.

 

“N…no,” Ranchi managed to stammer. “What?...”

 

The technician sighed. “I was afraid this would happen. Your alter ego never tires of being fickle, does she?” She grabbed something off of the countertop and pressed it into Ranchi's palm, gently pushing her fingers closed around it. “No matter. Everything's already set but there's very little time.” As the technician continued to hastily explain, Ranchi looked down and saw that she was holding the capsule from Frieza 75.

 

“One of the hangar staff managed to play sick so that he could report. The Sub-commander has already set the navigational controls in his pod. You need only launch and specify a landing site once you reach orbit around your world. The pod bay is designated Gamma-4, IVR code 1202. Good luck.”

 

Still somewhat disoriented, Ranchi hesitated before heading for the door. Before she made it to the corridor the technician stopped her again. “Promise me, no matter what, you will make sure Kakarott survives to avenge my people.” She spoke gravely, the statement offered up with a sense of finality that struck Ranchi even though she had no idea what the technician was talking about.

 

“Of course,” she replied, trying to sound strong. However, as she stepped out in the corridor, impulse dictated that she simply follow the familiar route to her quarters, not to go in the opposite direction towards the hangar bay. She suffered through a moment of sickening panic, incertitude rooting her to the spot she stood in. She gripped the capsule, her hand white-knuckled. Suddenly she began to run towards the hangars as though her legs had comprehended exactly what all of this meant before her brain decided to. When she arrived there, she wordlessly entered the correct code and then climbed into the pod as if on auto pilot. None of the crew stopped her, most acted as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. A couple of the crew, that appeared to be of the same race as the medical technician, did pause to meet her eyes in a meaningful gaze that marked them as co-conspirators. She tried to ignore them.

 

She was already deep into the black nothingness of the rift and on the edge of stasis-sleep when she vaguely made out Raditzu's threats over the scouter. She barely comprehended them over the single thought that consumed her as she nodded off. I am free.

 

--

 

I am free. Ranchi tried to reassure herself as she watched the last bit of sunlight disappearing over the Chikyuu horizon. Why did this place, this world, suddenly feel so alien? She sensed something furry curl around her ankle and she started, nearly falling over onto the sand. A scream briefly lodged itself in her throat.

 

She looked down to see Dr. Briefs' feline companion. It rubbed up against her feet and purred softly, then went running over to where Dr. Briefs paced erratically to get better reception on a mobile phone as he arranged for transport of the partially intact space pod.

 

She let out her stifled breath as a nervous giggle, relief washing over her. She looked up, meeting a familiar unyielding gaze touched with the reflected vermillion of the sky. She involuntarily flinched and looked away as he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

 

“Lunch-san, are you sure you're alright?” he asked, his voice tinged with concern.

 

Dear Kami! How could she have missed the connection? It should have been plain from the very minute she set eyes on Missionary's Sub-Commander and he demanded to know about his brother. The similarities now appeared glaringly obvious. The way the full brows furrowed in determination, even the little upturn at the end of the nose.

 

Yeah, and that shit-eating grin. Don't forget about that. That's what tipped me off anyway.

 

She smiled in an attempt to repeat her performance from the hangar bay on Missionary, despite the added difficulty of pointedly setting her mind to shut out the unwanted commentary. “Of course.” She forced another giggle. “It was a very long trip, after all. I'm just a little tired.” Something caught her eye as she said it. The little cat had left a solitary hair behind on the breeze. It hovered in the air on a course towards her nose. She tracked it with her eyes and blew a little puff of air at it. It drifted upwards, but by then the breeze had died and it just slowly floated right back down.

 

“OK.” Goku smiled back at her. “I was going to call it a night and head home, but I'll be back tomorrow for sure. It will be good to get into the routine of training again.”

 

The stray hair landed on her nose. It twitched twice before she sneezed, spraying him in a shower of spittle.

 

“I'm sorry Goku.” Kushami made the statement slowly, deliberately, attempting to make eye contact.

 

“Oh, that's alright,” Goku said, laughing as he wiped at his face with both hands, obviously feigning amusement to perhaps prevent her from suddenly drawing a weapon.

