Part 4 of Dreams begins......
        C+C can be sent to: phantomr@sprynet.com


        The first thing that hits me a strobe of memory. A strobe light beats
in time with my heart. The sound and heat from the light basks my entire
body. I collapse as the light turns from white to red. The smell of
burning flesh and smoke fill my nostrils. The sweet smell of battle and
the hunt. The strobe of light is shown through my own eyes. The memory
is that of Hirala when we first landed and we sent out a small probe but
the strobe increases it's speed. And the time frame of the memory
accelerates into darkness and flame. It slows it's pacing and focuses on
a plain high in the mountains of Hirala.
        I remember why it stops here. This place where the mountains nearly
reach space and her cluster of stars. The trees and their long wrinkled
limbs sings sweet songs of beauty while the fire that lies around me
burns for the song of battle and carnage. I can feel the snow as it
falls this night. The grass tickles my stomach which I lie on. The
fire's tendrils lap up the flakes. Along with the flesh and bone in the
center of the yellow and white blaze. I turn to look over my shoulder at
the blaze and catch a shooting star shoot across the clear night sky.
Snow on a clear night? I smile and wince. My body aches, the armor which
in cases my fragile body is burned out. In my ears it's songs of war
grow ever so quiet. I can feel the snow on my face, not the armor's
helmet but my skin. It feels wonderful.
        I feel my heart flutter for a moment. I am finally free of this curse.
This armor that was given to me by a false god.
        First one to be experimented on, first to escape. First to be hunted
down.
        The others are all dead.
        The ones who turned on me.
        The ones should have died a long time ago.
        "I'm really starting to hate this job," I mutter and collapse on the
grass completely.
        The strobe hits me again this time very week and out of synch with the
rest of my body. How much time this time?
        A thunderous roar fills my ears. The sound and the heat that
accompanies it rolls over my body. The heat feels wonderful, the ground
underneath me quakes and brings snow from the most distant trees down
onto the ground from the highest tree tops. The world around me is
black, my eyes are closed and my body sleeps with the dead. But how do I
hear what happens next?
        The first voice is that of Darien. His encounter suit cannot mask his
nasally voice. "Looks like we found a live one!" The sound of other
voices chatter behind him, softly at first but then begin to get louder.
        I can hear my mother calling me. She wants me to come home along with
Alex and the others. After all that has happened I call out to her.
Where are you?! Home child, follow my voice. She replies. I open my eyes
but I only see the white of the snow. The white is crushed by Darien's
black metal boots. I can feel my body begin to wake. I lift my head and
catch Darien nearly tripping over a root due to the sudden movement. I
turn my head enough to look over my shoulder and see the fire has long
gone been extinguished. The skeletons of the dead are the only things
left of the nightmare that has been plaguing my life. A few long legged
humanoids seem interested in the pyre I made. Are those wings on their
backs? I shake my head to get the ringing out of it. There is a much
large shape behind me now, not just the fire but a much larger object
the size of a small moon. It blocks out the moons in orbit. I try to
calm my breathing. How long?
        A female voice belonging to a rather medium sized woman in an encounter
suit greets me next. She holds out a device which obvious can pick me
up. The beeping is getting faster. "Her life signs just shot up. She's
not dead." She turns and points to someone farther back. "Get me a
stretcher!" She bellows. She kneels next to me. "It's going to be O.K.,"
she assures me. 
        "Whoever set the fire knew what they were doing. Those poor bastards
didn't have a chance. We found two more just on the crest of the hill,"
the medic's assistant reports to her. She doesn't hear my laughter.
"Someone sliced them up looks like they used an ax or something."
        "She used her hands," a voice I bearly hear drifts towards me. Either
voiced or my telepathic skills are reemerging. I don't care all the
Huntsman are dead. The false god's children have fallen. Another set of
foot falls against the snow, behind the doctor. "There's a village about
two klicks from here, drone reported life signs. But the life signs
don't match her. She doesn't even look like the other life forms on this
planet. Where'd she come from?"