 

Damn it! He didn't have a clue. She needed to look him straight in the eye, needed to make sure that he knew she was dead serious. After what developed into a horribly awkward moment she gave up.

 

“Get some rest,” she grunted shortly and turned to go back inside, sweeping up the bag containing the jade statue on her way. When she got to the door, she looked back over her shoulder. Kinto-un flitted almost expectantly to his side. For a split second, his features sobered as though maybe he had understood that her apology had nothing to do with the fact that she'd sneezed all over him. Then he waved jovially and climbed onto the little cloud before shooting off into the distance.

 

 

She'd hardly taken two steps inside when Tenshinhan intercepted her.

“Kushami, we need to talk.”

 

“Yes we do,” she replied shortly. “Since you were the one who decided to interrupt what was probably the only chance I had to blow off some steam before the shit starts hitting the fan, you can find an expedient way to get me back to West City.” Her stomach flip-flopped as she said it. It probably hadn't been a good idea to throw liquor on top of the sandwiches she'd eaten earlier, the only food she'd had in several days now. But, at the time, anything that she could've done to convince herself that things were going to go back to normal, whatever that was, seemed like a good idea.

 

“No. Not before you explain what's going on here more thoroughly. Not until you tell me why you would do what you did at that museum.” She was trying to head up the stairs to the loft she used to call home to check if she'd left anything of use in the various hiding places she'd utilized there, but he sidestepped her and blocked the stairs. He lowered his voice a little. “I can't imagine that such brutality was necessary for you to acquire whatever it is you're hiding in that bag. And Chao-tzu says…”

 

“Chao-tzu should learn to mind his own business.” She shot Ten's dwarfish companion, whose hovering presence only a few feet away had suddenly become nearly oppressive, a pointed look. That's right. Why don't you just have a nice cup of shut the fuck up, little man. He didn't react to the thought but she wondered if he'd possibly heard it after what had happened earlier in the capsule plane. She smirked and pushed past Ten. “Fine. You want to talk, then save it for the ride over. Besides, you should go back with me anyway. I brought you something,” she said, flashing an impish grin over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs.

 

He followed at a deliberate pace and filled the doorway to the loft behind her, watching her search under floorboards and in the futon stored there. Two of his eyes followed her intently, while the third stared ahead unmoving. She sighed heavily when it became apparent that she wasn't going to come up with much. The only traces left behind from her previous occupation consisted of a half empty clip from a 9mm pistol and two sabot slugs intended for use in a 12 gauge. Though relatively certain that they would prove to be of no help, she pocketed them anyhow. She picked the bag back up and walked over to the doorway, stopping right in front of Ten. She glared when he didn't move, offering him more of a warning than she would have given anyone else before raining a hail of bullets on them. “Outta my way,' she glowered. “Either you're coming with me or not but I'm leaving. Now.”

 

His face remained as impassive as the rest of him. “I will go with you to West City, but you need to stop and rest first.” A look of concern briefly crossed his features. “You don't look well at all.”

 

“So what?” She stepped forward and thrust her free hand out as if to push past him again, but he caught her wrist and pulled her close.

 

“Please,” he said softly. “All these years, I worried about you.” She looked up into his eyes as they searched hers, momentarily caught off guard by his compassion. She let him draw her into an embrace, one hand brushing from her shoulder down to the hand she gripped the bag with, coaxing her fingers free of it. “After you disappeared, I couldn't discount the possibility that I might have been somewhat to blame.”

 

It was extraordinarily easy for her to let go. She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and drinking up his familiar scent of mossy forest floors in autumn. It wouldn't hurt to take comfort in this, just for a moment.

 

No. It was too easy. The simple reality remained that they really didn't have time for this. She considered what they had shared over and done with a long time ago, hadn't she? She didn't need, or want, his pity anyway, and pulled away abruptly.

 

“Wait,” he said, somewhat taken aback by the swiftness and force of the movement. He held out his hand and stepped towards her.

 

“No,” she said hotly, her face suddenly darkened by an angry scowl. Her hand reflexively whipped to the inside of the vest she was wearing, and then back out with a semiautomatic pistol in its grip. She aimed it at him, her arm fully extended and stiff. “Don't touch me!”