        That sentence grabs me by the jugular and drags my sorry ass back from
the grave. The voice of the Tseidi drone, the one pointing the weapon at
me now. That's when I feel a second heart beat and suddenly the cold
night is replaced by the warmth of metal. My hands make a fist and pound
on the earth. It doesn't hurt, the armor; the only other nightmare in my
life still lives and welcomes me back with bear hug. My screaming
bellows out of my mouth as more people from what ever is behind me fill
my line of sight. And there is Darien and his Wary, one of the few who
saw my turn around. I do not hear the drone cock her weapon, out of gut
instinct or fear?
        I let loose a scream from the depths of my being. I rise from the snow,
the people around me jolt backwards the few security people draw their
weapons. Both arms open wide, hand gauntlets extend completely while my
hand blades extend shining as if they had just been made off the press.
Most of the weapons sights are train on me when I rise to my full
height. The armor now completely encases me and once more I howl at the
top of my lungs. The roar thunders across the valley beneath us and down
across the sea. The others already know I'm alive. I can sense them
turning from what ever their doing and looking towards the white light
in the sky. 
        The strangers will remember this as I pass out once again into the
snow, this time face up. The armor begins to retract and the few people
who were not scared off by my tantrum look over me. The only thing I
hear is the voice of my keeper, Darien.
        "Get her on board along with the others," he murmurs to one of the
techs......
        That's when the strobes stop.
        The armor knows her, something about being a friend. I don't
understand, tell me more! But the strobes don't. The armor seems to be
more fascinated on scanning her with every eye it has. What the hell is
going on here?!? 
        "I said drop him, Tendor!" The Tseidi spat and lowers the safety on her
weapon.
        "Help me," Darien murmurs. "Sta'vei, help me!"
        "Shut up," I order. I turn my head completely now and the armor's alarm
goes off. A set of cross hairs center on the weapon in her hand. It
looks like a standard Military side arm with a barrel extension. The
armor feels like it's trying to pull from my body, like it wants to run?
The armor no longer wants to excellerate my own body's healing. It wants
to leave. I think it's scared? "Who are you?" I ask.
        "Sta'vei. I'm in charge of the evacuations. Drop him and follow me
towards the escape pods," "Sta'vei" orders. "NOW." She gestures with the
weapon for me to move. I don't. I look back at Darien then her then at
Darien again. "I know you're wondering what's going on, I don't care if
you don't drop the miserable SOB, we have to go, NOW." She makes a face.
"Unless you want to get blown to smithereens along with the rest of your
crew."
        The armor perks up at that. As do I. "Where are they?" I demand. I turn
on my heal still clutching Darien.
        "Later, once we get to safe distance, we can come back," she looks down
at her right wrist. "We're got ten minutes to get out of this system."
She appears to be telling the truth, I don't sense any trickery. She is
hiding something though, I can't tell what. That is until I see her
narrow her eyes. "Don't do that," she hisses. "Are you going to move or
not?"
        "Where is my crew?"
        "In stasis, we can't get them out now."
        "One of them is wrecking havoc on this ship right now. Either we get
him now or we don't come back." I can sense him. He's the one whose
detonated the device inside the ship. What Darien was talking about "my
friends magic". "A deal with the Devil's husband, Darien," I sneer. "Not
nice at all."
        "She's crazy!" Darien sputters.
        "Does he always do this?"
        "He can't lie for shit, what do you expect?"
        "A little bit more of a backbone for a full telepath."
        Sta'vei's eyebrows shoot to the top of her head. "Oh rilly?!?" She
hisses. "I'll take care of you later, Darien." She looks at me for a
moment. "I take it you're not like the one loose on this ship?"
        "I know how to stop him. To turn him around. But not now." I walk
towards her. "We need to get to an escape pod, yes?" And with a simple
thought I activate my own personal Foldgate. For that brief second all
of us are covered in light, the gate's energy surges around us happy to
be free. Pure white light surrounds us while the armor retracts around
me. I feel the heat against my skin just as the light darkens. And then
all three of us stand outside doors to the escape pods.
        I breath a sigh of relief at the fact the armor's long term memory is
still together. The 'gate's generators start to shut down while Sta'vei
opens the doors in front of us. The first thing to hit us is the sound
of different dialects being spoken in a jumble. Then the sight of at
least six different kinds of species all standing in line for the escape
pods. Most of them turn and start addressing questions to Sta'vei. I
catch sight of one of the aliens, their wings folded around their necks
like capes. Scaly colored skin and horned foreheads are the first thing
that catches my eyes. I open my mouth to speak to them but a biped
covered in blue fur catches Sta'vei by the arm.
        "The doors are sealed from the inside!" She says. She is a Kasarian. A
feline biped race. Her race are latent telepaths, which would account
for the Tseidi to develop ties to them so quickly. She has the ability
to morph into a four legged feline form, a biped human sans the fur and
the form she currently resides. A mixture of the two. She wears the rank
of Science Officer. Her only cub follows on her heals.
        "They're what?!?" Sta'vei retorts and pushes her way down the corridor
leaving myself and Darien alone. I mearly smile at him and he quickly
tries to find Jabril. I stuff my hands in my pants pockets and hesitate
for a full second. I forget this armor can create clothes. One of the
winged aliens hesitantly takes a few steps towards me. She is a female,
two horns extend from her head. Her scaly skin is an off blue green in
color. She just comes up to my shoulder.
        "You are Tendor, yes?"
        I nod.
        "The one we found in the snow?"
        I nod.
        Her race is called the Helio. A birdlike people; who after much racism
has been accepted by the other aliens in this hallway. She looks to be
part of the Dragoness Elite. A file I can't even access. She moves
closer to me. "You did the right thing by killing them. They were burned
beyond help. They thank you from beyond the grave."
        I look into her yellow speckled eyes. "You were the ones I saw? At the
pyre?"
        "Yes." She makes a motion with her head to indicate her male companion.
"How did you do it?"
        I turn my head and look down at the corridor at Sta'vei's problems.
"Later," I reply and make my way down the cramped corridor.
        "-I don't believe this, what the hell happened?" Is the first thing I
hear.
        The next is: "Someone scrambled the access codes to the escape pods."
        "How many do we have?" I ask.
        Everyone stops and looks at me. They know I don't belong here. Some of
them know who I am and don't want to be around me. But at the rate
things are going one more mind whether it be friend or foe is one more
than you had five minutes ago. "How many?" I repeat.
        "Enough," Sta'vei replies. She backs away from the door and allows me
to have enough space to look at the access panel. "The only thing that
isn't working is the access panel everything else works."
        "He wants to keep us here," I reply and place my right hand on the
access panel. From my elbow down the armor slithers up to my finger tips
and tentacles of lighting zap the panel. Sta'vei blinks in surprise
while a few of the others who were huddled around me step back in shock.
"Don't worry, I can warm all the bays and get prep all the ships."
        "Warm the Dropships not the pods." The Kasarian Science officer orders.
She turns and yells a name sounds like Sapphire. "The Dropships have a
longer range and we have more pilots."
        Sta'vei blisters at that. "Those Dropships are in short supply!"
        I access the numbers and they agree with what the science officer is
saying. The Dropships have are easy on fuel and were made for long
distance travel. The stores on board will last us at least a month if
spread out equally. Even I could fly one of these ships. "Get everyone
together try and weed out med techs and warriors. We'll need them," I
say as the armor increases it's speed towards the heart of our problem.
        "Sounds like you've done this before," the Science Officer kneels next
to me and watches what I'm doing while another set of eyes watch me too.
I look down and see her cub smiling at me. I smile down at her.
        "And who is this?" I ask.