 

He stared at her in near disbelief, holding up both hands in surrender. “You know I mean you no harm,” he said steadily. He noticed a very slight tremor in her aim. She was definitely not well. “I only want to help you.”

 

She took a step back, her face flushed with anger, eyes glassy. “Chao-tzu!” she ordered, “get in here.”

 

It didn't take long before the little man appeared behind Ten, floating high enough off the floor to stare over his friend's shoulder at her in alarm.

 

“You've been poking around my head,” she barked.

 

“I… I haven't meant to. It just happened…” He looked at her pleadingly.

 

“You seemed to be in a hurry to talk about it. Fine. Show him,” she demanded, filling her mind with a vivid and gruesome memory.

 

--

 

She looked at the orders scrolling on the scouter's green eyepiece and then back at Commander Nestar. Her third purging and finally something described as complicated came up in the briefing. She tried to sound out the name of the planet, but couldn't wrap her tongue around the dialect and abandoned the attempt, reasoning the name of the place didn't really matter. Information on several power plants employing some complicated method of elemental fission flashed briefly. Frieza wanted these left intact.

 

Nestar assigned her to a strike force intended to intercept resistance and then clear out some of the outlying settlements. The mission started out like her previous two experiences. The drop ships deposited their forces on the planet's surface in numbers vast enough to overrun the armies the inhabitants deployed. As with the previous missions, the denizens sent the armies to intercept them in less populated locations, possibly reasoning that they could keep civilian casualties low.

 

As a rule, Freiza ordered them to leave major metropolitan cities as undamaged as possible for the next occupants, but didn't make too much of a fuss over it if accidents should happen. However, any incidental damage to the power plants guaranteed harsh penalties. The orders specified delivery of the planet into the Planet Trade's grip with all facilities operational.

 

After landing, the strike force spread out over the hardpack tundra that covered most of the landmasses. Encounters with the locals consisted of short-lived scuffles with small patrol regiments armed with low powered blasters and conventional explosives. She cut through group after group of them with her standard issue pistol, even took a few down with a hastily produced Uzi just for kicks, but boredom set in quickly. Aside from avoiding mines, she felt like an automaton on a slash and burn job. At least the military types fought back. Civvies went down like lambs to slaughter. She'd left bodies in her wake before, but nothing near what a purge entailed. Nevertheless, desensitization to the absolute decimation of whole populations developed quickly.

 

She shrugged and thought to herself “a job is a job” as she rounded a scarp and came upon a group of homesteaders. She made short work of them with the blaster, no sense in drawing out the inevitable, and it gave her more time to roll the bodies. An illegal activity by Trade rules, but one that some of the bolder personnel in her squad indulged in often enough, given the opportunity. The indentured on large ships like Missionary proved willing enough to trade certain consumable items for chits, sometimes even credits.

 

Unfortunately, she didn't find anything of real value, and new orders came in over the scouter indicating a rendezvous point and change in the primary objective to extraction. The briefing described a sabotage attempt going on at one of the largest power plants. Nestar wasted no time in calling his squad to respond. He issued orders for the strike teams to disband and regroup with the rest of the squad at the drop ship.

 

Squad 57 arrived ahead of most of the others and jumped right in to searching the place.

The power plant complex covered several square miles. Kushami began her search at the far southeast entrance. Her first sweep of the general area revealed none of the estimated thousand saboteurs, but navigation of the gigantic labyrinth like structure demanded a methodical and careful process a general sweep couldn't provide. She decided to keep moving in a northerly direction, checking each pipe, catwalk or conveyor twice before moving on.

 

She entered a dark stretch of hallway, attracted by the sudden sound of footfalls. They echoed off the concave walls in rapid succession, followed by a stream of childish laughter, nearly haunting in its innocence. She answered by clicking her blaster into “hot” mode, letting the distinctive whine of the fuel cell charging fill the corridor. After a moment she reengaged the safety and listened. A rustling sounded ahead of her. She came to a junction where light streamed down through a ventilation shaft and saw the flicker of a shadow pass along the floor. Moving quickly and silently to the edge of the shaft's opening she peered up inside, noting movement. She quickly thrust her free hand into the shaft and grasped the occupant, jerking downward with all her strength. She twisted around to train her weapon on the creature as it hit the floor, disengaging the safety again.

 

She expected technicians or scientists, possibly even some kind of covert operatives, not children. She looked down at her wriggling quarry in surprise, ignoring the sudden wails and tears. Something about the circumstances gave her such a strange feeling, an anticipatory bid for approval from some unidentifiable source, but she pushed it aside as she dragged the little thing back the way she came, depositing it outside with the rest of the apprehended saboteurs, all of them barely more than toddlers.

 

She paused only briefly to remind herself that she shouldn't let personal issues interfere with work, then went back inside to do her part in finishing the mission. Finding all the gremlins, as Commander Nestar began calling them, took the better part of the day. It turned out to be the better part of two standard days because the planet revolved on its axis at an unusually slow rate. The vast structure contained a few relatively open areas, but many spaces in between, tiny and cramped with no lack of hazardous mechanical obstacles and precarious ledges over chasm like recesses. On more than one occasion, the job reminded her of the old cartoons with the wandering babies that would traipse through factories and construction sites unscathed while their pursuers bore the brunt of the dangers. She pulled nearly a dozen small children out of the complex. Most of them obviously perceived the whole thing as a game of tag or hide and seek. One giggled and conspiratorially held out a pair of pliers to her as she wrested it from a nest of electrical cables. The entire situation gave her an eerie sense of familiarity that she couldn't put her finger on, like remembering a dream long after waking.

 

At one point, she found herself crawling through a network of conduit barely wide enough for her to fit in. She must have sneezed in the process because the next thing she knew she huddled in a ventilation shaft. A sleeping child snuggled in her arms. She looked down at the kid, she couldn't tell if it was male, female or both with this particular species, and cursed. There was no telling how much time she had lost, for all she knew the entire battalion already left the surface. When they exited the plant into the wan blue light of the far flung sun, the child began to stir from sleep. It stared up at her in confusion. She looked from it to the open yard at the plant's entrance and what was happening there.

 

A portion of the troops present held a large group of the adult denizens at gunpoint, forced to watch the atrocities heaped upon their ill-fated children. The child in her arms began to turn its head to follow her gaze. She quickly wrapped her forearm around its head and jerked in the opposite direction, satisfied she provided a quick kill by the quiet crack and then immediate stillness of the thing. She cast her eye over those assembled, searching for Nestar's particular expanse of blue gray head tentacles. She found him quickly enough, thankfully in the group guarding the adult prisoners, and dragged the little corpse over to him, dumping it at his feet.

 

“So that's the last of them, then?” He prodded at it with his boot rolling it over. “Your orders were to bring these out alive. Care to explain what happened here?”

 

“Sir. It fell down a shaft. Sir.” She answered with military precision.

 

“Ah, well, I suppose one casualty in this instance won't make too much of a difference. What Lord Freiza doesn't know won't hurt him, anyway.” He gave her a look that suggested discretion, than went back to surveying the horrors going on in the yard, saying “Our master has decided to raise these in slavery as punishment for their actions, I suppose it's better they're broken in sooner than later.”

 

“Sir. Were our orders not also to work with extreme efficiency? This will hardly expedite our mission…”

 

“Like I said, what Freiza does not know…” he sighed. “Some of these yahoos need the occasional outlet, otherwise I'd loose any control I have over them, and then we'd all be headed on a one way trip to the next world for sure.”

 

She looked at him askance. This was bullshit. Their orders consisted of extraction and execution, not rape and torture. Some of those in the group molesting the children were soldiers she knew, turned into animals no better than the ones they claimed to hate. It started to rain then, a viscous, greasy trickle that was more than a drizzle but not a full blown shower. The grounds quickly became a muddy quagmire that matched her mood. She felt a knot of disgust and shame rise in her throat along with the strange disjointed feeling that plagued her since entering the plant.

 

She stood and watched for a little while, then raised her weapon to the fore and discharged it into the yard, cutting down children and soldiers alike, the report of blaster fire lasting several minutes. She then immediately turned and repeated the process on the group of adults, those of the guards that knew what was good for them scurried out of the line of fire as their captives fell, in a bloody heap, to the dust.