        "I'm Saf the Blue Tigress Bounty Hunter," the furry child says in a
forced heroic voice. Her fuzzy tail is the only thing that gives away
her fear. She appears to be a biped feline, dark blue fur with darker
stripes covers her body. Her yellow eyes are set high in her face and
her medium sized ears always twitch.
        The mother shakes her head and pulls the child closer to her. "She's
Sapphire and I'm Stashi," the mother hugs Saf to chest much to Saf's
dismay. "I didn't catch your name."
        "Cassi," I reply and smile wider as the armor chirrs a success. The
walls on either side of me begin to shift and doors begin to form. A
standard message about escape procedures begins to repeat through
speakers in different languages. A cheer from behind me makes my heart
rise while Sta'vei's voice echoes up the hall telling everyone to get
into groups of thirty or more. I watch the doors as they pull back to
reveal ramps leading into darkness.
        Lights begin to flicker on one by one and finally the Dropships are
illuminated by deck running lights. They look like tuning forks with
engine and fold pods attached to the aft quarter. Their ramps begin to
lower and everyone begins to hustle down the ramps. I watch more
Dropships begin to rise from the deck ready to be flown. 
        "Who's with who?" I ask trying to not to get run over as the crowd
behind me stampedes towards the ships. I wait for some face I know in
the crowd to pop out and grab me. I can feel a brief finger of a memory,
it's tapping me on the shoulder. But I brush it off. Not now, I think.
        "Cassi over here!" Stashi waves from closest ship and I board along
with a few remaining stragglers. The cargo bays are furnished to hold
people as well as cargo. The high ceilings are lined with weapon lockers
and food processors. One by one people slowly begin to fill one side of
the bay and then the other. I wait until everyone is on board and wait
for one last second. Looking over my shoulder once more I hear someone
call my name. My husband. He is angry with me. He wants to know where I
am. What am I doing with his prey. I do not answer her.
        I seal the hatch.
        "Outer lock is sealed! Pressurizing bay now!" I bark. I flip a few over
head switches and feel a giant thud reverberate off the deck plates. I
make my way down isle of feet and find a seat next to Stashi and another
of her kind. This female with a much smaller baby suckling from her
chest. She murmurs some kind of chant in some language I don't
recognize. I gesture towards her dangling safety harness next to her.
"Do you need any help-" I'm cut off by her hand whipping up to grasp my
hand in a deadly lock. Her extended claws feel like a jolt of reality. I
look into her eyes and see hatred.
        "Don't touch me Tendor!" She hisses. From the brief contact with her I
can see flashes of memory. Flashes of a hunt, a group of Kasarians, four
in all. The mother, her mate, and two younger females. They are in semi
lit corridor. All are in their feline form. They are hunting someone. A
scream erupts. Flashes of her mate being killed by one of my kind. One
of my crew. My husband. 
        I retract my hand to see her offspring, a dark black bundle of fur look
in my direction. Diamond red eyes set against the darkness. The furball
is a male and hisses quietly at me. Any other time I would find this
amusing. I simply sit back and close my eyes. I lean my head over to the
right to look out the window and watch the other ships begin to hover.
        "Ground power disconnected. Engines powering up, everyone strapped in?"
The pilot turns from his raised seat in the bow of our ship and waits
until everyone is ready. "Alrighty then, hover jets to one quarter," he
swings himself around and depresses two buttons. The cries of any of the
children is silenced by the engine noise. "Outer bay hatch is blown.
Hang on, here we go!" The pilot punches the throttle straight to the
wall and I pray.
        All of us are pushed towards the aft compartment as the Dropship
launches. The Kasarian woman next to me lets out a brief scream and I
grab her arm. She is about two seconds from make her first large mistake
when instead of making a grab for my throat she grabs with her free hand
a safety handle. I watch out the window as the Callipso falls away
behind us. Large round objects that aren't illuminated by the nearby sun
fall towards the ship. Hundreds no millions of them begin to blot out
the white hull of the mammoth ship. The other Dropships begin to fall
into formation. Our pilot achieves the ship's best possible speed within
minutes and we all race away from the doomed ship. I don't need the
armor to tell me what has happened.