 

Commander Nestar looked at her with wide orange eyes, jaw gaping.

 

She turned to him and grinned. “I believe your potential problem with `out of control yahoos' has been solved. Sir.”

 

But… but Freiza-sama…”

 

“What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Your report could go somethin' like,” she looked quizzically at her muddied boots and considered. “An unfortunate uprising occurred at the last minute. It turns out the children were all armed with explosives and intended to self destruct. It was necessary to dispatch everyone. To save the plant.”

 

After that, the word `genocide' flitted uncomfortably about in her mind a little more readily on subsequent missions.

--

 

Chao-tzu remained impassive, any emotion shrouded in concentration. She didn't understand at all the way Chao-tzu`s psychic powers worked; didn't know the possibility of transmission of thoughts or memories, but the look on Ten's face suggested that at least part of it had gotten through.

 

She trained the gun on Ten, instinctively knowing that three successive pulls on the trigger would deliver lead to the kneecap, torso, then the head as it arced with the kickback, that is, if he weren't such a skilled martial artist. She had no doubt that he was faster than that, but it didn't deter her.

 

“When we last spoke,” she said in a voice meant to be even but far from it, “you told me I'd never amount to more than petty thievery. Looks like I've been promoted.”

 

His features hardened form near slack-jawed shock to a look of resolute compassion as he took a step towards her. “You were clearly under duress. Although responsibility does lie with you, the guilt is not completely yours for crimes you committed while under another's control.” He held out one hand as though he wanted her to hand the pistol over. She didn't move.

 

Anger and a vindictive urge prompted her to throw his consideration back in his face. “Is that what you've been telling yourself all this time since you bailed on the Crane Master?” A pained look crossed his features for a moment, and she felt sorry she'd said it, but she didn't take it back, either. “It really wasn't that far of a stretch for me, you know.” She felt her grip on the pistol loosen somewhat as she fought off a wave of sudden vertigo. “Besides, no one controls me but me.” She gripped the gun tighter again, but by that time he'd come close enough to put his hand on hers, the barrel of the weapon point blank to his chest.

 

“Yet,” he said, “I still don't believe that you are going to kill me as I stand, here and now.”

 

Her hold on the pistol faltered again and he took it from her. “Damn you!” she swore. “Fine. I'm not going to kill you.” Her head was positively swimming at that point and she felt as if all of her insides were churning. She'd be damned if she was going to fall over and feint in his arms like some kind of damsel in distress. He'd gotten enough of such satisfaction out of her years ago. “And you're right,” she added grudgingly, “I could use a little rest.” She pulled free of him and sank down on the futon, thinking that it was entirely possible that her stint in the regen tank had been truncated and that's what was causing her to feel so awful. “But only because I'll need you to execute my plans,” she said through a yawn as she stretched out on the futon. It felt really good to lie down and she found she could barely keep her eyes open. She decided to just rest them for a moment.

 

When she next opened her eyes, the room had darkened completely, save for a sliver of moonlight coming in through the one small window. As her sight adjusted to the darkness, she made out his silhouette, a black shape pierced at the crown by reflected light off of the third eye. He sat cross legged on the floor, or possibly an inch above it, across the room in meditation, the eye watching over her like a steadfast guard.

 

Her immediate inclination was to get up and get back to West City via whatever means possible. Her plans involved considerable risk and she could barely stand to lay idle. However, she still felt weak and tired. As much as she wanted to get up, she just couldn't seem to get her body to agree with her. As she lay there staring into the darkness, the one point of light in his shadowy figure disappeared, replaced by two. She couldn't see the pupils, but she knew his eyes had met hers. She felt the nearly electric charge that she always got when she met those eyes, even now. They both stared for a heartbeat, then two, neither of them speaking or moving. Both of them closed their eyes after that, she to feign sleep and he to return to meditating, but it was as though an unspoken truce had been agreed upon in that brief moment.

 

---

 

A/N:

 

Thanks very much to Elenek for beta reading this for me. I know I promised you my kingdom but since it's kinda' small and shabby I hope the artwork is enough of a payoff.

 

I think having a beta has helped me improve a lot. Anyone else? Let me/us know what you think.