        "What happened?"
        I turn to Stashi next to me. I look into her fearful eyes and decide to
give her the complete truth. "Darien and the Wary have been trying to
figure out what makes my race tick. I was obviously not the first he
thawed from stasis." I lean forward and look towards the front then the
back. Damn he's not here, I squint for a moment. All the way in the back
of the bus. But Jabril is. And so is the Helio and I was talking to
before.
        "Why?"
        "That thing I did with the control panel back on the ship."
        "Uh huh."
        "You haven't seen anyone else in your travels do that have you?"
        Uh uh."
        "That's why."
        Stashi is silent for a moment. "One of your people did all that
damage?" She looks out one of the windows and gazes at the spec in space
she called home for most of her life.
        "One of the weapons my race created did that," I let myself smile for a
moment. "A Huntsman could never do that on his own. He would burn
himself out. He's more pissed off I helped you escape and didn't help
him massacre the entire crew." I snap out of it for a moment and notice
most of the people with in ear shot are not giving very odd looks.
"Besides," I lower my voice, "he can only get so far until he sets off
the internal defensive systems. Correct?"
        She nods. "We included the protocols for Huntsmen in our last up grade.
They should hold him." She blinks and I can hear her in my mind ask
herself how I know all of this.
        "Then we have nothing to worry about." I try to calm her fears.
        She thumbs to the spec which is now giving out enormous light. A few
others who were watching suck in a deep breath as the shock waves
finally hit us. The little ship shakes to the left, right then up and
down. Now I know how a fly feels when you sneeze in front of him. The
ship's internal alarm wails until the pilot slams his fist down on the
kill switch. The ship moves into the wake of the blast. The cargo bay is
silent as the aliens all watch the light. I focus on that one spec and
in my right eye zoom and extrapolate information. Even from this
distance the armor's eyes have trouble reading what is out there.
Balloons of hell fire and debris fills my eye. There is no darkness only
light. Massive energy readings, high intense radiation bursts and the
usual spike in the time/space continuum.
        I lean my head back and bang it against the bulk head. The information
the eyes do give me are A-typical readings for a non focused time slip
device. A device if non-focused is volatile. Darien must have been
playing around with it or my husband gave him instructions on how to use
it. All the unfocused alien energy must have coursed through the
Callipso's sensors and pulled in whatever objects those where. And after
all that punishment the ship is still alive. I shake my head and allow
myself to laugh. "You built that ship to last eh?"
        She nods and eyes the spec. "He's still there isn't he?"
        I nod.
        "Are we going back for him?" She asks.
        I shake my head.
        She leans closer to me making sure it's out of Sapphire's line of
hearing. "Are you going back for him?" She whispers.
        I close my eyes and fall asleep.


        To be continued.

        R.  Bentley
        phantomr@sprynet.com


        Quicky notes:

        1. This is the latest version of Dreams, as you can tell, I've been
sitting on this for a little bit, so don't expect a new version for a
little while. Since I just corked Poker Game I can reread the latest
verion of Ops and send that out soon.
        2. Cassi and co will be hitting Seco next and we'll be touching on how
the Callipso crew seperates and tries to blend in while a few members
get choosen for an Ops Team. But first they need to get picked up while
they drift through space.
        3. That's it for now, hope you like the story so far. C+C pwease! ;)
-- 
phantomr@sprynet.com
Alizerin's Den http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/phantomr
Phantom Riders Gallery:
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/phantomr/Gallery.htm
Cartoon Frolics: http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/phantomr/Cartoonf.htm
"What are you doing to me!?!" "Showing you the truth." Mr. Gone-The
Maxx.
"If you are here then I will always be here." Kosh- B5